Once again, the Pozteam ventured out to meet extraordinary people doing remarkable work for those less fortunate and in dire need of a helping hand. This time, we travelled to Tokai to meet with Phillip and Pat van Rensburg, founders and the workforce behind Little Angels, a place of safety and emergency foster home.

Sitting in their office, the walls are covered with photos of the little ones they temporarily called their own at one stage. With little snippets into the stories of each one’s history, how they came to be taken in by Little Angels and the remarkable recovery they have made from being found abandoned in a rubbish bag, under a cold bridge or a drain pipe.

In Pat’s arms is baby Mia*, a baby girl of colour who was given to Pat and Phillip only two days before our visit and is recovering from sexual abuse, withdrawal from Tik as a result of her mother being an addict and then breast-feeding her as well as tiny shakes and no clear sense of knowing what she wants.

“We started thirteen years ago and we’d read so much and heard so much about abandoned babies… it eventually got to us and we decided that we’ve got to do our own little bit,” says Pat.

Having sat down with their own two teenage sons, they decided as a family that it would not disrupt their lives if they took in one little baby at a time, it would be easy to do the monthly shopping, attend church and do regular family things.

“We took our first one in, in December 1997 and soon after that another one arrived, then we had our third and fourth… When we looked again, we had six around us, then we had eleven, then we had twelve and we realized ‘ok this wasn’t anything to do with our idea of having one at a time’,” Pat says.

Instead of becoming despondent, Pat and Phillip saw it as a calling in their lives and after having cared for so many children already, they decided to step out in faith and make a difference in one of the most poverty stricken countries in the world.

It wasn’t always easy as Pat gleefully reminisces “we didn’t have a struggle in our family life, but with practical issues like how to get two boys to school in a very small family car with six or eight babies having to go with in their little chairs, those kinds of issues were nightmarish,” she jokes.

However, when Pat and Phillip’s house was plainly bursting at the seams, the family had to move into a bigger house for the sake of the children in a more affluent area, that one little run of the mill nightmare progressed into another.

“We had threats on us that they were going to burn the house down, weld our gates closed, all kinds of nasty things. They tried everything in their power to get us out of there,” Pat says, all because their neighbours weren’t happy with their rainbow home “but we stayed and lived quite happily and we catered for many many children while we were there,” she says.

After several years, Little Angels had to move again, this time back to their original premises in Tokai and then to another place in Fish Hoek because of insufficient funds to keep the larger house running as Phillip had been previously retrenched.

Over the years, Little Angels had built a substantial network of volunteers who help with the children at all hours of the day as well as donate items of clothing and baby necessities. Even foreigners who had heard or read about their work offered their time and helping hands to Pat and Phillip on their vacations, whilst staying at Little Angels’ original premises as a form of additional income, that they had decided to start renting out.

In addition, they started their own help centre, without any funding from government, where any extra items they may have received from donators were given to others who might need it. The other items would go to the crèche they owned in Westlake and two other crèches they are affiliated with, to help struggling families who need affordable day care for their little ones.

To date, Little Angels provides a safe haven for abandoned children, many of which are HIV-positive, a place of safety for newborns waiting out their adoption period, a help centre and crèche, they also host outreach projects, such as the many Christmas parties they will be hosting for the children this December in order to make their Christmases a little bit more special.

Unfortunately, some children end up staying with Pat and Phillip for several years before they are adopted or placed in a foster home, some of which have already grown up and bonded with the Little Angels family.

“When he/she is moved from us, he is being abandoned again, in his life he is being abandoned forcefully, and he is going to suffer and have to bond with a family again and it’s not fair,” says Pat.

This is a tragic reality for some of the children who will battle to find a loving home because they are HIV-positive or don’t have the desired blonde hair and blue eyes. Pat says they cope by just taking one day at a time, tending to each one of the toddler’s needs and making sure each one is fed, bathed and put to sleep, before they take care of their own at approximately 9pm every evening.

While it may be a struggle at times, Pat and Phillip have managed to help hundreds if not thousands of children and families with the blessed work they do, they have even adopted three boys of their own, proving that by making one little difference, you can change another person’s life forever.