1) Please lift up the essence of our meeting on Tuesday morning at 9.oo with ACET, in prayer and that this organisation, if it is God’s will, would be the answer to supporting the continuation and growth of the Children of Grace project. Please ask for God’s blessings on our meetings with other potential partners.
2) Please pray that a suitable buyer will come forward to purchase our house.
3) Please pray that we are able to find a new owner who will love and appreciate Ngwenya.
Andrea’s Journal Sunday 22nd January
Hi everyone, another hectic week has gone by. As mentioned last week, we have undertaken to seek a local partnership to support our work in Trenance. So firstly, on Monday, Pastor Kilton Moyo, from Word of Life church came out to CoG to visit us. He was very interested in all we were doing and has gone back to talk with his senior pastor about our project. Tuesday we had to stay at home to keep a “skype appointment” with Megan & Jamie who are one of our sponsors in Australia. That was a very productive call as they have offered to fund future ACE material (PACES) for all of the students.
On Wednesday morning we had 2 lots of interested visitors – a small trust group from Harare and another pastor, this time from our teacher, Themba’s church in town, Godfrey Mhlanga who also works for an NGO called ACET. This is an International Group of independent organisations established in the UK to fight the problem of HIV/AIDS in 23 countries. www.acet-international.org Godfrey particularly felt he may be in a position to assist us and consequently we have a follow-up meeting with him and his colleagues on Tuesday at their offices in town. We are praying that something comes of this.
We have also had a visiting pastor staying with us for a few nights earlier in the week and he too was very encouraging about our work. This week, between visitors, I have been testing the children for “reading readiness”. We have 8 children who passed and will be starting on the reading programme next week, which is very exciting. Meanwhile David has been engaged in damage limitation at the Learning Centre and planning where our priorities lie in order to apply our limited financial resources, to be in a position to use 2 classrooms by March.
We have just had a weekend of social events and so have enjoyed meeting up with old friends and making new ones. Tomorrow there is another NGO representative visiting us from Help Age, who we first met some time ago. One of the ways his organisation assists the elderly is where they may have assumed responsibility for orphaned or abandoned children, which criteria matches several of our students.
Last week we made a start on putting our house on the market and have also been putting out feelers for a new home for Ngwenya. More news next week. Love, Andrea
Andrea’s Journal Sunday 15th January 2012
Hello everyone, It’s been a busy week here. On Monday we went over to CoG to see Miriam and the children and to have a staff meeting with Memory and Themba. Miriam’s niece Beauler has joined Miriam at the home; she is an orphan, 10 years old and is probably going to join the class, to give us a total of 20 students. Although she can read a little, her spoken English is very poor for her age.
Our staff meeting went well and we learned that Memory and Themba had organized a Christmas party for the children on 20th December and purchased the food themselves. They had visited all of the families over the holiday period and reported back comments that were made. Most of the families felt their child’s health had improved and all said their behaviour was better and believed they were making substantial progress in English and number work. All credit due to Themba and Memory for their hard work.
Unfortunately, the man we had asked to oversee things and do some work for us had not done so well! We had asked him to spray the weeds in the maize field before the seedlings emerged, but he left it too late and the seed had already germinated when he then irresponsibly told Philemon to spray. Luckily Philemon realized that there was a problem and stopped, although a small amount of maize was damaged. This of course still left the challenge of the weeds. Because the families didn’t come to work on the field while we were away Phil, Miriam and the 2 older boys worked instead, starting at 5.00am and continuing until 9.30am, when they stopped for breakfast and then back again until lunchtime. Meanwhile the 2 younger children cleaned the house. Heroes all?
The other (paid) task we had asked our “white Zimbabwean” overseer to do was painting the classroom and toilets in the Learning Centre. This turned out to be a bigger disaster than the maize, as not only was their paint on the walls and window frames, but all over the floors, windows, new toilets and washbasins. We couldn’t believe the mess. It has taken Miriam, Phil and myself hours of scraping and scrubbing to clean up. We feel very let down by someone from our church we trusted. He has also caused other problems that I don’t want to go into here, but at least we can now be certain of the dedication, faithfulness and support of Miriam and Philemon. This has really been a big lesson learned for us!
On a happier note, the children are all settling back into routine. Memory and I have started testing some of the more advanced students for “reading readiness” and we hope to start introducing the ABC’s reading programme very soon. Tomorrow we have Pastor Moyo from a local church coming to visit to see how he can assist us and also our Pastor, Richard, has made a good contact with another nearby church for us. More news next week.
Love, Andrea
Andrea’s Journal Sunday 8th January
Happy New Year everyone! Here we are back in Bulawayo, after 7 weeks away. We had a good rest in Spain and were blessed by a month of beautiful weather, by the standards of any European winter. I also spent a week in the UK visiting family.
Our journey back was straightforward and uneventful, with only an hour’s delay in Alicante. We stayed overnight in Johannesburg and arrived home Friday lunchtime. Ngwenya was very excited to have us back and Webster and family seemed pleased to see us too. Everything was fine at home, apart from the house being full of spiders and evidence of a visiting “creature” in our wardrobe! It is very hot here at the moment, around 31C, being the height of summer, yet everywhere looks green and lush.
Today we were welcomed back in church. It was good to see all our friends again and the Pastor and his wife kindly invited us for lunch.
Tomorrow we are going out to Trenance to see Miriam and the children and to have a staff meeting to review last term and discuss the new one, commencing Tuesday, with Themba and Memory.
The way forward for us now, we believe, is to partner with a church or other organization, active in Zimbabwe, who can help us physically on the ground here, when we are not around and also financially, as we cannot move forward and make further progress on our own. If there is anybody out there who shares a heart for educating the underprivileged and the well-being of orphan children, then we would love to hear from you.
More next week. Love Andrea.
Here's something different - Andrea and our Pastor John Hansford are harvesting the orange crop on a holding near Denia on the Costa Blanca.
Please view our latest posting under the page “Children of Grace” and if you would be so kind as to pray into this situation for us. With His blessings, David
We are delighted to report that we now have gallons of piping hot water in the kitchen and washrooms, thanks to this amazing solar geyser.
Andrea’s Diary Sunday 13th November.
Hi everyone, Phew it’s been an exhausting week! With temperatures in the top 30s we feel physically drained and with getting everything sorted out at CoG we are financially drained. We feel that everything is in place for CoG to run smoothly in our absence. On the school side, all the work has been prepared, salaries paid and food for lunches bought. I baked cakes at 5.30am on Friday morning and filled bags with gifts and sweets for a Christmas treat, for all the children to have on the last day of term.
For the home, all the main food has been bought and money left for fresh foods. David has purchased all the seed and fertilizer ready for the maize to be planted in two weeks time and herbicide for Brett to spray the land after planting. We had 11 family members working last week preparing the land under Philemon’s instruction. Paint and other materials have been bought ready for Brett to start work on the classroom, office and toilets. Eugene has finished most of his work; the toilets are functioning and we now have lovely hot water from the solar geyser in the kitchen. All the other salaries have been set aside for Naomi to pay out at the end of November and again in December. A mountain of food is ready to feed Ngwenya, our dog, for the 7 weeks we are away. We feel we can’t do anything more!
During this week we have met with various people who have had different ideas about how we may resolve our situation. Not all their ideas are appropriate but it has given us a lot to think and pray about. Tomorrow afternoon we will leave for a 16 hour coach ride to Pretoria, then the Gauteng train to OT airport and on Tuesday evening we will fly to Spain. Will keep you updated while we are away. Lots of love, Andrea
Andrea’s Diary, Sunday 6th November
Hello everyone, it’s been a hectic week organizing for our departure. We have flights booked from Jo’burg to Alicante, via Madrid on 15th November, leaving here on 14th on an overnight coach to Pretoria. We have met up with a number of friends this week, all being very supportive and offering their help. Had a meeting with our pastor, Richard and his wife Ingrid, who helped us to put everything that has happened into perspective and suggested various options for the future.
Our main source of help to cover our absence will be from a church couple, Brett and Naomi. Brett will spend time at CoG, overseeing the work there; doing redecoration and supervising the planting of the maize (we say sowing the maize because it‘s seed, but here they insist on saying planting!) He will also keep an eye on things for us at our home, as they live nearby. Naomi, is the bursar at Morning Star Christian Academy (the ACE school attached to our church) and she will take charge of the finances – paying wages, buying food, etc. for the learning centre and home.
Meanwhile, school has gone very well this week and the children are making real progress. Eugene is now in the final stages of his plumbing work and on Thursday we had 11 family members come to help with preparing the land for planting under Philemon’s guidance. (see pic below) We are on track for the key planting day of 25th November, as per the standards of Farming God’s Way.
Hope that there is time for another diary, before we leave next week.
Until then, lots of love, Andrea
Andrea’s Diary, Sunday 30th October
Hello everyone, Well it’s been a bit of a “rollercoaster” this week as we were asked to go and see the chief immigration officer here in Bulawayo on Thursday morning. He told us that we had overstayed our the 6 month allowance on our visitor’s visa this year, so we have to leave Zimbabwe by 15th November. This was quite a blow for us as we had hoped to be here until the end of March, with a short trip to Durban, SA in December. We will, however, be allowed to return early in January.
It’s fortunate that we are blessed with two excellent teachers in Themba and Memory who will capably run the Learning Centre for the last 2 weeks of term, which finishes on December 1st. Also we are strongly supported by our church in Bulawayo, both spiritually and physically (more about this next week)
Meanwhile life at CoG continues, work has progressed on the Learning Centre, this week, Eugene has been working hard on the plumbing, we now have a solar geyser sitting on the roof! Laurie has finished fitting all the new class needed in the block for the time being and the painting has been commenced in classroom one.
The ladies have made good progress on the land and tomorrow we have a meeting with the families of the students to see what help they can offer to get the maize planted on time.
We had a new child, Linda start on Thursday. She lives at the Hideout and came to the “kid’s club”. Her father died recently and her mother is very sick. She is obviously very happy to be coming to the Learning Centre and Themba will work with her individually to get her up to the level of the other others.
We would like to say a big thank you to the members of JIBC who have contributed to the cost of feeding all of these children. All for now,
Love to you all, Andrea
