Children of Grace

CHILDREN of GRACE – How it was birthed and where we are at the moment.

Having worked on the northern extremity of the City for 18 months in a community called Trenance, we both saw a real need to provide food, education and shelter where necessary, to a number of orphaned, abandoned and vulnerable children. Trenance represents many such marginalized communities in Zimbabwe, with the typical poor and needy being only a little better off than those forced to squat on private land and survive as best they can in squalid circumstances. Our vision and mission statement has thus evolved.

Our vision is :

“To see young lives in Zimbabwe transformed, restoring hope and overcoming poverty.”

Our mission statement is :

“We will bring Christ-centred love, care and education to orphans and other needy children from Trenance and surrounding areas. We will establish a safe community, where these childrens’ needs can be met, through a Christian-based education programme, providing food and a home where required. There will be a strong emphasis on each child’s spiritual development, as well as life skills and training for employment.”

Last year we approached the Bulawayo City Council on several occasions to try and acquire some land to lease, but our requests were declined on the grounds that they “did not see the need” and such a development “did not fit into the their planning policy.” Consequently, we felt the Lord directing us to dip into our own pockets and he guided us to a property that was on the market this last March and which was eminently suitable for our vision. We commenced work on the property in June. (Please see the attached photo). It consists of a substantial house, but with a further building attached which is being renovated to become the Learning Centre. So far we have rewired this building, put in 4 new toilets, a shower and wash hand basins, knocked down some walls, built new ones; made new doorways and plumbed in a sink in what is to be the kitchen and installed a solar water geyser. Eventually, we will have 4 classrooms, a school office, cloakroom, dining room, kitchen and store room.

In September we opened the Learning Centre in the lounge of the main house with 19 children ranging in age from 5 to 10 years. (See other attached photo) We have adopted the Accelerated Christian Education programme (A.C.E.) and currently the children are learning English with this system and next term, some of the older and/or brighter ones will be learning to read before moving on to the main curriculum. CoG employs 2 teachers and Andrea also is involved as the Administrator. We have all been trained to use the ACE system. The children have made great progress in these last 3 months.

We also employ a Foster Mother (not as yet registered) and she, Miriam cares for 4 of these children who have no other place to stay. She also cooks lunch for all of the school children, the teachers and a couple of other helpers, including her brother Philemon who is our caretaker and security man.

In summary, the whole property, which sits on 5.5 acres has great potential for developing a learning centre for around 60 children, without building expansion and providing a home for 16-20 of these. We have commenced an agricultural project with the planting of 2 acres of maize last month and there is much potential for growing a range of vegetables to serve the school and the home. The front field is divided by a small river were there is a pump for water extraction. In the upper area there is a borehole, a pressure pump and a large concrete holding tank. There is a grinding mill for maize on site, which can serve the community and several small buildings in various states of repair, that can be used for other projects and vocational training.

We had hoped that we could stay in Zimbabwe for 2-3 more years to really put CoG on a firm footing. The buildings and land, fully paid for, are currently in our names, but we would expect to put these in trust at some stage. The salaries of the 2 teachers are paid for by a foundation in Australia, but they have limited funds. The food bill is taken care of, courtesy of a group of people from our church here in Spain. We pay for the other 2 salaries and the rest of the running costs. The costs of the renovation and development work has to date been funded by individual donations.

The difficulties we now face are, first that we are running out of money to sustain and develop this project and second that it seems likely that at best we will only be allowed to stay in Zim for 6 months out of any calendar year in the future. I applied for a work permit at the end of last year without success, but we were give every assurance by 2 senior immigration officials that they would allow us freedom under a visitors visa. As of the end of October, this is no longer the case and there appears to be a crack-down on many others like us, who have relied on grace and favour or who are now failing to have their work permits renewed.

Clearly our project is still very much in the embryonic stage, but we can see that it has already raised hope in this community and we have received a deal of help and co-operation from the families of our students in gratitude. In order for the work to continue and the mission to be fulfilled, we now believe that we need a partnership which can provide both funding and feet on the ground to assist us and if necessary take over the running of CoG.We are therefore, completely open to any suggestions and guidance as to how progress can be continued and young lives transformed.                                                  David & Andrea, 14th December, 2011