ABC of Zim

A  is for arrived safely! We had a good journey. Thanks to John Gwynne who delivered us to Heathrow, SAA who flew us safely and the ever faithful X who picked us up at the airport! What a great time we had in England, but it just flew by too quickly and here we are again suffering in the heat!!!! Actually it rained here the night we were travelling. Yippee!! So it was ideal for planting those tomatoes and cabbages, yesterday, that Dave was telling you about.

 

B is for bonjour. It was very sad to say goodbye to so many family and friends but it was also extremely encouraging to us to know that so many read the drivel I write on the blog and that so many people are praying for us. Bags and bags of thanks to all those who sent us off with gifts of money, so generously given to the work out here. We will keep you up to date with progress... B is also for the bat that has taken up residence in our living room and which I will have to send packing at some time, when I can pluck up the courage and find some gloves!

 

C is for Christmas, gone but not forgotten. We have such great memories and a few photos to remind us. What a wonderful church  and family we belong to! Worshipping in English with such quality musicians was such a blessing. We now face the big challenge of making things sustainable here, if its at all possible. C is for communication... On opening the blog (having got the Internet re-connected as we were cut off because we weren't here to pay the monthly bill)I found that the last one I wrote 3 days before we left Zim didn't send so Ive sent it with this one. The January sale 2 for 1! How good is that?

Counting down again

Praising under canvas

I know I said the previous post would be the last before returning to the UK, but I couldn't resist just updating you on this last week in Zim!

Last Sunday was a special one for the New Frontiers churches here in Bulawayo, as we had a combined service at the New Creation site in town. Scott Marques was down from Harare and gave a very relevant message about being content in God.

It was so encouraging to see everyone together and that TLZ was the largest group there!

After the meeting we all ate together of spit roasted pork and beef, sadza and cabbage, prepared by the ladies of TLZ- fantastic!

TLZ guys in the foreground, including Ezra in pink with Martha!!

There were then games for adults and a 'jumping castle' for the children. It was a great social occassion especially for those from the rural and semi rural areas. It was also a sad day for the city church as it was the last day in Zim for Claire and Phil Biggs and their girls Hannah and Sophie, who have had to return to Birmingham to start life anew.

 



The girls working hard while Taps waits for food!!

On Wednesday we had a lovely surprise as our life group had organised a secret party for us to say goodbye! they brought loads of


food with them and a big chocolate cake. It was so thoughtful of them and we were totally overwhelmed... One of the highlights of the year, I think!




 

Countdown!

Counting down.... U.K. Here we come! Not long now....

This will be the last blog before we get back because I will be packing!!! We are soooooo looking forward to seeing all our friends and family and.... getting water out of the taps, eating cheese, butter and lamb, driving on smooth roads with NO road blocks, not having to queue up to pay bills every month, buying with plastic! The list goes on but.... we're NOT looking forward to being COLD! Its in the high 30's here but still no rain of any consequence so the maize hasn't been planted yet and the optimum time is before the 25th of November, so please pray with us for that!

Some of the cabbages yet to be planted

Zenzo said this was worse than going to the gym! (aching legs)

Here you can see (from the left) Lewis,  Zenzo and Kilion planting 3,000 cabbages on Lewis' plot. The next day they planted bush beans, beetroot and carrots. Behind them is spinach which is just coming to an end. Its great to be able to go and pick fresh vegetables for ourselves and the workers, just like at home!

 

Last week I was able to visit Morning Star, a farm in the Motopos owned by Chris and Norma (surname unknown!) I went with Ruth Biddulph who has been out here for 18months with BMS. She and her husband have had their work permits refused and have their second appeal in to Immigration who seem to be refusing to make any decisions at the moment with elections pending. So poor Brad and Ruth return to The UK a week after us not knowing if they can return. They expect a baby in March so will not be back until June even if they are allowed. We will miss them alot as they come to Thembalezizwe and are great fun. Brad has also been invaluable to Dave in the building process, so we are really hoping we see them again out here.

 

Helping the sewing ladies.

At Morning Star, Norma has been running a sewing group with some ladies for the past 3 years, so I was picking her brains and loved seeing the things they have made. When we visited the ladies were making Christmas tree garlands using fabric, beads and seeds. They get a small share of the profits and really make a social occasion of their weekly get together. They are all HIV positive and bring their babies with them. They also take extra work home with them to sew by hand. I'd love to see a similar thing happening inTrenance in the future to empower ladies there. The most difficult thing is to find a market for what is produced as Bulawayo does not have any tourist industry to speak of any more and nobody has any cash. So it will need some thought and investigation.

The whole group plus babies



What a lovely blanket!

On her last trip home Ruth had collected some beautiful hand made blankets that her Mother-in- law had made with ladies from her village in Devon.

Here she is presenting one to a girl from the local



village. She is an unmarried mother of 17 and her little boy is 4 months old. This time last year she was still in school but had to leave in February.

Chris and Norma also do alot of work with the local schools and have won some funding from the Roger Federa Foundation for the next three years to upgrade the schools and put training in place for the teachers.

The farm is in a beautiful setting in the Motopos but they too are having difficulties with water as their borehole is very low due to the lack of rains in this area. In Harare they have had quite a bit already!

Pleased to say the children's shelter at 1BD is now complete and they have been using it for the past 2 Sundays.

The chicken at Edmunds are growing fast after a set back with diseased and are now on a countdown to Christmas! Which brings me back to the beginning........ We are definitely counting down!!
P.S. I am finishing this off on Sunday 25th and it is raining raining raining!!!

Chick, chick,chick,chi-i-i-i-i-i-icken

As I am truly English I will talk about the weather first! It has warmed up a lot this week after a cool one last week. The trees and grass are greening up after a few showers but the real rains haven't arrived yet. We are hopeful that these will come next week so that Dave (not him personally) can get the maize planted. The men at 1BD site have dug 36,700  holes and put in fertilizer ready for the seeds! That's a lot of holes.. 5 acres of land in all.

They are now trying to complete the house ready for Tendai and Taurai to move in. The wall are being painted as we speak, but not by me, this time thank goodness! I have, however, been painting walls all of last week as a young man moved into our cottage in the garden yesterday. He is a friend of X and was wanting some independence from family. He is a member of New Creation church and seems a really nice guy and has a company car so living this far out isn't a problem to him. We would have loved to offer accommodation to a member of our church but we live the opposite end of the city which would have taken them out of their community and made getting about difficult for them.

The new broiler shed. The far end is sheeted up ready for chicks

Dave (yes he did a lot of the work) has just finished building a new broiler shed at Edmund's house. Last week we put in 350 chicks in his old shed and then 4 days later 500 chicks into the new house. The netting isn't in place on all of it yet as the lady who weaves it hasn't finished! She has a type of loom and makes it for a living. How cool is that!!!

You can see how cold it was last week as the little girl in the front is wearing a dragon suit and a coat!!! But the sun still shines..



Dave and Edmund unpacking the chicks from their boxes

There is a massive market for chicken here at Christmas so that's what these fluffy little things are destined for- -  A Christmas Feast!!    So far the chicken project hasn't made any money as there is always difficulty in getting people to pay up. They take chicken on the promise of payment the next week and next week never comes, so we have learnt the hard way! But we are beginning to build a market with a Supermarket and Hotel, so we don't think we will have any trouble getting rid of this present batch and getting paid.



500 little dickie birds sitting on the floor, one named...



As you can see they have a special drink (which is yellow), during the first few hours to help their stress levels. (I wonder if it works for humans??)     

 

 

The congregation at St Peters meeting in Anna's home (tent)

Church is going fine and we are managing to organise  things so that each week someone can get over to St Peters to preach. Graham and Sarah Giles will be the main contacts as they have a real heart for the people there but they are in England for the next 2 months so it is quite challenging for a small church like ours. Its also quite surprising to find that the tin shacks that the people of St Peters vacated are again being lived in by others. 



Playing musical chickens!

 

Lastly, Kidz Klub is still going well and being enjoyed by the children and adults! Here are a couple of pictures from last Saturday. We had about 70 kids this week and quite a few were new ones which was great. So I'll sign off here until next time......

 

Tendai and Ruth are chickens!

                                                                                                        



Exciting news!

Zenzo at 1BD

Meet Zenzo, a young man who has been working at 1BD since we started clearing the site. At first he lived in the building but now he and his wife live 2 hours walk away, but he is always at work by 7.30 when they start. Last week he asked if he could be born again and X, the site manager led him to the Lord!! A great encouragement to Dave and all of us and hopefully the first of many. He is such a hard worker and so appreciates having a job after being out of
work for so long.
                                                                                            The house is being wired and plumbed this week and is progressing well. The children have been meeting there for the past few weeks just to get them out of the sun, but now a start has been made on the children's building so hopefully they will soon have their own place to meet. 

We had an amazing time today, Sunday. Firstly we had our first meeting at St Peters, where the families have been relocated from the shacks. Taurai and Tendai, Graham and Sarah and Diva and Noma went over and they had a great time with 17 adults and 10 children there. So now Thembalezizwe has 3 congregations!

In Trenance, we had a guest speaker, an old friend of Taps, from Harare. The Holy Spirit really fell on people and many were set free and impacted by the message about healing of the heart. many people are bound by jealousy and by things from their past, so it was encouraging to see God moving so powerfully.

 

Sophie and Hannah outside their school

On Friday we were surrogate grandparents for Hannah and Sophie. Their Dad is an elder in the city church and each year their school has a grandparents day. We had the privilege of standing in as their grandparents are all in the UK. We were treated to tea and cakes, a short concert and then were able to look at their books. It was quite strange to see them still using the old fashioned desks with lids and to be sitting in rows, but it is a good Christian school although the fees are very high. All children have to pay fees each term here in Zim and they seem to go up all the time.

 

Kidz Klub number 5 went well on Saturday, although we have lost quite a few children to St Peters.

About 5 children brought friends for the first time so we keep encouraging them with extra sweets!!

The helpers are great but I am having a bit of an issue with reliability, so we will have to work on that!
 

We are well and doing fine. Please keep the comments coming!

Each One Reach One. Teach One

 Sunday 23rd was Vision Sunday for Thembalezizwe and everyone was very excited as both congregations met together. Dave went the extra mile and picked up the people from St. Peters where the squatters are being re-housed. a journey of about 30 k along very rough tracks. It turned out to be a very interesting journey as his brakes failed on the way to church with his loaded truck!! (it turned out that the brake pads had disintegrated in less than 3 months) Thats Zim roads for you!

Taking Communion and praying in groups at Vision Sunday

Despite that we had a great time, where the leaders summed up how far we had come in the last 18months and where we are asking God to take us in the next year or so. They had felt at the beginning of this year that God was putting in front of the church, an open door and there were testimonies of personal breakthroughs as well as a summary of the doors God had opened for us as a church.

All night prayer at Hamara

The congregation over the two sites is now 200 including children. Just 15months ago, when we first visited, it was about 60! God has been so faithful.. Whilst praying, the leaders really felt that God was saying we should be looking to be 400 by Christmas 2013 and in order to get there, Taps was encouraging us with the slogan 'Each one, reach one, teach one'.

This past Friday night we had another all night prayer meeting from 9pm to 5am. I must confess we don't always look forward to these.. It is probably our age! But it was a really powerful and blessed time and the hours just flew past. It was very much focused on reaching out and everyone is really excited about the prospect of another new congregation in St Peters!

The families that have been moved there are desperate for us to start a Sunday meeting there as it is so far out it would cost them too much to come by combi (public transport) and the church does not have the finances to pay for it.

Basically World Vision have put them in tents (plastic draped around poles with a corrugated tin roof) out in the bush with the promise of their own house. The houses haven't been started yet and there are no facilities there. So it is very grim but the people are happy as it will be their own home eventually, but with the rains on the way, we can see disillusionment setting in quite soon.

Taurai is going out tomorrow to see if it is possible to hire a building or the school in the village which is about 3k from where they are living at the moment, to enable us to set up a church meeting on Sundays and on Wednesday Dave is taking him out on a pastoral visit as several of the church members are ill, which isn't really that surprising. There seems to be a lot of sickness around at the moment, probably due to the water cuts. Last week we had water for 3 hours Monday morning and it was then off until Wednesday when again we had 3 hours in the afternoon. Off then until Friday when a trickle came through for 2 hours but it was so brown you didn't even want to wash in it! Then it was off until Saturday lunchtime but on all day Sunday. That was a real blessing as we had a life group BBQ (Dave refuses to call it a braii!) With hangers on and children there were 29 here altogether. It was for Dolly who is in our life group and is leaving to take up a scholarship in the Netherlands to study for a Masters in water management.(or what to do when water eventually comes out of the tap! (joke) ) She is an environmental health officer here. She will be away for 18months and leaves her husband and 6 year old son behind which is very brave. We are thinking of planning a life group outing to visit!!

 

 

This Sunday (30th) was Gift Day. The leaders are looking to buy a vehicle for the church (a small truck) in which people can be transported as it is so difficult for the two, let alone three congregations to get together. We often have 20 or so bodies in our Navara but as the church grows the problem will only get bigger!

 

Spring has arrived now and many of the trees are in blossom, particularly the Jacarandas which are purple and stunning when fully out. All the roads are tree lined here so it is very pretty and amazing to me that things continue to grow after 8 months without water!

 

A few prayer points.. That we have good rains this year, that we can secure a venue to meet at St Peters and for protection for the families there while the houses are built. Thank you for all your support in prayer and communication. Look forward to your news and comments.

Winning and Losing

I must say, it still feels strange to have reached the beginning of September and not be thinking about a new term, new class etc. I guess that comes from a life-time of teaching and working on a September to July school year. The kids here went back to school on the 11th but their year ends in December. We are still hopeful of starting the Early Child Development Centre in January and are pressing ahead with the application and meeting with local ministers.

Our immediate concern is for the church children on a Sunday, as they have to meet out in the open at the moment and the rains will start in October. (we actually had some drizzle last night!). We have had an increasing number of kids on a Sunday, since we started Kidz Klub and would really like to split them into different age groups. The material they are doing at the moment isn't suitable for all of the children and means basically they sit and listen for about an hour or more in the blazing sun! So the plan is to put up a simple structure that will give them shelter from sun and rain but won't cost the earth. (quite a challenge as materials are so expensive here). This building will be started as soon as the house for Taurai is finished

The house at 1 BD

The house now has a roof and this week the men will start the plumbing. It will be so lovely for Tendai and Taurai to be able to turn taps to get water instead of having to fill large containers from the bore hole and to have hot water and a shower. That is assuming there is water in the taps! The cuts continue and it can be very frustrating as you can't plan showers/hair washing or even clothes washing. I will definitely appreciate these things a lot more when we get home! We are so spoilt in England...


Ears to be proud of!

I have been spending more time at home recently so am pleased to have Izzy for company, although we are having to discipline her a lot at the moment as she has completely made herself at home and thinks she's the boss! She has been waking us up several times in the night knocking at the door to come in and crying most pathetically.. As she is still only 10 months, she is still chewing things and has eaten one cushion from the veranda sofa already, so she is not always too popular with her master and is often compared to Toffee. I try to cover her ears so that her self-image isn't destroyed by these comparisons, but as you can see that's a challenge too as they are the biggest ears I've ever seen on a dog!!

Being at home, has meant that I can also spend time doing some admin. for Taps which I hope will be helpful to him and also the church as a whole. We are counting numbers on Sundays to monitor growth and have devised follow up forms for visitors. We are also asking Life group leaders to fill in attendance forms so that the Elders can see who is and who is not attending, as commitment can be a problem here. Next Sunday is Vision Sunday when we will be joined at Trenance by the Hamara congregation. This will be the first combined service since they planted out last September and we hope we all fit into the building!

Wayne and Wonderman playing with cars

Although the congregation at Trenance is growing and we had 5 people respond to the gospel on Sunday, we are also loosing quite a few families over the next few weeks, as World Vision are re-housing the squatters from the shacks. They are to be re-housed to the West of Bulawayo so most won't be able to afford to travel back on a Sunday.

You may remember Anna with the 9 children, who had a baby a few months ago. She is one of the families to go, but is determined to start a Life group as soon as possible and is praying for a church plant to start there. We will miss her. While Gary and Jess were here we visited her and gave two of her boys (Wayne and Wonderman) some cars that Jake had sent with his sister to give away. They were really happy to have some toys as the weather at the time was too windy for them to play out as it's so dusty here.

Well I'd better sign off here for now. More news soon. Please keep praying for us as we try to serve these lovely people, we appreciate yuor prayers so much. We are now counting off the weeks until Christmas!