Back for another year in Zimbabwe
We have been back ‘home’ for over a week now and we’ve had the pleasure of Josie staying with us. We went to a safari park over-night and I rode a horse for the first time in about 20 years. I’m sure checking Facebook over the next few weeks will fill you in on what we’ve been up to.
It feels like we have never been away from One Way Pre School because over the holiday’s we have had our playground extended to double its size and added a new jungle gym for the children to play on. I think the excitement was summed up by Sophie this morning when she said that one the boys was going round and round on the merry-go-round and staring at the new equipment having not noticed it straight away. We thank our administrator for all her hard work over the holidays because she certainly has not had one. (To see some pictures of the new playground then access my twitter @GSangwine and why not follow me whilst you’re on there. Be warned of some angry QPR, football related tweets though.)
It is also amazing to see how they’ve grown. Having not worked with such young children before I am shocked at how quickly they grow. We met a 2 and a half year old girl when we arrived in Zimbabwe, she knew no English and only communicated with us through ‘huh’s’ now she is speaking English, correctly correcting us and half a foot taller running around the playground counting to 10.
We also had 3 new registrations so our school now educates 54 children aged between 3 and 6 (32 boys and 22 girls). 54 kids – beat that Beckie Bowler!
Prayer requests:
– General health. Sophie and I are very well but Josie has been feeling unwell and many people in our church are struggling at the moment as they cannot afford to go to the doctor.
– The children at the school. Please pray the new 3 settle in and that the 20 children leaving us to primary school find places quickly.
– Visa’s: Sophie and I have had month by month extensions to our visas for 4 months now. This current extension runs out on October 2nd so please continue to pray for an outcome to the visa application we applied and paid for in April.
– One Way Ministries: The church we run the school for is going through some changes. The lead pastor was married recently after being widowed in 2011 so please pray for them. Also anything we do in the future must come from the church leadership so please pray for them as they seek God’s will for our future.
– Water: We are very lucky to have a permanent supply of drinking water to our house through a bore hole but the rest of our area is really struggling with water shortages. We got some water back today but I’m told the school hasn’t had any for 3 weeks. As you can imagine running a school without water is very difficult indeed.