Shalom my friends, Mangwanani!
It’s been a whirl wind month here in Zimbabwe. On this Sunday 16th September we celebrate a month here which really has flown by! We hope to have our renovations complete by the end of this week with more appointments with plumbers and builders in the coming week as well as the electrician. It is all very exciting seeing the school growing to what we hope will be a school the church can be proud of. Check back to the blog because I should have pictures available of logo’s and leaflets in the near future.
School wise we are hoping to open 2 classes in January, one run by Sophie and one run my me. One class will be Grade 0 which is the year before primary school begins for children aged 5 and a nursery class with children aged 3-4. We’re hoping for somewhere between 40-60 children to sign up.
Zimbabwe wise we keep having plenty of offers to people to take us out on trips but have as yet been too busy sorting out building projects and school documents to really visit anywhere. Personally I hope we have the registration and renovations completed by December and Sophie and I can do some real exploring in the month leading up to the opening of the school.
Last week we got the pleasure of a day spent at gogo’s day care centre which is another local pre school facility here. It was a really fun morning and was a great education in to how things are done here. They have a pre school curriculum but it is fairly limited and Sophie insures me that we can offer a more varied education. The children really loved their school and this day care centre are doing a brilliant job bringing these children up in a positive, Christian environment. We pray we emulate that in our school.
I will finish this entry now just by saying how lovely it is to hear from people back home, please do keep in touch. It’s great for us to know what people are up to!
God Bless G&S x
Hello to all!
So, much has been happening over the last week, builders have been working hard to demolish walls and create new, larger toilet spaces. The plumber begins work tomorrow, and the electrician will hopefully be around next week.
Builder hard at work shifting rubble!
Today, we spent a large part of the day beginning to organise and sort the outside area. We have two outdoor areas available for the school – one, a paved tiered courtyard. two, a grassy area. The courtyard area is fine, a lick of paint and some pretty child pictures will do wonders. The grass area needs a little more help.
First up, Greg and Emmanuel worked to fill in a large trench hole right outside the entrance area. Next to the hole was a large mound of soil and rubble which had created a problem in itself! Many wheelbarrow loads later the hole was filled, I had many splinters in my feet and greg looked like he had a great tan (it washed off later though!).
Next up, we were told the place where the bricks from demolition had been placed, was in fact in the wrong place. Que me, 3 men and a wheelbarrow attempting to shovel them all into a more suitable place. The best thing to come out of this…brick throwing!
Greg and the men found this highly amusing – I showed my English side and felt concerned for Health and Safety! I did then realise, however, that that’s boring, and decided to help by using the wheelbarrow to shovel the bricks…with great success…
until the wheelbarrow hit a brick, tipped over, I shouted for help from Emmanuel (who had sneakily been following behind evidently knowing I would fail!) and then as I turned, proceeded to slide in all the ash left from the rubbish pit burning, causing an embarrassing slide. Luckily, I stayed upright!
Once the bricks were sorted, we proceeded to measure the width of the grass area, as we need to buy fencing to cordon off the play area as it can currently be accessed by the road to the golf course – another expense, but a necessary one!
So tomorrow, we begin work on the entrance walkway – which too is covered in rubble and is a danger in its present state. But we have a lovely willing workforce around and are enjoying being able to use ourselves too! It’s been a little difficult persuading the people here that we are wanting to do work and not sit and watch others do it – they want to serve too much!
In other news – tomorrow we meet with Witness – our marketing man who will be creating a logo, fliers, posters, news ads etc for the school. On Thursday we are due to spend a day at a local pre school – should be an exciting update for you all after that!
So, please please keep up to date with the project, and please please support us any way you can! Work is happening FAST!
Please also pray for the school registration document – we should have it by the end of the week – but only by a lot of persuasion.
Check back soon! God Bless,
G&S x
Today, has been busy! We have been in contact with many people (many of whom I can’t remember their names) and have been able to buy, get quotes, and brainstorm ideas for many aspects of the school!
First up, we visited the Bank to enquire about opening a personal bank account and also a business bank account. Turns out it’s really easy! 2 forms – 1 for each account, some photos, a copy of passports and marriage certificate, and a letter from the church proving we live here. That’s it! And the debit card can be used in every country, bonus! So we have the form which we are filling in and will be applying tomorrow – so should be set up within the next week! Business is a little more complex – they want a copy of the constitution (not too sure what to write there!) and the minutes of a meeting, but once we’ve got the paperwork – account will be up! Very efficient.
Next up we visited one of the rural areas to begin searching for craftsmen who could create us storage units and small tables for the classrooms….this was a crazy busy marketplace with many many people assuming that as we are white we will buy everything and pay lots for it! Luckily we had Pastor Musora with us who, in manly sounding Shona, told them to leave us alone! This place however did not provide the sort of handymen we needed – so we continued our search.
We drove to Highfield – Pastor Musora’s hometown – where Greg had to practice the art of pothole dodging – sometimes unsucessfully due to the pothole taking up the entire width of the road! – until we reached the centre of the rural area. We wandered down some back roads past some small children, playing what looked to be an extremely fun game involving hiding in a cardboard box with just your head sticking out and scaring passers by! Here we found, under a small canopy, some carpenters making shelving units – perfect! So we hastily drew on the back of some sawn off wood – sketches of what we required – 2 large cubby hole units, 2 large shelving and cubby hole units and 8 small classroom tables – after some haggling we received a good price and should have the units within a couple of weeks!
Next up we visited a warehouse for items such as child toilets, child sinks, shower heads, paint, tiling and so on. We now have quotes for some large tubs of paint and items for the school toilets so moved on!
We then returned to the center to meet with the plumber whom we had called this morning, to discuss whether the current 2 large adult toilets in the school area, could be converted into 4 child toilets, 2 sinks and a shower cubicle. He was initially concerned that the walls surrounding the toilets were so thick that it may be impossible to knock them down to make room, however we debated for a while and think we have come up with a solution to move toilets and cisterns etc around with only needing to knock one smaller wall down. Amen!
The builder is coming at 8am tomorrow morning to discuss with us the possibility of knocking that wall down, and also removing items we don’t need, fixing concrete in the playground area, putting up a wall, fixing doors and windows and gates and other jobs. The plumber has kindly agreed to also return at 8am to converse with the builder to brainstorm the best plans so that we can get cracking!
Once the builder and plumber are sorted, we can contact the electrician and get him to come and sort out the dangling live wires and sockets in the rooms! And the lighting for both rooms and the toilets.
Then once they are done, we can decorate! So not much to do as you can see…
We are also hoping next week to go into town to start pricing and budgeting for all the resources we will be needing – I mentioned before that they do not have a warehouse to buy resources from, so we need to go and do some haggling in the city -in bulk!
We have been really fortunate to visit a school for handicapped children run by a woman from the church here. She is very knowledgeable about the academic side of Zimbabwean schooling and is coming today to bring us documentation regarding all areas of the school including policies, curriculum, registration, health and safety, assessment, observations and so on! She has also said she will take us next week to where we can buy government documents that we should have in our school just in case they decide to spring a visit – however she said she opened in 2000 and has not been visited once by government!
We are also going to be spending a day or two in a local pre school next week to see how they run their daily timetable and the way in which they teach – which we are sure will be an eye opener! Punishment in Zim is treated very differently to England – they still smack/cane children and children are expected to be very obedient from a very young age.
So it’s been a whirlwind day and we are running rather than walking through each day but it is so encouraging to be seeing wheels in motion!
We also had a meeting yesterday with Pastor Musora and Pastor Gatsi to discuss the practicalities of the school and to discuss finances. The church here is struggling financially and we are ever so grateful to those in England who are supporting us so far with the project. Please do continue to pray about us and the project and if you are able to give financially please do use the stewardship form on the support page of the website. There is SO much to do and it all costs money! We are financing as much as we can but we continually need your support.
We would be very grateful for your prayers and contact messages as these strengthen us and keep the project moving forwards.
God Bless,
G&S
The following is taken from one of the local newspapers out here:
The united nations have said of Zimbabwe that 37% of Zimbabwe’s children have no birth registration whilst 100 children a day die of preventable diseases. The UNICEF world body wants the country to make sure health and education services are achieving the basic needs which are required for society. An official was quoted as saying “during the past decade Zimbabwe has experienced socio-economic difficulties which have resulted in significant challenges in access to education, health, water and sanitation.” 30% do not have access to safe water and 40% no access to safe sanitation. 42% of rural folk practice open defecation.
We hope that if we can be a small hope or change in one of these areas then we believe we have achieved something for these wonderful people.
Hi!
Few more days between this blog post and the last, but a few things to tell you all about! So here goes…
As of yesterday we had officially been here for One Week! So we celebrated with the team from England…by having Nando’s! A small luxury which I feel we won’t get to have very often!!
Firstly…It’s getting hotter and hotter! After our strange weather welcome from the first few days, it has steadily increased in temperature each day and we are now looking a pretty colour! (no sunburn yet!)
Secondly…we have a CAR! We have name it Merv…Merv the Mitsubishi. It is so fantastic to be able to have some more independence through having the car, it can be quite frustrating waiting around for people to take you to places, especially if you need to be somewhere on time!! So we have been relishing in getting used to African driving – which includes plenty of swerving deep potholes, no road markings and free for all driving wherever they fancy much of the time! But Greg is doing a fantastic job! I am yet to drive the car as my licence is still in England but when that arrives I will look forward to trying out driving myself!
On the subject of the car, we had a minor bump the other day whilst driving around some of the English team – our car bumped into the back of theirs – small scratches on front of ours as we hit their tow bar….their car was bigger! No serious injuries praise god! So the pastors here have prayed over the car to bless it to the lord to prevent anything else! Its all learning.
We are settling into our home which hopefully we can show you when we set up a photo gallery. We are hoping to take over a second room in the center to have as an office/living space as currently we are living in one room plus the short trek to the kitchen in the office on the other side of the center. So we need provision of items such as a kettle, toaster, mini fridge etc…as this will further help with our independence – which we are praying about.
We were really fortunate last night to be able to go, along with the team from England, to the house of Mr and Mrs Timba – whom we have stayed with before on previous trips to Zim. They have always been such firm friends of ours here and we respect them highly, they care for us like their family for which we are grateful. They are currently not attending One Way Ministries for a number of reasons and we wanted to go and see them and pray for them for their situation personally as they have had a very tough year – please do pray for them if you get a spare moment, they are a fantastic family! And will be of a huge support to both myself and Greg over this year so we would love for their difficult circumstances to be resolved.
Very excitingly, the team from England have arrived and been here since Wednesday. They are staying in two houses nearby the center with two families from the church. We have had a few team meetings and spent some time together with the team helpers from Zim which have been positive. Everyone is very motivated and excited and everyone seems to want to get started! Myself and Greg are doing less than previous years as there is a team of 6 already from England doing the main programme and so it is a joy to see the conference growing and expanding with team since when it started 6 years ago it was just Dave Bankhead and my Family! The children here look forward to the conference every year with such anticipation and we are praying that they will come with hearts ready to receive all the team have to give!
We have many of the children from the rural areas staying at the church center for the week in the spare bedrooms and we have already had 4 of them in our bedroom today playing with our remote control car, so I think this week may be quite busy and noisy! But we are so excited to be able to spend more time with these children as normally we are staying further away and we don’t get to see these children often as they live in the rural areas so it will be a pleasure to get to know them and show them how loved and special they are!
We have also booked to have a meeting with both Pastor Gatsi and Pastor Musora on Monday afternoon to discuss some of the finer points regarding the pre school as arund 50 people from One Way are off to Israel for 2 weeks in September and if we are to open the school in January, we need to start preparing, painting, renovating, resourcing, registrating etc…now. So we are going to have a busy busy week ahead with both the school and conference going on, but we are going to face it with much prayer!
Thank you to those of you who have sent us messages over the last week, we appreciate all communication and look forward to blogging after the meeting on Monday to let you know the latest on the happenings with the school.
We should also have some more information in a couple of weeks regarding other projects the church are interested in us helping with – including sunday school, youth group, tutoring for exams and such like! So the Lord is providing us with many opportunities to connect with the ministry and we would love prayers to help us focus and hear from the Lord on his plans for us!
Speak to you all soon!
God Bless,
G&S x
Shalom!
We have been here for 4 days now…and 2 exciting things happened today! Number 1….
WE GOT OUR PERMITS!! We now have in our passports a delightful temporary employment/ residency permit! Its shiny and takes up a whole page of our passports, exciting!
Since then, we have been on a whirlwind tour of Harare with Pastor Musora as he showed us some of the rural areas and took us to see what could possibly be our first Zimbabwean car!
Secondly, however….IT RAINED! SHOCK! This is unexpected in August (rainy season starts around oct/nov) but it was the first time we have seen rain in Zim so we got excited and stood in it for a moment! Don’t let me hype it up too much, it wasn’t much rain! You will be pleased to know the sun returned shortly after.
Tomorrow we are having our first official meeting with Pastor Musora to go to the government buildings in Harare to officially reigster the school and fill in all the relevant documents. We have today decided along with Pastor Gatsi, that the school will be called’ One Way Pre School’ (the church is called One Way Ministries) So exciting!!
We are aware now of where the pre school will be within the church centre – they have sunday school in 2 rooms just outside the building which are both large and there is a concrete tiered area outside it which we can place outdoor equipment in. So that is a great start!
We have also begun to discuss timings for the school (it looks like a long day!! possibly 8-5!) and we may be starting with around 30 children. This number can grow over time…
We also have to discuss hiring staff, feeding the children, the curriculum, the timings of the day, resources etc….so there is SO much to do! But we are delighted that things are moving along so quickly (many of you will know it often takes a long time for things to be done in any African country so its good news!)
So PLEASE do pray for the continuing developments with the pre school – we need God’s hand over us!
In other news….we had our first Sunday service – it was a churches together service to end the adult conference in a big tent outside, at went from 8.30 – ….2!! LONG SERVICE! But it was mightily fun and full of LOUD worship! The preacher (whose preach lasted the entire length of our normal church service in England) was excellent and we left full of enthusiasm!
We are looking forward to the team from England arriving on Wednesday to begin preparing for the childrens conference (thanks mum!) which begins on Sunday – the first day of which will be on Prayer Mountain!
So to sum up…yes we know its hotter in England at the moment! Thank you to all those of you who have reminded us! However, we are looking forward to it continuing to warm up over the next few weeks!
Please do continue to pray for us at this time, and thank you to all those of you who have commented and sent us messages of support so far! We feel so blessed every time we hear from someone!
Keep checking back for more updates! There could be lots of exciting news coming up…!!
I’m going to post this now before the electricity leaves again and I can’t send it!
God bless, G&S x
Hello friends or I should say Shalom my friend!
The sun is shining and the birds are tweeting just off our rooms balcony. We arrived yesterday, a little delayed due to some baggage issues in Ethiopia but safely with no issues so we thank God for that.
Last night the church we’re working with, One Way Ministries had the last day of its adult conference (we’ve been involved with the children’s equivalent previously) and we were introduced to the whole church and welcomed by Pastor Gatsi. I’m not even going to try to explain how welcome we are feeling already “everyone is so kind and generous” just doesn’t explain it in enough detail.
This afternoon (Saturday) we’re off to prayer mountain for food and something exciting so we’re told. It’s a mountain the church acquired and they now use it as a place where people can relax and worship in peace and pray over Zimbabwe. Poignant seeing as you can see over Harare from the mountain.
Thank-you for all your prayers and thoughts. Keep in touch because we had 10 wonderful welcome messages on this site yesterday and they were so encouraging!
We’ll take photos soon and upload them.
Love G&S x
Writing this on the plane is slightly funny seeing as I can’t lower the tray table over my long legs. But Sophie and I have just departed London Heathrow and the UK for the next year. A year? Some think this a long time, some say time will fly. We don’t know what we think but we know God will bless us abundantly in all our adventures! So for now a nine hour flight in front of a baby is what we have to look forward to but with,y smiling wife next to me I couldn’t be happier!
Bless you all and keep praying!
Leaving Heathrow at 9pm on Thursday 16 August – via Ethiopia (wish we could stay there longer!) land in Harare lunchtime Friday 17th. Stay tuned for our first blog from Zim…
The boxes are GONE! Finally! 8 Extra Large Boxes are currently being couriered to port to be shipped to portugal to be shipped to Cape Town to be couriered to Johannesburg to be couriered to the SA/Zim border then to be couriered to Harare for us to pick up!! Phew…PLEASE PRAY!
We can’t thank you all enough for praying for us so faithfully so far and we would neevr have managed to get the shipping sorted without some intervention from the big man. Please do continue to pray as the goods are transported – there is a high rate of loss of shipments being couriered by sea – apparently they just ‘fall off!’
Our house is looking considerably empty now…and big! Just ourselves and our suitcases left to pack and prepare… only 1 more week to go!
Please use the contact form to contact us at any time!
God Bless, G&S x