I hope that this newsletter finds you well. I’m writing to you from a nice rainy Bulawayo. We are always thankful for rain for the many farmers.
I wanted to write to you before Christmas for two reasons. One to wish you a wonderful and blessed Christmas, from all of us. Two, to share with you a few quick updates from us, so you are all aware of a bit of ‘what’s happening’ this side, and so that you know a bit of all that you are helping to enable. And, I want to share some brief personal news at the end also.
Well, things for Our Neighbours Ministry (ONM) are going very well. We thank God for His provision in all ways for the ministries for this year. And we thank you. We have been blessed with an ‘easier’ year financially this year, and been able to meet all the needs we felt it was right for us to meet.
In terms of updates on the ministries, I wanted to focus on 2 areas of ONM particularly this time:
- APT, our latest group empowerment project; and
- Lighthouse Christian Academy.
Plus, I’ll add in a few other bits of info of course, but let me start with APT, Appropriate Paper-Based Technology. It’s been absolutely awesome to see APT being used to ‘transform lives’. But, let me go back a little to where we started.
We have been desiring to do another group empowerment project for people who we are assisting who are unemployed, in very difficult circumstances, and who desire to work hard to make a living. And in October God led Andy and Alison Fry to come to Bulawayo from the UK to train a group of people in APT, Appropriate Paper-Based Technology. How this happened is a great testimony, for another time.
APT uses used cardboard and newspaper (or other paper types), and a few other simple materials, to make basic furniture. And we all saw this as a great opportunity to empower people. Andy and Alison led an awesome week and a half training course, and we had a team of 6 people (and Addmore from our team, who is having a leadership role), receive training. In this training they produced bins and stools, and there are plans to make coffee tables and small tables and chairs in the very near future.
Aside from one of the above people who did the training, everyone since that time has been working full-time in making this new small business work. And, they made their first sale of 30 stools to a local pre-school the other day. It is awesome to see.
Three of the people doing this APT business stay in the squatter camp in Trenance. One is an orphan living with his grandmother there. Another lady used to sleep in an abandoned vehicle on the street during the week. I see transformed lives coming, and it’s so exciting.
God has been putting really ‘transformed lives’ on my heart quite a number of times over the last few months. I desire to see this, spiritually and economically. Andy and Alison also provided great teaching on God, business and ethics during the course, and we continue to offer discipleship for those who would like this.
Exciting hey! I could at this juncture share stories of people that we have been loving and serving for a while, and the transformation we are seeing in their lives, but I won’t just now (you’ll notice I speak Zimbabwean English now!).
Now I’ve just come back from a week of training on Accelerated Christian Education. We believe this is the curriculum God has led us to use for Lighthouse Christian Academy (LCA). This is the school that we run in partnership with Edge Foundation Australia (Edge also financially support LCA). At LCA we focus on providing quality Christian education to children who are in very difficult and vulnerable situations, aged 10 years and up, who have missed a significant period of their education. The ACE curriculum, and the extra-curricula activities, enable us to meet this mission. ACE provides an individualised education program for each child, according to the specific level that they are at, in each of the various subjects.
We started LCA because of the lack of decent options for kids in these difficult circumstances, and because we felt God leading us to provide this awesome vision, and greatly assist these precious kids to be all that they can be, and all that God would have them be.
At the end of term we had our ‘Awards Presentation’. The students (10 for the last term after a few kids we were assisting moved to new locations) did a number of excellent performances for us, and we celebrated each child’s achievements for the last term. It was a really special time for parents, guardians, students and us all.
We are currently assessing another 7 or so students to start next year with LCA, and we are so excited about the year ahead. We desire to take LCA to the next level. What an awesome opportunity to love and teach these children, about God, educationally and for their whole being, and to transform lives. We seek to equip students with skills that will enable them to succeed in life academically, socially, emotionally, spiritually and physically. All of our kids from North End Home attend LCA. We are currently seeking a permanent location to run LCA, please pray for this.
Now to a few bits of news in brief, so this isn’t too long for you:
- The building of the volunteers quarters at the Babies Home, for volunteers to come and stay in while they are serving in the various areas of Our Neighbours Ministry, has begun. Belinda will be sharing photos soon in her news. We have funding for these upto foundation level at this stage. If you’d be interested in supporting this project we’d love to hear from you.
- Progress is being made by Cosmos to begin a weekly mobile medical clinic in Trenance, the community that we’ve also been reaching out to. We will be partnering with them for this clinic, and assisting with a counselor each week, and in other ways.
- For me, as many of you will know, the Parable of the Good Samaritan really speaks to me. The other day a single mother was referred to me, in relation to her daughter’s condition. Her 7 month old daughter had a problem whereby she was only able to pass faeces through her vagina. She had had this situation since birth. She had been referred for an operation in Harare a few months ago, but they hadn’t been able to raise the funds to get them to Harare as yet. We were able to assist with transport and food, and the operation went well and the precious little one is recovering. We are so blessed to be in a position to be able to show God’s love to people like this, and we thank you.
- And, we’ve decided to change the name of the part of the ministry that runs the Soup Kitchen, the Health Information Service, Empowerment Projects, Outreach, Individual and Family Assistance, Discipleship and HIV Support Group. It used to be called ‘Our Neighbours’, but obviously this was getting confusing with the overall ministries being called ‘Our Neighbours Ministry’. So, we are now grouping the above areas under the name ‘Love and Serve’, or just ‘LnS’.
Well, I also just wanted to briefly share some personal news before I sign off. Mercy is pregnant! We are all very excited about our little one on the way. We had the first ultrasound and it was so exciting. It was just amazing to see this precious little baby being created by God in Mercy’s womb.
It’s been a long time, so I also thought I’d put at the bottom of this newsletter a photo of Mercy and I and our 3 boys Moses, Mqondisi and Joshua, (and 1 in the ‘tum’). We are all doing well.
Thank you for the part of Our Neighbours Ministry and our lives that you are, and for your friendship and support etc etc etc.
Love Martin
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