Two Years Already?!

(Malaika & Sharon, best pals)

Muli Bwanji Everyone,

From Kimberly....

Where has the time gone? Forgive us for starting off with a cliche, but we are truly asking that question. We can hardly believe that it has been two years since we arrived in Zambia. I can still remember wondering what it would feel like to finally set eyes on the face of the first child that would come to live at the Village of Hope. Now we have 21 faces that have become very dear to us living at the village!

Kimani just recently celebrated his 10th birthday, his second in Zambia. Everyone stopped by for some cake and fellowship. Malaika will be celebrating her 8th birthday in the States. Yes, we are going to be returning home to Delaware for a visit from October 21st to January 3rd. We are actually leaving Zambia on Friday, September 26th on a train bound for Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and then onto Kenya by bus. We will be visiting with Kamau's family for the first time in the 11 years that we have been married. Shortly after we arrive in the U.S., we will be participating in the wedding of my sister. As you can imagine, this is a very exciting time for us. We are looking forward to seeing many of you, so please be on the look out for us!

(Future carpenters?)

August, we enjoyed the company of a family from Michigan that came to visit the Village of Hope after hearing about it on the Family Life Today radio program. Mark used his carpentry skills to help with some projects and to take time to instruct some very eager students! The children could not wait to get their chores done so that they could come over to the work area to hang out with Mark and work on their projects such as, benches, crosses, little tables, etc.



As you can see from the above picture, Isaac and Brighton were absolutely fascinated by the drill and could not wait to try it out for themselves. Maureen, who is a teacher, was of great help to us as we were preparing to resume school in September. She helped us put together a teacher training program and provided us with a wealth of ideas for our school. Kristopher, gave art instruction and taught the children how to play checkers. We were sad to see them go and we really miss them!


(Selita, Isaac, & Brighton hard at work)


(Selita making a bench)

From Kamau...

This is the time of year when it is very dry, windy, and hot! It is also the time of year for fires that just spring up suddenly and hungrily eat up the dry grasses of the bush. This fire that you are looking at was right on our property and actually came into the village and came very close to the houses. It burned all of the grass on the 97 hectares of land that belong to All Kids Can Learn Zambia. Amazingly, whenever this happens the trees do not burn, they are very resistant to fire and seem to thrive in this type of environment. Fortunately, no one was hurt in this fire but just about a week later there was another fire right across from us at Ibis Gardens and a man lost his life. He had been drinking and decided to lay down in the tall grasses of the bush in order to sleep, and the fire surrounded him. It was very sad. In a similar fire, Pastor Zulu, our pastor, lost his elderly mother in a bush fire just like this one.

( This photo was taken not far from one of the houses in the village)

(Benedict came out with the skid loader to put out some flames that were getting too close to the hose pipe connected to the water tank.)

(Kathleen and the children outside of the community center which is currently being used for school)

On the first day of the new school term, the children were very excited to be attending school at the community center instead of in the houses at the village.

Kathleen and one of the teachers welcomed the students and gave an encouragement from God's Word.

We have begun to upack the many boxes of books that arrived on the container and we are pleased that we can have our very own library! What a huge blessing!

(The children have a look around at the classrooms that they will be using)

(Exlidah, Sharpie, and Gift looking at the many books)

Prayer Requests

• Pray for safe travel for our family
• There have been many illnesses at the village lately. Please pray for healing and protection.
• Please pray that God will send to us godly, experienced teachers for the next term in January 2009. This is an urgent request.
• There was an attempted robbery at the community center a few days ago. They were after computers and sewing machines. Again, please pray for protection of our guards who are the ones who would come in contact with the thieves. Pray that God will change the covetous hearts of those in the surrounding community, it is a real problem.

Hope to see many of you very soon,

The Kamaus

Cookies, Containers, & Crocodiles

Dear Friends,

From Kamau...
Recently, I heard that there has been a lot of anxiety and restlessness over the current cost of gas in the U.S. I am told the price has increased to something like $3.50-$4.50 a gallon? Well here in Zambia, we have been squeezed, wrung out and shaken up in all sorts of ways such that nothing shocks us any more. Just last week, the government state radio announced that the price of fuel would increase to 13 percent. What this means, is that the cost of diesel will now be a little over a $11 dollars a gallon, while petrol will be a little over $12 a gallon. Talk about highway robbery!!! I am beginning to have a healthy respect of the Amish way of life; just a buggy, a horse and some grass, which we have in abundance here. I suspect these guys, the Amish, know something about thrifty living, which given the present circumstances, I find quite appealing.

I thought that perhaps, I should write to encourage you and also to let you know that it could be worse. So friends, next time you pull in at the gas pump, think about what I’ve shared and don’t be surprised if you catch yourself singing, “God Bless America.”

From Kimberly...
When you get a moment to stop and observe what is happening around you, does it cause you to reflect on the things that have eternal value? If so, are you cherishing them? I have been finding myself doing this very thing over the past few weeks. Permit me to share some of these observances with you.

• Eager little arms raised and waving in the air, hoping to be called on to answer a question from the Bible lesson.
• Experiencing a little taste of what worship will be like in Heaven as Zambians, Zimbabweans, Americans, adults and children lifted up voices to sing to the Lord.
• Gathering around a campfire listening to the children give thanks to the Lord for bringing them here to the village, for their housemothers and aunties, for food to eat and clothes to wear. The list went on!
• Hearing delighted squeals of laughter as children raced to catch bubbles on a sunshine filled day.
• Receiving hugs from nine or more children all at once!

It has been a very busy time for us during this fall/winter season, which is your spring/summer back home. Since March of this year, we have hosted about five teams and several individuals and families. We have recently said goodbye to the team from Maryland and to Kate Weber, who helped us with various projects including organizing our stores builiding, building a fire pit for campfires, sewing instruction, baking, unloading the container, etc. We miss them and really appreciated their encouragement, willingness to serve and joyful spirits. Currently, we are hosting a team from Wisconsin and a family from Michigan. We are receiving assistance with carpentry projects, sewing curtains, community outreach, art classes, unpacking boxes and sorting through items and planning for the next school term.

As some of you may have learned through emails sent out, the Schwartzes had to leave unexpectedly for South Africa so that Kathleen could undergo surgery for fibroid tumors. The surgery went well and our prayer request is that her recovery time will be quick and that the pain she is in will subside.

We have also just learned today that President Levy Mwanawasa of Zambia has passed away. (He had professed to be a born again believer). In June he had a massive stroke and he did not recover from it. As you can imagine, this is a time of uncertainty for the whole country so please be praying for his family, stability in the country and a godly leader to be raised up.

The children are on holiday break from school during the month of August. Chores still need to be done however so here is what a typical wash day looks like.

It is a quiet Saturday afternoon and we are gathered together for Hope Club. The lesson for that day was about the purpose of angels.

Soccer is the favorite game to play among the children. In these two pictures, Isaac and Francis are doing some fancy footwork with the ball. They are very good soccer players and are very competitive with each other.

While Kate Weber was here at the Village of Hope, there was a lot of baking that went on. The children were fascinated by the process and insisted on helping her and Elizabeth and tasting as they did so!

Elizabeth is a graduate student from Minnesota who is studying public health. She has been at the village for seven weeks and has had the opportunity to teach health and nutrition to some of the local teenage girls in the community as well as assist in the baking of cookies and other goodies!

Kimberly recently found herself in the position of substitue teacher for two days. She helped out in the Pre-school and Kindergarten age group. In this picture she is explaining a new math concept but as you can see, the children were more interested in the photographer!

In our science class, magnets were introduced for the first time and they were definitely a success! The children were amazed with them and had a wonderful time discovering what would stick to them and what didn't. There were lots of giggles and little voices saying, "Look Auntie, look!"

When the container arrived, the team from Maryland was on hand to help unload the contents of the container. They had prayed before leaving the US that they would be in Zambia when the container arrived and God graciously answered their prayers! It took a little over two hours to unload the entire container.

As the boxes were unloaded, they were placed in the community center. We have already begun to upack boxes but we have the huge task ahead of us in organizing everything.

We would like to give a huge "thank you" for everyone who participated in some way in donating items for the container, loading it and enabling it to be shipped to Zambia. After two years some of our belongings that we had packed "to come later" have finally arrived! In the picture above, Kimani is standing next to some of the boxes labeled for the Kamaus and the Schwartzes so that they can be taken to our homes at the village.

(This crocodile was one of the old ones.)

Kimani’s Corner

Hi. We recently went to a place called the Kalimba Reptile Park. There were lots of snakes and crocodiles. We got to pet a baby crocodile and I even put a python around my neck, how cool is that! The adult crocodiles were huge!! Did you know that they keep their mouth wide open for two reasons, to help them stay cool and also to wait for birds to land on their teeth so that they can quickly snap their mouth shut and eat them. My mom thought that they were sleeping because they did not move for the whole time that we were looking at them. I saw them moving their eyes though. The people who work at the park told us that they could live to be a hundred years old.


(These were the crocodiles that were ten years old)


(Do you see the snakes' faces? There are actually two snakes in the picture!)

(Our trip to the Reptile Park. Do you see the large crocs behind us?)

(How would you like to have to lug him around all the time!)

(It was very exciting when it was my turn with the python around my neck!)

Malaika's Corner

Hi. The other day, our cat Orlando got caught in a trap that was around his neck. At first we thought somebody just put it on him but Baba said it was a trap that people use to catch animals in the bush. When Orlando came home he was crying and very scared.

We went to a reptile park and there were snakes and crocodiles. The snakes were very poisonous and the crocodiles were huge. One crocodile was 50 years old.

Much Love from the Kamau Family!

What Have We Been Up To?

(The two Roses! Left, Rose Mugoma & Right, Rose Chipoya)

Hello Dear Ones!

We are excited to be able to include photos of the children who arrived in May of this year. They have settled in nicely with Rose Chipoya who is their house mother. As we mentioned in our last update, many of the children in this household are sets of siblings who have now been reunited.

(Terence)

(Natasha is the sister to Francis)

(Exilda is Gift Stumbeko's twin sister)

(Roman, no longer angry, but instead all smiles!)




(Sharon is David's sister and John's cousin)


(Mary is the older sister to Gift Stumbeko and his twin sister Exilda)

(Saturday morning chores at the Village of Hope)

From Kamau…

We are enjoying a nice, quiet holiday weekend here in Zambia. We have just completed our time at Hope Club and now everyone is busy doing their chores and getting ready for lunch and then a rest time. Later on in the day the children will wake up from their naps and begin to water the fruit trees in our young orchard. Then, they will probably gather in the soccer field for a game before it is time to go in for the evening.

Last week we said goodbye to one of the Delaware team members out of the nine that came in the early part of June. We truly had a wonderful time with all of them and we miss them already. Most of the team’s time was spent building relationships with the children, the housemothers, aunties and other staff at the village. Each evening would find the team and the children playing soccer games, bocce ball, or Frisbee together.

(Team from Grace Evangelical Church in Delaware in our kitchen)

Pastor Greg, Dave and Alex took turns leading the devotion in the mornings before the workers started their work day, we usually have devotion twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays.
Pastor Greg also initiated a Bible study, which met on Wednesdays and Saturdays after the men completed the work day. About seven of workers attended regularly and have indicated a desire to continue meeting. The men also helped with painting and Dave and Maria planted Moringa Trees. These trees will be very helpful to us as they are a great food source with many nutritious properties. Gregory and his supply of energy, kept the children gainfully occupied in all manner of games that really helped the mothers and the aunties get a moment of rest or attend to other things instead of spending time responding to the various demands and reports.

Thanks to Debbie Durant who was our temporary resident computer techie, we can now use our desktop computer to upload pictures into our blog. Debbie also helped set up a better personnel filing system for the organization. This has made our accountant work much more efficient. Amy joined her fellow teachers right away and got busy teaching and exchanging teaching tips. Kate, who is still with us for another month found two very eager disciples and is spending hours daily teaching stuff related to garments and clothing the human anatomy!

( Amy Weber giving "her babies" wheelbarrow rides)

(Kate Weber with Terence & Roman)

From Kimberly…..

One of the things that has been a continuous source of joy for us, is to see volunteers come and use their gifts, talents and abilities so that they could share them with the Zambian people. Kate Weber, one of the Delaware team members who will be here until August, has been holding sewing and pattern making classes at the village. Kate has just graduated from the University of Delaware with a degree in fashion design. When she first contacted us about coming to Zambia, she wondered how the Lord could use her abilities in design and sewing and she was thinking that maybe she should have taken nursing or something. We encouraged her to come because we did see a need for women in our community to learn different skills so that they could earn extra income for their families. Well, Kate has been very busy teaching one of the house mothers, Rose Mugoma and Mary Zulu how to make their own patterns. Read what Kate has to say about her time here:

(Rose & Kate working on patterns)

Excerpt from Kate's email:

I have to tell you a bit about Rose's background. She told me that she has always been interested in tailoring, or sewing and designing, but she has not had a good opportunity to learn. It seemed that each time she could go to a class, she had to move away and quit those classes. I think this may have been once or twice in the past. To learn designing and sewing is one of her biggest desires, and so when she heard that I was coming, she was SOO excited and just felt that God was giving her the desires of her heart! YEAH, it is really cool, because at this point she would not be able to go to school in Lusaka or be away from the Village, so she really feels like God brought me to her. This helped me so much the first couple weeks being here, just confirming to me that I should be here, and continue doing what I came to do. It still helps me!

(Mary Zulu sharpening her sewing skills)

Then about a week later after we began classes, I met Mary Zulu (Pastor Zulu's wife) and she told me that she has been thinking about starting a wedding dress business for about 6 years now. She didn't think that she could do it for all that time because she has no formal training, so she didn't until a couple of months ago. She began sewing dresses the way she knew. She said about 3 weeks ago she phoned her brother to ask him to check out schools in Lusaka for dressmaking, and she was praying about getting some more education somewhere. She realized she would not be able to live in Lusaka, and they don't have a 2 or 3 month program, so she was stuck. When Kimberly told her I was coming, she was also sure that God wanted her to come to class with Rose and do sewing and designing with us! So we are blessed to have Mary Zulu most every class. She is so funny, and has so much life and excitement in her. She stays in my room about 2 days out of the week so that she can wake up and come to class, and not have travel time. God has worked all these things out! Just yesterday, we transferred some children's size patterns to posterboard (a major accomplishment by Mary) and Rose and I worked on sewing our first little girl's dress! YAH....it is sooooo cute, and we almost got it done yesterday. It will probably fit either Maggie, Joyce (who I call Juice - daddy you will get it), or Docklini!!! So we are really seeing the fruit of our labor. Soon we should be able to sew up a lot more clothes for the kids. I hope I gave you more information that you had, and helped you to see how God has been working! It is really sweet to my heart!

(From Left: Rose, Kate and Maggie showing off a newly made dress)

Kimani's Corner

( My chameleon friend )

(Do you see how he changed colors?!)



Hello! I would like to tell you about the chameleon that I saw here in Zambia. It changed colors too! When we first saw it, it was black, but then it got lighter and lighter until it was green. I named it Camilla, (that is, if it was a girl), but it almost sounds like chameleon. It crawled on my arm!! And then we let it climb on a tree. At least our cats didn’t see it! At another time we saw another one and our cats were playing with it and it hissed at them! Have you ever heard a chameleon hiss? It sounds weird!




Malaika's Corner

(Malaika, Peter the turtle & Kimani)

Hi,

Here is my newsletter. Once, we saw a turtle. His name was Peter and he was cute. We got to hold him and his legs were out of his shell and everything. I think you will be excited to see the picture. We wanted to keep him but we didn’t know what to feed him so after almost three days, we decided to let him go into the bush. I really hoped he would be able to get away far, far away in the bush before some one caught him because I was told some tribes eat turtles here and that would make me very sad if he got ate. Our cats were really confused because they didn’t know what it was, every time they got close to smell him, he went back into his shell.

The End.

May 2008 Update

Greetings!!!



May has been an exciting month! On the 2nd of May, six children arrived at the village of hope. Most of the children who arrived already had siblings living at the Village. The children moved in together in one house. So we now have a house with eight children from three sets of different siblings.

After picking up the children, I was looking forward to witness a happy reunion as brothers and sisters finally met each other after being separated for some time. Upon arrival, I called Francis Kaleya out of the house to come welcome his 6yr old sister, Natasha Kaleya. I don’t know what I was expecting, maybe it was a little selfish of me but I thought that a brother meets sister, hugs, smiles all around, we are together again sort of happy story book ending would take place! Oh, what a wonderful photo op! What I saw though was rather heart wrenching; here I was excitedly calling out to Francis, “Your sister, Natasha, is here! Come welcome her, take her around the house!” Francis just stood there, kind of unsure of himself and sort of wondering what he was supposed to do.

At my prompting, he starts walking awkwardly towards his sister limply stretches his hand in greeting and you won’t believe this, she turns away from him saying, “he is not my brother!” Now as you can imagine, it is getting to be very uncomfortable and complicated for all of us. Natasha refuses to come into the house with Francis, it takes awhile for the housemother to coax her in and I am wondering, ‘what in world is going through their little minds.’ It’s not until later on that we find out that after their parents died, they were taken to live with different relatives. Francis was with his paternal grandfather, and Natasha with her maternal great grandfather. They hardly ever saw each other, which explains the strange reaction when they finally met. Upon observing the scenario above, one of the housemothers commented that not only are we rescuing these children, but also helping reunite families and siblings together. After what I had witnessed, I could not agree more!

Then there was the case of Roman Mweemba, a seven old boy. Earlier that morning when we went to pick him up, it turned out to be shear chaos and pandemonium when his guardian handed him over to us. He started screaming, kicking and thrashing in an attempt to keep from getting into the vehicle and we finally had to forcefully restrain him and put him in the vehicle. Now all of this was happening at a busy bus stop and shopping area and due to the commotion, Roman had succeeded in drawing quite a crowd. I was starting to became a bit nervous lest we be mistaken for child traffickers, a term which has became rather too common in the media here, or worse still kidnappers which could get us in big trouble. I could almost see the headlines, “Three Lynched While Trying to Kidnap a Child!” When we finally got him situated and locked the doors so that he would not jump out of the car, I had to resist a strong urge to hit the gas pedal and speed away from the area as fast as possible. On the way to the village, he calmed down after some time but Miriam and I noticed that he was very angry and hostile and this continued for several days after his arrival at the village. Roman was also having problems fitting in due to bullying the other children and using very offensive curse words. A week later, Roman’s auntie on the maternal side of the family came to visit and to see how her nephew was settling in, Miriam, the head house mother used the occasion to inquire about his background in an effort to hopefully understand him better. The Auntie informed Miriam that Roman was living with his step- grandfather and that he was the one taking of the cattle and the goats instead of going to school. He was also the one doing all the work that nobody else wanted to do although the grandfather has older children of his own. When the step- grandfather found out that Roman’s auntie was planning to bring him to the children’s home, he started telling Roman things which created fear and dread in his heart, things such as, “These are bad people, they are Satanists, they will take you to a bad place and sacrifice you.” When Miriam told me of what she had learned, I could now understand why Roman was so hostile when we first met him. Now three weeks later, his countenance has brightened, I also noticed he did not insist on returning with his auntie when she visited, I guess he has finally decided that we don’t eat little kids after all!


…From Kimberly

In our last update I shared about the time I had been spending with the Chimwemwe Ladies group and some of the discouragement I had been feeling. A couple of weeks ago after a meeting, a few ladies stayed behind to finish up some things they had been working on. During our Bible study times we had been learning about women in the Bible and the lessons that we could learn from their lives and the choices they made. One of the ladies wanted me to fill her in on what had happened in the life of Rachel because she had missed one of the meetings. This led to a discussion about what we could learn from Rachel’s life and then the women shared that they really enjoyed learning about the women in the Bible because they also have been facing some of the same challenges. They were glad that the gospel was been presented at the meetings because at the churches that many of them attend, it is not being preached. They also said that they were sharing the lessons that they were learning with others when they went home to their villages. This really encouraged my heart greatly and I was very grateful to the Lord for uplifting my spirit in this way.

Other happenings…

Well, our community center building is up!!! In just two short weeks, a team from the US called Faith in Action came to build our center along with four men from Kenya and our local workers. How exciting it was to see how quickly the building went up! We have already had two events there that drew over 300 people! One of the Faith in Action team members is a professional trumpet player and travels to many countries as part of his ministry. We had a concert one evening and invited the surrounding communities to attend. At this concert one of the Kenyan team members who is a pastor gave a clear presentation of the gospel and many people indicated their desire to receive Christ.

The second event was the actual dedication of the community center. Both the children of the Village of Hope and the Chimwemwe Ladies Club sang songs. Benedict gave a brief history of the vision of Harriet Nyrienda’s father, Richard Nyrienda, (Harriet and her sisters sold us the property) who was a missionary that came to Zambia from Malawi with Robert Moffat, the father in-law to David Livingstone. It was Richard’s desire that the land that he obtained in Zambia would be used for spreading the Word of God. Now, over a hundred years later, it was our joy to celebrate the fulfillment of that vision. It is also our hope and prayer that this center will be a lighthouse in the community and a place where people can come and be nurtured in God’s Word and enrich their lives through learning and fellowship.

In June we will welcome nine members of our church who will be coming to the Village of Hope. We have been following with great interest the activities that are taking place at our church to help the team get ready for Zambia, what a wonderful way to see God’s people united together for a purpose! Please pray for their safe travel and God blessing on their time in Zambia.

Hello friends!

What a blessing we had this last couple of weeks! We were blessed to have the honor of hosting a group of wonderful people from our church in Delaware. The team of five were, Jason and Beth, a couple and a family of three, Steve, Karen and their son Ryan, they arrived on March 18th. They helped at the village of hope with everything from clearing a bush for a children play area, electrical wiring in one of the houses including landscaping and yes! lighting up our house with a generator which they brought with them all the way from Delaware! It was such a joy to see them meet and interact with the children whom they had only until then read about.

Steve, Jason and Ryan worked tirelessly running wires through the electrical conduit pipes. This was not an easy task because the workers had previously plastered the walls and this made it almost impossible to find conduit pipes in order to run the wires through.

Karen hit it off right away with Miriam, the head house mother and both of them got down to the task of beautifying up the Village of Hope! As a result we now have the makings of beautiful landscaping! They even started a flower nursery which will help supply various plants for the other houses and buildings coming up.

There was also the added joy of receiving electricity while the team was here so that they could share in our excitement! It was of great interest to us and a testimony to God’s faithfulness, that on the very day that the generator we had been using to pump water gave up the ghost, we received electricity! Kamau had had a conversation with one of the Zesco workers who told him that our neighbor, who used to work for Zesco as one of the engineers, has been waiting for power for five years! The technician was concerned about what his former colleague would think about us receiving power after only a little over a year, while his associate is still waiting to be connected. This is truly the power of prayer at work and a demonstration of the Lord’s intervention in giving us electricity sooner than what is obviously the norm here. Thank you all for the prayer offered up on our behalf!

Other Happenings

Presently we are at a stage of preparations for the next group of six children who are due to arrive here in May the 2nd. We have already hired a house mother Ms. Rose Chipoya, she will be taking care of the new set of children. Rose has been here for a little over a month going through orientation and training under the tutelage of the head house mother Ms. Miriam Sakala.

Interestingly, four of the girls who will be coming this week already have siblings at the Village of Hope, Mary Stumbeko, one of the new girls has a twin brother, Gift Stumbeko whose picture appeared on our last newsletter sitting next to our flower garden. With the arrival of the new group of children, the total number of the children at the Village will be 21. This will include six (6) sets of siblings. This is very intentional, as we believe children thrive better when surrounded by their fellow siblings. For this reason, we try to accommodate siblings especially if they fall between the target age of 3 and 7 years.


From Kimberly…

While Kathleen has been away, I have been participating in the Chimwemwe Ladies club on a regular basis in order to be of help until she returns. Mary Zulu and I have not been having Bible Club and tutoring time at Okada School right now so we both have some free time to attend the meetings, although Mary only comes once a week. During club time there is sharing from the Bible, question and answers about general health, and working on various crafts. I must say that I did not look forward to attending the club without Kathleen being present because communicating can be challenging without a translator and I imagined sitting there for a few hours surrounded by ladies speaking in their own language and not being able to understand what was being said. I was also feeling discouraged because during the teaching of the Bible lesson some of the expressions on the faces of the women looked bored or unfriendly. As Rose and I teach the truth of God’s Word, Mary is praying. The three of us feel the spiritual resistance and it was so strong that Mary and I both felt like we did not want to continue attending. However, the compelling pull of the Holy Spirit and the desire to communicate the gospel is making it so that we cannot quit. So we encouraged one another by reminding ourselves of all that the Apostle Paul experienced and yet he still continued to be faithful. In light of his example, we felt that a few bored and unfriendly looks and some murmurings from the ladies could be endured for the sake of the gospel.

Last week after the Bible lesson, Rose and I taught a lesson in learning how to make pancakes out of maize (corn) meal and it turned out to be an enjoyable time. This will be helpful to the ladies because sometimes they are not able to afford bread and this enables them to provide a treat for their families. Please be praying for this ladies group. Pray that Satan will not be able to continue to blind their minds to the truth and that light will shine in the darkness. Pray for salvation, changed lives, and healed relationships. Also pray against discouragement as this is a powerful tool that the enemy uses to resist the Lord’s work.

Unfortunately we are not able to send any pictures this time because we have been experiencing computer problems and Kamau has taken the laptop which has all of our photo software, for servicing.

Prayer Requests

Please pray for the new children who will arrive this week. Pray that it will be a smooth transition to this new environment. Their names are: Mary and Exilda Stumbeko, Natasha Kaleya, Sharon Jaula, Terence Kunda, and Roman Mwemba.

Pray for Rose Chipoya as she moves into her house with her children. It will be busy for her during the next two or three weeks as they all settle down and get to know one another.

We also have a huge team of about 25 coming on the 10th of May. They will be coming to help with the construction of the community center. Pray for safe travel, the logistics of housing, meals and availability of tools and materials needed to complete the project. Pray also that communication and unity between all involved will flow smoothly in a way that God will be glorified.

The Kamaus

Happenings at the Village of Hope

( Gift Stumbeko, in front of our house)

Hello Friends,

We hope this finds you all doing well. Here in Zambia, we have been enjoying a break from the heavy rains season which started mid December. During the rains,we have to wear gumboots due to the sticky and slippery mud and pools of dirty water everywhere. The last few weeks have been relatively sunny and warm, which was very welcome from the rains which at times seemed too much. Now, as the ground gets drier, we are concernd about the crops that we have planted. Please join us in asking God for more rain so that we will have a better harvest.

From Kamau:
Some people have written asking about the situation with my family in Kenya and I want to thank you all for your prayers and concern. I have been in regular contact with my brother in Nairobi since the troubles started. He has told me they are doing well but the cost of commodities has gone up a lot in the cities. This is because the trucks which bring in produce from the country side had stopped due to the violence in several areas of the country. But now with the signing of an agreement which involves a power sharing deal, the situation in country has become more peaceful and some elements of normalcy is slowing coming into place. There is however a need for continued prayers as anything could every easily ignite the tension and violence again.

We have a new boy who has recently joined us, his name is Gift Stumbeko, he is (6) six years old. and currently attends first grade at the community school near the Village of Hope. This development came about when Phillip Musonda, one of the nine children who moved into the children's home on January 2nd left. Phillip's Auntie, on his late mother side of the family came and retrieved him.

Apparently his grandmother had not informed all the members of her family that she was going to bring him to the children's home. She had brought Phillip to us because of the struggle she was facing trying to provide for him and three other orphans one of whom was a two and half yr old baby girl in her care.

The Auntie stated that she was able to provide for her nephew and asked that we please release him to her care. We did this gladly since we really desire to help rescue those children who are most vulnerable with none to adequately provide for their basic needs.

Gift, the new boy, is one of 14 members of a household who were been cared for by their grandmother and her husband. His grandmother brought him to us and told us how it had it was to provide for such a big family. Gift has four other siblings none of whom attend school.

(Malaika and Isaac working together as a team)

(Maggie, joyfully carrying water)

There is never a dull moment at the Village of Hope. Sometimes it is unruly oxen galloping through the village because they are trying to avoid being hitched up to the cart, or maybe they have escaped out of their kraal at night and can be heard chewing (our grass and flowers mind you!) and breathing loudly outside of our windows!

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At other times it may be a chameleon strolling by or the water tank pipe which has busted and spraying water all over the place! This was great fun for the children as they took the opportunity to get wet as they filled up every available container with water for us to use until the pipe was fixed.

Then again it could be that, while we are fast asleep, we hear a voice at window saying, "Kamau, there is a snake in the house and I do not have the courage to go back into the house, can you come?" It was Rose, one of the housemothers. Kamau said, he thought to himself, " Oh my, just what what I need to hear, here I am asleep in my bed and now I have to get up, and go hunt down a snake amongst all that furniture in the middle of the night, with barely enough light, and with ten kids sound asleep in their rooms. Life is not fair, this was not in my job description!!! Somebody should have warned about this! I must confess I was not feeling particularly brave, not when it comes to these slithery creatures. It's bad enough during day time, but at night ha! All these things are going through my mind, and then she says, I managed to kill it, but I can't bring myself to carry it out of the house, and I am like oh it's dead! Suddenly there was this burst of boldness and I am like, come on, lets go see what you got! Funny how your imagination can run away with you!

We have some hope that we may have electricity soon. The Zesco workers have come to install the transformer and the last thing that we are waiting for now is one more pole. We have been waiting for electricity for just over a year now so waiting a few more weeks for a pole just causes the fruit of patience to ripen more in our lives.

( Zesco workers installing the transformer)

(This ominous looking creature that John is holding and Docklin is examining is a spiky caterpillar that the children found. The locals say that it is good eatin', spikes and all!!)


We are very excited about the imminent arrival of a team from our church home in Newark, Delaware. Please pray for them as they begin their travel on March 17th and arrive the following day and their time of ministry here in Zambia. They will be helping to instruct and interact with the children as well as joining in with the construction and doing some mechanical work on the vehicles.

Thank you for taking time to catch up on what the Lord is doing here at the Village. May He bless richly for your prayers and support.

The Kamaus