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.