I am a witness: nigeria

nigeria, a set on Flickr.

i am a witness: the warm heart of africa

the warm heart of africa, a set on Flickr.

No longer will the poor be nameless

Since the last update, we have been doing a mixture of things. We’ve been into the communities, seen Victoria Falls and taken part in a kids camp. On top of all that, we have also been playing our usual roles in the office.

For the past few weeks, I have been traveling to another one of our Zambian service centres in a small town called Kabwe. At the moment, the team are in need of some close financial support so it means I travel down every Monday and return to Kachelle Tuesday evening. It has been a privilege to get to know the team there and work alongside such heroes and heroines who are serving the most vulnerable. On one of these visits to Kabwe, I was lucky enough to have Morgan accompany me as well as 2 visitors from the USA Jesse and Jaime.  They came to visit communities in Zambia and learn a little bit more about Hands at Work. On the Tuesday, we all went out to the community to do home visits. It had been a while since I had been in the community so I was looking forward to the chance to meet some new children and Care Workers in Baraka Community. Balaka Community Based Organisation cares for 100 of Zambia’s most vulnerable children.

When we arrived in the community we received a warm welcome from all the Care Workers and especially the coordinator David, who I had met before in the service centre. They made us feel a part of the community right away. We split up and Jesse and Jaime went with one group of Care Workers and we went with another. As we were walking, I started chatting with Mwangala one of Balaka Communities 24 Care Workers. He has 3 children and has been a Care Worker for 3 years. He also explained to me some of the difficulties the children face in the community of Balaka. The dry heat and lack of water makes it very hard to grow anything in the dry season and means that food is often very difficult to find, let alone buy. But through the 3 essential services program, Balaka Community Based Organisation is able to provide one hot nutritious meal a day for each of the 100 children they care for.

We walked 45 minutes through the bush to our home visit. We where visiting a family of 6 living in a few huts. There were 2 cousins; Maggie mother of 3-week-old Seena and Susan mother of Sam and Thabiso they lived together to support one another. An older brother lived in a separate hut on the same property. Tragically his hut burned to the ground only a week before our visit and he lots what little he owned.  We sat down and learnt a little bit about this family; life is very hard for them. Maggie is looked down upon throughout the community for being mentally challenged and so many people shun her, you could see the pain in her eyes. Despite this, she was such a proud mother. After spending time with the family we helped out around the house; sweeping, fetching water, doing dishes and collecting wood for the fire. Morgan and I both had a turn at hauling the water, it is much more difficult than it looks; the Care Workers made it look very easy.  Before we left we took time to encouraging and pray with the family. They were such a beautiful family and they have not been far from our thoughts since that day.

For the past few weeks, we have been eagerly anticipating a new baby at Kachele (the farm where we are staying in Zambia). Prag was due on 20^th August and on the day before, she went into labour very early in the morning and after a few hours, she gave birth to a girl named Shalom Favour Mwenda. During the past week, she has been sleeping a lot but we have had the chance to hold her and have a cuddle.

Back in July, we were very blessed to be invited to Victoria Falls with a team from Canada which included Morgan’s mum. We boarded a tiny plane at the nearby airport in Ndola and then flew the very short flight to Lusaka, Zambia’s capital city. After spending an hour or so there, we boarded another small plane down to Livingstone, the home of Victoria Falls. We were staying at a guest lodge and just spent the few days relaxing and recovering from the busyness of the past few months. When we visited the falls in April this year, they were very full and we got completely soaked. But this time, it was a lot drier and we were actually able to see the beauty of the falls. They were magnificent and it was remarkable to see the difference a few moths can make in nature. While in Livingstone, we took a day trip over the border into Botswana and went on safari, first on the river and then on land. It was a nice way to get out into nature and see some of God’s creations. On the final night before the team left back to Canada, we went out on a sunset river cruise. It was lovely and to make it even better, we saw some elephants bathing and drinking by the side of the river. It was very special to see. The following day we said goodbye to the team and headed back to Kachele.

From April to September in Hands we have ‘team season’. This is a time of the year when teams and visitors from all over the globe come to see what Hands at Work is all about. Some are returning and some for the first time. One of the opportunities available to teams is to host a kids camp here at Kachele. A chance to take a group of vulnerable children out of there community for a week to love them, share with them, build relationship with them and let them just be kids. Greenfinch church from Ipswich was here visiting a couple of weeks ago and held a kids camp for the children they support in Chilabula Community. Morgan and I managed to spend a little bit of time with them during the camp and it was great to see what joy and fun the camp brought to these children’s lives. They did activities such as crafting, sports, acting and of course lots of singing. During the week, the kids stay at the farm with us and for some of them it is the first time they have ever slept on beds or had running water. It is so easy to forget just how fortunate our upbringings have been. At the end of the week, the groups parted in a tearful goodbye, you could see the love that they had for one another. Each member of the Greenfinch team has children and Care Workers laid on there heart, they will think of them, pray for them and share their story over the next year and God willing they will meet again. This is the essence of a church partnership with Hands at Work; the global church partnering with Hands and the local community to see transformation in Africa. When the stories of Africa’s most vulnerable children are heard one by one, we give a voice to Africa’s orphan crises. No longer will the poor be nameless. -Psalm 9:18