I am making friends and settling in – still all feels very new and scary at times but is nice to mix with other mums and kids. Matt has made two friends he now regularly talks about which is special. Here are a few photos to show you what the kids have been up to in the last few weeks!
We are enjoying our new church and the people we are meeting there. So refreshing to be in African praise and worship! There is a nationwide prayer meeting on Sunday and a training day in foundations for farming to initiate a program to feed Zimbabwe. We are trusting this will be a huge success!!!! Visit this website for further information www.lovezim.org
The kids continue to be such a delight to us!! Zoe is walking confidently now and is so proud of herself – quite happy just to walk around not really doing anything! She is fearless when it comes to animals, climbing, jumping, etc. We have to watch her like a hawk as she often ends up in dangerous situations – nearly falling down the loo etc!! Matthew continues to talk continually – he loves the world around him and is such great company! He has really struggled with Mark being out of town during the week and often asks when we can all be together again! As you can imagine this breaks Mark and my hearts!
As has become a tradition – here is another Matthew Quote – ‘I knew it!’ – pointing his finger at you! It is very cute and is often done when he is playing with his toys and manages to figure something out himself, do something he was struggling to do etc. He is also learning Shona and I am amazed at how quickly kids learn. He says good morning, thank you and good afternoon unprompted now! He will soon be putting Mark and I to shame.
We (the kids and I) had the privilege of going out to the rural areas just outside of Harare to visit an old family friend on Thursday. Here are a few photos of our trip out to visit Prisca – Gogo as Matthew calls her (which means Granny). We’ll be visiting quite often I think as the kids loved their time there and it’s not that far!! As you can see from the photos my kids were slightly obsessed with the goats (excuse the pun)!!!
Not sure if you can make out from the picture below but basically this is a tap outside someones walled house offering free water. Many houses – in fact most homes in Harare – have lived without running water for a couple of years now. A lot of people have been able to drill boreholes but for those who can’t afford to or do not have any underground rivers running under their properties – obtaining water has been tough. As you can imagine there have been lots of people jumping in on the band wagon and selling water at astronomical prices to those people who don’t have. This house is offering free borehole water to whoever! I love it! What a great heart!!!!
The revision school was a huge success and one of the volunteer teachers paid for me and the kids to visit for one night! What a great treat to feel part of that week for us 3! We drove out on the Thursday afternoon and came back on Friday lunchtime. The highlight for me was having dinner in the mine compound with the volunteering teachers – I don’t think I have laughed so much in a long time. They were such special people – so thrilled to be able to give back something to their communities. Mark found it such fun to serve with them. The pupils loved their time and hopefully benefited greatly from the lessons. So many special memories and heart warming encounters for all involved!
We have made slight progress on the home front. We will be moving into a house about 60km from the school on a safari park. This means that Mark will only have to spend 2/3 nights out at Turf as opposed to 5 nights, which will be great for our family!! Still not perfect, as I will be more isolated – in the middle of no where – compared to Harare where I can fill my days with things but the big up side is more time with Mark and being able to support each other as a family! We will live there until we are able to build something. So Mark continues to commute out to Turf till the end of next week –he leaves on a Sunday afternoon and is back on a Friday evening. In some senses he is working such long hours that not having us around is probably a good thing!! Mark is staying in a tin shed on the mining compound.
Our more permanent dwelling place will begin to be built within the next two weeks. It is three rooms – two of the rooms will be used as bedrooms and the other room will be used for our lounge/kitchen. We can’t wait for this to be built and for us to be in the community!! We have managed to secure a very small loan to build.
Mark has shared with his Sixth Formers photos of our life in England and it has literally blown their minds!!! Especially snow and Benenden!
As you can imagine it has been an interesting four weeks for Mark getting his head round how the school runs etc. He has been given a very heavy timetable for this term (the last term in the academic year) and is teaching from Year 9 to Upper Sixth – Mathematics, Physics and General Science. The school is terribly over crowded, so they run one school in the morning and one in the afternoon – 9 periods of teaching for each school, so a total of 18 periods a day. First lesson starts at 6.55am and the last lesson finishes at 5.00pm, with a 15 minute teaching break in the middle of the day.
Mark has obviously found the work load massive but has also found that the gaps the pupils have in their education is something that possibly can never be rectified – something so well explained in a recent documentary – The forgotten Children of Zimbabwe. He has found this incredibly sad, as he wants to be able to make a difference in these pupils lives but educationally for some of them it is too late and for a lot of them the gaps are so big that years of teaching will not fill all the blanks. We realise that we need to start supporting junior schools to get pupils to the place where they have a chance of passing at least a few O’levels, let alone A’levels. The examinations that the pupils write here are so much harder than what Mark was teaching in the UK and it seems so unfair in so many ways – all the odds are stacked against these kids. Mark said that they are eager to learn but often have already given up as they know they can never know enough to get them through – due to the instability education has experienced over the past 10 years in Zimbabwe. Sadly most of the teachers are unmotivated a) due to lack of resources, b) poor working conditions, c) next to no pay, so at times Mark feels like he is the only fish swimming in the other direction – arriving to all his lessons, teaching, marking etc. Mark was saying this weekend that he is so proud of some of his Sixth Formers, he can’t believe how they have managed to get where they are with so many gaps in their education and knowledge. They have purely relied on their gifting!!! So many of the kids writing their O’levels in 4 weeks have pinned such high hopes on Mark being there to teach them but Mark feels so sad as he knows he can’t make much difference other than to encourage them to do their best and try and cover as much as you can in a short space of time (and he’s only teaching two subjects). These pupils have given up so much to write their O’levels and A’levels – so expensive! It just seems so unfair that they are set to fail before they’ve even started! So as you can see the magnitude of what we are dealing with is dawning and we just need to get our heads round how the best way forward is and where we can make a difference and to focus on that and not feel overwhelmed by it all!
We are partnering with a Trust here in Zimbabwe. Sadly, their main funder has gone bust so we have been running on literally thin air for the last two months. This has also made us have to rethink all the things we thought we would be able to do in the community and Sixth Form during this next year and are trying to reinvent the wheel to try and make the A-level centre work effectively but also support the kids in the best possible way. So watch this space! Hopefully we can have some concrete plans in place soon!!
We could lie to you and say the last few weeks have been easy but they have been tough. At times we have questioned whether we have made the right move but we have had some encouragements on particularly bad days, that remind us we are not forgotten and not alone. So thank you to those of you who have texted or sent messages that have kept us going!!! One verse in particular has really spoken to me, 1 Peter4v12 and this song has played on my mind too – Oh no you never let go through the calm and through the storm.
I was given five pebbles when I left England with the following words written on each pebble – Love, Dream, Peace, Hope, and Laugh. They have been sitting on the dressing table in the room I sleep and I have been so encouraged by them over the last few weeks. One word will hit me and stay with me all day!
I’ve been reminded:
Love – God’s love for me is endless and limitless! My families love for me and my love for them is unchanging!! How truly blessed I am to say that I know what it means to be loved and to love!!!
Dream – that God has given us a dream that we are trying to fulfil – He knows our hearts desires and knows the journey we will travel – even if at times we feel forgotten and alone. Dreams keep us putting one foot in front of the other and we don’t let us get bogged down in life.
Peace – that His peace would surround us daily!
Hope – I have a hope that goes beyond the grave!
Laugh – I am blessed to have two precious children that enable me to laugh each day!!!!
Well enough from us!! Till next time!
