We made it to the end of a year!!! Woo Hoo!!!

Apologies for the layout of this blog entry - had real problems with everything!!!  All photos are clickable to make them bigger sadly the text is tiny!

Well can’t believe we have actually done a year of the A-level Scholarship programme!  It’s been a roller coaster ride and Mark and I are pretty exhausted but at the same time feel quite proud.  We have now broken up for the holidays – our summer holiday and will be kept very busy with recruiting the new 8 for next year, setting systems in place for our new Administrator and moving over to Makomborero Zimbabwe – accounts, trustees etc.  So lots to keep us busy!!!  Hopefully all in place before little one makes its appearance on 6^th January – my c-sec date!  You will laugh – each day is mapped out with 5 days holiday over the next 6 weeks and who is working what day and doing what!!  I love things like that and Mark is learning to see their value – ha ha!!!

This has been our song this year!

Through it all you are faithful

Through it all you are strong

As we walk through the shadows

Still you shine on

So many broken promises

So many empty words

God of love and faithfulness

Have mercy on this world

You never turn or change

You never break the faith

Yesterday, today and always

Through it all you are faithful

Through it all you are strong

As we walk through the shadows

Still you shine on

God of unbroken promises

Always you keep your word

Glory, grace and holiness

Forever to endure

You are faithful

Jesus, you are faithful to the end

You are faithful

Jesus, you are faithful to the end

Matt Redman

So what has the rest of this term held for us!!

Internal Exams were written towards the end of term and the students did well.  Mark feels they are getting into the swing of A-levels and are beginning to reach their potentials.  We are so glad we gave them time before writing their AS levels.

All our students aspiring to become doctors were accepted onto a volunteer project into the big government hospital in Harare.  They work on the Children’s ward – which has been an eye opener to all of us.  Some of the children have been there for years and years, some are orphans who never get visits etc.  So it is wonderful to see them serve these children.  We have put together a little bag of goodies for them to take a long each week to do things with the kids and are looking forward to having some books to read to them too (coming in the palette from the UK – see below).  Our students have loved the opportunity to give back!

Excitingly our students have also been accepted onto a preparation for scholarship programme, which prepares you for entry into the top universities in the states.  We feel that probably only two of our students are potential candidates to receive a scholarship but the lady who runs the programme here will work with all our 15, building their confidence in application writing, interview process etc.  We are very excited about this and the prospect of possibly two of them making the grade!!!  What an opportunity for them!!

A wonderful little local church in Harare sponsored our Christmas Party for the students this year – Kingsmead Chapel you have been such an incredible support to us this year – thank you!!  I was able to buy each one of them a present and we had a fabulous evening out eating Pizza and wearing silly Christmas hats.  For many of them this will be their only celebration of Christmas and it felt so special to do something with them.  It was also great having some of their teachers share the evening with us.  Matt and Zoe were on a high all evening, especially as they had helped to wrap the Christmas presents and were my little elves handing them out!!

The four of us on the night!  In typical Mark style he was trying to compete with my tummy!

The last day of term we held our Prize Giving at the boarding house and invited special guests and teachers to share in the occasion.  It was a very special morning, filled with lots of emotion.  Mark and I struggled to hold it together through the event, as I think the reality of reaching a year (having started with not enough money for the first month) - God’s faithfulness has shone through!!  It was wonderful to acknowledge their achievements over the year, give out some funny prizes too and be able to celebrate the 15 and how proud we are of them.  For the main subject prices we said they could chose something off Amazon to the value of 7 pounds and someone coming out to visit will bring the prizes back.  I have loved seeing what they have chosen and the excitement of actually being able to choose something off the internet!!!! 

We were recently donated four bikes for the boarding house! Here are some of the students collecting them from our house!! It has meant greater freedom for them and quick runs to the shops for bread etc! We hope to add to our little fleet!

The big job of selecting the new 8 for next year has begun.  Mark and I have started the process of reading through the applications and trusting God that we are able to discern quickly in this initial stage who to invite for further testing and interviews.  There are 250 applicants and lots of work ahead for Mark!!  Pray for wisdom for him!

We have also hired a wonderful young lady called Hope who will be our Administrator from January - freeing me to be a mummy to a new born and Mark to do project work and teach at his new job.  We are looking forward to having her as part of our team.

We have also registered as Makomborero Zimbabwe and will be operating under this title from January.  We have appointed a local board of Trustees.  This will help us facilitate the administration of the Trust better.  We will continue to work with KST as some of our local sponsorship is through KST and this will be forwarded onto Makomborero Zimbabwe.

Wow it has been a busy few weeks with fundraising for the project!!! 

Movember Fundraiser – look at these crazy men who all grew moustaches for Makomborero to raise money for us – how humbling!  They are all ex-collegues of Mark’s from Benenden and we so value their efforts!  Thank you guys – you are fantastic!!  Also Steve Mansfield’s – one of the men pictured – his house did a Movember day and the girls all wore Moustaches in an effort to raise money for Makomborero.  We feel humbled!  Isn’t the picture of them fantastic!!!!  Steve thanks for your friendship and support of us – it is sooooo appreciated!  We miss the Mansfield’s lots!!!

Norris house!

An ex-student of Mark’s from Benenden – Steffanie Ho and some of her Uni friends have done a few  fundraisers to raise money to send out a pallet of books for us!!!  The first event they held was at Sainsburys, where they packed peoples groceries for them and raised 162 pounds in 5 hours, they also sold Krispy Kreme donuts - all 30 dozen in 3 hours and raised about 180 pounds then.  Their last event for the year will be a Christmas dinner held back in their home land of Hong Kong and proceeds will come to Makomborero!!  With the money raised the fundraisers will pack a pallet of books and ship it off to Zim they hope before the end of year.  We are so proud of them for their efforts, especially as they juggle uni life!!  Thank you all for your incredible support!

Another Zimbabwe fundraiser was held a few weekends ago organised by Ange Smith again!  It was an event for Mums and Daughters – a pamper morning.  It was a huge success and was wonderful to see mums and their daughters spend such special quality time together!  Thanks again Ange for all you have done for us this term!  You are amazing!

We have another special friend in Australia doing a fundraiser for us!  Helen Allott will be shaving her head to raise support for Makomborero on 17th December!  We are so proud of her!!  An amazing wife and mummy of 3 - who misses her home Zimbabwe so much!!  Thank you!!

We have some very exciting news - some very special friends from Malaysia, have arranged a substantial level of support for our project through YTL (a Malaysian Company)  This takes incredible pressure off Mark and I and helps us to focus on raising money for the current 15 and some of the big things we need to purchase for the project.  This support took us by total surprise and we feel incredibly humbled.

As ever thanks for all you support, love and prayers over this past year!  We could not have survived this year without it!!  The lives of the 15 students, Dinnis (House Mom) and Johannes (Handy man) have been transformed by all your efforts!

Family news!

I’ve had two fairs during the month of November for Zimbaby – the first was not so successful but the second was brilliant – an exclusively baby expo.  Hoping to generate more sales through those and am in the process of setting up a little shop at home so that things will be easier once baby is here to run from home!! 

The rains have come!!  We’ve had one lot of rain that came for about 5 days so hoping that the rains have arrived and that we will get more soon!  Things just transform and turn green so quickly – it really is beautiful and so hoping we can grow some grass!!!  Struggled on the really hot days, so it is a huge relief when it has rained!

On 9^th December I will have been married to my best friend for 11 years!  I can’t believe where the time has gone but in other senses can’t believe we ever were apart!!  Mark, each year I become more proud of you and thankful to God for you!!  You are an incredible husband – especially during my pregnancy – your patience and love is amazing, you are also the best dad in the world and I love watching you father our children!!  We have been blessed beyond words by some special friends who have given us a night away at a lodge just outside Harare.  So we leave Friday and return Saturday for 24hrs without kids.  We can’t wait and the kids will stay with my folks – which they are sooooooo excited about!!!  We have loved seeing such a special bond develop between granparents and our kids!!!  The kids love spending time at their home - especially swimming in their pool!!

I love Christmas time!!  We have something incredible to celebrate and also time to acknowledge all God has given us and see the blessing of family!!  I love it when the tree is up, Christmas music is playing and any excuse to do Christmas crafts with the kids.  It will be a quiet Christmas for us this year – just us 4 but will be fun!!!  We built a tree house for the kids Christmas present – which looks so lovely

and have treated ourselves to building a little shaded area off the front of the house so that we can enjoy sitting on our verandah without baking in the sun!  As a family we also took part in a city wide Orphans project – a huge party that was being thrown for Orphans in Harare.  Our church had to make 600 crackers (with a toy and sweets in each cracker).  We took our kids along to be part of the cracker making process and were proud of our 25 crackers we managed to make before their concentration disappeared.  It was lovely doing something with them that had a deeper meaning and Matthew definitely gets it.  He is very aware of orphans in this country and especially the orphans we have in the boarding house.  Precious caring boy!!!

I’m doing a Christmas craft morning for a few kids in a two weeks’ time before Christmas – which should be fun and hope to do some fun Christmas baking with our two kids too!!  It is our first Christmas in 9 years that we haven’t spent with other people, it feels weird but at the same time exciting to establish some of our own family traditions!!!!

We welcomed a new nephew into the world today!!!  We are so so excited.  It is Rich and Anni’s first little one and we can’t wait to find out his name and see pictures of the little fella!!!  My Dad and Mum have clocked up 6 grandchildren, with another one in a few weeks time!!  What a great Christmas present for our whole family!

My mum has been terribly ill this last month with a lupus flare up which took us all by surprise and she was touch and go for a few days in hospital.  Was a very emotional time but praise God she has come through and is responding well to the medications!  She is a brave and plukey lady and Dad is an incredible nurser and husband to her!!

My pregnancy has gone well – been tough on all the drugs I’ve been on to stop pre-term labour but also that has had its benefits as some of the other struggles I’ve faced in previous pregnancies have not happened due to the medication!  It is also the first pregnancy that I have gone without being hospitalised by 34 weeks – so that is definitely something to celebrate!!!  Mark has been incredibly patient and loving with me as the effects of the medication have had a huge knock on effect on the family.  I have my c-sec on 6^th January and Mark starts his new job on 9^th January.  So hoping to be home on the 8^th, so that we can be a normal family as quickly as possible.  Mark’s sister arrives on the 9^th to give us a hand – we can’t wait to see her – been nearly 2 ½ years – way toooooooo long!!!  We are thrilled at the miracle of life in me and can’t wait to find out what God has blessed us with!!!!

We are living a nappy free life at the moment!!  Zoe is potty trained and it was such an easy road - amazing how different each chid is!  Been so proud of her.  Matt is learning to ride his bike without stabilisers and is so excited about it!  Growing up too fast the both of them!!!

We've had another addition or rather additions to the family - 4 chickens - 1 hen and 3 babies!  They peck around our garden and then go to the coop each night and mummy produces an egg a day!!!  The cat hopefully will leave them alone - thankfully the babies are growing fast and will be too big to be of any interest soon!!  Can't believe how much they have grown since these photos!

Thanks to all of you for your love and support over this past year – we did it!!!  Just need strength and vision for the coming year!!!  You’ll only hear from us again once we’ve found our feet in the new year and introduce our new little one to you!!!  So I suppose the best way to end a year is to say – have a wonderful Christmas and a very happy new year!!!  For all of you in England - eat loads of mince pies for us, enjoy mulled wine, cheese boards and cranberry sauce!!  All things we will miss this Christmas!!! 

A few photos!

Oh Mum, we love chocolate pudding!!!!

Matthew wanted to be an earth worm for his end of term concert.  We feel so sad that his two mornings a week at his playgroup has come to an end - he has loved it.  Zoe will be going two mornings there next year and Matt will be going 5 mornings a week at his new place - I feel sad that he is growing up so fast but I know he will love it!

Matthew at his church concert!  Can you spot him!!