Catching up with the Albertyn's

Happy 2012!!! Well we are now a family of 5!! We welcomed our precious little girl Ella Thea Albertyn into the world on 6^th January.

It has been a very special 7 weeks getting to know her – she has two doting siblings who love her very much and two parents that think she is incredible!!! I’ve recovered well from my c-section and was so impressed with the care I received from my consultant – what an amazing man!!! We were incredibly blessed with meals and visitors those early days. My folks were life savers with school runs and swimming lessons in the first two weeks I could not drive and looking after the kids while I was in hospital, so that Mark could spend time with Ella and I - what a blessing!! Mark's brother was a great chauffeur for the early morning school run at 7.30am. He put up with me getting used to getting three kids out of the house on my own!!! Mark’s sister was out for a week to help out and we loved seeing her and the kids loved time with their aunty!

We also had a visitor out from the UK for two weeks – Diana – who is another ex-student of Mark’s from Benenden – it was so lovely to have her in our home and to share our crazy lives with her!! We’ve also just had my good friend Debs out – what a treat to have someone who knows you well and you can just be yourself with. Thank you Debs for blessing us with your company and Gary thank you for looking after your kids so that Debs could be here!!! We really want to relish these early weeks with our precious daughter and feel sad that our lives are so manic that she literally just has to slot in!!!! I’m loving not being pregnant and having my brain back after being so drugged for so many months!!!

So what did the Christmas period hold for us?

Well the obvious – Christmas – which was lovely in our home with my folks, Mark’s brother and my Uncle. We had no electricity for 6 days during that period so had to cook the Christmas meal at three different homes! Mark was crazy busy with recruiting the new scholarship students, he sadly only took Christmas day off!

We had a lovely civilised New Years with friends over a fondue and I found the weather extremely uncomfortable and couldn’t wait for my c-sec day to arrive – though Ella did give us a few scares and we thought we wouldn’t get to that date!

We also thought if we did not do Matt’s party before Ella came it might not happen – so squeezed it in among scholarship testing, visits to the township schools, training up an administrator etc. Yet again, it was a Thomas theme and Mark even dressed up as the Fat Controller!! Much fun was had by all!!! Can’t believe we have a 4 year old! Love being his parents!

Project stuff!!

We have started the year well! Our 15 have returned to the house eager to learn and we now have a further 8 students who we care for!! They are a fantastic group of students who achieved outstanding O-level results. It was a gruelling process for Mark to get to this point – we did an initial cut down to 80 from 270 applications, from 35 township schools and then Mark did a few days of testing and interviews to further reduce to 24 students. One more day of testing and subject specific testing and decision time!!!

Here is a picture of Ella helping out the day after she was born on my hospital bed!!!

Once Mark had settled on the 8 students he felt would best fit the three schools who have given full scholarships, he paid a visit to the students and their families/guardians at their homes in the townships. He went with Dinnis Banga (our brilliant house mother) and Hope (our new Administrator). All three of them were completely speechless and emotionally drained after having a brief glimpse into their lives. They could not believe how much they had achieved with so few resources. Here is a collage of the people we met: (We were particularly struck by the very difficult livings conditions of Lisa, Pamela, Phillip, Taringana and Collen). The visits provided real confirmation that we have discovered some young adults that will have their lives (and that of their families) completely transformed.

The students have started in their new schools and are finding their feet. We are so excited that our new 8 students did brilliantly in their O Level Examinations – these results only came out once they had started at their new schools – so Mark, as you can imagine, was hugely relieved that his selection process worked.

Pamela, Philip and Blessing have started at Gateway and they obtained the following grades :

Blessing – 10As!!; Pamela 8As 1B and Phillip 7As, 1B and 2Cs.

Lisa and Nyashadzaishe have started at Hellenic and they obtained the following grades :

Nyasha – 9As, 3Bs; Lisa 9As 1B. They have A grades in all their chosen A-level subjects.

Taringana, Collen and Tinotenda start at St Georges on the 10th of February. They obtained the following grades:

Taringana – 10As!!; Collen 9As 1B and Tinotenda 7As, 3Bs.

The A’s here generally represent the equivalent of an A* in the UK.

Here they are!

Starting at these schools is a huge step for them socially, culturally and academically and understandably they were a little nervous. We have been working on getting all their uniforms and there was much excitement during this process.

A few of them buying their new uniforms:

The host families have provided a bedroom for the students and we have kitted the rooms out with bunk beds, desks and storage space as well as a rechargeable light to work with when there is no electricity. They will have all their meals at the boarding house and partake in the boarding house life fully, as the host families are all walking distance from our boarding house. Nyasha and Lisa have been awarded Full Academic Colours at their school and we are so proud of them and that their results have been acknowledged in this way.

Receiving their colous blazers from the Head

We hope that the other 6 might have some kind of acknowledgement of their accomplishments too! We look forward to you getting know these new 8 students as well as our 15!!

The 15 students continue to be part of the USAP programme. This has been a great opportunity for them. They have also benefited from being part of this in a social sense as they have been invited to a few functions that the US Embassy has hosted - Jazz Evening, attended seminars, taken part in an Essay competion based on Black History Month etc. This has been a great confidence booster for them!

During Diana’s visit she painted our logo on the boarding house wall – doesn’t it look great. Our 15 students loved being involved in the process – amazingly it was the first time many of them had ever painted!!!

Diana also assisted with admin work, helping the new 8 get their uniforms and set up a model UN club at Mark’s school. Matt and Zoe had a ball with her too!!!! She also did some extra maths lessons at a local orphanage which a few of our 15 students had arranged themselves, unprompted by Mark and I and have given up a few of their Saturday mornings to help the young boys with their Maths. We joined them for their first visit.

Deb’s had a flying visit here!!!! She helped with project stuff, which she thoroughly enjoyed. She coached Netball and took part in Basketball, she came along to Bible Study and baked for all 23 students, she interviewed each one of them, visited the township schools where our 8 new students came from to thank the heads for putting these students forward for selection etc. She managed to cram both Albertyn family stuff in among project stuff and we loved sharing it all with her! She is a trustee of Makomborero in the UK and we know she will be able to feed back to all the trustees all she has seen! We even squeezed a trip up Domboshava with her!!

Hope is our new administrator and she has quite literally been a life saver. We work very well together, especially as she learns the ropes and we learnt together the process the 8 new students had to go through for getting ready for their new schools. It has been a life saver having someone to do all the running around etc and we feel that she is an incredible asset to Makomborero Zimbabwe. We were worried about how it would work having her office in our home – but she has slotted well into our crazy lives.

Two young guys, Mako (whose full name is Makomborero – how cool is that) and Josh have volunteered their time to run courses over the next year to help integrate the new 8 students into their new lifestyles etc. What brilliant men they are – they have come from similar backgrounds to the students and have brilliant jobs and degrees under their belts now. These two men will be able to speak to their hearts and minds and be relevant to these 8 students. They are such a blessing and we appreciate all their input.

We continue to have amazing games evenings led by Sian. What a gift she has in this area and the students love their evenings with her.

I continue to run bible studies and love this time with the students. The 15 continue to have computer lessons and have a full co-curricular program. The new 8 students fully partake in the co-curricular programme at their schools.

Please pray for us as we apply for a grant to purchase a minibus for the project. We desperately need this vehicle for our work, as the cost of hiring and not having a vehicle at our disposal has been tough!!

The Journey of Discipleship!!
We thought we would share with you a story of discipleship - the ups and downs of it and looking back now can laugh hysterically about the whole thing!! So if you've never been to Africa you might find it hard to picture but I will try and describe things as best as possible!!!

We have a lovely young man who we have been discipling these last few months - we met him when we worked out in the rural areas in 2010. He approached us a few months ago with a business plan for a chicken business - rearing chickens from little chicks till they were ready to be killed and sold! We said that we would loan him the initial set up cost of $150 for the 1st 50 chickens. The provisor was that he found a market for the chickens and paid us back within 6 months. He signed a contract with us and off he went. We got regular text message updates from him on the progress of the chickens, when he bought them, how much they were eating, growing etc. D-day arrived - day of slaughter!!! We got a phone call to say that he was struggling to find a market for half of the chickens - so the softies we are, we said we'd buy them for the boarding house and freeze them and use them each week till we ran out!! Our only provisor for taking the chickens was that they be slaughtered at the boarding house so they were fresh and we knew they had not been sitting in the sun for hours! Well on D-day - we got a text to say the chickens had be slaughtered and he was on his way into town. This was obviously against our instructions - so now we had visions of these chickens, piled in a plastic bucket on the back of a truck, cooking in the midday sun! Mark then went to the house we were going to freeze the chickens at and waited, and waited and waited. Turns out the car they had hired to bring the chickens into Harare had been impounded by the police as it was not road worthy - so now this guy is on a local bus with the 40 chickens, heading into town and then having to catch another bus out to the boarding house. Needless to say Mark and I were convinced the chickens would be totally rotten by the time they finally arrived. Our house mum made the decision when they did arrive that they were ok!!! So a bit of a journey but also an opportunity to speak into his life about following instructions etc!!!!

The kids!

Matthew!
Matthew has started nursery 5 mornings a week! It has been a little bit of a shock to the system for him and he has found it hard adjusting to less time at home but he does love his new school. He is totally obsessed with his cars and plays for hours with them. Trains still feature highly but his cars are taken everywhere with him – even to bed!!! He is a deep thinker who comes out with classic conversations and makes us laugh!! He loves cuddles and is a tease like his daddy!!!

Zoe!

Zoe has started nursery 2 mornings a week and is loving every minute of it – to the extent she doesn’t even notice when I leave!!! She is our go getter who is fearless!!! A real carer – who loves fixing our sores etc! She has taken to holding her little sister lots and loves surrounding Ella with every soft toy she can find!!! She has a wicked sense of humour!! She is such a girl – loves faries and princesses and Debs brought her the DVD of Tinkerbell – well it’s a favourite!!! We are going through a lovely phase where she drops all her 's' at the beginning of words - e.g. special is pecial!, spoon is poon, star is tar etc. Makes us giggle and we make her stay lists of things - cute thing is she can say 's' if it is followed by a vowel!!! e.g. sausage! Love it!!

Ella!

Is our little chunky monkey!!! Falling in love with her more and more and can’t wait to be interacting with her a little to figure out who this little person she will become!!! Loving the new born cuddles and feel so incredibly blessed!!! Sleep deprevation is so worth it!!!!!!!!!!!! Time just goes far toooooo quick!!!! 7 weeks!!!!

We love all three of them so much and love seeing them interact with each other. Matt and Zoe play beautifully together (most of the time) and I love eves dropping on their little conversations! They both love Ella to bits!!!!

We hope this has given you a glimpse into our world the last few months! We have found juggling family, project and Mark’s new job quite tough at times and Mark is weary!!! Trusting we can find a solution to reduce some of Mark’s teaching load and hopefully enable him to come to bed earlier than 1am each night!!! As a family we have missed him and he’s found it hard not being so involved in Ella’s life – but it is a season!!! Please pray for strength for both of us!! I’m very proud of my man but missing him too!

Here are a few photos:
Taken by Debs on an afternoon family walk