Dear friends and family:

After many hours, tears, prayers and cries of joy, we have 72 anxious young faces and souls waiting to start school at Cornelius Hope Academy Primary School this January, 2008! The PAOC (Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada) head office, and CHILD CARE PLUS ladies are waiting your phone calls, to offer to sponsor a child. Ask for a child at the ‘VILLAGE OF HOPE, ZIMBABWE’!

Your investment of $29 / month provides food, education and medical care to a needy child. By calling 905-542-7400, and asking for the CHILD CARE PLUS office, you will change a young life in Zimbabwe forever!

CHAPS (Cornelius Hope Academy Primary School), on the grounds of the Village of Hope, will be open in January 2008, for 190 children of Primary School age. Of this total number, approximately 130 will be, or are, on Child Care Plus Sponsorship. The other children will come from the local more affluent community whose parents can afford the school fees. By keeping the class sizes down and hiring the best teachers, we are giving these children a better chance in life, a higher standard of education! Most importantly they will be taught the gospel of Jesus Christ! (Mrs. Kubara’s current grade one class pictured)

The children whose lives we will invest in at CHAPS, will be provided with a nutritious porridge to start the day. Those on CCP sponsorship will have their school uniforms and all needed education materials provided, as well as free access to medical care. These children are aged from 3 to 12 years old. They will enter CHAPS at either Preschool, Kindergarten or at grades 1-6. Each one lives in the local community of Good Hope. Their stories are all a little different, but all are truly in need of a devoted Canadian sponsor.

Picture Evernice – a young girl hit by a car recently. I assisted at the scene of the accident and discovered later that that was her first day in the neighbourhood and at a new school. Both parents are unemployed. With a nasty leg break, she is now losing this term at school and will not be able to walk the 4-5 km. to the next local school. Instead CHAPS will allow her to walk through her immediate neighbourhood in January and give her a higher educational standard.

Picture Freddy – He is only kindergarten age and yet has already lost his mother due to AIDS. His father was removed from the home shortly after and taken far away, to be cared for by relatives. Freddy’s father is suffering from cancerous sores on his leg and is too ill to take care of himself. This has left Freddy in the care of an aunt who has 5 children of her own. They live in a one room concrete block house without electricity or running water. Freddy needs a chance at a better life – to be loved, to be educated, to come to know Jesus as his personal Lord and Saviour!

Picture Tecla who lost her dad last year due to a serious illness. Following the funeral and the time missed, the school told Tecla not to return. Her mom, stepdad and stepsiblings – 6 in all – live in a one room house and have basically no income. CHAPS will give Tecla a chance to catch up on her grades and her missing school year, give her a higher standard of education and make sure she has a full belly to start the day.

Picture Germaine – an orphan who lost both her mother and father to Tuberculosis just a year apart. She has been without them for two years, living with an aunt and her own children. Last year, her uncle left the family, with nothing. Her aunt is a Christian lady who is struggling to make ends meet and keep her ‘family’ together by selling anything she can.

ON A PERSONAL NOTE….
Nathan turned 16 this month!! Although he is thrilled, his parents are feeling their age thinking back to that night 16 years ago, when such a dear little bundle entered our life and changed it forever J. He is anxiously dreaming of a driving license now L.

Life in Zimbabwe has not changed over the last month. The big news this month was that British Airways announced they are pulling out! As of October 27th, they will no longer fly directly into Harare and regional airlines will instead service Zimbabwe. Bread and milk continue to be scarce items, as well as many other staples. Yet God continues to provide at the Village and at our home. We have been incredibly busy with prepping for the new teachers coming in January, and new house mom starting October 15th. Our own kids are full swing in school and happy to be busy again. We are enjoying the purple Jackaranda trees in full bloom again, and some early rains this year. The electricity cuts have been particularly bad this last week and we have cooked over an open flame every night this week, and turned the generator on to make coffee each morning. Another cobra was killed at the Village, but it was the first one in months! The new school blocks are now getting final touches, and a playground and new school furniture arrives before the end of the October to make the school blocks complete.

God bless you as you pray about sponsoring a child at CHAPS and through the Village of Hope, Zimbabwe!