1 in 3 children in Zimbabwe is orphaned and/or abandoned.

Have we just stopped you in your tracks?  Stop and think about that for a moment.  Picture 3 of your own children, a class of 30 from your sons or daughters school, or maybe you have 15 grandchildren.  What if one third had nowhere to go , no one to care for them or feed them, no one to ensure they went to school or dreamed of a future.  What if….?

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

Gord and I had the privilege recently of visiting a small mining town about 4 hours from the capital city of Harare, Zimbabwe.  We looked forward to the time away from the city – to meeting some new people, to being with more children.  And so we spent Saturday with about 60 children from a local feeding program, and  preached in church that Sunday.  We visited 2 rural pastors and took them bicycles they could use in visiting their congregants, and drove past the mines, through the scenic hillsides.  We talked with the local people and left with such a profound sense of the desperate need all across Zimbabwe.

As we sat waiting for the service to begin Sunday morning, and as 5 men ran around town trying to find gasoline for the generator and were failing because without electricity all the pumps were shut down – one young lady quietly came and sat with me.  Her story is one of a million such stories all over Zimbabwe, but it touched me deeply.  She didn’t ask for money, or a job the way many in desperation do, but simply poured out her heart.  She left an impression on me forever.  Here is her story….

Priscilla (not her real name) is 26 years old.  She is beautiful and intelligent.  Married at 22, she now has a 4 year old son.  Her husband works in the local mine as he has for years.  About 6 years ago, things were okay.  The salaries and housing provided for mine workers was enough.  They lived well.  But when the mine’s private owner was removed, conditions began to deteriorate.  Salaries dropped in the face of massive & rising inflation; the condition of their homes began to deteriorate; machinery at work could no longer be maintained as things got tougher; conditions in the mine became troublesome.  When the Zim dollar hit into the quadrillions at the end of 2008, they could no longer get their paycheque out of the bank.  In 2009, as the Zim dollar was shelved and foreign currency became the currency of the day, things got even more desperate.  The mine workers have not been paid since January this year.  Nothing!  If they choose to leave the mine, they must leave their housing as well.  With 90% unemployment in this nation, where will they go to work?  And so they stay.  They feel trapped in a
desperate situation with nowhere to go.

Priscilla now feeds her family on the little income she receives from hair dressing – a few USD at a time.  As we are talking, an older man, tall and thin, hobbles across the room on his crutches to greet us.  She introduces him as her father.  This elderly man was hit by a car last year. But because hospitals were not functioning at the time, nurses and doctors on strike, he was never treated.  The injured leg bone was never set, and the operation that they were told he needed to repair the damage, would cost $1000 USD.  Now laid up with an injury, no income and no access to USD, the operation never happened.  Her father has now lost his livelihood, the small store which he ran, and the goods he would run to purchase and resale.  He is now unemployed and disabled, unable to help his daughter or grandson out of their own situation.

For 5 years Priscilla has watched her family become more and more desperate. Her dreams of a young family, college, a new career fading quickly into her
exhaustion with life.  She is so very bone weary and wants to leave Zimbabwe.  But to where?  How?  With barely food on the table, how could they even begin to think of the costs of travel, passports, a new home. What would happen to the extended family they now support on their meagre income?  If you could look into her eyes the way that I did, you would see the deep tiredness that weaves through her soul.  Even trying to retain HOPE requires more effort than she can muster.

HOPE… FOR THEIR FUTURE

Is it any wonder that, having lost all hope, exhausted by the struggle for life, women abandon babies, fathers leave sons with relatives and never return, those that are sick and dying have nowhere to leave their children and statistics like 1 in 3 become harsh reality?!

Is it any wonder that, the Village of Hope exists to provide just that… hope?  HOPE through homes, through education, through love and care, hope for eternity.

There is a scene weaving itself all across this beautiful nation.  The picture is bigger than 20 acres in Harare.  The stories repeat themselves in every mining town, in every circle of huts at the end of a 15 km trek off the main road, in the people only accessible across the river through dry season, in the mountains where coffee plantations once flourished.

Pray for this once prosperous nation.
Pray for restoration.
Pray that God would ‘expand our territory’ as Jabez prayed.  That we could do even more.
Pray about what you can do.
Pray for the children.
We so appreciate your heart in taking the time to read, consider, weep and pray with us.