Annual Report 2007-08 Part 2

THE CHIMOIO CHILD CENTRE

The Chimoio child centre was opened in October 2007. OBJECTIVES Directed towards the development of the lives of the children in the area;

• To support single parents and poor families
• To provide the children with better opportunities
• To assist the children to live a life of dignity and obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ.

The child centre in Chimoio (Mozambique) has three buildings available for use and development of the programme. To better serve and assist the children, we felt it necessary to construct a new kitchen and to build tables. The kitchen building will provide an adequate area for cooking meals for the children and the tables will be used in education and as basic furniture for the child centre. This is regarded as the initial phase of the development of the child centre. A kitchen has also been constructed in Thoera (Mozambique). The services offered by child centre in Chimoio include Home visits and family support, Adult learning and volunteering opportunities, Childrens play and learning groups, Advice Center.

Some of these activities are led by co-workers, who are registered for the programme under the organisation and have completed training. To today, we have 104 children registered on Chimoio Child Centre programme, the ages of the children are from 2 to 14 years of age. Many of the registered children are orphans. Recently we’ve had a wonderful children’s activity day, where we (co-workers) played together as a team with the children at competitive games. There were two teams: Mercy`s team and Netusha`s team, Rita, Alberto and Zeria were also involved. This was a great day for the children. Last Friday we (the co-workers) went- to visit local people in their homes. The people showed much appreciation for the work. Indeed they are very moved by the work of the organization. In specific, a lady told us that, if it was not for the assistance of the child centre in the area, she would have lost some of her children to death by malnutrition. Part of our work in the region of Chimoio involves; visits to the homes of children, where we have the opportunity to talk with their guardians and hear of how they perceive our work. During this first (seven) months of activity we have visited many homes and have explained to parents and guardians about our organization and programmes. We have had the opportunity to share the gospel with the elders of the families and offer whatever assistance we can. Indeed, in the last two homes we visited in this period, the guardians of some children said that; apart from the food programme which the children receive, they (the guardians) have also noticed some changes in the behavior of the children. The change being that the guardians were been forced to pray with the children before they went to sleep at night! In another home which we visited, the grandparents of a child said that they don’t know what has happened, but their grandson has stopped stealing money from their purse. The Grandparents thinks that, this is because of the work done by the child- centre. We already have many children registered on our database. Currently, our prayer request is for a one year- old child, whose mother passed away leaving the eldest daughter of only five year of age to take care of this young child. The child and the sister have nothing to eat as they have no guardians to look after them and they cannot buy food for themselves. The child is now with us at the centre. Please pray that this child will live!

AGRICULTURAL PROGRAMME & BREEDING

The agricultural programme started in November 2007 and is co-ordinated by Vilma Brito. The objectives of the agricultural programme are:

• To assist rural villages with the planting, cultivation and harvesting of basic foodstuffs for consumption by the village’s own people.
• To promote agricultural development amongst the working population in the villages
• To provide resources for the management and upkeep of agricultural activity.

In this programme we witnessed a miracle. Because of the last flooding 1,000’s of people lost their crops. Although the flooding caused much damage, God still blessed us with a good harvest. The huge Zambezi flood waters reached as far as the very edge of our field and yet it did not spill over into the growing crops. The water stopped right at the edge and didn’t affect our field at all! The flooded Zambezi River was so close to the Thoera Child Centre that, children we able to wash their hands in the flood waters! In this first stage of the agricultural programme we sowed 20 kg of maize, which amazingly produced 100 fold. We harvested 2000kg (2Ton) of maize.

We were ready to the harvest at the usual time. However, because of continuous rain on the two following days and nights we were not able harvest before the flooding. However, in the beginning of month of March we decided to harvest anyway, and we did so! We are delighted to say that the harvest gave the children maize for at least the next 4 months. Last March we started vegetable gardens in each of the Child Centres. We sowed Various types of vegetable seeds: carrot, cabbage, onions, tomato, lettuce, green Peppers and others type of green leaves. We expect this to benefit all the Children, who are almost all undernourished. The vegetables will provide a more balanced diet and vitamins that are missing from their diet at present. This project will start to produce at the Beginning of June and will last until the end of September. Breeding Programme In Nyachikadza and Chibule 14 goats have been purchased and the numbers have now increased to 26. It is intended that these will provide meat to supplement the diet of the children in the Child Centres.

ASSEMBLING AND DISTRIBUTION OF WEELCHAIR

The purposes of the wheelchair programme are;

• To assist the disabled by facilitating their movement
• To give a degree of independence and dignity to the most physically vulnerable.

It was very rewarding to see the happiness on the faces of the disabled people in Nsanje Mozambique/Malawi, when they received the wheelchairs. Until we had been there, many disabled people in Nsanje had never dreamed of having a wheelchair, as the people are very poor and cannot afford to buy such a basic but essential aid. So their happiness was very evident. We would like to share some of situations we witnessed when we distributing the wheelchairs to the disabled. Mr Chicome is one of the men who received a wheelchair. He was so happy to be given a wheelchair that he wanted to go as fast as he could in his wheelchair. Mr Chicome dared himself to go so fast that he fell out of his new chair. Fortunately, without any harm! People helped him back into his chair and he went on riding with a great smile, waving to everyone on the street.

There was a girl, she was about 12 years old, and who had never attended school before. Her parents were very poor and could not afford to buy her a wheelchair. She was also given a wheelchair, which will enable her to go to school. There were two mothers who also received wheelchairs. The wheelchairs will enable them to carrying on their lives with less of a struggle and with greater dignity. I am glad that Eddie had this idea of making and distributing the wheelchairs, it has made some poor and disabled people very happy. Thank God for that!

FLOOD RELIEF AND CONTAINER OF AID SHIPPED FROM UK

The people that will benefit from the relief that will in general be victims of the flood in Mozambique and Malawi in December 2007 to February 2008. Older people, single mothers, widows and Orphaned children. These will be first ones to benefit from relief. Almost all the victims of flood who were scattered are now back in their villages. Distribution is a sensitive matter and we have to be careful not to give offence to the elders and others in these communities. It is simply not fair or practical to help some but not all. Also, some of these places are difficult to reach which means distribution is very slow. By making sure we help the genuinely needy people we avoid causing any grievance or complaint from the communities that have been affected by the flood in Mozambique and Malawi in December 2007 to February 2008. Many of the victims of the flood whom we were not able to help on this occasion were helped by other organisations working in the area.

Unfortunately, the shipping and importation of the containers has taken quite a long time and the immediate crisis had passed. The containers did not arrive at the port of Beira until the 3rd of April. They were released by the shipping company on the 7 th April. They were only cleared by the Mozambique Customs on the 20th of April, so that it was the 22ndApril that the containers arrived in Blantyre. Only then could distribution have begun. Indeed, that was our intention and Vilma had remained for two months in

Mozambique for that very reason. However, for the reasons stated above it proved not to be possible to distribute the contents of the containers. Flooding is an annual problem and we would expect similar needs to exist in the rainy season 2008/2009. Whilst we may not be able to distribute them all at present, they will be available immediately for future crises. We would advise that further thought be given in any future emergencies to the most expeditious and appropriate form aid should take. In the case of the monies sent this enabled us to purchase foodstuffs with little or no delay. However, the fact remains that it was a huge encouragement to us in our work for such a large and generous response to be made to the emergency by our partners Blythswood. Please be assured, in the long term, nothing will be unused or wasted.

SPIRITUAL WELFARE

Healing Every Nation gives a high priority to the preaching of the gospel and to Christian nurture. To this end, we and all our visitors have been involved in preaching and Bible Teaching to the Children, their families and pastors and Christian workers. Among those who have been able to Share in this ministry to date have been: John Ross (APC Church., Scotland), and Rev Dr Robert Johnson (Clarion Ministries, Blackwell Tabernacle, Oklahoma. USA.) Their teaching has been an immense encouragement to lonely pastors and others (100) in Mozambique and Malawi.

To develop our concern for the spiritual welfare of all the people with whom we are in contact we have plans for further international visitors and to set up a Bible College along the lines set out below. BIBLE SCHOOL In this section we aim to inform you about our intention to start a Bible school in Mozambique. Here are our plans. We hope to have the Bible School fully operating by December 2008. The Bible school project aims to offer intensive courses with the duration of three months.

The Theology classes shall be given at the following times: from 14.00 - 17.00 Monday to Friday with Evening classes from 18.00 - 20:30 on Monday, Wednesday & Friday. This is a basic course which will offer the following subjects; Devotional life, Bible survey Old and New Testament , Evangelism, Fundamental basics of Christian Faith, Spiritual warfare,Homiletic, Christian family, Leadership.

The course will be made up of two parts - theory and practical. The expectative is that after the course the students will be involved with our programmes and work for the ministry. The followings are the names of the (15) students enrolled so far for the Bible College Day Class; Ana Paula Trinta, Domingos Fransisco, Elias Domingos, Fernando Sabao, Herique Araujo, Joao Ricardo, Luisa Fransisco, Malde Fernando, Jose Joao, Mateus Zacarias, Pedro Lucas, Fatima Fransisco, Rabeca Maquenha, Alberto Daniel & Luis Erikda. (9) other students are also enrolled for night classes. Currently we are functioning with some difficulties, as we have some urgent needs such as, Bibles. Out of 14 students only 5 has bibles. We have no desks and no blackboard.

The lack of basic educational materials makes it difficult to teach and learn. We also need resources to provide a small meal or snack to eat during the break time. Due to the lack of food in most of the student’s home, their concentration is often affected by feeling hungry and sleepy during class. The student’s prayer request is that they would find employment. During the last few days we had a night of prayer and all of them asked me to pray that they can get a job to help them to survive.

Here I mention the story of a student called Joao Ricardo Domingos, who lives in a small house with his brothers and their sick parents. In Joao Domingos family only one brother works to support the whole family. On the day Joao’s elder sister’s daughter died, he still came to school to do the test! In such situation we spoke about the problems that his family is facing, Joao said that their main problem is lack of food, clothes, other basic requirements, and he said that their life status is far below mere poverty. He also said that the bible school is his only hope for the future. Joao has showed us desire to finish the course and continue with the organisation’s programmes if possible. Last Sunday he interpreted the Bible message into one of the local languages (Sena). Here also is the story of Alberto Daniel, he is one of the most unfortunate person in Africa.

Alberto Daniel also lives with his brothers in the worst imaginable situation. With no work to support himself, Alberto Daniel said that most of the time his family has no food to eat and last week when he was sick he had no money to buy medicine. If it wasn’t for God’s grace he would have died. Praise God he was healed. He wants to be a preacher to other people who are suffering like him.

DRILLING FOR WATER IN THOERA

During June of 2007, VineLife embarked on a month-long, two group mission trip in cooperation with Healing Every Nation Ministries. Eddie Brito, the founder, has been working in Mozambique and several southern African nations among destitute children. During our time of supporting Eddie, many people were inspired to lend their talents for a short time of service. Among the many small projects, we attempted (at first unsuccessfully) to drill a bore hole to provide clean drinking water for the people of Thoera.

Other projects that worked very well included a puppet show with enlightening messages for the children, on subjects such as: medical aid, wound care, and parasite remedies. Also one-on-one relationship building. This year 2008 by God Grace we were finally able to drill the well in Thoera where we find good water that will benefit many families. This was breakthrough for the entire Thoera village with a population of 3,000. This will benefit children who will not be in danger of being killed by crocodiles. This has often happened in the past when they had to get their water from Zambezi River. It will help to avoid outbreaks of cholera.