Our children successfully completed their end of the year exams in the first week of December. We are so proud of our children here at Kwathu Children’s Home as they have all done incredibly well at school this year and we’ve seen such great improvement in the children’s results. Children who sat for grade seven last year all passed to grade eight. Two of them have gone to a boarding school in a town 60 kilometers away from Livingstone were Kwathu Home is located. Other children have also moved to the next grade and new school, which brought a lot of excitement and new zeal in their lives.
As part of motivation, appreciation and congratulating the children on their school results we took the children to a restaurant for a decent meal and ice cream. Those who achieved the best at school were treated to a meal consisting of chicken and chips and those who achieved second best were treated to a delicious ice-cream separately. This has worked very well for us and we have seen a tremendous improvement on the educational performance of our children every year. School holidays were great, full of fun, relaxation and children were able to experience the first Kwathu feeding program, which was combined with our Christmas party.
SUPPORT
Green Valley Farm has faithfully continued with their support to Kwathu Children’s Home with a variety of vegetables on a weekly basis. For the first time Finta donated boxes of long life milk and bags of mealie meal which was a great encouragement to the home. We received a lot of Christmas gifts from supporter, friends and partners from all over the world. This was highly appreciated by the children of which for some children, this was their first Christmas celebration. We were grateful for Marissa and the GC team for spending last Christmas with us, always a pleasure to have you around. Thank you to all other friends we can’t mention here but fully got involved last Christmas.
We have continued with the feeding program, which takes place every Monday at our center. When we did a visibility study to identify poor families around our area for feeding, we only got a total of 80 children in need. The first feeding attracted 150 children, the second one got to 195, way above our budget of 80 children. When God spoke to us about starting this feeding program, we had no resources but we went ahead, organize and informed the community about the feeding. Two days before the actual feeding day, we got all the money we needed for the feeding. Since then, God has been providing the needed funding for every Monday feeding and increasing our dependence in him. We thank our local partners who have been coming and working hard to help with the feeding program every Monday.
Philippians 4:19 “And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from His glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.”
SPIRITUAL
As Kwathu Children’s Home is a Christian faith-based home we have continued to share the word of God with our children through worship and devotions. Our children have also continued to attend church on a weekly basis, which they thoroughly enjoy. They have continued to have evening devotion facilitated by the housemother.
VOLUNTEERS
Kim is a German volunteer who is a worshiper back home in Germany and plays Keyboard. She has dedicated her time to give music lessons to our children, which they love and look forward to every week.
Josephine is from Sweden and she is working with another organization but volunteers at Kwathu teaching music and gets involved in child development.
Kit is from Denmark; since she started to volunteer at kwathu, she has been our key person who manages, plans and coordinates our feeding program. Every Monday she gets extra busy with our Staff to prepare meal, prepare feeding area and general programming.
SOCIAL
As mentioned above we have added a new program on our general Kwathu programs, which is feeding program. This program was introduced with the aim of reaching out to the community around us. The best way for us to reach out to our community was to somehow first meet their needs. We found out that food was top on their needs list which prompted us to consider and meet the need immediately. Kwathu children are eager and exited every Monday to be part of this life-changing program. They joyfully usher, serve, minister and open a door to share their own testimony to fellow children in need.
We are in need of more funding and man power to be able to carry out this program every Monday or perhaps on a daily basis by mid year.
Please continue praying with us on these requests:
- Pray for our feeding program every Monday that children and their parents can see the light, open their hearts and get ministered.
- Pray for solid men and women who can separate their time to serve with us on long term basis (from 3 Months, 12 or 24months)
- Pray for funding for our office block, which is almost completed. We are in need of funding for the floor, ceiling, glass for the windows and office furniture.
- Pray for courage, faith and understanding that we can accomplish the goals we set for Kwathu and that the children can live grow and mature in His daily goodness and loving kindness.
Psalm 127:3 “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord; the fruit of the womb is a reward.”
We thank you all for your continued love and support towards Kwathu Children’s Home and may the good Lord continue to bless you!
Note: Kwathu is now on twitter! Please follow us on @KwathuHome
