“AUGUST UPDATE 2016”
THE BEST WAY TO PROTECT CHILDREN IS TO EMPOWER THEM TO PROTECT THEMSELVES!/Education
In the second week of August, the children received their school results, with the vast majorities were very positive and we are very happy with their over-all progress! Nearly every child was rewarded with a ‘hungry lion’ lunch of chicken and chips, the second best were treated with ice cream. The children had a great morning out and were reminded that if they work hard the rewards always pay off. However, note only one child’s school results were not a pass, and we are continuing to encourage him by sending him to extra lessons while on holiday. We hope to get him on track as soon as we can and that next term he will also be treated with a hungry lion treat!
SUPPORT
This month have brought us many generous donations from volunteers and others. A donation was brought to us from a local volunteer who is a teacher in the United Kingdom. She blessed us with tops, trousers and sweatshirts from her school. All of these clothing will be great for the children when carrying out physical exercise and sporting events.
Thank you! To Australian volunteer, who volunteered at Kwathu for two weeks, made a very generous donation and bought us a large sized fridge and about 50 bags of cement. This is great for us as we can now buy more food at once which is more economically sound and store it in the fridge. The 50 bags of cement will be used to mound more blocks which will enable us to do more works on the current volunteer/Staff house being built. This will save the time of our staff and funds for Kwathu. Many thanks to Mullein who blessed us with assorted food items, this will go a long way in helping us to provide good meals for our Children and staff.
Finally, a bag was brought up from a local volunteer house containing a variety of arts and crafts materials for the children to use over their time off school. Thank you volunteers from sunbird you donations will help feed and develop the children’s creativity while being off school!
SOCIAL
The children this month have enjoyed many activities and days out with them being off school for the majority of the month. The girls attended a princess day at the Linda Farm, an all-girls day which involved games, activities and education. The girls had a great day and learned a lot of important information. Thank you Linda Farm for accommodating our girls, they had a great time!
The children enjoyed several visits to town, enjoying some town out in the community. Sandra whom is a student under internship with Kwathu and studying to be a social Worker and Alice took the older girls out for a day of fun, with shopping, lunch and ice cream. To enjoy some time together just as girls and help them all bond together.
The older boys had a wonderful time with Uncle Peter, who is one of the Children under our care for quite some time and has been very helping with the expansion of our project. This was so kind of him to think of his kid’s brothers to bless them and took some time talking to them and just trying to inspire them to work hard and take school seriously for a better future for them. This was a good time of bonding and fun activities. Peter is a great role model for the young boys and they very much look up to him for inspiration. We are so thankful he returns to help with the children.
The older children have also enjoyed a visit to Victoria Falls. The falls is an amazing sight to see, and its beauty and substance is not lost on locals even though it is only down the road. The children very much enjoyed the trip, with our visiting volunteer Louise coming along to assist, the girls were able to walk all the way along the falls and admire the Zimbabwe side, and the boys were able to enjoy some adventure time along the top of the falls paddling in the drying up pools. The children were able to admire the David Livingstone statue and learn about the history of their home town, which is great for the children to understand where they come from, and why we are so blessed to live in Livingstone.
On 7 August, we celebrated two birthdays of our hard working House mama; Mama Josephine whose actual birthday was on 10 August and Mama Sharon `s was on 8 August. We had a great time and we surprised them with a lovely birthday cake and nice Chocolate as a way to express our love and thank them for all the hard work. We as well surprised one of our kids Eustus with a belated birthday cake since the time he had his birthday he was still in school. We really had a cool family fun time.
All the Children in the home, except the little babies had an awesome time out. One of the local lady blessed our Children and they had a privilege to have a braai just right beside the Zambezi river which happens to be her residence. The boys enjoyed fishing though unfortunately no fish was fished out of the water, the other children had fun viewing the river, hearing some Hippo sound from the water, the girls also took some time to help out prepare food and the other boys enjoyed braaing the meat for everyone. We had a fun and relaxed time with the Children and we enjoyed lunch together which was served with some soft drinks.
Our babies who were in company of our volunteer, had great time at one of our local Children`s play parks in town. The kids enjoyed some snacks, cadies and had so much fun activities. They really had a good time and they were filled with so much joy but got home very tired.
As way of encouraging our Children to do well in their daily wellbeing, we decided to appreciate our deserving Children by hosting an awards day. The best in general room cleanliness had a delicious lunch out at food palace, the most hard working kids had ice cream at wonder bake, the most disciplined and respectful had a k30 shopping voucher, the smartest had 2 bars of chocolate and everyone had a loly pop. The Children were really happy and we hope they keep up and to those of our Children who were not awarded we hope they work hard next time, as we hope this activity to be on going.
UNITED WE STAND DEVIDED WE FALL!
Here at Kwathu we believe supporting the community around us is very important. We have been blessed by God to be able to continue our community feeding program this month and it has been a joy to watch families in need be able to gather and be fed a decent meal, for both children and mothers. Alongside the meals it’s lovely to see the community gather all in the spirit of God and his kindness. This month the community has heard words from God to encourage community spirit and kindness. Volunteers from the local guesthouse Sunbird have joined us for a Monday feeding program to assist with jobs and helping serve the food. We are blessed by volunteers who give up their afternoons to come and help, thank you!
JOYFUL SERVICE!
In most cases we usually have more international volunteers but this time around we were blessed by a local Christian organization Destined for Greatness, from within Livingstone. They assisted with the painting of our administration block. As they were many the job was finished very quickly and it would of taken our small team along time to finish the job, time that could therefore be better used with our children. Thank you Destined for Greatness you were a huge help and a blessing.
Another huge thank you to volunteers from sunbird who have assisted with our Monday feeding program and Saturday arts club, we are blessed with such selfless souls that give up their free time to help, thank you! Originally coming to Zambia for different programs God led them to Kwathu where they helped with activities for the children as they are off school. We believe it is very important to keep our children engaged to stimulate development Playing games, teaching and engaging the children in arts they have been a great help and we are blessed to of had them, thank you!
LAND UPDATE
Our building projects within our property has continued to expand and going on so well. We are grateful to our project Director and his team for their tireless efforts to see works being accomplished.
The administration block with 2 functioning offices is almost and only minor works are in the reception area, kitchen and store waits to be completed. Many thanks to Natalie our devoted ambassadress to the USA has tirelessly worked hard to see this project be accomplished and the entire Graceklein team
The other remaining minor works are finishing up our:
- Garage/Carport
- Tea room/small
- Reception Area
- Storage room
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COMMUNITY SCHOOL
Works on the Community school has been progressing very well. Many thanks to our hard working local contractors and other volunteers who have been so helpful in getting most works done. It’s great to see how Samantha who is a missionary and be the one to manage the community school, getting so involved and trying to get work done.
The following has been accomplished:
- Roofing
- Inside and outside plastering
- Air vents
- Flooring
- Wiring of the entire block
- Security lights connect
- Window frames
- Under coat painting
The following stages are pending:
- Plumbing
- Ceiling
- Fisher boards
- Window panes
- Glass panes
- Finishing Painting,
- Security lights connect & bulbs
- Concrete slab
Please continue praying with us on these
- Pray for provision of funds for the Feeding Program God has laid upon our hearts to feed poor children around us
- Continue praying for courage, faith, wisdom and mostly love that we can accomplish the goals we set for Kwathu and that the children can live, grow and mature in Gods daily goodness and loving kindness.
- Pray for our weakened Zambian economy. The poor are feeling the pinch in all this and it’s hard for us to budget for the home as commodity prices increase every day.
- We thank you all for your continued love and support towards Kwathu Children’s Home and may the Lord continue to bless you! Matthew 18:5 “And whosoever shall receive one such little child in my name, receives me”.
- We thank all our friends and partners for your prayers, donation and support of any kind to Kwathu. GOD BLESS.
- We finally thank our volunteers for selflessly giving their precious time to help our children and staff
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