so we have already reached the 2 month mark, we can't believe how quickly the time is going! We have continued to do more fun things in Zim; including going into a local warehouse to observe FI life skills training, visiting a home for abandoned children, going out with a FI team to do a survey on what makes a good school, spending time with FI volunteers and staff at an impact day that they do once a month, and spending time reading and just being together which has been wonderful.
We continue to feel blessed by God's provision and protection, as he has provided for all our needs and we still haven't been ill since arriving in Africa, which is a real answer to prayer, so thanks guys. We feel we are settling into life in Bulawayo as we have been here for a month now, which is also quite hard to believe. This is the longest we have stayed in one place since renting out our flat in July!
There is so much more going on at FI than we first thought, and it's been great for us to be able to get a good oversight of the different projects that are going on.
On Friday we had lots of fun at the FI day which began with words of encouragement for all the team along with praise and worship. We then took a walk to a sports ground and played football, chairball (kind of like netball), and acted out different styles of dancing-purely for entertainments sake. Everyone was getting quite competitive - it was so great to see everyone come together, eat together and to just have fun. There were about 60 volunteers and staff there, all from different departments, so it was a special time. There was a great sense of family!
This weekend we have very busy editing a book for FI, training young people to be effective leaders. We've mainly been adding punctuation etc, which has been tiring, but good. To recover from all the editing, we took a break and we went to a friend's house for a delicious braii and swim in their beautiful pool. It was great to hang out and relax in the sun. It's quite a suprise as there's so many people here from the UK, so lots of conversations about UK times, etc. We all agreed that enjoying the sun, pool and bbq was a huge highlight of life here.
Another incredible part of our time here so far for us has been visiting a Christian home for abandoned children. The project isn't related to FI, it just happens to be down the road from us, so we can walk there in 10 minutes or so. The place has a really homely feel and caters for around twenty five 0 to 3 year olds.
We've loved playing with the kids and having fun with them. They all have horrible stories of being left by there parents at the hospital, being buried alive, being physically abused etc, but it is a wonderful thing knowing that even though they have lost their earthly parents, they still have a father in heaven looking after them. It's such a privalege to hold them and to be able to pour love over them. The staff and volunteers there are wonderful servants, who care deeply about the chuldren. The hope is that over time the children will be adopted by local parents, or be adopted into a home where there will be a mum and dad, and up to 10 adopted children. Our time with the children has been a mixture of feeding porridge at breakfast, changing nappies-african style, cuddling, running around, singing, basically just loving. We really hope to be visiting that place more often over the next few weeks.
We hope that you're enjoying the lead up to Christmas! it's quite strange as we haven't heard many people talk about Christmas much here, so it doesn't feel like it is upon us....maybe it will all change when we hit December. We're quite enjoying escaping the materialism of UK Christmas time, and seeing people's excitement about having holiday and family time, rather than the presents.
So this week we plan to make the 5 hour trip back up to Harare to see the couple that we stayed with a few weeks ago, and will also be a chance to have a better look around.
thanks again for all your prayers, we love you lots,
andy&lui*
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