Inchanga latest...

A few days ago, I managed to set up our account with Givengain, check it out on www.grapevinesa.givengain.org
So far I've only put on the Home visiting programme and the Feeding programme. More will follow soon. It's also really easy to donate money through this website and it's safe and well-established.

The latest from the school is that the teacher responsible for the orphans is sorting out the names of the 40 most needy children for me to work with. When she's done that, hopefully by Monday, I can start to get alongside them. The way I'm going to do this is by going into the school twice a week and running clubs with them. On Tuesday I'll have Grade R and 1 for half an hour followed by Grades 2 and 3. On Thursday I'll have Grades 4-7 all together. These clubs will hopefully start the first week of February. We'll do some fun activities and I'll teach them more about Jesus and how much he loves them and give them an opportunity for them to encounter him for themselves. It should be VERY interesting to work with the smaller ones as their English is non-existent!! ;-) I love a challenge...

After a while, when I've got to know these kids better, I'll start visiting their homes. Some of them live right down in the valley, or right up on the mountainside, often fairly cut off from decent roads and it looks like I might have to walk a fair distance with them to get there. The teachers have expressed concern about how we might get there, but I really want to see where these kids call home so that will be an adventure when it happens! I'm still living in hope that we'll have a suitable car by then! Keep praying it in.. no sign of one on the horizon yet... I'll only visit the 40 to start with, and we'll go from there.

In addition, we're in discussion with the staff about them feeding the children on a Saturday. This would be for all the orphans in the school. Last year there were 300 of them, the final figure for this year has not been worked out yet but it will probably be somewhere in the same region as last year. This is exciting as the staff are getting themselves organised, all they need is some funding to get them going. If you'd like to help out, check out out givengain website!

As for the land that we're trying to get hold of for the Children's Village... it all seemed to be going so well when I managed to talk to the local Councillor last week, but then he asked me to call him back after 20 minutes and since then I've been put through to answerphone... Hmm, not happy... Politicians, eh... Now I'm going to have to go to his office and wait for him. It's in the middle of an area where few whites ever venture so that could be fun!

So, things are moving on and within a couple of weeks we'll be up and running...