August Update: Prince receives his Diploma
Dear friends,
Warm greetings to you from Bulawayo.
I hope this email finds you well!
I wanted to share with you all some very brief updates from ONM at this time. Thank you so much for your love and partnership!
In June the Hearts of Love team sadly learnt about extreme cases of abuse that were happening in one of the communities that we serve. We learnt of numerous cases of child rape and sexual abuse, and that there wasn’t support being given to the victims for a variety of reasons, including fear of reporting the cases etc. People weren’t safe at all, and the most affected was the girl child.
The stories we heard were so heartbreaking… and we felt God leading us to seek to bring some healing and hope. What this led to was us joining hands with an organisation called Life Choices Zimbabwe, and inviting girls who are vulnerable and at risk from the communities we serve to a 5 day workshop.
The workshop covered numerous relevant educational topics, discussed healthy relationships, life choices, and encouraged the girls about their self-worth and value and potential. The workshop went on very well, with the girls trusting our team enough to be quite open and vulnerable about some of their traumatic experiences. Some shared of having their dreams shattered after being raped, others having been rejected by their boyfriends after falling pregnant, and others having their dreams of an education ended by their situations. We had on average 130 girls attending each day.
We will obviously seek how we should continue to love and support these girls, and one of our plans is a skills training program in the near future for some of them. We are also looking to start a support group that will continue to support the girls.
The Hearts of Love team have also just completed another round of small business empowerment training and micro-finance loans. 22 people ending up being approved with their business plans for small loans, to help them start or slightly grow their small businesses.
At Isaiah’s Babies Home the precious little ones are all thriving thanks to the nutritious food and milk, warm clothes and blankets from generous donors, and the love and attention from the caregivers. When I was recently with them, with many of our team also being there, it was such a lovely time… And when the kids were saying goodbye to me, and me to them, they also said kept saying “come again soon”. How can I not after that 😊😊.
Four of our little ones were recently identified for adoption and have now been taken home by their forever families. We have also recently had another baby identified for adoption and are hopeful that he will be moving on once his new family have had all their relevant checks done. It’s lovely to hear of these precious little ones being placed in loving families.
We also recently had the pleasure of hosting a group of volunteers from the USA. The group constructed a small office for the Social Work Department at the Babies Home. This is a great development because it provides a quiet and private place where we can engage with prospective foster and adoptive parents, offer counselling for some cases, etc.
Term 2 at Lighthouse Christian Academy has now finished, and it went on well. One of the highlights this term was having some of the Scottish T20 cricket team visit and play cricket with our students at Lighthouse! And then our students were able to go and watch the Scottish team play one of their World Cup qualifying games right here in Bulawayo! This trip was great fun, and inspired further interest in sport for our students, as well as teaching them a number of lessons.
We are also pleased to share that one of our Lighthouse outhouse student's, Prince Tagarira, recently completed a Diploma in Diesel Motor Mechanics at Speciss College. Prince struggled with his academics whilst he was an inhouse student, due to a mild learning disability. So from discussions with him, and consultation with his mother, we enrolled him in a vocational course that he chose.
Prince was an exemplary student at the College, and is now equipped with a skill which he can use to support his unemployed mother and his siblings. And he is now doing an apprenticeship after which he can work unsupervised as a diesel mechanic.
Finally, we are having elections here on Wednesday this week, so please pray with us for peace and justice 🙏.
Thank you SOOO MUCH our dear friends and partners, for all that you do, and all that you enable!!
Much love from Martin and the ONM team
