Are you ready for the HUGE blog????

Well believe it or not, Jodi and I now have a little one running around our house … Just the other week Jodi and I were blessed with little Gabriella … let me tell you the story. About three Thursday mornings ago, Debbie (the YFC Director) came into our office, shut the door, and then asked if she could ask us something. “Remember a couple of weeks ago when I asked you to pray about a little girl who is having problems at home with her grandmother” she began; “Well things are getting worse and the little girl is really sick and the grandmother doesn’t want anything more to do with her. Will you consider looking after her?” Well this definitely shocked us as we were told only the week before that the grandmother didn’t want to give her up. Both Jodi and I knew it wasn’t something to take lightly and we started some hardcore praying … Well as to be expected He took control and later that afternoon (after taking her to the doctors for a check up) we started looking after “Pinky” (the name that she was being called; it is a common name for abandoned babies, even though she wasn’t abandoned). This name didn’t gel for us, as she was no longer abandoned, so we have named her Gabriella (Gabi for short).

Gabi is about 20 months old and was born in the Crisis Pregnancy Centre (a YFC ministry) by a 13 year old. Unfortunately the mother was too young to look after the baby so the Grandmother took it upon herself. My goodness it is a good thing that YFC followed up when they did. Gabriella was extremely dehydrated, malnourished and has a fungal infection on her lips, in her mouth and down her throat. She has been very poorly looked after in very poor conditions with little to no personal contact. She was so malnourished and had absolutely no energy … even being fed a bowl of porridge would make her puff and pant.

It has been amazing to see that each day Gabi has been improving dramatically. On the first day (a Thursday), she didn’t want to do anything except sleep while being held and didn’t want anything near her mouth. We were able to get a small amount of water in her mouth by syringe. On Friday we were able to get more water into her little mouth and she built up her confidence with us and began to eat yoghurt and small amounts of mealie meal with porridge. She was so badly dehydrated that it wasn’t until Friday evening that she did a number onesies (wee wee). Things are progressing really well, by Sunday Gabi was fully hydrated (I don’t think that Vic falls would pass this much water during the wet season) and she enjoys a good feed. We didn’t see any smiles or emotion on her face for the first three or four days but now it is hard to stop her from running around the house laughing and acting like an 20 month old should. Things are starting to improve for little Gabi, we are thrilled with God’s healing hand and being able to see her grow more and more confident with us both. Her infection has fully cleared up and she now only shows small signs of malnutrition.

Now is the time to show Gabi off to you all … the photo’s are in order from when we first started looking after her to just the other day … Happy viewing.

What a week for Willow Park ....

YWAM are a comin'

A lot has happened over the month of March in relation to Willow Park, it has been such a confidence builder. Firstly I was contacted by Matt Jenkins (the son Colin and Roslyn Jenkins … they used to come to South Pine Community Church) who is currently in South Africa with YWAM; he and his team will be coming into Zimbabwe (Bulawayo and Harare) to do some ministry training and Matt was wanting to know if they could do anything … My goodness, the amount of work that needs to be done around Willow Park is HUGE, the best thing is that they are all eager to do manual labour. They will be joining us for the last two weekends of May, they will be cleaning up and repainting the scullery (wash room for the crockery and cutlery) as well as dig up all the dirt on the tennis court (the court hasn’t been used for about 5 years and there is about 2 inches of dirt compacted onto the old surface). This has been a HUGE answer to prayer as we had only just begun to look at doing work around the campsite and we were wondering who could help us.

Yay ... A new program for Willow Park

The other answer to prayer was the provision of a computerised Property Management System for Willow Park. Currently we are recording all the reservations on slips of paper and then placing them on a large wall calendar, it is quite a large amount of work keeping track of deposits and keeping accurate accounts of future reservations and occupancy. The bonus of having a PMS is that it will do a lot of the hard work for us, such as keeping track of reservations as well as prepayments and deposits, it will help with occupancy and revenue forecasting, working out average room rates, yield management and setting up special rate packages (sorry for all the hospitality jargon), it will make our bookkeepers job a whole lot easier. Let me tell you how we got this PMS. I have worked with roomMaster (the name of the PMS) before at various hotels/motels in Brisbane and it is quite a good system; I tried my contacts in roomMaster Australia but unfortunately they were not licensed to provide the program to Zimbabwe, so he gave me the email address for the US roomMaster. I was a little unsure if anything would come of this request, but it only took one day and I got a reply. Chuck is the Sales Director for roomMaster US and he is also a brother in Christ … what a HUGE answer to prayer when he said that even though roomMaster could not donate the program, he would however pay for the program for us. God has definitely been showing Himself in many different ways and giving us further confirmation that this is where He wants us to be.

MAKE SURE YOU STAY TUNED TO THIS BLOG … THE NEXT ENTRY WILL BE HUGE!!!!!!!

Our First Visitors

Well we have said good bye to Steve, Kristy & Maddy, & I am so homesick. I wish they could stay with us. We had a fantastic week with them, we started off by showing them around town & it was great to see their reactions to the crazy things of Zim that we have gotten use to. Things like rusty cars with no wheels abandoned in the middle of the road in the city, or a furniture removalist pulling along a cart load of lounge chairs.
Wednesday
The next day we were off to Chipengali, an animal orphanage which is used as a zoo. You could see that back in the day it would have been a top of the line place to visit, but now it is just so overgrown & fences were rusty & the research institution is derelict. We saw a couple of Rhino & one was at the fence, it was so close that if we were game enough we could have reached out & touched it. Same with the Lions, the cages are nothing like the safety at zoos in OZ, here they were just rusty chain wire; Steve was about a foot away from a huge Lion & loved it. I must admit we all were a bit worried as we walked around & were finding gates open.
After spending so much time looking at the monkies, & the monkies spending so much time checking Maddy out (they seemed to be fixed on her) we went to Willow Park to show Steve & Kristy the purpose of us being here. They seemed to share our vision for the place & agreed that with time, money & patience Willow Park will be a most beautiful camp ground used for all sorts of outreaches.
Thursday
We set off to Antelope Game Park. We had such a fantastic time there last year that we couldn’t let them miss it. The first of our activities for the day was an elephant ride for Kristy & Andrew, next Steve joined them & they all went for a play with the lion cubs, while Maddy & I stayed at main camp & played together. The cubs were only three months old & it was the first time they had been introduced to the public. They came back with huge grins on their faces & soooo so many photos, & poor Steve- cat allergies.
After a massive lunch we decided to lay out on the grass under the shady trees to admire the beautiful lake, well it didn’t take long before we were all dozing off. For a short while it reminded me of being back in Brissy going for picnics by the river at New Farm Park with Steve & Kristy (one of my most favorite past times). We woke up to our guide telling us it was time for our safari, so we all jumped onto the back of the van & headed off for 1 ½ hours. I was a bit worried at first that Steve & Kristy had come all this way & not seen any animals in the wild, but just after the guide had finished telling us that there were only 8 Giraffe in the area so we would have to be lucky to see them, there they were – 7 of them. Also Zebra in the same place, they however were not too friendly & ran off pretty quickly, but the Giraffe hung around & we were able to stay & watch for quite a while.
Friday
We went to spend the morning with the kids in the Baptist Babies home. They loved having new people to jump all over, & it was interesting to see the differences in Maddy & the two girls there. They are all the same age & defiantly not the same in development. In the afternoon we went to Mustard Seed Babies Home. They have so many more children there, but also a lot more carers. I was hoping to introduce Steve & Kristy to Daniel (the little boy we fell in love with last year), but he slept the whole time we were there. At hearing some of the stories of how these babies were found, we were all in wonder of how any mother could do these things to their new born children.
Saturday
We went to visit Father Charles at a rural hospital. It was such a hot day & we struggled to keep up with him, but he was so proud to be showing us around the hospital grounds. The one thing I wanted Steve & Kristy to see the most (but was scared of how they would react, knowing how we had felt last year when we saw it) came in the afternoon. Father Charles took us to the Malnutrition ward. There were only three babies there this time, their mothers lying with them. It is a big shock to the system to see them & I know it touched Steve & Kristy & it will be a vision they will never forget.
Saturday night dinner was a real treat; the four of us went to the Nesbitt Castle. It is a castle that a man built for his wife, & later down the tract they split up & he became a recluse & the place became very run down. Year’s later two business men bought it & did it up & it is now the finest place to visit in Bulawayo. We got ushered from the car to the bar & served drinks & snacks. We were then read the menu & they took our orders. When the meal was ready we were taken up stairs, only to find out that we were the only ones there. We were served the finest three course meals & then had a look around the grounds. This place is superb, even by Western standards.
Sunday
Was a visit to show them the church we are attending & they loved the songs that were sung in the native tongue. After church we took them to our favorite coffee shop, they got to experience the layered latte & doughnuts. Kristy was quick to pick up that they are not like the ones at home, but when you don’t have any other option it soon becomes a fantastic treat.
So the week was over so fast, but it was so great to have them out to see us, we wish they didn’t have to leave so soon.