Zimbabwe Bound

Welcome back!

2008-02-02T00:23:00.000+10:00

Well, we have finally got back to Zim to start up more fun and exciting adventures for ’08 … but there are some changes that we are excited to tell you all about. This will be the LAST post on zimbabwebound.blogspot.com. The month of January has been a time of GREAT change for zimbabwebound.com; instead of having a website and a blogsite we have combined them both on zimbabwebound.com. Here you can explore all our blogs from the past as well as all our new adventures; you can also see the things that interest us in Zim and you even get a chance to chip in no matter where you are in the world. We look forward to seeing you all on zimbabebound.com

Wow … it’s been a LONG time

2007-12-16T17:33:00.000+10:00

I write a sincere apology to our blogger friends for not updating you for soooooo long. Please let me explain … Jodi, Gabi and I have been VERY busy trying to get back to OZ for Christmas. To cut a long and VERY painful story short, we arrived back in Brisbane last Saturday night and we have been having an absolute blast catching up with all of our friends and family back in Brisbane. My goodness, the effort it took to get to OZ even after getting Gabi’s holiday visa and tickets was mindblogging; but I don’t have the space on this blog to tell you all about it … shame hey????

Anyway, thank you so much for the time we have spent together blogging this year; I have really enjoyed sharing our experiences with you … Unfortunately there is a lot on the plate here in OZ, so I don’t think I will get much of a chance to update until the new year … I hope you all have a VERY Merry Christmas, and an absolutely sensational New Years Eve … look forward to blogging again in the new year.

We now have sprinklers

2007-11-28T18:58:00.000+10:00

What a great day it was when we finally got the sprinklers up and running. Unfortunately, the funding going to Willow Park staff has stopped and YFC need to find ways in which to utilize the staff they have more effectively ... one way was with the watering of all the vegetable patches. Previously, four women would spend 4 days per week watering the vegetable patches; they can be used in other areas now that the sprinklers are in action.

Speaking at Falcon College

2007-11-21T07:23:00.000+10:00

The other Wednesday night I was invited to speak at an evening Praise and Worship service at one of the most hosh posh private boys’ boarding schools in Zimbabwe. Falcon College is about 30 minutes past the Willow Park turn-off heading south towards the border. It was a great turnout from the boys … there is about 350 boys who board at Falcon and about 150 turned up for the service. It was a great night to spend with the boys and being able to share a few words with them. I think one of the things that stuck out to me the most was how polite these guys were, after the service a majority of them came up and thanked me and shook my hand … I don’t think that would happen back in OZ. Sorry I don’t have any picci’s of this event … you will just have to trust me.

Because Falcon is so far out of Bulawayo, Jodi, Gabi, Heather (a friend of ours) and I decided to spend the night at Willow Park and do just a little bit more work the following morning. Our task was to fit 20 mattress covers to 20 foam mattresses that were donated by an Ozzie couple earlier this year. These beds are looking fantastic now; when we first arrived the campers slept in a “W” position because the framework of the beds weren’t done properly and a lot of the mattress’s were old and waterlogged because of the leaks in the thatching. They look a million buck’s now (not using Zim currency), and once we are finish they will look even better (the only thing to do now is to repaint where we have welded extra supports on the base of the beds and buy some more wood for the bed heads).

Milking Willow Park Dry

2007-11-14T03:39:00.000+10:00

It’s not what you think … I promise!!!!! I have the pictures to prove it.

I know this seems a little weird … having a couple of bottles of milk pictured on the blog … what does milk have to do with Willow Park????? But I promise you, this is no ordinary milk … this is Willow Park milk.

Let me tell you the story … Willow Park has had a couple of dairy cows for a few years and until just last week, all the milk was being turned into sour milk and then the curds where collected to make a side dish for the mealie meal. This side dish was produced for the girls’ who live at Samkele, which is a short term orphanage for abused girls, that is run at Willow Park. Unfortunately, the product used to help stimulate the cow to produce milk is getting REALLY REALLY expensive and YFC were finding it hard to continue to fund this milking project … until the other week.

Now, people who know me, know that I have a little thing for excel spreadsheets and after creating a few worksheets and looking at the stats derived from some pretty complex formula and algorithms we were able to work out that it would be cheaper and more economical to start to sell the milk. So that is what we are now doing … this “milk project” is now a self funding project and it creates enough revenue to purchase it’s own milk stimulant, cover the veterinary bills as well as purchase kapenta (really small and really smelly dried fish), which is used instead of the curds as a side dish for the girls mealie meal.

Who would have ever thought that milk could be soooooooo exciting!!!!!!!!!

More Work at Willow Park

2007-11-05T23:55:00.000+10:00

Yes, that is right … believe it or not Jodi and I have been doing more work at Willow Park. We packed our bags and ventured out for a night where we were able to help with the final touches of painting the dorms. It is great to finally have all the dorms painted and looking just soopa. We are hoping that next year we will be able to get all the asbestos roofs off and re-roof with thatch; then that will be about it for the dorms … except for building more … maybe having each dorm with viabrating massage beds … what about ensuites with private sauna’s and spa’s … I am sure we could add an extra couple of levels so that each dorm has it’s own entertaining area with pool table and plasma TV. There is so much is planned for this place … I look forward to sharing some more ventures in the near future.

Hotel Muller now has vacancies

2007-10-26T17:25:00.000+10:00

Yes this is true, we are now have vacancies at Hotel Muller … I am thinking of making it easier for people to book and start selling the room on wotif.com??????

Not long after Robert and Elizabeth had left, we had just enough time to remake the bed before more friends checked in. Stacie and Adrian visited us for a couple on nights on their way from the UK back to OZ. It was great to catch up with them and find out about their time spent working in the UK and all the traveling they did around Europe and other places. To be honest I don’t have enough room on this blog site or quite enough time to mention all the places they have visited … I think the only place they haven’t ventured to is a 1 x 1 metre patch of sand in the middle of the Mediterranean which is only accessible during low tide and when the moon is full.

More Visitors

2007-10-08T04:04:00.000+10:00

Hotel Muller was able to open its doors once again to welcome more friends for Australia. It was great to have Robert and Elizabeth come and join us for about 10 days in Zimbabwe. We picked these guys up from Vic Falls airport and spent a couple of days chilling around Vic Falls seeing the locals sights and witnessing the master of negotiation (Robert) as he went around the local markets bartering like a true local. To be honest I am used to seeing a more firing negotiation style as Jodi normally goes straight for the jugular and does not give up until she gets what she wants … Robert on the other hand has a more relaxed negotiation technique … different methodologies … both generally have a fairly good outcome.

After our adventures around the Falls we were able to take Robert and Elizabeth out to Willow Park and showed them what we have been up to this year. I have to pass on a HUGE thanks to these guys because they were eager to get in and help with some painting. Our aim was to get four of the dorm window frames and doorframes painted in a few hours … this task is a lot more time consuming than what we first expected with the dark brown gloss paint… instead of completing four we did get one done in our time out there. I have to admit though … the job that was done on that one dorm was done with meticulous care and precision and looks an absolute treat.

The time spent with Robert and Elizabeth was fantastic, it was great to catch up with them and find out all the things that have been happening back in Brisbane since we have left.

A Trip to Kezi

2007-09-23T05:20:00.000+10:00

The other week I was able to take a few of the YFC ladies out to a rural village called Kezi (care-zy) about 2 hours out of Bulawayo. The reason for the trip was to check up on one of the girls which YFC has placed out there. Our first stop was to Gohole Secondary School where she is currently completing form 2. I have to admit, I started to get a nervous twitch and sweat started to form on my palms as I drove into the school and saw the periodic table painted boldly and “in your face” on one of the walls … it bought back harsh memories of year 10 chemistry … I thought I had got rid of those bad memories. The young girl we visited is enjoying life in Kezi and is thoroughly enjoying school, her favorite subject is mathematics and according to her teachers this is also the subject that she excels in.

After visiting the school we went to the rural stand (farming plot) to visit the family who she is staying with. It is definitely a different way of life, each morning and each evening the young man has to go down to the dry creek bed and dig a massive hole just to get water for the family to use to cook and drink. As we walked around the plot it was disheartening to hear the stories of hardship they go through each day as they told me how this year’s crop did not produce much food and they struggle to get enough food each day to eat. Even though they are suffering it is amazing to hear their positive outlook and how they are confident that these days will not last for ever and how they look forward to the day where their fields will flourish again. What an awesome attitude to have.
It was as I was driving to this stand that I came across a dry creek bed … I was in my bakkie and I was confident that we would make it through without any hassle what so ever … maybe if I was in a monster truck I would have had more of a chance. As much as it dints my pride I have to tell you all that I bogged the bakkie and it took more than an hour to pull the bakkie out of the dry creek bed. Reflecting on the whole scenario it was a great team building exercise which produced some productive communication skills as we all attempted our own ways on getting the bakkie free.

Time to get UPDATED!!!

2007-09-03T06:20:00.000+10:00

I had a bit of time the other night to read through the previous blogs … gee I can ramble on … anyway, I noticed that I have not updated you guys on a few things; so here it goes.

Multi-Million (Zim) Dollar Willow Park Renovations

2007-09-03T06:07:00.000+10:00

So much has been done since my last update on Willow Park Campground. Before I get started, it just occurred to be the other week that at the age of 28 I have worked my way up the hospitalities ladder and I am now the Director of a multi million dollar (we won’t mention that this is in Zim dollars) holiday resort / recreational facility … impressive hey????

We are in the process of a multi million-dollar refurbishment of the grounds and things are definitely changing. We have had our workmen slash the grass tennis court and volley ball court and it looks absolutely fantastic. Before they started, the grass and weed were about waist height (or just a little over my mother in law’s head) which made it very difficult to return a serve when playing tennis. Unfortunately we still aren’t able to play tennis yet but it is on it’s way … take a look at this.

We have also done a lot of painting lately and it has made so much of a difference … it is amazing what a lick of paint can do. The walls of the scullery (wash up area) and outside the kitchen was looking very moldy and stained, but with the paint it has made the area look sooooo good … the pictures below do not do any justice. We are also in the process of slashing and revamping our soccer pitch … it is all slashed and burnt now and we will be fertilizing it shortly ready for the coming rains … it will be great to have the soccer pitch up and running again.

The thatched roofs of two of the cabins and one of the toilets were getting a lot of holes in them so we have just finished re-thatching these roofs … it is great to know that during the next rainy season that kids won’t be woken to rain gushing down on their heads as they sleep in the dorms.

We are also in the process of re-vamping 5 of the old brick dorms, these were looking very tired and as our camp welcomer said “ahh boss, it is shameful to sho piple these thins”. We have had a workman in to render the inside and outside of these dorms and we are in the process of painting them … they are looking terrific. You will have to take my word on this as I don’t have any pictures yet … you will probably have to wait another 4 months until I do the next update blog (oops).

The Red BAKKE

2007-09-03T06:02:00.000+10:00

Firstly I have to make an official apology … in my previous blogs I have spelt “bakke” (ute, tray back) incorrectly (bucki, bucky) … my conscious is now cleared, enlightening my fellow bloggers on the errors of my ways … If only I could publish the email I received correcting my spelling error. Basically, to make a short story long, the wheels have been replaced and it was back on the road … it is now in the need of a serious service and tune up … ohh well, it was good while it lasted.

Save the best until last …

2007-09-03T05:21:00.000+10:00

Gabi is going great guns … since my last blog on Gabi she has come ahead leaps and bounds. Gabi is beefing up (putting on weight) and the amount of smiles and laughs we get from her are countless. She is picking up on things so fast (Jodi now has to watch what she says) and I have been able to teach her some Aussie lingo which is mandatory for when she heads back to meet everyone in OZ (e.g. G’day mate). Just the other week we celebrated her 2nd birthday and she had an absolute BLAST. She had her first birthday party ever and she didn’t know what to do … she was puzzled to why people were giving her things that were wrapped in paper and she had to go through the rigmarole of having to unwrap them whilst they stood and watched. I have to admit … I have heard others talk about the “terrible two’s”, but boy does it hit with a big BANG. Gabi definitely has an attitude (I am sure she has picked this up from Jodi) and enjoys expressing her own opinion (another trait of Jodi … I am sure all of you who know Jodi know what I am talking about) and is quite adamant when she says “no” (yes another one of Jodi’s influences). Ohh well, you take the good with the bad … she has definitely been a blessing to both Jodi and I and we are both extremely grateful and thankful that we have the privilege of loving and caring for her. She is such a little cutie.

Calling All Bloggers ...

2007-08-20T04:08:00.001+10:00

I post my humblest apologies for the delay in my blogging. I have been SOOOOOOO busy with showing my parents around our new world. It has been an absolute blast and we have done some pretty cool stuff …

Hwange National Park

2007-08-20T04:00:00.001+10:00

It was an absolute treat to take mum and dad to Hwange National Park. For those who followed us on our adventure last year you may remember Jodi being absolutely terrified by the sounds of lion roaring a few 100 metres away as we camped inside the game reserve (what a woos). This year after many objections from Jodi in regards to the thought of taking mum and dad to camp in the reserve, Jodi got her wish and instead of camping, we all stayed in the Hwange Safari Lodged. I have to admit, I did enjoy sleeping in the nice king size bed and indulging in 5 course dinners and scrumptious buffet breakfasts, but it wasn’t the same as sleeping in the middle of the reserve, seeing all the stars in the sky and hearing all the wild life right near you as you sat around the fire enjoying a good piece of meat cooked on the braai (bbq).

Once again we were able to take our local expert with us so that he could explain all the flora and fauna within the park. We ventured into the park twice, once on the first afternoon and again the following morning. I have never seen so many elephant in my life; they were gathered in the watering hole on the first evening having a bath and a play around. On the second morning I finally got to see lion in the wild; as we were on our drive out of the park mum spotted 4 lionesses with about 4 or 5 cubs … it was awesome to see them so close (they were about 15 metres away).

Victoria Falls

2007-08-20T03:50:00.000+10:00

I thought we were treated really well at Hwange Safari Lodge but I have never stayed in a place like the Victoria Falls Hotel … this place does not hold back on indulging their guests. Imagine waking up to the sound of a light knock on your door, “room service” you hear the man announce quietly as you slip on your soft, white bath robe. You answer the door to and allow the attendant to enter with your complimentary freshly brewed morning tea and coffee with shortbread. WOW, I never get this type of service at home and I could never imagine Jodi waking up early to prepare a nice coffee for me whilst in bed … oh well, the joys of holidays I suppose. After our tea and coffee we would get ready and be treated to a decedent buffet breakfast overlooking the Zambezi river … I have to admit it was REAL hard waking up each morning ;0).

We had an absolute blast exploring the falls and seeing some pretty cool stuff. Jodi and I got to hold a baby croc and we all saw elephant swimming in the Zambezi river on our sunset cruise. This time away was really nice and relaxing … I hope mum and dad come back next year.

A Totally Zim Moment

2007-08-01T06:15:00.000+10:00

We have finally got our car … it has taken about 4 months but it has finally arrived. But as usual what should have been a fairly easy task turned into what we now call a Zim moment (these moments can’t really be predicted, but they ordinarily occur when something simple is turned into a HUGE ordeal). These Zim Moments are starting to occur more frequently but all that we can really do is laugh and look forward to sharing the moments with our blogger friends. Enough gas bagging … let me tell you about our car experience …

My goodness this whole car saga has been long and draining, in theory we should have had our car over 4 months ago, but due to certain changes things didn’t quite work out that way … but that is another blog in itself. On Saturday morning we woke up bright and early (about 5am) to take the 3 hour drive down to the SA border to collect our car ... this part of the trip was a breeze and was quite pleasant (the smell of our petrol sitting in the back of our friends car could have helped with this feeling). We employed an importing company to do all the stuff in relation to getting the car through immigration, this we felt would save us a lot of pain and heartache at the border ... which it did ... notice I said nothing about time though. We waited in the border town of Beitbridge (which has very little in it) for about 5 hours before we finally got to pick up our car and start our 3 hour trip back home. We couldn’t believe it … finally we had our car and we were on our way back up to Bulawayo … a bit of a long wait in Beitbridge, but no real dramas … what a relief. It was about 10 klm out of Beitbridge that our friends car which I was driving (it has 17" low profile wheels) suddenly started swaying to the left ... I pulled over and hopped out to the sound of shwshwshwshwshwshw ... the two left wheels had blown ... not good. We jacked up the car and started to take the back wheel off so Jodi could take it back into town to find a couple of spares ... the first 4 nuts came off fine, but when we got to the fifth we noticed our nut loosener/tightener did not do anything useful ... we needed a nut key. We called our friend and she advised that she knew nothing about it or where the key could be hidden (she had only imported the car 2 weeks earlier). Only in Zim .... Only in Zim. Jodi went back into Beitbridge to see if she could find any flatbed trucks to take the car back to Bulawayo with absolutely no success. It was only because our friend in Bulawayo knew of the only tow service in Bulawayo that we were notified that in about 5 - 6 hours an old flat bed truck would be here to assist. 5 hour came and went .... 6 hours came and went ... it was after 10 hours that the truck finally arrived (at about 3 am on Sunday morning … 20 hours since we woke up to start this journey). Now when we heard the truck was going to be old we though maybe a truck that was build in the early 80's ... this truck looked like it was build in the early 20's ... it had apparently broken down half way and he had to try to jump start the old thing. After 1.5 hours we got the car up onto the truck and we thought we would finally get going again ... no such luck ... the truck would not start. We decided that seeing it would only be another 2 hours until daylight it would be better to have a rest and try to start the truck and drive home in the daylight. Daylight came and we had the assistance of some young men whose car had broken down also (these guys had been waiting on the side of the road for about 4 days until their diff was fixed) to push start this truck. The engine started and we were off. To conclude, basically the truck broke down again in the same town as last time and he was able to start it again and finally get back to Bulawayo at 9.30pm on Sunday night ... our friends car is still off the road as we try to find two new tyres or 4 new rims which will be better suited to Zimbabwe roads (lots and lots of pot holes) ... I was able to celebrate my birthday like never before ... on the side of a road with some local Zimbabweans ... and the good news ... our car works really well and is a pleasure to drive.

All is good in the land of Blog

2007-07-13T17:29:00.000+10:00

It is with GREAT joy I can advise I have now been able to post a lot of piccies (I have had problems with this over the last comple of weeks). So if you are keen please look over the past blogs to see a little of what has been happening.

I have had better wake up calls ...

2007-07-13T16:55:00.000+10:00

Just imagine, you are sleeping in your warm comfy bed, dreaming about a nice layered latte from your favourite coffee shop when suddenly you are woken by your spouse announcing that there is someone rattling the front gates to get our attention. It is still dark as you look at the time … 5.00am … is this just a bad dream or are you really being woken up. Then you hear the rattling … no this is not a dream … this is real. As you stick your head out of the ensuite window to look at the gate you see a man in a police uniform. “Ahhh, morningbos … we hav had a rrepot that theeer hes been someone in yor yad”(Translation: Good Morning Sir, sorry to awaken you from your slumber but we have been advised by telephone that there has been someone loitering on your premises). You quickly stick your head back in the window, because of the cold cold weather outside. You scramble to get warm enough clothes on and as you go outside to open the gate, you find the police officer already in your yard. “Ahhh bos … ar you dooing any work on yor ca? (Translation: Excuse me, but may I enquire to whether you have been performing any mechanical labor on this automobile?). As you look at him with a vacant expression he is now alerting you to the fact that there is a bunch of leaves sticking out from the bonnet and the left hand side of the car is jacked up by bricks and your two left wheels are no longer anywhere to be seen. It is now that the police officer reveals “ahhh bos … it loooks like someone hes taken yor whels and mabe yor batrry (Translation: If you have not yet noticed it seems to appear that there is no longer any wheels on the left hand side of your car. If you could please take the time to look under the hood you will probably find that they have also taken your car battery and placed the leaves there so you didn’t wake from your slumber as they closed the hood). Yes … this is all true. Last night we forgot to put the little red bucky (ute) into the garage and someone has jumped the fence and taken both of the wheels on the left hand side of the car as well as cut the battery cords so they could relieve us of our battery as well. One of the things which sticks out to us is that the police officer admits that they probably would have got here in time to stop this theft if they had a police vehicle. Apparently, the officer had to walk for about 1.5 hours to get to our house because the one vehicle they do have was off somewhere else and even if it was at the station there probably wouldn’t have been enough fuel to drive it (we currently have NO petrol/diesel for sale in Zimbabwe). Ahh, life in Zimbabwe …

Technical Errors!!!

2007-07-13T16:53:00.000+10:00

Hi everyone, unfortunately I have been experiencing technical errors in posting pictures to the blogsite. I am hoping that this will be rectified in the coming week because I have loads of pictures to show you all. Have a good one, Andrew.

Finally, some familiar voices!!!!!

2007-07-11T23:30:00.000+10:00

Both Jodi and I have been extremely disturbed that we have been loosing our Aussie accents and sounding more and more like the local Zimbabweans … shame hey!!! But over the last 10 days we have had a bunch of Aussies come over to Zimbabwe and it has revived our Aussie twang … you little ripper!!!

As mentioned in the last blog, 14 young and not so young guys n gals came over to Bulawayo from the “other side” of the Brisbane river. They had an awesome time visiting so many different schools and groups; from the hosh posh private high schools to the rural townships all the groups enjoyed listening to them as they rocked their socks off up on stage. From all reports all the Aussie guys really enjoyed themselves as they witnessed to so many people and found out first hand some of the hardships the locals here are going through … it was s real eye opener

What a busy couple of weeks!!!!

2007-07-03T00:46:00.000+10:00

To be honest I don’t know where to start … from the beginning is always good, but it is hard to find the beginning and the end???? Crazy times … but let me try to explain. Just to let you know ... this is a bit of a longer blog, so make sure you grab a coffee, get a comfortable chair and enjoy your reading experience ...

We currently have an Aussie team of 14 people visiting YFC from a church on the southside of Brisbane (please don’t hold the fact that they live of the southside against them). Debbie, our good and faithful leader arranged to have them collected from J’berg airport instead of them having to pay an extra amount to fly up to Bulawayo, this is where the problems start. Debbie had purchased a 7 seater car from a Japanese export company and tried to import the car into Zimbabwe the week before the team arrived; so Dereck (a good friend of Debbie), Daniel (his son), Mike (another friend) and I took the first 3 hour drive down to the border to try to collect the vehicle. It took Dereck and Daniel over 6 hours to clear the car on the South African side and then try to get it cleared on the Zimbabwean side … with no success. Dereck tried to pay the 115% duty with his credit card (which other people have done) only to have the customs clerk advise that they no longer have the facilities to accept credit card and we had to pay the duty in cash. Now came the task of trying to get the $50,000 rand from the bank in one transaction or over a 10 day period, not enough time on this trip.

Next, the task of trying to transport the 14 Aussies from J’berg airport with only one 7 seater car and a bukki (ute/tray back) … good news came only 1 day later with a volunteer saying he could drive his sisters 7 seater vehicle as well … yay we now have enough seats and it should be easy from this point onwards. The day before we left (last Thursday) I had to get a police check done on the bukki (the car I was allocated to drive) to get it cleared to cross the border. This involves driving the car to an inspection yard in Bulawayo where a police office checks the chassi number against the registration papers, he signs the piece of paper and then gives it into the office where I collect it the following morning stamped and ready to go. Not this time … when the police officer checked the chassi number he noticed a discrepancy and advised that I should take the car over to the holding yard … what is going on??? No one told me of any possibility of a discrepancy. I was taken into police custody until I could prove that the car wasn’t stolen. I called my good friend Dereck (who I was borrowing the car from) to ask what was happening … it was then that I found out that the car was stolen over 5 years ago but had apparently already been cleared by the police back then. After waiting over hour in the C.I.D. office the papers arrived and I was released. To be honest the investigating officer was a good man and enjoyed trying to get me to say words in their language and laugh when I said them with a weird Aussie inflection (my self esteem was definitely being deflated after each word I said … one has to please the police officers over here).

The next day we set off on our journey … 3 hour drive to the border and then another 3 hours to Peitersburg, stop for the night and then another 3 hours to J’berg by Friday morning with very few problems. I think the only problem faced was the fact that we found out that team was arriving on Saturday morning instead of Sunday morning ... it was a good thing that that small detail was checked.

After collecting the team we set off to drive back to Bulawayo … we spent one night in Loise Trickard and then the next morning we set off for the border. Dereck’s car and my car cleared through all the security checks with absolutely no hitches … Tulani (the third driver) had the problems. The police decided to do a random security check on this vehicle and it was while doing this check that they found out that the car was stolen back in 2001 and was never recovered. Now Tulani, being in possession of a stolen vehicle was taken to prison and the 7 Aussies were set free and had to walk across the border. What was only expecting to be a two hour task to pass though both borders instead took close to 5 hours. With the help of a friend of Dereck’s (which he just happened to stumble across in Customs) we were able to get everyone back up to Bulawayo.

Now comes to task of trying to clear Tulani. Basically we had to prove that the car was purchased and Tulani had no idea that the car was actually stolen. That night at about 10:30pm, Peter, Duram (a board member of YFC) and I (I was the only one now that had a vehicle that was cleared to cross the border) started the journey to go back down to South Africa to clear our friend. It wasn’t until about 3:30am what we actually cleared both borders and started the task of trying to find the police station in Messina (the border town on the South African side). Of course, the police station was being refurbished and they had no signs on how to get into the station … so 1.5 hours later we finally got in and found out that we needed to head back to the border to speak with the police there … good game … good game. It was after traveling back to the border we found out that the VIS (Vehicle Inspection S????) team did not actually start until 7.30am in the morning and the police on duty could do absolutely nothing to help us. It was now 5.30am and about 24 hours since we had all woken up; we had to find somewhere to get a coffee and for one of us to catch a bit of shut eye (sleep). This task in itself was difficult, being a country town nowhere was open for a good coffee (we had to drink instant coffee) and no-one could really sleep (we were all over tied and could not get comfortable).

Finally 7.30am on Monday morning came about and we headed eagerly over to the VIS office to reveal all our paperwork to the investigating officer. We all expected a pat on the back for being top notch investigators and where expecting to go straight to the prison to get our mate out … not this time through. There was a court hearting scheduled for that morning and the evidence which we bought forward was not enough to satisfy the investigation team … they now needed to search their files for the original paperwork and we needed to give them more paperwork from Interpol to prove his innocents. Basically to cut a long story short, Tulani is remanded in custody pending further investigation or until we can get the Interpol paperwork down to the investigator. So by 12.30pm on Monday afternoon we started our journey back up to Bulawayo sadly disappointed because our main objective of setting Tulani free was not achieved.

NEWS JUST IN .... Tulani has just been released after one week ... he is now on his way back upto Bulawayo ... I wonder if he will help take the Aussies back to J'berg airport on Thursday????

Keeping up with the Times

2007-06-21T18:22:00.000+10:00

Jodi and I are now keeping up with the modern times and have updated our blogsite so everyone can see where people are logging in all around the world. If you want to have a look, just click on the world map under the “Archive” section on the right hand side of the screen. Thank you to our friends in Florida, UK and Brisbane who logged in yesterday.

OOOOPS … I forgot to tell you all something!!!!

2007-06-15T19:40:00.000+10:00

Ahh, it was about 3 weeks ago we had a missionary from GB come to visit. Ann used to minister here in Bulawayo for a few years and left to pastor a church at Clapham (London) at the end of last year. Ann was heavily involved in Willow Park camps and started the ball rolling with getting schools back in to use the facilities. Ann and her friend Jenny used to facilitate a lot of programs for prefix (high school seniors) and from all reports made a HUGE impact. It was great to have her back and to see her “do her thing” at Willow Park with a group of prefix from Matobo High School (Matobo is a rural area about 1 hour from Bulawayo). Seeing first hand the impact these studies can have on these young adults is amazing and has really pumped me full of enthusiasm to start running these programs again … it is just a waiting process. Both Jodi and I feel that we need to get Willow Park into running order first and then with the major renovations/clearing/cleaning up finished we can then concentrate fully on teaching and encouraging the youth from Bulawayo and in time to come youth from all around Zimbabwe … hey why stop here … we could have youth from all around Africa to come to Willow Park … nothing is impossible.

Time to do a little bragging!!!!

2007-06-06T23:42:00.001+10:00

It only occurred to me after the event, but last week an astonishing thing happened … Willow Park Camps successfully purchased its first product (for many years) from revenue created from camps. This is a momentous occasion. I know the items don’t seem that great, but as small as they may seem, it is still quite the achievement for Willow Park. Ohhh, I have just realized, I have not told you what we purchased … a 5 litre tin of gloss paint, two paint brushes and an industrial bin … things are a happening here at Willow Park … I have some more exciting news to share in weeks to come … so stay tuned.

Time to Renew our Visas

2007-05-29T18:37:00.000+10:00

I have a confession to make … it is hard to admit, but I think I am becoming more and more zimbabean each day I am here … the true test was when we went over to Botswana last week. On the way over we had to queue for at least an hour to get through the Botswana immigration, then on the way back we had to queue in the Zimbabwean immigration for more than 2 hours … all this was done without complaining and just standing patiently … You see, queuing is the national past time for the average Zimbabwean. Zimbabweans have to queue for money at the ATM, queue for bread, queue for mealie, queue for cheap petrol (when it is available) and when there is no queue people just queue for the sake of queuing. Now for people who know me well, I was never one to queue patiently, I didn’t care much for queues and definitely didn’t like just standing around … times are a changin’. Jodi on the other hand has not quite adapted to the Zimbabwean culture … “little miss impatient” is most likened to an over fizzed over shaken coke bottle … you don’t really know what is going to happen until the lid is taken off and then out comes a HUGE explosion … Jodi had to have a little “time out” when queuing at the Zimbabwean border (and that’s all that needs to be said).

The reason for our trip over to Botswana was for a little bit of RNR, to purchase some products for our new house (things are getting VERY VERY expensive here in Zim) and most importantly to renew our visas for another 3 months. All of the above was done with success. I have to admit, in the 3 months we have been in Zim I had almost forgotten what a “real” shop looks like, having fully stocked shelves with a wide variety of brands to choose from …WOW. I think one of the highlights was seeing packets of Tim Tams on the shop shelves, but the price was astronomical … $10 AUD wowza.

Our New Fridge

2007-05-28T23:30:00.000+10:00

Well … with a new house comes a new fridge … well maybe not a BRAND new fridge but new to us. Just to give you an idea of how ZAINY the prices are here in Zimbabwe, the fridge cost $15,000,000.00 (zim). I have included a couple of photos of the money I used to purchase the fridge … when piled up it was higher than a 300ml coke bottle and my wallet for the day was a box. Only in Zim … only in Zim.

Take a look at this!!!!!

2007-05-08T04:39:00.000+10:00

Well, Jodi and I have finally found a house of our own … well not really ours, but we have found a house to rent. Rentals are a very rare commodity here in Bulawayo and we are soooo glad we have found this one. It is not too large and has all the things which we need (and want). The inside is a little worn and tired with HUGE cracks in the walls and VERY dirty walls, but the gardens and pool have been very well taken care of and it makes up for the inside. We have a nice sized main bedroom with ensuite, a room for Gabi and a room for any guests that may just pop in (this is a hint to any of our friends and family in OZ … just imagine a week or two in the Muller Manor Zimbabwe with most expenditures covered … one can only dream). The most bizarre feature of this house is that it has servants quarters on site; apparently this is the norm here in Zim … basically anyone who can afford to live in a house is expected to also afford a maid and gardener … all we need now is a person to blow a bugle and announce our names when ever we enter a room and we will be set.

Are you ready for the HUGE blog????

2007-04-26T03:14:00.000+10:00

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 ....

2007-04-14T03:49:00.000+10:00

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

2007-04-05T01:34:00.000+10:00

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.

The Mustard Seed

2007-03-25T02:45:00.000+10:00

Last week we were able to go to a place called “The Mustard Seed”, which is an organisation / ministry which has been running in Bulawayo for about 5 years after Brother Garvin was invited from Jamaica (where the program originated) to setup here. This is a well setup ministry helping in so many ways

The Abandoned Babies Home has been set up on the outskirts of Bulawayo on the drive to the airport. They have only been in this house for a short time but are well recognised with Child Welfare and the police; even though they are not registered as an orphanage the local authorities are still bringing in abandoned babies to be cared for. The house is currently full having 13 infants to care for. It is so sad to hear how some of the infants are found. On Sunday night a young girl who was only 4 hours old was delivered to the home by the police; they had found her in a park (this is good story compared to other cases). It is also unfortunate to see that a majority of the young ones orphaned also have HIV and need medication to keep them healthy. This home is well staffed with young volunteers from the community coming to help look after the infants on a rostered basis. These volunteers are encouraged to help by getting provided with a certificate for child care after also doing some formal training. Much to our amazement when we went to visit this orphanage we found Daniel; the baby which Jodi and I fell in love with last year in the abandoned babies ward. He is doing very well, but he has turned out to be quite a moody little thing. Jodi just thinks he needs a couple of BIG smacks to get him into line.

The School, orphanage, medical centre and church has been set up in one of the semi rural areas about 20 min out of Bulawayo; the Mustard Seed ministry has set up an awesome facility for the surrounding community. They are providing young children with free education as well as meals during the day. They are also housing young school aged orphans and also providing them with education as well. Currently the children’s classroom is a section of field, but they are in the process of getting a classroom build which as been donated by one of the overseas consulates. One amazing story we heard from Brother Garvin was about the Christmas parties for the children in the rural area which have been run over the last three years. On the first year they had the party about 300 children came; the next year 500 and this last year ... 800 children; all the kids got a present (donated by locals) and had a fantastic time on jumping castles and being involved in a whole lot of other activities. This ministry also provides the older teenagers with work experience; as they build more buildings on their ground they have the teenagers help and get trained in manual labour (such as building, painting, plumbing). It is great to see the vision of Brother Garvin and all the ways in which this ministry can expand and help even more people.

Patience .....

2007-03-15T04:59:00.000+10:00

Finally we get to blog ... we have been trying all week to log on and blog but we could do absolutely nothing ... the locals just say "only in Zim ...". Something Jodi and I will have to get used to.

Happy reading ....

What a week ...

2007-03-15T04:45:00.000+10:00

Well I have experience the frustrations of Zim this week. I was happy to go to the baby’s home again this week but after arriving at 9.00am none of the children had been bathed yet and they were still in their old frayed pajamas. So, after a bath and a smearing of Vaseline the two boys were clothed in old tattered clothes and training undies that were stretched and did not fit; the two baby girls were layered in old hand knitted outfits, then with wrapped in blankets and then accessorised with old shabby beanies (it wasn’t even cold). The major frustration came from the fact that we had bought a large amount of donated clothing over from Australia (which they had asked specifically for) and instead of using the new pajama’s and undies (that would have fitted the boys) and the clean and well fitted jumpsuits for the girls they were packed neatly in a cupboard not being used at all.

On a happier note, Andrew & I are working well together on the Willow Park venture. Andrew had to get use to the idea of sharing his project with someone. I had not intended to get involved with Willow Park, but felt that God had been putting in my mind the excitement & vision that Andrew has for the camps. I had not shared with Andrew my feelings before we left home & still didn’t tell him until it became evident that the babies home was not going to work out in the capacity that I had hoped. I feel that this has been Gods way of telling us to stick together & work together. I still regularly go to the baby’s house, but as there are problems with the application process to get the house open the house is just simply being – it is stagnant in its works & not at all what they had hoped it would be. So God has given me a new passion & vision & luckily for us we work really well together (when we are not being stubborn).

(Andrew’s Turn now … it’s about time too; gee Jodi can go on …..) This week has been a very productive week … Jodi has re-organised my office … oops I mean our office so we can both fit in. We have been able to sort through all the camps that are coming up and put them into a completely new filing system; we have even produced a budget with profit and loss statements and projected earnings and expenditures … things are definitely on the move (in the office anyway). We went back out to Willow Park on Tuesday to have a detailed look into all the buildings … last week we mentioned repainting the dining hall, that is no longer on the agenda … the whole building has to go. On closer inspection we noticed that most of the walls have massive holes in them and the ceiling is missing mass portions of k-lite … it will be easier and less expensive to start from scratch. We have decided to go with a traditional feel and get a hut thing made around the existing cement slab, it will not be cheap, but it will definitely be more effective than trying to fix what is already there. The dorms also need a thorough re-vamp … don’t worry we won’t be demolishing those … after a good clean up and a lick of paint they will be as good as new. Furnishing is also needed; new tables and chairs for the dining hall and fixing the current bunk beds in each of the dorms (they are extremely bowed). None of this will happen over night, but we know that God will move things a long … at His pace not ours.

Life in Zim has been treating us well; I was able to have my first game of golf last Friday. I have to admit, I didn’t do too bad … the course is definitely different to the ones back in OZ with the fairway grass being about waist height on a majority of the holes and a lot of the water hazards being just dried dirt … and surprisingly enough I only lost 2 balls, my best statistic yet I think. On the home front we still have not found a place to rent yet but we are certain that something will come up very shortly … we have smooth talked a real estate agent and she is on the mission of finding us a house … bless her little white cotton socks. Power cuts have been getting more regular throughout Bulawayo, just in the last week we had more that one each day lasting at least an hour on each cut (no one knows why … it is just put down to being a way of life). There are rumors that water restrictions will be getting tighter with a limit being reduced from 300 lts per day to only 250 lts per day … this is not so tight for a small household, but for places like the Crisis Pregnancy Centre who house 8 – 12 girls at a time it makes it very difficult.

Look forward to sharing again soon.

Cheers,

Jodi and Andrew

What happend last week in Zim???

2007-03-05T01:29:00.000+10:00

This week we have mainly been in the office looking over the coming events at Willow Park and prioritising all the things that need to be done in getting the park into a more reasonable state of affairs. The main thing to get cracking on at the moment is the dining hall … all the walls are stained with mold and out of the 30 odd chairs that are in the hall about half of them actually resemble a proper working chair; all the others have no backs, not bottoms, wonky legs etc… and the tables are all chipped and looking very old and run down. We are hoping to get out again to Willow Park again this week to choose a new colour and organise the grounds men to repaint the dining hall. In reference to new dining chairs and tables, that is another story. I went to price new tables and chairs the other day and to purchase 10 tables and 60 chairs it will cost around $2,000 USD, and considering the price per person per night works out to be around $0.19 USD, it will take a lot of saving … there just has to be a cheaper way.

(Jodi’s Turn) Most of my week this week has been spent in the office with Andrew trying to work out pricing structures for Willow Park. I did manage to get out to the abandoned babies house. The way that the house has been set up is fantastic for the children with very happy and cheerful cartoons on the walls of the playroom. I spent a few hours there playing with the two little boys; they are both three years old. They were quite well behaved; they just loved having someone play with them. I barely made it in the front door when I heard “who are you? Let’s play!” I was saddened to see that the two boys were in one room on their own & the two baby girls (about 6months old) sitting in rockers were in another room on their own, while the four women in the house just sat around. After a bit of colouring in, reading & an adventure outside exploring the yard we came back inside only to discover the babies were still sitting in the same spot. I took the boys into play with the babies & the girls had a great time just watching the boys play. I noticed very quickly that for six months old these girls did not reach for anything you put in front of them, let alone put stuff straight in their mouths. It is a better environment for them to be in than the hospital, but they are still not getting the attention given to them that they need.

NEWS ALERT!!!!!

2007-02-27T03:28:00.000+10:00

We interrupt this blog transmission for an important Bulawayo news alert. It has been alleged that around Bulawayo there have been sightings of strange but fascinating and gratifying phenomena’s that Australians don’t often see in coffee shops / cafes … LAYERED LATTE’S … News just in … our paparazzi have just given us photographic evidence …What joyous news for those lovers of coffee who live in Bulawayo.

Lifes little adventures

2007-02-26T06:40:00.000+10:00

Time to update you all on our adventures in Zim … it has been a week since the last blog …. And well we have done a few exciting things:

Last Saturday we went to Arun’s place (Arun is our hosts old domestic) which is in a rural villiage about 1 hours drive out from Bulawayo driving towards Mutobo along some very rough dirt road tracks. Arun has a small “villiage” type set up where the Chief has allocated a plot of land for huts for Arun and his family / workers to live as well as a large plot for them to farm (both fruit and vegetables and live stock). Arun is able to grow a lot of mangos, banana’s, guava,spinach, chimolia as well as the usual crop of maize, the amount that is grown is enough for his family and any extra he sells to the local markets. The place where he lives is one of the most beautiful and peaceful places Jodi and I have been to.

On Sunday Des and Pete (our hosts) as well as Debbie (the YFC director) and her two girls (Maddie and Stephie) went out to the Mutopas game reserve for lunch. The lake where we set up for lunch was quite large and so tranquil; the whole scene was stunning. The lake was apparently home to many crocs as well as hippo’s … so as you could all imagine, Jodi (the fearless adventurer) wouldn’t venture any closer than 50m to the lake side. It was just after we had finished lunch that we heard a large grunting sound from the lake, as we looked over 3 hippo’s had their heads out of the water … Jodi and I switched straight into tourist mode and took quite a lot of photo’s as well as video footage … this was our first bit of game that we have seen this time through as well as our first ever sighting of live hippo’s.

On Thursday, Jodi and I went out to Willow Park with Debbie to check out the training centre that YFC are opening for teenage girls. There is still a lot of work which needs to be done to get the building in a worthwhile state, but things are definitely progressing well (expected to finish the renovations in about 6 – 8 weeks). This training centre will provide the girls opportunities to get trained in many skills such as sewing, cooking, house maid duties (cooking, cleaning, ironing, washing) as well as skills in setting tables and serving (so they can gain employment in restaurants) as well as computer skills (typing, using Microsoft office etc). The vision that YFC has for this training centre is fantastic and it will be awesome to see the girls complete these courses and hold a much better chance of gaining employment or starting their or businesses.

Another project which will commence shortly at Willow Park will be the farming of goats, pigs, rabbits and chooks. The main idea of this farming is so that eventually the training centre and camping area will be basically self sufficient and will not need to buy much meat from the markets. In time to come we are actually hoping to be able to sell either the meats or they live stock at the markets help raise fund to improve and upgrade the facilities and ministries at Willow Park.

Finally in Zimbabwe !!!!!

2007-02-18T05:17:00.000+10:00

Welcome to our first blog from Zimbabwe. Both Jodi and I had a fantastic flight, the food was great, service was out of this world and the best thing was that both of us could get a few hours kip on the plane. One other thing to mention … if you ever have a stop over in Singapore for a few hours definitely choose to go to the Ambassador Hotel in the airport; very basic rooms, but gee did it feel good to sleep in a proper bed for a couple of hours, have a hot shower and get into a fresh pair of underwear for our next leg (Singapore to J’berg – 11 hours).

On Thursday we went for a walk around the town for a few hours & have found a small shopping centre called ”Bulawayo Centre” it is set up a bit like the ‘Wintergarden” in Bris, but on a much much smaller scale; it is definitely my favorite place. It has a café, trendy looking pub, optometrist, hairdressers, sports shop, cinema (which is about $1.00 entry), a few clothing & shoe shops and a supermarket. The supermarket is like our Woolworths at home, most of the supermarkets here are like small IGA’s. Apparently it is where the snootie people shop, but I think I may just have to go there for a bit of normality.

Next week we will be looking for a house, cottage (granny flat) or town house of our own to rent; the people we are staying with said we can stay as long as we want (which is really nice), but we think it would be good to settle in for ourselves as soon a possible. One thing we didn’t really think of was the set up costs for small items such as buying cutlery and crockery, linen etc… but we are in no hurry, all of this stuff will come our way at some stage.

The progress on the babies house has seemed to go backwards, it turns out that the application for final approval, which they were told was in Harare is in fact still in Bulawayo (it never got sent) and the case worker assigned to it has resigned. Another thing that has just happened recently is that the hospital where the abandoned babies unit was has now decided that it is a waste having qualified nurses babysitting healthy babies, so they have closed down the ward and have split up the infants into different wards. This causes a few different issues, most being that healthy babies are now in wards with ill babies and are now at risk of getting ill (and they don’t have any relatives to give them the care they will need). Hopefully the application for the opening of the Baptist house will actually leave Bulawayo and will be approved quickly.

In reference to the Baptist house, they now have 4 babies in the home, another 6mth old girl has just been brought in. Everything is basically set up ready for the infants from the hospital, they have a house mother and a newly appointed matron and a few locals to help look after the little ones.

Well it was great to blog and we will update as soon as more information comes to hand.

Jodi and Andrew.

Up .... Up .... and AWAY

2007-02-12T10:51:00.000+10:00

Hi Everyone!!!

Well we will be off to Zim in a few hours. Finally! We are so sick of hanging around, waiting for this day to arrive. I have said goodbye to my family, which is what I have been dreading (that went better than I was expecting) – so just Harry’s family & friends at the airport to go.

Thanks for supporting us, we look forward to sharing our journey with you all.

We will update everyone when we arrive.

So much to do is such a small amount of time ...

2007-01-23T22:30:00.000+10:00

Hello Again,

Gee it has been a while since this blog has been updated … I give my humblest apologies.

I suppose I should fill you all in on a few details so you know what Jodi and I are doing. Well on Monday, Feb 12 2007, Jodi and I will be boarding a plane to fly back to Zimbabwe … that means that in less than 3 weeks we will be leaving our family and friends in Brisbane and starting a new adventure. Let me tell you all, in that 3 weeks there is so much happening. Jodi finishes work at the end of this week and I finish work at the end of next week, we have to pack up all the stuff in our house and store the stuff we want to keep (see the attached photo), then we need to get the house ready for renters to move in (that is a HUGE job … we all know how messy Jodi can be … just joking J). During all of this we need to pack the items we are wanting to take over to Zim, unpack it all again to make sure we have everything, pack it up again, unpack it all because there could be a better way to pack it, pack it all up again and no doubt we will unpack in all again at the last minute because we have forgotten something and it just won’t fit at the top of the bag. My goodness, so much to do is such a small amount of time.

Well, that will be enough of my gas bagging for the time being, I will try to update you some more very shortly,

Use the blog Luke … use the blog ………

Cheers,

Andrew (Harry) and Jodi.

Things are on there way ...

2006-11-19T07:42:00.000+10:00

Welcome back to the blog, sorry it has been so long since our last writing, things have been absolutely crazy with organising and preparing for our next trip to Zimbabwe.
House Renovations: Whilst we are in Zim, we will be renting out our house, over the last 5 years that we have lived here, Jodi and I have always put off doing any work, now there is not much time to go until we leave and we have a fair bit to do. The great news is that most of the work for inside the house is almost done, we just have to pack up all of the stuff we are wanting to keep and try to sell / get rid of all the stuff that we just don't need anymore. In reference to the outstide of the house, our retaining wall is almost complete (as seen in the picture) and the fixing up of our deck will be started in the next couple of days. Then all we need to do is get the gardens looking nice and we are almost done.
Raising Support: Over the next month or so, Jodi and I will be visiting other churches to gain further prayer and financial support. This will be an exciting time to meet new people and to raise more awareness of what is happening.
Fundraising: It has been awesome to see God working and speaking to people in helping Jodi and I get back over to Zimbabwe. At this stage we have about half of the funds that we are needing (through one off domations as well as people pledging to give money on a weekly or monthly basis). There is still a lot more work to be done ... One thing that we have learnt from our last trip over to Zim, is that GOD HAS EVERYTHING IN CONTROL. We know He loves us and that He does want us in Zim, so He is not going to abandon us or leave us and He will provide for us all that we need ... we just need to be trusting and patient.
Our Website: Our website is finally complete ... follow the link to www.zimbabwebound.com

We look forward to sharing our journey with you again, so please stay tuned.

Until next time,

Jodi and Harry.

Back to Zim in 07

2006-09-26T18:36:00.000+10:00

Hello all,

Well we are back again on the Zim trek … we have not yet left Australia but our journey is only beginning. To fill you in on a few details … Jodi and I are looking at heading back over to Zimbabwe in February of 2007 and work within the Baptist church and Youth For Christ for the year. Our last trip to Zimbabwe really opened our eyes and our hearts to see a small glimpse of God’s purpose for our lives. To be honest, this step is not the easiest for Jodi and I to take, but we both know that God has a bigger and better plan for our lives than what we could ever imagine.

This road isn’t going to be the easiest journey we have ever taken … in fact as we look down this track there is a lot of organising and planning to be done in a short period of time. Basically everything in Zim is organised … it is just getting there that will be the more challenging part. There is still a bit of work to be done on our house before we can rent it out and there is still a large amount of fundraising to be done as well. In short, we are needing to raise at least $AUD 20,000 to keep our heads above water. We are going to be starting our fundraising shortly … hey if anyone has any fundraising ideas we are definitely interested.

Well I have to push on … make sure you stay posted as Jodi and I will be updating all who read our blog about our journey … it will be a challenging journey, but it will definitely have it’s rewards.

Farewell to Zimbabwe

2006-03-27T05:13:00.000+10:00

Reflection From Jodi
Well the time has come for us to head off on our way back home. In many ways we are sad to be leaving & would love to stay longer in this fantastic place. We have felt very at home here & despite all the hardships we have witnessed & experienced while we have been here we will be back. People are leaving this country in droves, we have found that it is a country in need of people to come here & help - just to love these people really does make all the difference in their lives. We have reflected constantly that if the people in Australia were to go through what these people go through everyday, they just wouldn�t be able to cope. We are just so thankful to have had these experiences & thank you to everyone who has blogged with us along the way, it has been great to keep in touch & it is a huge encouragement for us to hear that people back there a thinking of us & praying for us.

Reflection From Andrew (Harry)
As I reflect over our Blog it makes me reminisce fondly on our time here in Zim. Time has just gone soooo fast, it only feels like we arrive last week yet we have witnessed and got involved in sooo many things. We are still exploring our part in God�s will and we are seeing more realistically were we fit. Our prayer before we left was to find our place in God�s will and that we would see what He has us doing in the future ... well I can confidently say that He has shown us a little bit more and boy are we excited. Thank you all for your support and encouragement through responding to our blogs and through your constant prayer we have been truly blessed. See you all in a week or so.

In His Service,

Jodi and Harry.

Day Twenty Four

2006-03-27T05:05:00.000+10:00

We were off to the Baptist church this morning for a family service where the kids performed a few items. Both the songs & message was kiddie friendly & everyone joined in & had a great time. They have a family service once a month to ensure the kids are getting involved with the church & seeing how adults behave in this situation, it also helps the adults to see how their kids are behaving & growing within the church environment.

We finally got to go to Motobo. It is something that was planned for us to do on our first weekend here, but due to the crazy weather we couldn�t go. We had a huge picnic lunch sitting beside a beautiful lake, the only thing that spoilt our time were the flies - these are not ordinary flies, they lay eggs on your clothes & they can burrow into your skin & hatch inside you, so that can be quite painful. We then walked up to World View, a beautiful lookout over the rocky scenery. There were two graves up there, & a monument to people who died in the war. It is unlike any scenery we have here - the balancing rocks are huge & it looks like a giant has just picked up a heap of stones & piled them up, such a pretty site to see in amongst all the greenery from the recent rains.

Day Twenty Three

2006-03-27T05:02:00.000+10:00

Today was great day, we had a sleep-in & then we were taken to a café for a late breakfast. The food was quite nice, Harry liked his coffee but the tea here leaves a lot to be desired. They have it weak, milky & most people have heaps of sugar, (I am yet to see tea leaves). After a relaxing start to the day we headed off to run a few errands & checked out some shops in a mall we had not been to yet.

Next we went on to visit my favorite kids one last time, I am glad we did. When we arrived we could hear the kids crying from outside. We went in & found all of the kids still in their cots & not a nurse in site. We had stopped along the way to buy some disposable nappies to change the kids, it turns out this was a good idea. The hospital once again had no steam, so the kids had no nappies on & only a few of them had bits of ripped up cloth wrapped around them. So after changing them all we took them all out of their cots & held them & played with them, they are all so craving for affection. Sadly the time came for us to say goodbye to the kids & once again I could not get the baby off of Harry – for a guy that can’t stand holding babies he certainly is doing a lot of it. It is sad to have to leave these kids in such bad conditions, especially when we have been able to see the kids open up to us & have formed such close bonds with them.

Day Twenty Two

2006-03-26T15:28:00.000+10:00

Our wake up call at 6.00am was on time and both Andrew and I got up left for our walk around the falls at 6.30. As we approached the gates we saw that there were six guards, so our plan to pretend to be locals went out the door - we borrowed ID�s & rehearsed all of the details but in the end we were not that confident (the price for locals is $460,000. = $2.30 US compared to $4,000,000 = $20 US for tourists). Our walk took about 1 � hours to go all the way around, we had been told that we will get soaking wet, but we were nearly at the end & still dry so we were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves. It all changed as we got to Horse Shoe Falls Lookout where we had a bit of mist spray on us. We walked on around the corner to see the mist poring down like rain, we thought we were already wet so we would be brave & go right around the front (there is a back way - not so wet), it was as we were slipping & sliding on the rocks that we decided that we were apparently not that wet before.

We got back to the hotel, had a quick shower & headed to the restaurant for breakfast. We were in heaven! As we were sitting at our table drinking tea & coffee, gazing over the waterhole it was then that I decided that I am a hotel person, not a roughing it person. We were once again bursting from eating too much.

Begrudgingly we checked out of the hotel & went back to the markets to get some more bargains. This time we took some of our shirts & jeans to trade because the day before people wanted to trade for the shirts & shoes we were wearing. So with our suitcase full of stone carvings instead of clothes we got back into the car & headed off for our long five hour drive back to Bulawayo.

Day Twenty One

2006-03-26T15:27:00.000+10:00

We decided to pack up camp early this morning ... I think that the flies heard about our plans and decided to join us ... my goodness, the amount of flies buzzing around this place at 6.30 was phenomenal ... I am used to seeing one or two by about 9.30am on hole 10 or 11 on the Keperra golf course not 1,000,000 at sun up. But that is Africa for you I suppose. An idea was put forward and the vote was unanimous that before traveling too far a buffet breakfast at the Hwange Safari Lodge was in order. It was very relaxing and quite different to the bowl of muesli and warm milk we had on the previous day. With bloated stomachs and eager spirits we finally departed to see the world famous Victoria Falls.

The journey was not as long as Day Nineteen ... we were only cramped into the 2.5 seater ute for about 4 hours, what a relief. By the time we arrived our rooms were ready and boy did they look good, we had an awesome view of the surrounding savanna and waterhole where impala enjoyed a refreshing drink. We only had time to quickly admire the view before we were off again to find more curios. We finally got our chance to barter and boy did Jodi go off ... An absolute star when dealing with the likes of the pushy (and sometimes rude) African sales folk. Any body who knows Jodi knows how feisty she can get; well it came in very handy when searching for a bargain ... no body could shaft this little rocket. With a few curios in our hand we departed the market place pleased with the bargaining which was done.

This afternoon Jodi was able to shed the shackles of poverty and enjoy the elegance and ambiance of high tea at the Victoria Falls Hotel. This hotel is the finest in Victoria Falls and has a price to match. The view from our table was delightful as we looked across the freshly manicured lawns and out into the gauge with the bridge which crosses the Zambezi.

Our dinner tonight was at the Boma. This was my first chance to trial chibuku (the African version of VB) and I have to admit ... I will probably never willingly drink it again. The dinner was definitely appetizing and we left with belly�s full of all different kinds of game meat (Impala, warthog, ostrich, mopani worm and the list goes on). This restaurant also has traditional dancers which perform throughout the night and at the end, all guests are given a drum and are educated on how to do the African beat. What a great way to finish after two nights of roughing it in the bush.

Day Twenty

2006-03-26T15:26:00.000+10:00

We were off by 6.am to see how far the lions were from us the night before & I can assure you that they were only about 300m from our camp (not the 2-3km they were telling me the night before). Even though we only saw 1 of the big 5 (the elephant) we still saw heaps of animals & we had such a great time. We got to see heaps of Giraffe, Elephants, Warthog, Baboon, Monkey, Zebra, Impala, Eland & so on. It is quite different to see them in the wild instead of zoos.

We had a bit of rain today so a lot of the animals were in hiding & keeping a low profile - not so good for finding wildlife, but great for a person who is scared out of their wits.
I handled my second night better that the first, I was still very on edge but felt a little assurance in knowing that Lions don�t hang around the one area, they roam around to find more animals so the possibility of them being anywhere near us was pretty low.

Day Nineteen

2006-03-26T15:21:00.000+10:00

Today was a long day! By the time we got the tires checked, our camping permit & our pizzas to take with us we were off at about 12.30pm. We got to the National Park at about 4.pm & then found out that the campsite we were allocated was the furtherest from the gate, so about 6.pm we were finally at our destination. I quickly checked out the kitchen & decided that it was not suitable to sleep in, so I then I checked out the toilet & the four walls were strong, the window closed & the door was sturdy, it was way more suitable.
I was a bit on edge as there is no lighting to see what is creeping around your camp, as soon as I heard the Lions roar I ran for the car & let me tell you Harry was not very compassionate. It took our friend Derek a while to convince me to get out & even then I was sooooooo scared I hated every minute that went by until I could get to bed.

Day Eighteen

2006-03-21T19:22:00.000+10:00

Today was a pretty easy going day, we went curios (souvenir) shopping . There is so many nice things, but having such strict regulations in Aus it really restricts what we can bring back.
Well tomorrow we are off to Hwange National Park to see the big five and Victoria Falls. I (Jodi) have already reserved the camp ground kitchen (at least it has four walls, a door & a roof), there is no way you would ever get me in a tent in the middle of a game reserve! ... We shall blog again on Friday or Saturday. Have a great couple of days ... we know that we shall.

Day Sixteen & Seventeen (Weekend # 3)

2006-03-21T19:21:00.000+10:00

Wow ... what a busy weekend. They were long jam packed days. On Friday night ... or should I say Saturday morning the kiddies didn’t get to sleep until 2am, then they were awake again and running around the camp grounds at about 5.30am. This did not really leave much sleeping time for us leaders. The children though had a really good time, eating lots, playing games and learning more about God. On Saturday evening a couple of the groups wanted to do a couple of skits ... we thought that it would take only 2 or 3 minutes, but after 25 scenes and 45 minutes later the first skit finished and we still had another one to go ... it didn’t matter though because the other kiddies were laughing and really enjoying what was being presented.

Before we knew it the weekend was over and we all headed back home on the Sunday afternoon. We came back to the western suburbs to find out that a football match had just finished. People and cars were hoarding the streets; there was hardly any room to move. Driving through this traffic was like nothing I have ever experienced before in my life. I was given one road rule ... there are no rules. I am glad I was given that rule ... the people in the other cars were absolutely ruthless. But we made it though, even though I have a few more grey hairs there were no other damages.

Well I must be off now ... we shall blog again soon.

Day Fifteen

2006-03-21T19:14:00.000+10:00

We are happy to be back in Bulawayo! We went back to my favorite place this morning to see the abandoned babies (I have been breaking my neck to get back there). We were both happy & sad to be there, we were able to take all of the kids out side to play for half an hour because there were about 10 of us visiting. We found out that one of the little boys who we fell in love with after only one visit has now been put in an orphanage so it was a little sad to think that we will never see him again. The other little boy that we are madly in love with is nicknamed Daniel (because no one can say his real name), I was looking forward to seeing him soooo much but I couldn’t get him off of Harry, so I only got a quick hold just before we left. It broke my heart to leave him there & knowing that he could so easily be ours if we stayed here does not make it any easier to go home.
This afternoon we headed off to Willow Park with a heap of orphans for the weekend, we had a lovely afternoon & although there were a few hiccups to start with the evening went well.

Day Fourteen

2006-03-17T17:51:00.000+10:00

Well we were able to have a bit of a sleep in today; our bus didn�t leave until lunch time so we had a majority of the morning to pack up and get ready to head back to Bulawayo. As soon as we felt the pot holes in the road we knew we were back. This weekend we are heading away with about 40 orphans to Willow Park, it should be a good weekend to spend with the kids and play a lot of games and just let them chill in the relaxing surrounds. We leave tomorrow afternoon and get back Sunday evening.

Have a great day ... we look to blogging again shortly ... until next time ...

Day Thirteen

2006-03-17T17:49:00.000+10:00

Today we had to pull out our old safari suites and put on our safari hats, because we had the opportunity to visit Antelope Park for some wild adventures. Antelope Park is a large nature reserve about 25 minutes out of Gweru; it is an awesome set up with beautiful green grassed parks set next to a large river where guests can canoe or take a river cruise.

Our host came to collect us shortly after we arrived to take us into the lion cub enclosure. As we approached we saw the three 8 month old cubs prowling the entrance, they looked like they were going to be quite active and playful, but alas after we entered they walked around for a bit then sat back down at the entrance. Our next adventure was after lunch when we got to go for a ride on the back of an elephant. Our guides took us on a short trail ride around part of the park; the trainers at the park have taught all the elephants how to play football and it was fun to see them kick the ball as well as pick it up and throw it around the playing field.

After spending a majority of the day at the park we had to quickly make our way back into Gweru to get meet up with some friends so we could get to a bible study they do with the children at the Blue Hills Reformatory. This was our first opportunity to get to ride on an E.T. which is Zimbabwe�s version of public transport. This was an interesting experience, imagine cramming about 36 people into a 16 seat bus. Our host led us to a corner away from the main stop where we were able to get on whilst the bus was still empty ... when we arrived at the main stop, the crowd of people would not stop pushing and shoving ... it was on for young and old, there was absolutely no mercy shown for anyone, even young school girls were being hurled out of the way or squashed into the people in front of them so that the hoards could get on board.

After a short ride we got to our destination. The Blue Hill Reformatory is a facility set up for children who were either street kits or who have broken the law. The New Life Centre church have been coming into the reformatory for about 2 years now and are only allowed in for 1/2 hour on Wednesday afternoon and for 1 hour on Sunday morning. Dr Makori who heads the ministry said that the children can�t get enough of the gospel and really get into the praise and worship time and the bible studies. Please pray for this ministry and its leaders; please also pray that the officials continue to allow the people from the church into the reformatory to spread the word.

Like sand through an hour glass, so are the blogs of our lives ... until next time ...

Day Twelve

2006-03-17T17:45:00.000+10:00

Once again we had to set our alarms to the ungodly hour of 6.30am. We were invited to go to the local Teachers Training College for early morning devotions before the first lecture began. It was a great time of singing worship and praise and listening to the devotion lead by one of the students. After devotions it was time to give my first lecture ... yes you read correctly, I took a lecture ... Prof Harry Muller is starting to appeal to me more and more. The students (including Jodi) participated in some great discussions about some aspects of love mentioned in the bible. The title of my lecture was called �The One Another�s and Love in the New Testament�. I will be publishing lecture notes and providing reading material in the future for students who would like to study at the Institute of Harry�s Theology.

In the afternoon, Jodi and I went with four of the students for the training college to a local orphanage. As we pulled up Jodi and I thought that the children may take a little bit of time to get used to us and our weird accent, but much to the contrary they came running up to us and stuck to us like glue. One young child would not let go of Jodi, many times she went to put him down, but he would not let go of Jodi�s neck and when he did it was only to place her hand back on his butt so she could continue to hold him. One thing we have learnt about the African culture is their lack of knowledge about personal boundaries ... it was humorous to see Jodi fully experience this with the kids when she pulled out a packet of balloons and started handing them out. I liken this scenario to sea gulls ... imagine sitting at the beach and you see a single gull ... you throw it a chip and as soon as this is done the entire population of gulls that reside on the east coast of Australia come to your one spot hoping to also get some chips ... replace sea gulls with young children and the chips with balloons and you will catch my drift. The children engulfed the unexpected Jodi until there were no more balloons to hand out.

This orphanage is well set up, they have their own chooks to provide eggs and meat, and they also have rabbits and their own HUGE veggie patch which provides next to everything from maize to chilies. This is very handy as food is either very expensive or non existent. The children seemed very proud of their surroundings and were eager to show us every square inch of the property.

It was lovely to blog with you today, hope we can do it again sometime. Until next time...

Day Eleven

2006-03-17T17:43:00.000+10:00

Today we met up with Morgan who heads up Scripture Union for the Midlands area (it is quite a large area to look after). They are involved in many school outreach programs including life skills programs, running school assemblies were they can preach the word of God to the children, lunch time get togethers for the Christian children and much much more. We joined Morgan for the lunch time worship in one of the churches in town, this is run every day and they always have a great turnout ... the place was packed. It started with individual prayer, then they had a worship team who lead a few songs, next one of the pastors got up & gave the sermon (all in their native language), so we didn�t understand any - but we did understand his yelling. Our first comment when we came out was how loud it was. After this we went for a walk through town & had lunch in a place where the sign out the front says �American style caf� - The Dutch Oven�. An interesting name with some very interesting food.

It was after today�s outing combined with a strong feeling from both of us that we decided that we should not be here in Gweru, but instead be back in Bulawayo. It was not an easy decision to make but we both felt it was the right thing to do. So we told our hosts and made our plans to migrate back down to Bulawayo on Thursday.

Day Nine & Ten (Weekend # 2)

2006-03-17T17:16:00.000+10:00

Saturday
Today we had to awaken from our slumber early again … we had to be at the bus stop by 7.30am to catch our bus up to Gweru. We made it there in ample time and before we knew it we were on our way. Blue Arrow Busline is a very nice coach service, they have comfortable seats with ample leg room and they even served us biscuits and a choice of soft drink or mineral water. It only took about 2 hours to travel from Bulawayo to Gweru, not long at all. We were greeted by Dave Fergusson and his daughter Stacey, Dave is our main contact up in Gweru. It was a lovely drive back to his house to meet his wife Heather. The streets don’t have as many pot holes as Bulawayo and it seems a lot brighter and more colourful up here. In the afternoon, we attended the school sports day ... Jodi and I could not believe that the children actually turned up to a school event on a non school day, they train them well over here. It was quite a large event and many spectators lined the running track.

Bar the traveling and the sports day, not much really happened today. It was a nice day just to sit back and take in our new surroundings.

Sunday
This morning we attended the New Life Centre church on Windsor Road. It was a great time to meet all of Ben and Sue Naude’s friends and find out their deep and darkest secrets. Ohh the stories we have to tell. We also met up with Pastor Ogden and his wife Peggy who founded the church many years ago. It was great to finally meet them as we have read their biography and found it to be quite inspiring. The people who fellowship at the New Life Centre are very nice and made us feel most welcome.

This evening we went to the local Baptist church and met up with Rogan, who is the Pastor of the church. There were only about 12 people including us, but we had a great time of fellowship and sharing. They are a very warm and welcoming bunch of people and we had a great time making new friends, sharing stories over a cup of tea after the service. They are currently in the process of building a new worship centre, it isn’t at lock up stage yet, but it has taken about 6 years to get it to this stage. They said that over the last 6 years they have had about 250 members leave because they have migrated out of Zimbabwe.

To blog or not to blog that is the question. Until next time.

Day Eight

2006-03-11T05:40:00.000+10:00

Today we went for a drive out to Lupane, a rural Catholic hospital about 1.5 hours out of town. It is one of those towns that have the mud huts you see on tv (so cute). We were given a tour by the priest who looks after the centre, they do such a great job there & they are one of the last places that still have nurse training schools. When we went into the malnourished ward it was hot & smelly, & full of babies (1 ½ yrs – 4 ½ yrs) who were so so small. They are literally skin & bone. Their skin is discoloring & they have sores over their bodies because their skin is peeling off. A few were just whining the whole time & others were just too weak to even cry. It really does just make you wonder how the world gets in such a state where people are so poor their children are dieing.
We were able to give the parents/grandparents small gifts of clothing & blankets that we were able to buy with the donations from SPCC. Youth For Christ donated meal packages to these people because when the children go home the parents or grandparent don’t have the money or produce to feed them and the children’s health will go down hill fast again.

Please pray for this center. They are doing a great job providing care for the local people as well as giving training to the local girls in life skills (such as sewing and cooking). Please pray that the support given by outsider donors will continue and that this ministry will continue to flourish.

Day Seven

2006-03-11T05:25:00.000+10:00

Today was great! First off we went to the local Baptist church with Ray Motzi, the local pastor & heard all about his visions for the church. He is well respected in Zim for his church planting & standing up to the government; he has been arrested several times. He then took us to the Theological College where he lectures Social Theology, we sat in on one of his lectures and before starting he got the students to ask us questions about Australia.
After a quick lunch in the car we went to a hospital in a poor part of town called Mpilo. This is where the abandoned babies up to three years old are taken. They just craved human touch, we held them & took in balloons for them to play with (they loved them). There was one little boy with such an infectious little chuckle that we just wanted to bring home. (we both wanted to bring a few of them home). They have two disabled boys there & one who is so sick with the chicken pox, he just cried & cried when he was put back in his cot.
These children & any other abandoned children will eventually go into the house which the Baptist church has bought & has made part of there ministry. This center is not open yet as they are caught up in the bureaucratic web, awaiting approval from the government first, then from Social Welfare (at least another 6 months before opening). This center will be so beneficial to these children as they will have workers from the church loving & caring for them instead of nurses in the hospital who just do it because it is there job. These children are so neglected it made me angry to see the nurses sitting back not caring for them, but I suppose it is much better than leaving them to die.
It was in the evening that we went to see the house the Baptist church has bought for their ministry; it is a huge house with loads of potential, but needs a bit of work done still.

Day Six

2006-03-11T05:08:00.000+10:00

Sallibonaane (sally banana) – hello. Well Steve is not impressed that I haven’t written any blogs yet, so Harry has said I have to for a while. Today we went to Sidojiwe, a very very poor suburb on the outskirts of town. Whole families including grandparents, children, grandchildren & even cousins all live in tiny little units. The units are about 4m x 6m divided into half by curtains, one is used as a lounge & the other as a bedroom – the whole family will sleep together in this room (so tiny that four of us could not fit in together comfortably). They have a communal kitchen with only a sink & a wood fire BBQ type thing, they also have communal bathrooms. These units were all condemned a few years ago, (but people still live in them & are charged rent)! You can not imagine the smell, darkness & dampness of this place. A preschool is run in one of these units for the local kids from 3 – 6 years old, they have about 15 – 20 kids. The two teachers do the best they can with nothing. The kids sit on sugar bags on the cold wet cement floor. So sad to see this & to think the kids have no future & no life to look forward to, but they do not know any better.

LATEST UPDATE ... WE NOW HAVE POWER ... YIPPEE!!

2006-03-08T21:09:00.000+10:00

Day Five

2006-03-08T21:01:00.000+10:00

You'll never guess what ... we still have no power and my cold is finally clearing. We had an early start for today, up at 6.45 getting ready to go to Willow Park which is a school camp site run by YFC. It has 5 lodges which sleeps up to 10 children in bunk beds and also has an assault course, rope course and sports fields. Willow Park is in a state of repair and maintenance, but with a new team being formed it will be ready for camps in the next few months. Willow Park also lodges orphaned children and abused women who need a little bit of respite. It is a beautiful place up in the hills where the buildings all have thatched roofs and are set in the tranquil surrounds of fresh green grass and relaxing water holes. We had an interesting time getting there, this time the 2 seater ute had to accommodate 6 people as well as a large white fridge. This fridge had to be supported by three very manly men in the back who had to also battle the harsh up hill terrain combined with the arctic cold winds and the monsoon rains � well maybe this is a slight exaggeration ... there were three manly men but it was mainly flat road bar the last 200 meter and the winds were mainly produced by the driving and the rain was more like a very light sprinkle. Well that pretty much concluded our day ... ohh one last thing, blessings today for us ... the sun shone through the clouds and we were kind of warm for about 5 minutes today. May the blog be with you ... Until next time ...

Day Four

2006-03-08T20:57:00.000+10:00

Well I am still sick ... I am starting to feel a little better but my nose is still manufacturing mass amounts of produce and my voice sounds like I have swallowed a cheese grater. Ohh well ... what can I do ... I have use up all my sympathy points with Jodi so I have to build a bridge and GET OVER IT. We are still without power and no power for this long means no hot water. Jodi and I boiled a pot of water over a gas bbq and had a bath about 2 inches high. Interesting ...very interesting. Just think, if these things weren't sent to try us I would have nothing to write about in the blogs ... a blessing in disguise.
We traveled into the YFC office today in the middle of Bulawayo and finally got to see what we have been reading about over the last 3 years. We were only in the office for a short time before we headed out to Motopos which is a small rural community about 1 hour out from Bulawayo. There we were able to help with the children's RE program ... Stan you would have been proud, we taught them Dodge Ball. The music and the sermon we could not understand (spoken in Emdabelli) but from the looks of it 3 children raised their hands to find out more about Christ ... praise be to God. It was amazing to hear the children sing, it was just like a well choreographed US movie, they sung in perfect harmony, pitch and beat. It seemed liked nothing could wipe the big wide smiles of these children's faces, not even the fact they had to be at school, it was cold and they did not have any electricity and a majority of the windows were broken allowing water from the rain to produce puddles of water on the cold concrete floor. YWAM Bulawayo have a team place out there for 4 weeks working with the local Presbyterian church and it was fantastic to catch up with them and find out where they are from and what they have been doing.
Tonight we had our first experience of Zim pizza, it was an interesting experience. The Mexican Taco pizza was up there for innovations, it had mince, tomato and even fresh lettuce with salsa and sour cream sauces to put on top. The pizzas were actually quite nice and would give the dominoes and pizza hut pizza's a run for the money.
It was great to blog with you ... until next time !!!

Day Two & Three (Weekend # 1)

2006-03-08T20:43:00.000+10:00

Saturday
We woke up Saturday to absolutely no power, gale forced winds and rain ohhhh sooo much rain. It is absolutely freezing � rumor has it that polar bears will be immigrating shortly. We were organized to go sight seeing this weekend but due to poor weather we had to cancel. However, we did get to go to the train museum and look around all the old trains and find out about the history of trains in Zimbabwe. The Museum was also open, but our guides were horrified at the entry price, over 990,000 just for one ticket (we also needed to prove were we had got our local currency from to make sure it wasn�t from the black market) so we decided to skip that one. Our first taste of the local shops were interesting � we went to the local Spar Supermarket and found that jam was on a managers special of $Zim 99, 500 and that Natural Juice was marked down to only $Zim 280,000 (their normal juice is what we would call cordial � weird, totally weird, just like calling cordial, squash, hey Mike and Cass) � and people think that the Spar shops in Australia are bad.

Sunday
This morning (still without power), because of all the wet and cold weather, I have woken up with a blocked nose and croaky throat � gotta love that � thank goodness Jodi has come well equipped with her medical bag � I was able to get a tissue, a cough lonzinger, a panadol as well as a sticker on my hand for being such a good patient. We had a fantastic time worshipping at Bulawayo Baptist church and hearing lots and lots of new songs (even though the words on the screen did not always match the words sung). The rest of the day was a blur � Jodi gave me a stronger drug (I don�t know if it was to sooth my pain or to give her some peace and quiet) and I slept until the evening church service. The evening service is meant for the younger people and it went off like a frog in a sock. The band sounded great and the teenagers responded well to the message. We had an interesting time picking up a load of young people on our migration to the church. It was extremely cold and slightly wet night and due to fuel shortages only one car could be taken to church. The problem was that the car was a two seated tray back ute and we had 11 people to transport � At least I was sick and given right of passage in front.

Enough of my wining � Must be off. Happy Blogging.

Day One

2006-03-04T05:57:00.000+10:00

It was fantastic to finally get a proper sleep after about 43 hours of being awake. We had a relaxing morning preparing for Kids Club in the afternoon. This club was run by an elderly lady who has resently passed away … Youth For Christ is now looking after the program which is run in a Methodist church in the western suburbs of Bulawayo. All the children that come to the club are orphans and a majority has been infected with HIV. It was fantastic to see the kids being able to smile and have so much fun singing and playing soccer with a plastic bag ball after starting life in such an unfortunate way. Tonight we will be sampling some traditional foods such as Sudsa and Brier (don’t know how to spell … or even if this is the right word … means BBQ or something to that effect).
Until next time
Andrew & Jodi.
P.S. Sorry there are no photo’s today … we got caught up in the moment and forgot all about the camera

The Flight

2006-03-04T05:37:00.001+10:00

The flight from Brisbane to Bulawayo was a long but comfortable trip. Both Jodi and I managed to trial the transit lounges in both Singapore and J’berg …. Highly recommended!!!!! The flight from J’berg to Bulawayo was only short and we were in a plane that sat no more that 40 and it was only half full … that was lucky, we don’t think the airport (as seen in the photo) could have handled too many more.

Until next time,

Andrew & Jodi

Time to Go

2006-02-28T07:22:00.000+10:00

Well the time has finally come for Jodi and I to travel over to Zimbabwe. We are both extremely excited and also a little nervous. The journey we have been on thus far has been a great time to grow in our relationship with God, we have seen Him do some pretty amazing things and on numerous occasions seen Him re-confirm His initial calling (Jodi, me and Zim) to Jodi and I when we have been a little unsure. This time in Zim will be a great opportunity to really explore what God has install for our lives and to also explore our part in the "Great Commission" (Acts 1:8). Thank you for blogging with us and we look forward to sharing our journey with you.

In His service,
Andrew (Harry, Hazza) and Jodi.