Stories from Serenje

If you were at church this morning you will have heard the amazing news that the total from the Serenje Gift Days was just over £71,000. Thank you for your incredible generosity. If you missed the opportunity to give and you'd still like to then you can visit the Serenje Just Giving page at http://www.justgiving.com/serenje

Those of you who receive Catrina's blog you'll know she's been brilliant at sharing stories for her recent trip to Serenje. Here is her first one and I'll continue to paste the others here. Thank you Catrina!

Volunteers
There are 65 Volunteers - both men and women. Most of the volunteers are peasant farmers. They do an absolutely incredible job. It's these men and women who daily or weekly visit their clients. They support them - perhaps also collect their ARV medicines. They check up on the school children we're supporting - monitor their grades and attendance for instance. They work in the 4 communities (Kankoso, Kashitu, Chilisha and Mwasakano) plus the Boma (the Serenje town). This year they have been trained in home-based care. The reports back are that through this training they have grown spiritually and have gained much informaton.

Pastor Ngosa (Chairman of the Project) put it like this:
"We owe it all to the volunteers - you are our hands, feet, eyes and ears"

Leah presented all the volunteers with green t-shirts - greeted with spontaneous cheering, celebration and singing! It was so helpful for us to be able to identify this incredible team when we were out and about in the communities and schools; and they seemed to love wearing their shirts and thus being easily identified as volunteers.

Mrs Charity Nyangwe (pictured) is a local teacher and she is the Chairperson of the volunteers. George is her Deputy. together they lead the team of volunteers. They all meet together every 4th Friday of the month for prayer, encouragement, support, training and teaching. this monthly meeting is also an opportunity for volunteers to report back about the progress of their clients.

Please pray for the leadership and team of volunteers.

News from Serenje

I want to start by apologising-I was pretty tired when I wrote the blog last night and when I talked about what the team are doing I missed out the amazing Alan Lander. When I realised today I felt so bad-I'm sorry Alan! Alan has been doing leadership training with with Simon, Sola and Colin. I heard from Simon today and it sounds like it's going really well. Colin has also been speaking to the worship teams.

Catrina and Val led the women's conference today, talking about the fruit of the spirit. Catrina said they had a great time of sharing together. They gave out all the letters from Kerith ladies, along with some postcards that Beccy Oliver designed. The women in Serenje are amazing and I wanted to share this story from Catrina's blog:

'We went on 2 home visits today in the Zambia Compound - visiting ladies that have HIV and that the project is supporting. We went with Catherine who is the volunteer assigned to the two families - she is an amazing woman - mother of 6 children - she goes to the villages at 4am every morning to buy vegetables then sells it from 6am at the market. She has 5 clients and visits them all weekly - some of them daily. Such free and selfless serving of others is so humbling - the volunteers also have so little yet give so much.'

Tonight Catrina is meeting with the Schools Committee to discuss the partnerships between schools in Bracknell and Serenje. Let's pray for her, she's had a busy day and when she texted earlier there was a power cut so dinner was on hold!

We're praying for the team and what's happening in Serenje at the Prayer meetings tonight and tomorrow-be great to see you there.

News from Serenje

It's so encouraging hearing from Simon and Catrina that the project is going so well. Today Simon, Sola and Colin have been doing leadership training with the pastors and Catrina and Val have been visiting people living with HIV and AIDS, as well as visiting some of the local schools we're connected with.

Please remember the team in your prayers. Simon, Sola and Colin are continuing the leadership training Weds-Thurs. Tomorrow (Weds) Catrina and Val are running a women's conference! A lot of women come and are eager to hear from God. Let's pray it's an amazing time of sharing and encouragement. Please pray for Rob Plant as he does all the filming and editing of footage ready for Gift days this weekend.

The next 2 weekends are the Serenje Gift Days and we'll be raising money for the coming year, which will enable the following to happen:
- 1700 orphans and vulnerable children to go to school (up from 890 this year)
- 1000 farmers provided with seed (up from 701 this yr)
- 100 volunteers trained to support people living with HIV and AIDS (same as this yr)

How exciting to be part of seeing this incredible vision become a reality. Thank you SO much for all your support and prayers for what is happening in Serenje.

Updates

Hopefully you've been receiving updates on how the team are getting on in Serenje through Catrina's blog and also Simon's Facebook updates.

If you would like me to copy their updates on this blog please let me know.

Today they've all been preaching in different churches and apparently Simon had his suit on despite the temperature being in the 80s! They also heard from 3 orphans, all of whom lost both parents and had dropped out of school. They're all now back in education. Let's remember these children and many more like them, in our prayers. Thank you to everyone who has given and made this possible.

Off to Serenje!

Tonight (Weds) Simon and Catrina, Val Cottee, Sola Osinoiki, Rob Plant, Colin Boyle and Alan Lander fly out to Serenje and they’ll land in Lusuka early tomorrow morning. Then they’ll head up to Serenje during the day (it’s a 4-5 hour drive).

Whilst the team are in Serenje they’ll be doing a number of things:

- Visiting the 4 communities that we’re partnering with in Serenje and seeing how the project has progressed.
- Meeting with families affected by HIV/AIDS who have benefitted from being given goats, seed and educational support for their children.
- Visiting the plot for the girls’ dormitory and the area where the girls currently stay (and are very vulnerable)-Zambia compound.
- Running leadership training for the Pastor’s Fellowship (around 26 pastors)
- Catrina and Val are doing a women’s conference with the local women.

Please pray for the team while they are away, for safety in travel, for good health, for a great time of sharing with the pastors and the people of Serenje, for mutual strengthening and encouragement, for wisdom and God’s guidance as they run the leadership training and women’s conference.

The team return on Saturday 16th October and the Serenje Gift Days are on Sunday 17th October and Sunday 24th October. We’ll be aiming to raise another £100,000. It will be great to hear from the team the impact that last year’s money has made and be inspired about the lives that will be touched and changed in the year to come.

Exciting news

I'm really excited to be able to share that Leah Mutala, who heads up what we're doing in Serenje, is coming to visit us! She arrives tomorrow and will be here until the 14th July. She is coming over especially to see us which is a huge privilege. She truly is an incredible woman of God, who impacts everyone she meets. She will be sharing at REAL, our women's conference and also on Sunday at church. We're hoping that she may also spend some time in the local schools that are partnering with Serenje. She'll also be spending time with friends she has in the UK and taking some well deserved time out. Every time we visit Serenje Leah does an amazing job of looking after us, so it's great to be able to return the favour. Please come and say hi to Leah while she is with us and pray that she is really blessed while she is here.

Howard and Elizabeth Reece-Smith, Ralph Allan and Mo Davies have recently returned from Serenje. Ralph spoke recently at church and shared about the developments with the plans for the girls dormitory. I know Leah and the team in Serenje found Ralph's input really helpful. Howard emailed me this week to share his reflections on the trip:

'I was there a year ago, so was delighted to see a big change in the response of the farmers. "We all have enough to eat now,and we have so much to eat that we can sell our excess", was the universal response as we sat with families and communities. We visited a school that had used the school fee money to build more classrooms,and expand their intake,gave out shoes to many barefoot children (very cold in the morning at present)and went to see the hospital again. The building to house the operating theatre was nearly finished, funded by a grant from the USA, so now Elizabeth and I can start to equip it for action. We will cycle from Nairobi to Serenje next year on a sponsored cycle. No back up to save funds, but had many questions about our trip. One evening ,driving back to our guesthouse,we came across two cyclists on the main road. They had spent 7 months cycling in Africa and could answer all our queries and more. How well God prepares the way!!

Elizabeth said this about her visit 'For me ,the trip to Serenje was like being the little boy with 5 loaves and 2 small fishes-we apparently had so little to give this community with their huge problems of HIV and poverty but God was working mightily there making the impossible possible and I look forward to seeing his hand in the future work there.The visit was truely a great privilege.'

It's so good to keep getting such encouraging news of all God is doing. I can't wait to hear more from Leah this weekend.

Encouraging signs

I met with Lindsey today and heard more about her recent visit to Serenje. Our passion is that what we're doing in Serenje is sustainable and empowering. I was really encouraged by what Lindsey shared. People in the villages where we're partnering told her how things have changed since the start of the project. One man shared how he sold his produce (grown from the seeds he was given by the project) for profit and put his children into school. He said ‘I have the means to control my destiny.’ Another woman is thinking about building a fish farm and said ‘before the project we were only eating one meal a day and now we’re eating three’. All her children are now in school.

These stories are just so exciting.

Lindsey also met the new project officer Ian David (based in Serenje) and said that he is very good. He is very keen on not creating dependency, but looking for stories of transformation. He seems to be building good relationships with the local pastors and the local communities.

It's brilliant to hear great news of what's happening in Serenje. Lindsey is heading off to Haiti this Friday and will be there for 6 weeks. Please remember her in your prayers. You can follow her blog at http://www.lindseyhaiti.blogspot.com/