A crazy week in the life of Dion and Bek

It’s hard to believe we are coming up on 4 months here in Zimbabwe. We do our best to keep our blog updated through Bek’s mum....THANKS MUM. However there is only so much you can express in a text message, or two, or three sometimes 4. The last week has been so busy and totally insane. Monday and Tuesday saw Bek interview over 80 orphans for our feeding programme. That was very draining both physically and mentally. Wednesday we headed into Harare...lets just say its was a disastrous two days. Between our transport that was meant to have been organized but wasn’t, Our laptop power supply going AWOL, the truck breaking down, then getting back on the road only to have to waiting for an hour and a half for our black market diesel coupons.......let’s just say I’m surprised we got anything done. We were both very happy when we got home on Thursday night. Friday saw the first day of our kids club. Its only taken me (bek) 4 months to get it going..hey I have been busy. Anyway the afternoon was a huge success we had over 60 children come and that was with a big school sports thing on so this coming Friday will be interesting.
By Friday night we were both ready for an early night a sleep in and a nice relaxing Saturday. A sleep in we got, a restful day we did not. No sooner had I turned on the laptop to do my diary The Power went off....Quickly followed by a knock at the door. It was Tendai coming to tell us there was a problem with the transformer....smoke....fire....grass...oil....’say that again please’. He and Thomas had found the grass below the transformer on fire ( and turned our breaker off). The fuse was sparking and dropping on the grass hence the fire. Thankfully it stopped sparking but we spent the rest of the morning trying to get hold of the ZESA (Zimbabwe electricity supply authority) technician to turn it off and check it. We headed into town to the ZESA office to get the technicians number, with no luck calling him we went off looking for diesel so we could drive the 50km to Mvuma where he is based. When we got there we discovered we had missed him by 15mins on his way to Gweru and we were not going there. We were left with nothing we could do but go home and wait till someone got hold of him. There went our restful morning. Thankfully the ZESA guys came the next day and replaced the fuse and its all good now.
I’m so glad our life is not always that hectic. It is busy however, a good busy that is.
It getting late (preparing this ahead of getting online) and my brain is no longer functioning. In fact I think I have been blankly staring at the screen for about 5 mins now. So till next time happy blogging. Don’t forget to keep checking the blog and the Vana web site www.vana.org.au. Feel free to email us we might not get it right away but we will get it.

Feeding program Cooks: Sheila, Maria and Monica

A few weeks ago Dion spoke to a guy from the World food bank and was told we would recieve some food. Yesterday while we were in Harare they delivered 24 litres of oil, 100kg of dried peas, and just under 600kg of porridge. They will be coming back to chek that we are using it and hopefully will continue to give us more food.

Finally after 3 months we have started our kids club. Today (Friday) was the first day, we had 62 children. There was a big sports day on for the schools this arvo so it will be interesting to see how many we have next week. The kids had a great time and we think it was a huge success. I (Bek) am working with Kudzi who will run the program after we leave. She is very excited to be a part of it and to learn new ideas.

24 June

One of the 3 houses at Vana

Another crazy moment in a crazy place. Two of our boys were sent home from school today because their books are not covered in plastic. Life here is already so hard, Come to school with no food or no shoes but plastic book covers, well you have to have them. Y

Dion with some of the boys already in the feeding program.

What a day. We are looking to increase our feeding proagram by 24 children. Today we had 70 children come to be interviewd, I got through 50 and will do the other 20 tomorrow. Dion was a champ and kept a lot of the boys busy playing soccer while they waited. Keep praying for thesse families who are just so desperate for any help they can get

20th June

Photo: Kingston and Thomas Gaurds

It took over a week for the plummer to come and fix our shower and another week till he fixed our bathroom sink. He came to fix the cold pipe and left a leak in the hot, hmm, interesting.

Yeh the water leaks have all been fixed, for now anyway! I (Bek) cooked sudza all on my own tonight & the guards ate it so I must have done ok. This week I have started teaching 5 women to make necklaces with seed beads. Dion has spent less time in the house and lots of time playing soccer with the kids. The volley ball team have uped and moved to the high school on the other side of town which is a shame as Dion had been enjoying playing.

17 June

Sewing ladies

There is so much we could blog about at the moment. Bek has had a stomach bug and if I ever wanted some food from Aust last night was it when I wanted some premiums. Toiday we took cake kkup to the sewing ladies, Kudzi was excit

ed as it was her daughters 1st birthday. So we had a little party. We have had fun with water, lots of leaks around the place we are getting used to the water being off regulaly.

Photo: Harvessting Maize.

It's been two weeks now that the town water has been off for. We are blessed to be running off the bore, that is when we have power. No power means no water. I was talking to some of the ladies today and asked how they get water. Nolean has a wind mill but many have to go to neighbours to use their wells. Its not the cleanest of water but sadly it is all they have at the moment.

10 June

sorry for all the spelling errors in the last blog, I must have left my education at work yesterday. - Susan

Had a visit Tuesday from World Food Program. May be getting some food from them to assist with our feeding program! They found out about VANA thru District Administrator's office, who learned about VANA thru the prayer day. Some good connections starting to happen!

Some of the kids involved in the feeding program.

9th June

Well its been 9 weeks since Donna, Errol and the 4 spencde boys coame to Chivhu and today they fly home. I must admit there have been a fe tears on my behalf (Bek) since leaving the airport. I often look at our cdurrent laives and think is this rally us living here in Zim and everyday I am amazed that God has chosen us to do his work. Pray for us as we continue to face daily challenges.

Post script!
About those daily challenges I just went to 5 different supermarkets trying to find milk!

Prayer meeting

Its been really busy here at Vana. On Saturday there is a big combined chures prayer meeting being held on the property to pray for the roads as there is always a lot of accidents. There is going to be a lot of VIPs, its a very

big day. Today we had some prisoners clearing the land, their guard invited me (Bek) to join them for lunch lol. Dion spent the day helping clear out the top house as it will be used on the day. Please juoin us in praying 4 safety on the roads.

3td June

Its a lovely sunny day here in Zim. We blessed our feeding program cooks today with shirts and a little pack with tooth paste/brushes, soap, shampoo and candles it was smiles and laughing all round. They have been taking great delight in teaching me shona, todays word is man'a which means craked skin. My poor cracked feet were the focus point of the converstaion much to everyones amusement.

I which you really could caputre the moment in a photo as I sit looking out our front door at the beautiful colours of dusk. Listening to the kids play and wishing I could stay in this moment of peace and quiet for a little longer. Now if only the power would come back on so I could cook dinner. Oh the life.