1. News from Zimbabwe

Jan/Feb 2010

Greetings from a humid and wet Zimbabwe.

What a start to a year, FCE conference in Okahandja, Alet-Mari at Potchefstroom, Amos leadership in Bloemfontein, Mannekamp at Witsand, a welcome break at Hermanus, a quick stop over in Tzaneen and back in time to prepare and receive the Hoopstad outreach. More than seven thousand km’s in the trusty old Pajero with no breakdowns.

A big thank you to all of you who hosted us somewhere on the way. (22 different beds) Thank you for welcoming us in your homes, hearts, lives and purses.During all this time in SA, God laid three things on my heart to share with my fellow Afrikaners – I have attached this in Afrikaans to this email.

We arrived back in Zimbabwe to find large parts of the country gripped in a terrible drought, with many maize fields totally dried up in the Southern part of the country. As we started moving around here in the rural areas the signs of drought stricken maize was everywhere. We had one week to get the Jubilee outreach centre at Makesure complete. With James' help, we finished the toilets and bathrooms just in time.

Hoopstad Outreach: Seven “Vrystaters” drove here for a few days. They visited some of the Amos groups and together we spend three days at Make sure. This was the first group to stay at the new Jubilee Outreach Centre –the showers and toilets worked well and the 12m by 5m shed was a great meeting place as it rained sporadically. We worked physically hard, digging out stumps in the road, weeding the sojas and pulling groundnuts. (If you want to loose weight - come and visit) The farmers were surprised to find the roads better here than in the Free State. Wonderful relationships were built and others strengthened and our hearts and minds were challenged to think new about Africa. Thank you to Piet Ferreira for coordinating this outreach.

We were all pleasantly surprised to find that the farmers we visited in the Jubilee groups will have enough food; some even have better harvests than last year which was a wet year.

Foundations for Farming Conference:

This conference is always the first week of March and again the first week of Sept in Harare.

A team of seven South Africans from the Southern Cape will be flying into Harare this Sunday. This includes one farm worker and one upcoming farmer, we will visit Lyson on Monday and attend the conference from Tuesday onwards.

A team of six Zambians from FCE will also join us in Harare.

Paul and Aleshia Kellerman from Polokwane will join us for the conference and will remain with us for the month of March as we travel and teach in Zambia. They are spearheading the F4F training in Limpopo.

Alet-Mari: She has had to learn reading and writing Afrikaans very fast at Potch. She is enjoying the BCom course. The family where she has been staying temporary whilst waiting for hostel accommodation, has decided to “adopt” her as their daughter and accommodate her free of charge. They live within easy walking distance from her classes.

James returned with us to Zim and has helped so much with the outreach. He is waiting to do a Level one training in Cape Town with IRATA (International Rope Arresting Assc.) Once trained, he will return to India to Join the FCE team there as a volunteer. He will need one year of rope work before he can be trained at Level 2.

We will be leaving for Kalungu and Masaiti together with Paul and Aleshia on the 7^th March to train Agric with FCE and should be back towards the last week of March.

The heavens have opened up in the last few days and we are receiving lots of rain, we were so excited to hear that it rained in the desperately dry Southern Cape.

Many doors are opening throughout Africa and we know this is the time for us to rise up more Timothy’s that will carry the baton where we can never reach

Thank God with us

· For His travelling mercies over thousands of kilometres.

· For harvests in spite of the drought.

· For providing accommodation for Alet-Mari.

Pray for us to challenge the poverty mindset of the people we are training without compromise, yet in the spirit of love.

Greetings from all of us in Jesus' name

Boet, Celia and the rest of the Zim family

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