US team visit

31 05 2008

At the moment friends of ours are hosting a bunch of American theological students here for their summer break.  A few are involved at the Zimbabwe Theological College and the rest are getting involved with relief and development.  Last week we had these guys come out to Willow Park to help with the build as well as help out in Samkele and the Training Centre.  It was fantastic to have them interact with the children at Willow Park and to give encouragement to our teachers and volunteers.  The US students had a great time as did our girls.




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Ready … Setty … BUILD!!!!

30 05 2008

As mentioned in the previous blog we are in the process of demolishing our old dining hall and rebuilding a new one.  One of the more exciting aspects of this whole venture is the training we are able to provide to a bunch of local young men from Mawabene (a small rural village about 20 klm’s from Willow Park).

 

Yes … Willow Park did need a new dining hall, but we wanted to do more than just build a hall, we wanted to be able to use this whole project as a form of outreach into the local community and to be able to introduce and train a group of young men in the “how to’s” of a build.

 

These guys have all been working hard and according to our builder have been VERY enthusiastic and eager to learn all that he has to teach them.  It is also exciting is to hear how these young men are now thinking of ways in which they can use these new skills in helping advance and build their own communities.

 

These are exciting times and I can’t wait to see what further training and outreach Willow Park can give to those in the surrounding communities.

 





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So what’s the go at Willow Park Camps?

30 05 2008

I don’t know if I have told you guys about the dining hall at Willow Park … unfortunately the dilapidated dining hall was basically falling down all by itself and needed either some major tender loving care or to be demolished and to start all over again.  Hooray … we are getting to do the latter of the two.

 

We are organising a team from our sending church in Brisbane to come over in June to help complete this building project.  These guys and gals from South Pine Community Church have been absolute troopers in raising funds for the building project as well as raising funds to get their eager working hands over here to Zimbabwe.  Check out http://teamzimbabwe.wordpress.com/ to find out more about who is coming and there perspectives on it all.

 

Make sure you keep logging onto zimbabound.com to get more info on what is happening with the building … it extends beyond Willow Park and believe me it is REALLY exciting.

 

 

 

 

 

     

 


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How’s the layers?

28 05 2008

I can’t believe I haven’t updated you all on our layer chicks we purchased a little over 16 weeks ago.  Unfortunately we hit a bit of a problem … actually it was a pretty BIG problem.  Out of our 100 layers we purchased, we now unfortunately have only 40 left … no one could tell us why our chicks were dying; we tried scrubbing our coops, giving them all the muthi (medicine) that they required and nothing was working.  It wasn’t until the 8th week when we changed their feed from the chick mash to the grower’s mash that we noticed a MASSIVE improvement with the chicks’ health.  After changing the food we have not had any more deaths and they are all looking healthier than ever … hooray.  My “sources” within the chicken feed industry (their identity cannot be revealed) have advised that there was a batch of feed that was lower in calcium; whether this was the reason why our chicks died … we will never know now.

 

Ohhh well; even with 40 layers we will still be able to achieve all the things we had originally set out to accomplish but on a smaller scale this first time through.  We live and learn and are much wiser through this experience.


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What goes up????

27 05 2008

It only felt like a couple of months ago that I told you about the new $10 million note … hang on it was only a couple of months ago.  I have to tell you what has been introduced since the last monetary update.  It was only about a month ago that we had two newer notes introduced; they were the $25 million note and the $50 million note and then just last week a $250 million note and a $500 million note were put into circulation.  My sources within the banking networks also advise that there will soon be a $50 billion note put into circulation for the agricultural sector … please don’t ask me to explain how this will work as I get a headache trying to explain it to myself.  With the reserve bank now “floating” the official rate (please also don’t ask me about this either as I don’t think that I would have enough time or allocated storage space on the server to write a valid and easy to understand explanation) it means that the above notes (except for the $50 billion) are only work a few US dollars … this I can explain.  The official bank rate at the moment is about $300,000,000 (300 million) to the one USD; so that means that new $500 million note is only worth about $1.60 USD; the $250 million note is about $0.84; the $50 million note is about $0.16 and the $25 million note is only worth about 8 US cents.

 


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Ooopsies …. My bad

26 05 2008

Hey guys and gals … I am just writing to say “sorry” for my lack of blogging over the last month … things here have been hectic and I have forgotten to update you all on all the stuff that has been happening here.  Over this week I will endeavour to update you on all the things that have been happening here for us in Zimbabwe … some of it is GREAT and other news isn’t that fantastic … but that’s life I suppose.  If you guys promise to log on each day this week I will promise to update each day this week … do we have a deal?  GREAT.


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