May HOPE update

Hope you are enjoying the spring weather (or fall if you are in my part of the world). The children have just finished their April holiday and are heading back to second term this week. During April, the Assistant Administrator and I traveled to do some home visits and stopped in some of the rural clinics along the way to tell them about what the HOPE program offers. We had just graduated quite a few children from the nutrition program, so there was room for new children.

Within a week, we had 5 new children referred to us. One, named Eunice, was very sick and had been admitted to the hospital. When we went to visit her, we were shocked by how thin she was, which made it difficult for her to keep warm. Eunice has now started some different medical treatments and joined the HOPE nutrition program. She was discharged from the hospital a few days later and came to visit us this Monday to collect her eggs, peanut butter and bananas. Although she is still very thin, we were surprised by how much stronger she seemed in the short time since we had last seen her. Please pray for her continued full recovery.

Two other children referred to us are girl twins. They are just over 1 year old and their mother was having trouble making sure both of them had enough to eat. The doctor said they were both very malnourished. The family lives very far away, outside of our usual boundaries for helping children, but we decided that the mother could travel to us once a month and collect food instead of once a week. We will do a home visit soon to see how the girls are doing. Although they were both tiny, their smiles were so cute and we are happy to have them as new members of the HOPE family.

The children at Fairfield were very excited this month when our favorite dog “Honey” gave birth to four puppies.
When the children were at the old orphanage, they used to be terrified of dogs and would throw stones at them. This in turn would scare the dogs and they would try to bite the children, perpetuating the cycle. Now that the staff at Fairfield has helped the children learn to be kind to Honey, they are really enjoying playing with her four new puppies!

We have had a lot of birthdays and weddings this month, which means a lot of parties! Some of the staff went to a wedding in the capital city of Harare and had a great time. Nyarai and our two youngest babies, Tadiwa and Tafadzwa, were able to go as well. Now it is time for the parties to end and everyone will be back to school and work.


We have our first team coming this week from Mississippi. Two more teams from Indiana will be joining us at the end of the month. All the staff and children are excited to meet these old and new friends soon. We are happy that they will be working on some very important projects to make the home a better place for the children to live.

Hope you all have a very happy May!
Janine