Ooh and Ahh

Our last month at Fairfield has been hectic, but we have emerged on the other side in much better shape than we started! A team of college students arrived in the middle of May ready to start digging. The team was led by my friend from seminary, Patrick Hutto. They dug up our old water pipes that were too thin to carry water to the four children’s homes at the end of the row, and replaced them with bigger ones. The children and mothers were dancing with happiness when everything was in place and the water flowed through all the way to the last house.

Just a few days later, we welcomed two teams from Indiana who had both raised funds to help with projects at Fairfield. One team was led by Dr. Mike Rynkiewich, my professor from Asbury, and his wife Teresa. The second team included Bob, Midge and Emily Greising who are members of the FOSA board that funds the orphanage. Both teams worked quickly and finished one project during their first few days. We needed a row of hedges along the road that will protect the houses from dust and also give privacy so people can’t see directly into the children’s bedroom windows.

The second project was to paint two of our children’s homes on the outside and one on the inside. They are now a nice bright blue and green. The teams had help from some Zimbabwean soldiers learning to become professional painters, which made the workload a lot lighter. This left time for the team to help with the children’s life books and sort our container so we know what clothes are available for the different age groups.
The children also really enjoyed popping corn kernels off the cobs with the visitors to get them ready to grind into their staple food, sadza.

We welcomed another baby boy to the nutrition program this month. His name is Ngoni and we would love your prayers for his health to improve. He has a loving mother who is doing everything she can to help him gain weight, so that is already a step in the right direction!

It has now turned cold here, especially up in our mountains. I can see my breath in the mornings and have put extra blankets on the bed.
I don’t handle the cold very well, so after a year of living within the Zimbabwean borders, I am heading for a week of sunshine on the beaches of Mozambique with friends. Someone was generous enough to donate their beach house to us for FREE…it is a tough life I live. If you start to get jealous though, remember it would take over $2,000 and 36 hours of travel time just to give my mom and dad a hug…so Mozambique will have to work as 2nd choice for my vacation destination:)

Wishing all of my American friends a very happy 4th of July in a few weeks! Say an extra loud “ooh” and “ahh” on my behalf when you watch the fireworks.

Wenyu Munashe,
Janine