Dear partners of Kondanani,
What an amazing first few month of 2010 we have had,busy busy, but so satisfying.
Our children of course are the most amazing part of it, as they grow up they learn to reason, of course the main thing to reason about is, to reason yourselves out of trouble or let say the consequences of trouble they got themselves into.
It now goes like this at school when they are called into the principles office: Chicco you have done wrong, (whatever it may be) ,you know that there are consequences to every wrong you have done ,I will have to punish you. Chicco says, Sir !!!!! you know that I love you very much, you are my favorite teacher. Please do not punish me for doing wrong, you are my favorite man. Difficult not to laugh when they say that, but Chicco had to move a lot of bricks from one place to another as punishment.
Sometimes it is difficult to know what to punish them with, I made them top and tale green beans at some stage and they loved it, the next time it was weeding and that also gave them great joy.
Pilirani is very clever, if he thinks there is trouble coming from the top, he says first thing in the morning to his teacher: Hello pretty lady and makes her a ring.
On average it is amazing how little trouble we have with the now 157 children.
We have now moved into the new Caring Hands Infant Home facility. It has been great fun to do the decorating,it looks great and it is spacious. The children stay at this facility untill they have turned 3.
But believe me or not we have only space for two more babies and we will be full again until we can build some more houses were the children live as a family.
We had 25 more children admitted in the last 5 weeks. What a privilege to be able to look after these little ones.
You say, how do you cope with that financially, well I always say, I work for the big firm called "Father, Son and Holy Spirit Unlimited.
Mark my words our children will never lack, the heart beat of God are the the orphans and He will never let them go hungry or beg for bread. Besides that I started this project at God's instruction.
I sleep like a baby at night.
21 children came from an other children's home, they could not cope with the influx and asked us to help.
One of those little ones is 11 months old, her name is Hannah, she has a cleft lip, is very much under weight and behind in her development.
Today Cherie and myself went to see the plastic surgeon and Hannah will have her first operation on the 26th of March, two more weeks to go, she will become a beautiful little girl. The surgeon will have to operate twice.
We were so elated, whatever it may cost, I don't really care God will provide, we cannot let her go through life with a cleft lip and not act.
It's amazing what a difference it makes when a child gets enough attention. One of the children who came and is 1 1/2 but could not walk, it took one week of training with him and he was and is running around every were.
We had to, as you will notice relax our criteria some what. Normally we would only admit small babies.
At Caring Hands gate, we found a grand mother two weeks ago, with a set of twins. Their condition was tragic to say the least. They are 17 months old. Little Blessings weight 4 kg and his twin 7kg. Blessings had big open wounds on his body and needless to say, they looked like skeletons.
No hair on their heads only a bit of orange fluff, we just had to take them in. Neither of them can sit or stand.
But two weeks have done wonders for Blessings and Hasting, they have both put on more than a kilo, their skin has changed color from pale and gray to chocolate brown, the hair is growing and it is black. Blessings wounds are nearly closed up. We are rejoicing at the way things are going with them and will keep you up to date.
Two days ago we received an other call, a month old baby in need of care, the mother had gone insane. Cherie went to fetch the child, the father was with her in the car, giving her a good opportunity to talk to him. He had no shoes on his feet, dirt poor, but he told her that he has 5 wives. That would drive me mad too. His story was: My wife shakes and then she goes to sleep for a few minutes, then she is awake for a few minutes, shakes again and goes to sleep for a few minutes and wakes up again and it goes like that all the time. I presume that the mother has epileptic fits and a lot of them, so sad. Her baby is save with us, loved and cared for.
We build two new houses and have occupied them. The children are really proud of the homes they live in ,if you look at their cupboards all their clothes are neatly placed on the shelves. Some times there is some envy, because the one house has tiled floors and the other one not, or the one house has a bath and the other one showers. We think that our children are not exposed to such situations, but it seems that this comes naturally.
A few days ago we had to deal with the house of the bigger girls, they actually told the cleaning lady that she was just a poor woman and that is why she was only a cleaning lady, we just wonder were they get that from.
Of course I told them that they have to respect each and every worker what ever job they do. Forming their character is a challenge and I know that all of them will become loving and caring men and women some day.
I just want to say to each one of you who help us to care for these little ones, thank you so much for caring with us for our children.
Yours in His service,
Annie Chikhwaza.
