Fountain of Hope

---

Wednesday, April 4, 2007 Hope Fountain - Fountain of Hope.
Today we went out to a rural area with a program from the Revival Center Church. In the area called Hope Fountain there are a large number of rural homes where grandmothers are taking care of several young grandchildren. The landscape is rolling with shrubs, or small trees throughout and every so often there is a small hut about 12 ft by 6 ft with a corrugated tin roof and the ground has been cleared around to dirt surrounding the hut. Some have a wire fence with laundry hanging on it; some have other round huts with thatch roofs on the same dirt patch. This site is about 45 minutes outside of Bulawayo town center. The roads are walked more than driven and there is people walking that we pass on their way to town. This program is called Fountain of Hope. It started as a feeding program where they would distribute food to the 45 people including children who need help in the community area. The program now includes 152 people and they share the same resources. They provide each family with a 5 kg bag of sweet beans, 10 kgs of Mealie Meal (Corn meal) and a bottle of cooking oil. They used to give each more. For most of these families this is all they will have to eat. Some have chickens. Some grow other vegetables but the lack of rain for the last two years has drastically reduced their yield and the water holes (bore holes) are too far apart for them to think of hauling water to their gardens and fields. It is actually said that rain at this time of the year is bad for most of the crops since they are at the stage of drying for the winter now. But, beans and squash type plants will still benefit. Pastor Bigboy and Elizabeth go to the feeding points a couple of times a week to provide a church service and provide the supplies to distribute. Today they had a hot meal of beans only. There was not enough mealie meal to provide sadsa (thick mealie meal porridge) with the beans today. The service today was about 30 people including the kids sitting under a tree in the yard where they provide a preschool program. The old ladies came with a corn sack to sit on. We sang with the accompaniment of the beat of a hand on a bible. We listened to the short service about the significance of Easter told in the Ndebelie language, interpreted for us. No we can’t speak or understand either of the native languages here and don’t expect to but I now know how to say hello, “Salle Bonnani”.

This program used to have a well stocked program distributing pain killers and other such medicines especially for the older ladies who suffer from arthritis and other age related ailments. They even had two people in the community trained in first aid and assisting childbirth. The supply of medications has dwindled in these hard economic times. One good thing came out of this. The people are praying for each other now and have stopped reporting need for painkillers for the most part. The Fountain of Hope Project has been allocated a piece of land to build a clinic in the community. Right now people walk to town to get their babies checked by a doctor. Some sick people wait until Elizabeth is coming out and then catch a ride into town with her, sometimes a week later. Elizabeth was telling me that they are trying to get the community members involved in the building of the structure. Out in this area there is access to materials where the people can make bricks, and there are builders and painters in the community who can help. This will instill ownership in the people and have them get out of the habit of waiting for handouts. The people are already encouraged and are forming their own fellowship groups to support each other and are helping each other when there is a need. They are encouraged to share the things they have and accept the blessing of others sharing with them. The services of Fountain of Hope also distributes clothing, seeds and supplies when they are available such as baby diapers, (cloth called nappies).

There is another complication in this community. At the area high-school, Tennynsonhlabangana High-school they have had all but four teachers hand in their resignations. The government does not pay them even enough to cover fuel to drive to their jobs with the drastic increase in fuel costs, never-mind actually feeding their families. There are about 1000 students at this school, 500 are boarded there. There are two elementary schools in the area as well, I suspect that they are having a similar problem with teachers.

Tonight we have a dinner to attend. Eric Garnie is here in Zimbabwe so all of us CHI folks are going to meet up tonight for fun, food and fellowship.

April 5, 2007 Fountain of Hope - Delivering some hope.
Today was a special day. We went to Fountain of Hope again where we planned to show a DVD and then talk with the kids about HIV, Aids, other sexually transmitted diseases and biblical principles around avoiding contracting these diseases and all of the other benefits of waiting for a monogamous marriage to have sex. This is really the first time that I have prepared a lesson. I worked on it for a week and prayed a lot for the words. I used concepts out of the Choose to Wait program, Purpose-filled Life and straight from the Bible.

We first arrived at the feeding point where Pastor Bigboy had just finished preaching and the people were lining up for the meal. The congregation here meets in the “shed”. It’s a simple three walled cinderblock structure with a corrugated steel roof. Most people sit on the floor. The meal today is sadsa and beans. It was neat to watch one of the little boys break off a piece of sadsa and roll it in a ball in his fist before dipping it in the juice from the sweet beans.

We then moved over to Pastor Bogboy’s house. Elizabeth and I set up the TV and DVD player. In the 10ft X 10ft sitting room and then it filled up with young people. There were so many kids that we had to open up the bedroom door and spill into there. There were 36 people all together to watch and listen. The DVD is about HIV, Aids and the many other diseases that people with HIV are more susceptible to and can spread. It is very candid and supposed to teach about how important it is to wait until a monogamous marriage before a person has sex with regards to slowing the spread of disease. I had planned some teaching to expand on the concepts in the DVD.

Well, the DVD player wouldn’t work. So, I just dived right in. I presented some concepts to the kids that are not usually talked about in their culture (rural culture). There are some major concerns with the rural populations. Life is hard there and the girls tend to grow up and as soon as they are finished school they get married to the first guy that comes along. He is usually from outside the village, he promises her all sorts of things and, she ends up being one of his wives. He passes on diseases to her as in their culture it is completely acceptable for the man to be promiscuous and it is legal to have many wives. All of the wives get the diseases and the children are orphaned. There are so many old ladies taking care of their grand children because this has happened. The boys who grow up in the rural areas have their sites on South Africa. As soon as they are finished school and, often before, they flee to other countries to escape the rural life. My mission there today was to try to instill some value in the kids to show them that they can have more. Especially the girls, they need to know that they can and should choose their husband as a husband.

I talked about Aids and the other diseases to try and quickly sum up what the DVD was supposed to show then started into God’s idea of marriage and sex. I talked about how to avoid situations where they might find themselves pressured to have sex. And, what they want to look for in a life long marriage partner. And, some of the techniques to choose or not choose a proposer. This idea included talking to a parent or respected person in the community about the potential to have a relationship with another person. The idea was that the boy asks the pastor, or parent, (protector) of the girl he thinks he wants to marry if it is ok for him to have a relationship with her. Then that protector discusses with the girl and he can respond according to her wishes. This takes the pressure off the girl if she wants to say no. I was told after that this is not something that is done in the culture here. The kids just don’t talk to adults about these things. So this is a really good starting point for kids to start talking. I was also told that it was great to have an outsider presenting this to them as they will be more open to the concept. Pastor Bigboy said that the presentation was good because it was very direct and detailed about this pointed subject. He and Elizabeth are determined to continue talking with the kids about these topics now that someone has started it. We will try to play the DVD still, on the 19th when we go back there again. I wasn’t sure how the kids were receiving the information because of the lack of feedback. But, Pastor Bigboy assured me that he had noticed most of them taking it in. It is night and day from the class doing the Choose to Wait Program. Elizabeth explained again that the kids just don’t talk about that stuff in the open. Next time they will have the kids write down their questions so that no one is singled out.

As outsiders we were able to present a topic today that will have great impact into the future. The teachers are able now to talk openly and they can work from the platform that I have provided. I wasn’t too sure about this when I went in but it turned out that I was prepared and was able to make an impact.

---