All Play and No Work? by Charlene

Just in case you think our time with Dave and Ruth was one continuous romp on the beach, I wanted to highlight some of the time that we spent with our local MCC partners.

Chisomo Drop-In Centre

The children from our home church in Winnipeg have been raising funds for Chisomo since last September. Dave and Ruth brought the money with them and with it we were able to meet some of the basic needs of the street children who stay at the centre. We bought 50 pairs of shoes so that each of the children there now has a pair. Many of the children arrived at Chisomo barefoot after living on the streets. We also purchased 80 kilos of beans to add some protein to their diet and we added a few things to their basic kitchen supplies such as oil, sugar and detergent. The children at Chisomo were very appreciative and they did a thank you song for us and then we moved outside for some drumming and dancing (during which most of the kids kicked off their shoes so that they could dance better!).

Jordan distributing shoes to the Chisomo children.

Nice Shoes!

Dancing is best done in bare feet

Needs Care

Needs Care is the name of a community school in a local compound here and the school is definitely in need of care. The school was started by a woman named Esther who saw that many children were not attending school since their parents could not afford to pay a $5 school fee or purchase a uniform. She now has 225 students who attend her school, they meet inside a church building that is not yet completed (it was started years & years ago) and it does not have a completed roof which creates some complications during rainy season. Her annual budget is just about $0! Esther and 5 teachers are all volunteers working without any kind of compensation and the children pay nothing to attend the school and uniforms are not required. All of the supplies at the school have been donated by “well-wishers”. MCC donates school kits annually and the school does not have any text books and home made black boards are the only teaching tool. Dave and Ruth had brought some donations from friends and family back home and were able to purchase 200 notebooks, 100 pencils, 50 erasers, notebooks for the teachers and they were able to give each teacher a financial gift to thank them for their efforts in their community. We had a good time on our visits to this school. The school kids enjoyed having Jordan and Caleb join in on their games and they loved having their pictures taken. As a thank you for our donation they had a school assembly with drumming and plenty of bum-shaking dancing.

The little drummer boys

Charlene posing as Sally Struthers

These children just started kindergarten this week.

These kids also prefer dancing barefoot on the school floor.

Esther (crouching) and her team of teachers