Renewing Minds and Changing Lives Around the World.
Mwabuka (Good morning),
What a beautiful day it is here at Project Samuel in Zambia. The rains have come, everything is green, it’s pleasantly cool and there’s a whole lot happening! We’d love to share just a few of the highlights from the last few months!
Water!
It’s something most of us take for granted until we don’t have it…and as many of you know that’s exactly what’s been happening here at the Project for the last few years! We’ve been struggling with our water supply and finally decided it was time to believe for a new well. Many of you believed with us and gave so very generously and in November we had the rig out to drill! It was a faith building week for sure as we trusted and hoped for water, but the first four holes we drilled were dry! We had breakdown after breakdown of the rig, got it stuck in the mud, delay after delay. Finally, on bore hole number five, we hit water!!! Our previous hole produced about 0.2 litres a second and our new hole produces 4.4 liters a second! That is a huge improvement (over 20 times as much) and should be sufficient to irrigate our crops as well as providing for the needs of our children, animals and staff. We are now in the process of putting up power lines for the pump and running water pipes out to the site, which is about 650m back in the bush, and across a stream. It’s a big process but we are getting there, and we again want to extend a true thank you to all who gave so generously towards this new well!
Tutoring
In October my (Kim’s) mom joined us here in Zambia at the Project for a season and having her here has been a wonderful blessing both to our little family as well as to the kids. Our elementary school kids had been needing extra help in reading and math and she quickly began a math tutoring program, especially focused on the grade seven’s, who were studying for their end of year exams. The night before the test she held one last late night “cram session”, covering a few more difficult topics. The kids took the test the next day and came home saying those exact type of questions had been asked and how very happy they were that they knew how to do them because of the extra study! We’ve also hired a high school tutor now, to provide additional learning and development for our older students. Classes in local schools in Zambia, even at the elementary level, are often fifty to a hundred students, so at school our kids unfortunately don’t receive individual attention. It is our heart to see them excel and grow and having this extra help really gives them that opportunity. We recently received our 9th graders test results. We are proud to hear that Judy and Dorothy received the two of the top marks in their grade!
Project Development
Just before Christmas it was also planting season here at the Project. Drew Wiggers, a farmer from the States, came and helped. His support was such a blessing! Many things here aren’t straightforward and after numerous tractor breakdowns, many days spent in the city finding parts and getting others fixed, and jimmying up some of their own fixes…the guys managed to get our maize (corn) all planted! It’s now coming up and looking great and we are believing for a wonderful harvest this spring.
While Drew was here they also finished fencing the main part of the Project. We’ve had some very “pesky” local cows that like to visit us and they’ve chewed holes in our children’s drying laundry, broken pipelines, eaten our oranges from the orchard, and destroyed our lawns near any water source. We are all delighted they no longer have access the front part of our property!
We are continuing to work on the development of the new flats (a block of three, two- bedroom attached apartments). These flats will house visiting teams, interns and staff. The roof was put on by a visiting mission’s team in the summer and since then we’ve plastered the walls and put in frames for windows and doors. They are starting to look a lot more liveable. As finances come in our next steps will be to put in ceiling boards, electricity, plumbing, windows, doors, tile, and then paint. From there we need to add kitchen and bathroom amenities. We are believing to have them ready for visiting teams this coming summer!
There’s lots going on here and it continues to be a joy to provide love and support to our Project Samuel children and the community.
Thank you for championing us and the children so faithfully! Sending all our love across the miles,
Kim, Brenden and our Project Samuel Family