Today Jon, Dave, Juju, Diamond, Thando, and I visited beneficiary families to vaccinate the babies and weigh the goats. While there, I was so happy to notice that one of the families received a #LooLove. Yahoo! The mama was so excited and grateful, smiling her gorgeous smile and saying "siyabonga" over and over again as we climbed back into the truck and waved goodbye. #AFCAids #goats #lovewell
Busy day at Morning Star! Moving a water tank up a rock, mixing cement and creating a base for the tank, painting, training the goat staff, watching the set, climbing rocks, visiting a school and teaching sewing, filling a truck with cut grass for goat feed (unloading it at the homestead and doing it again and again), multiple trips to bring thatch for a roof, meetings to plan next year's programs, and learning Texas Hold'em. A pretty darn good day, for sure! #afcaids #lovewell #dogood #zimbabwe #vacationwithapurpose
Team Naartjie started the day with a bang! One group (Kim, Zack, Eric, Ben, Diamond, Benson, Joseph) is setting up a second water tank up on a rock, as it will use gravity. This requires building a stand for it to sit on, so heavy block, cement sand, and water will be carted up the rock before creating the stand. Jeanie Pauli is busy repairing mattress covers. Juju, Tifany, Kathy Kirk, and Angie are painting "goat headquarters" while Jon is welding away. Bob has partnered with Talent to repair small machines that need a new life. David, Aiden, Ruby, and T'as are busy weighing and vaccinating goats today. We [...]
Team Naartjie is complete! We spent an unexpected night in Bulawayo due to a team member missing her flight, but we are now complete and ready to head out to Morning Star. Whoo hoo!!! #AFCAids #lovewell #zimbabwe
School uniforms, reusable pads kits, dresses, trousers, purses, skirts, and hats are all sewn in a little tailoring shop in Miwani, Kenya. This is another AFCAids supported project, in partnership with Restoringhopes Ministries. We have dreams of expanding this project to include 10 more machines, training more women while expanding the items they will sew and the number of buyers. It is always a leap of faith to grow these projects but when I see them, when I read the reports and when I hear the stories, it makes sense to do so. Slow, incremental growth is the name of the game for us at AFCA. We look for: [...]
Meanwhile, in Gemena, DRCongo, a group of beneficiaries working in a community garden project have all received their LuminAID solar lamps and Sawyer water filters. Good days all around!! #AFCAids #congo #cleanwaterforall #lovewell
LuminAID solar lamps.were given to widows today in Miwani, Kenya. The ladies were SO excited and danced and hollered and clapped and gave a little speech. I just stood with my eyes watering and couldn't stop smiling. Alice, the supervisor, taught the ladies how to use the lamps, teaching them in Luo. #RestoringHope #afcaids #lovewell #lightsforall
Team Teko has been in Miwani, Kenya for the past couple of weeks. One of the projects they have been working on is a fence around the school #AFCAids supports through Restoringhopes Ministry. Long days in the sun, for sure! Here's a part of the team...four are missing. And Tifany is not part of the team, but jumped in to help.
It all started with one.One person working in the tiny sisal project, cutting leaves to make fiber. Then, there were three. Three people earning a decent salary making fiber out of the thick, green sisal leaves. We bought two oxen and started using them to carry sisal to our new decorticator machine, where a green slurry oozes out of one end, leaving the workers with raw sisal in their hands.The sisal is then washed until it is white and clean, left to dry on long metal lines. There, the sun turns the beige fiber into white, ready for bundling if it is to be sold in this form or, to [...]
A group of five young people walk in, smiling as we greet. We hug for long and in those moments, I am transported back to the first time I met each of them. Mauwa, at 6 years old, feverish and quiet, leaning against my knee as I chatted with her aunt in a slum of Mombasa. Lydia, tiny and quiet around new people, but always with a sparkle in her eyes, pointing towards her incredible intelligence. I remember each of them - hurting children, suffering from the ravages of AIDS, malnutrition, orphanhood, poverty, lack of education, and hopeless. Now, I find myself sitting by a social worker, two teachers, a [...]