A Letter from Gideon and Jennifer, caretakers of Peniel Center Orphanage:
"We thank God that winter is over and summer has just started in Zimbabwe. It has been very much cold at Peniel Centre this past winter and the end of it brought exuberant joy to almost all the children (you can see the happy faces of these three on the birthday of one of the children).
We give all the appreciation to God, especially that three of our Peniel Centre children, who are asthmatic, didn’t get the attack this winter. We wonder where they were going to go. If they were going to experience an asthmatic attack, especially here in Bulawayo, the hospitals are not operating to full capacity. God has a way of protecting His children; the staff members did a splendid job of ensuring that everyone is warm during the winter.
Children are supposed to be in school this time around but due to COVID 19, none of them are going to school. Ever since the pronouncement of a national Lockdown in March this year, our children have been relying on private teachers who would come to Peniel Centre to teach the children. We have however stopped this arrangement after a spike of COVID 19 cases in Zimbabwe. The location where some of these teachers come from has over 20 people confirmed with COVID 19. It is to this backdrop that we decided to stop our children from getting lessons from teachers; we felt we were exposing our children to the dangers of contracting the virus. We are currently working on ensuring that they learn through online education. This is proving to be a bit expensive for us to establish since we need to have wifi at Peniel, and the ability to pay for wifi bundles monthly, so that the children may benefit. We also need laptops or tablets or smartphones for the children, so they can use them to learn. Please keep on praying for us that this becomes a reality.
We have been taking this precious moment to pass Agricultural skills to our children. Most of the Peniel children are very fond of Agriculture, hence we are trying, by all means, to pass to them horticulture and livestock rearing skills. We have grown lots of vegetables and we hope that our boreholes will not dry up this summer. We are in our second year of drought in Zimbabwe, so there is a high probability that boreholes will dry up this summer. It will be disastrous for us if the boreholes that we have dry up, it means that we won’t have drinking water as well as water to irrigate our plants. Our cattle and goats will also not have water and this may cause them to die of both hunger and lack of water. Please keep us in your prayers.
Amid these challenges, one of our Peniel girls is learning the skill of making garments. She has a big desire of becoming a clothing designer and even of owning her boutique in Bulawayo and other areas of Zimbabwe.
We thank God that through your support she is learning and has high hopes that she will be able to do well in her studies and one day be able to live a better life. Thank you so much for partnering with us in creating a better future for these children. Mitch (pictured here above) has made garments for other orphaned girls this past month of July and is going to make more in the coming months. Please see hereinbelow the photo of some of the clothes that she made for other orphaned girls.
Thank you so much for the support."
Blessings,
Gideon and Jennifer, caretakers of Peniel Centre Orphanage