A letter from Gideon and Jennifer, caretakers of Peniel Center Orphanage:
This month is the third month since the lockdown was pronounced by the government to curb the spread of COVID 19 in the country. It has been a very difficult season for all our Peniel Centre children as they have been spending every day within the premises, not going to school or even going out to play with their peers in the nearby community. We are very much grateful to you for all the wonderful support that is being rendered to these wonderful children. The support is going a long way in improving the quality of life of these children.
Please see below the story of one of the children whose life was touched and changed at Peniel Centre through the support that comes from you:
After the death of her mother, Mitchel and her sister were left to roam around the streets of Bulawayo eating from the bins and sleeping in the streets. They didn’t have anywhere to go to since their surviving father was also a street man, with no fixed abode and is still a street man. Life was completely difficult for Mitchel who had to carry all the burden of looking after her younger sister at a tender age. This kind of life opened sadly a wider door for them to be abused by even some people who looked like well-wishers. Thank God for Peniel Centre that this young girl and her younger sister were taken into Peniel Centre where they were both provided with a permanent home, and hope for the future was rekindled. Mitchel always wanted to work and live an independent life after school. Soon after joining the Peniel family, she was taken back to school together with her sister, and identity documents were provided to both of them. She wrote her ‘O’level exams last year and got 4 subjects out of the seven that she wrote. We are glad to let you know that this young girl is now furthering her education at one of the colleges in Zimbabwe. She is doing clothing technology which is one of the things that she has a passion for. She would like to open a boutique of her own after the training.
Other Peniel children
We thank God that we finished building a biogas digester (pictured above) and have just started using the gas produced to boil water for our kitchen. Apart from that, we continue to run a private school at Peniel Centre for our children which is going a long way in taking away all the stress they could be going through during this difficult moment. Our two teachers are doing a great job of teaching these children and also our staff members are adding to this work by giving these children Agricultural lessons in the garden. Our garden is beginning to be doing very well after going through a dry spell when electricity cables were stolen. A number of our young boys like farming hence the garden is picking up well. Our prayers are for our groundwater table to remain strong even during this dry season. Please pray that our boreholes do not dry up even though there is drought in Zimbabwe at the moment. We also need a bigger pump for the borehole that uses solar power, the borehole has got potential to give us more than 5,000 liters of water per day and is only harvesting less than 2,500 liters per day due to the small pump that we use to pump water. We believe that getting a bigger solar-powered pump will go a long way in improving the harvest from our garden since we will be able to grow more vegetables than the ones that we are growing at the moment.
Thank you so much for your support.
With much gratitude,
Gideon & Jennifer, caretakers of Peniel Centre Orphanage