A Letter from Gideon and Jennifer, caretakers of Peniel Center Orphanage:
"The news that schools opened on the 28th of September were joyfully received by our Peniel Centre children. Our students have been relying entirely on their phones to be able to study and to receive assignments from their teachers. We thank God that WIFI is now available at Peniel Centre! This is helping our students be able to study and to learn while they are home. Our prayers for the Centre is that we may have laptops or tablets for our students to be able to study or to do research at home. Thank you so much for partnering with us. You have brought hope to our students for a productive future.
Our Peniel children have spent the last 6 months out of the school environment and are now back in school in this environment of COVID 19: Would you please take your time to pray for them, and pray specifically for the following prayer items:
- Protection from COVID 19 as they will be meeting with different children from different families,
- Provision of sanitizers, face masks, food, etc.,
- That we will be able to take them to school on time and to bring them back home on time. (All the children go to different schools which are in different locations),
- Pray that the children will be able to adjust to the new learning environment,
- Transportation to school (we will not let our children go to school in crowded public transport where the risk of contracting the virus is very high) and,
- Pray for all their teachers that they will put all their effort to teach these children even though they are not well paid by the government of Zimbabwe.
READY TO GO TO UNIVERSITY
The current oldest girl of Peniel Centre is excited that schools and universities will be open soon. She came to Peniel's centre after the death of her mother. We thank God that Peniel Centre not only provided a home for this intelligent girl but helped her complete her high school last December. She did very well on her exams and is now ready to begin studying for her first degree at one of the local universities in Zimbabwe. She will be studying Community Development beginning the 5th of October this year at the University. Would you please keep on praying for her as she begins her studies? Pray for enough fees, stationery, food, better clothes, a laptop, and other needs a student at University would need.
PENIEL CENTRE GARDEN
Our garden project has been doing very well providing Peniel Centre with fresh veggies daily. We have relied on our two boreholes to supply Peniel Centre and our garden with water. Unfortunately due to the drought that we are going through in Zimbabwe, one of our boreholes has dried up and only gives us water once a week. We need to upgrade the second borehole so that it can supply adequate water for both Peniel Centre and our garden. We need a new bigger pump and solar panels to pump water from the borehole into our Peniel water tanks. These two boreholes are helping us become self-sufficient at the Centre and providing the needed moisture for our fresh garden."
SKILLS TRAINING
After realizing that the girls are doing very well in sewing, we are now working on carpentry skills training for the boys from the beginning of next year. Unemployment is very high in Zimbabwe and the only way of making our children survive in such a difficult environment is through helping them acquire skills that can make them survive such a situation after school. We desire to see them becoming independent adults in society afterlife at Peniel centre. Please pray with us for this to become a reality. We have got 6 boys who are writing their ‘O’level examinations this year and the question that we always ask ourselves is what are these children going to be after completing high school or getting a degree in a nation where there is no employment. What about those who are not gifted academically, what should we do with them; these questions are the ones that led us to think of starting to offer them skills training. We will start these pieces of training with even those who are still going to primary school. Please pray for us to get the tools to start this project. We thank God that we already have someone willing to come over to Peniel centre and provide training in Carpentry and Metalwork."
Thank you so much for your prayers and partnership.
Blessings,
Gideon and Jennifer Chishamba, caretakers of Peniel Centre Orphanage