Newsletter

March 2007

Dear friends of Kondanani,
Well we have had an exciting time and a challenging time too.
One of the most important challenges were the weeding of some of the team members. There has since been peace as each of us here understand the importance of team work and team dynamics. But above all to understand that to walk in unity is what God blesses.

And blessed we have been in the last two month.

But first a few little stories about our little ones.
A few days ago the matron of the clinic, she is a Malawian lady, came to me and said mummy I want you to have a look at Joel's secret place, Joel is one of our little babies. I did not have a clue were Joel's secret place was, of course I was very curious and I ask her what was wrong with him and to show it to me. She told me that he had a swelling and I must have a look. She then proceeded with taking of his nappy to show me the secret place with the swelling. You will have guessed by now, the secret place was his little penis and testicals. Well we laid hands on his tummy and prayed It has all been fixed by now, but I think we will have a laugh about it for a while to come.

Rebecca made u laugh yesterday, her teacher our missionary Fiona patted her affectionately on her bottom, I know in most countries that is not allowed, what a pity.
Now prior to the rest of the story, I want you to know that this is a little girl who has for a few years told us that she is going to be a minister of the gospel and at 8 years old loves to preach.
She looked at Fiona and remembering her memory scripture said: Matthew 7 : 12 Do to others as you would have them do to you, and proceeded with giving Fiona a affectionate pat on the bottom.
We are so blessed with these little ones even if the bigger ones who are 8 years old by now, getting a little naughty at times even cheeky.

Martin is one of our missionary teachers. I find him quite amazing, he is only 25 years but I love his wisdom. He teaches the A B C's, this is the first class at primary school.
At the beginning of the year he discussed two children with me who he believed should stay behind, it was a burden to him though he felt hurt and yet knew it was better for those two boys. But it was the way he did it that really gave me so much respect for him. He sat the boys down and said to them "Boys, next year this was in December, I am going to have an other class with lots of children, it will be a lot of work and I am going to need some help, I have chooses you two to be my helpers how do you feel about that?" The boys felt so proud and were eager to be part of the plan.
Yesterday the ABC's had there 3rd test of the year and little Matthew one of the two had 100 %. When he was told today that he has joined the 100 club, he beamed with delight. Rodger however cried because he had only 97% as in the previous 2 test he had 100%. He was told that it only takes 3 to get to 100 hundred not far away it all.
Amazing what we can do to encourage our children.

Not everything we experience is always so wonderful. We only admit babies, and many of them have lost their mum only a few days or even one day prior to admission.
They may have been born in filthy conditions or in a government hospital which is not much better.
It is quite possible that because of those conditions the child is infected at birth with either the HIV virus or a serious infection. We also get the babies who have already full blown AIDS, this can be so painful to experience, it is the terrible pain such a baby goes through that breaks my heart, the agony of something they have not even been party to or are guilty of and yet they suffer and slowly die, I will never get used to it.
The there are the ones who get infections, often it is one of a twin, lately we have had two sets of twins were one of them had according to the doctors gotten infected at birth. We have these amazing fights for these precious little lives and in the end the loss is heavy.

We have not opened the "Door of Hope" yet. The Government Minister of Child Welfare is going to do the official opening, but at present they are in Parliament, as soon as that is finished, I presume in about 3 weeks time, she will be with us, that, at the same time will give us access to all the media.

I meditated the other day on what is success as far as an orphanage is concerned.
Many people ask me the question, how many children we have, that is often seen as the success of Kondanani. But actually it is sad all these babies who come and are orphaned because of the death of parents.
The success of Kondanani is in the outcome of the life of our children, not in how many we have, but what kind of children are they becoming.
Many people know that we believe in excellence (not perfection) and our focus is on what is the best for our children. It is not a matter of just keeping them because they have no other place to go, we want to develop them spirit, soul and body and one day we will see wholesome godly men and women. We definitely are seeing the beginning of that.

We witnessed a miracle with one of our cows. Yes very important, a cow when you start to calculate, is a big investment. By the way we have 10 cows by now.
Glenda our oldest cow who has had two calves, was on heat. The problem was that she got a bit confused in the process, thought that she was a boy and tried to mount Martie who is 7 months pregnant. Well Martie did not like this at all and started to fight Glenda and got injured. What part of her body was injured we never found out but she could not walk any more. We got al sorts of bad advice trying to avoid the vet who would cost a lot of money to come all the way to us. At some stage we had the veterinary assistant from our village and he said, get the butcher so you can at least have money for the meat. It was then that I really began to think of the promises of God that even our animals shall bring forth the fruit of their womb, not die.
All the bigger children came and laid hands on the cow and prayer that she would be healed. I phoned the proper vet, a lovely young Kenyon man, he was amazing although to begin with he did not give us much hope at all. The fight for Marties life began in earnest. The funny thing about it was that after we had given her bicarbonate of soda, the vet asked for a piece of hose pipe, I wondered what on earth he was going to do with that. He put it down the cows throat and miraculously he got the pipe into the right stomach (there are 4) It had filled up with gas and that would have killed her the gas was released and she began to improve almost immediately. We gave God the Glory and the vet hardly charged us anything. Yesterday after 8 days, Martie is walking again grazing with the others, she is however avoiding Glenda.

The other wonderful news is that we have a market for our pigs and the chickens, in fact we can't even supply enough, we are really delighted. It is so important to have that extra income. Schooling is such an expensive exercise, besides that, the children are growing and costing more and more. This week 26 of them asked, mummy we want a watch please. When I had my own kids it was only one at the time to ask me for a watch, perhaps you say, do they really need a watch? Well how many children who have one need one. They are like normal children, they learn to read the clock, see the teacher has one, so if we have to learn to read the clock then, were is ours.
I nearly forgot to tell you the rest of the pig story. Well what a night that was, we had to get up at twelve o'clock midnight to start the slaughtering, it was to hot to do the job during the day. There were 15 pigs each weighing about 45 kg, nice size. I had bought a stun gun, but I am not that experienced with stun guns, in fact I had never even heard about them. I wish you could have seen Cherie with boots and all looking like a real farmer.
We had 6 guys on duty, they had to do the job and it was not their first time, but at other times they had done only two at the time, but they knew what they were doing.
The stun gun would not work, it is for humans who try to attack other people.
I am so glad there is no SPCA in Malawi because they would have had us locked up.
The "thing" was done the Malawi way, but by 9 o'clock in the morning we had all the pigs, slaughtered and cleanly shaven hanging on the structure we had put up for that purpose. The truck with the cooler room came to collect the meat. A few days later when we met with our client he told us, he is a South African who has a big meat processing plant here in Malawi, that the quality of our meat is excellent and that we can supply him with as many chickens and pigs as we possible.
BUT, although this is such an amazing opportunity for us to make money for our children, I will have to start looking for cool rooms to be put up. We have already build a slaughter house, it is being tiled at present. We seriously looking for a donor to help us with this project.
We need lots of money though for this, but I know that God will supply, because His heart is towards the Widows and the Orphans.

One more very special news is, that Kondanani has an Agreement with a Netherlands Adoption agency to have Dutch parents adopt our children who are available for adoption. Everything has been discussed with the relevant authorities in Malawi and we have been given the go ahead.
For the partners of Kondanani who live in Holland, please do not try and contact us directly regarding adoption, as per Dutch law we are not allowed to so, it has to go via the adoption agency. Please see our Dutch web site < www.kondanani.nl>
Although we love and care for our children, we can never take the place of a loving home with a father and a mother, for the sake of the little ones we love we are so happy about this development.

We have a precious couple in Australia who are representing Kondanani in Australia, we are very excited about this new development. Child sponsorship will take of in a big way. They have a lot of experience and are very keen to help us. If anyone in Australia wants more details please let me know, I will send you their details.

My last question is, are there any missionaries at heart out there who will join us on the field. You have to raise support or perhaps you have a pension already and still young and strong like me, I am nearly 63 and I out run the young ones.
We are also looking for someone who is a university student who could come here during their vacation to help us with the work books we use for the ACE education system. These work books are all American based and some of them have to be changed to become relevant to Malawi, like history.

Love from myself and the team, Annie Chikhwaza.