Post by Fig on Aug 5, 2008 10:38:30 GMT 10
~ because everybody has a story! I recently read this article. My DH and I lived and served in (Ministry) Hamilton, Ontario and know something of their Ministry. To God be the glory!Seeds of Greatness
Gord and Anita Cooledge believe that with a stable environment, even the most oppressed children can learn to dream big.
Since 2005, the Hamilton, Ontario couple, along with their three children, have been developing a Village of Hope orphanage on a 20-acre compound near Harare, Zimbabwe. Southern Africa is staggering under the AIDS epidemic. There are 1.5 million AIDS orphans out of a population of 13 million people in Zimbabwe; but there are known and registered places of safety for only 0.5 percent of those children.
“The needs are huge,” says Anita, “but if we take it down to individual level, the Village of Hope affects the lives of 400 children daily through feeding programs, schooling and orphan homes. We can’t save all of Zimbabwe, but we can affect the lives put in front of us. It’s a start—and a good one!” The village runs two orphan homes serving 16 children, each headed by a house mother. Construction is planned for four more homes, up to a total of 16. The Cooledges explain that living in an orphanage means that children have time to be children and not have to worry about feeling unsafe or finding food and a place to sleep at night.
They also conduct a feeding program for children every weekday in surrounding communities; and provide water from a tap placed at the gate and run from a borehole on village property. They distribute donated items like blankets, shoes, and clothing and run a farm. It provides fresh fruit and vegetables for the village, employment for local people, and a source of produce sold at reduced cost to those who could not afford it otherwise.
A new school opened its doors in January to 190 students, grades kindergarten to six. Education is the key, they say, to giving the children of Zimbabwe hope for their future. The plans for a new AIDS clinic have also been accelerated, thanks mostly to Carrie-Anne Bauer, the 12-year-old girl from Perth, Ontario who raised $50,000 in two years by selling bead bracelets (www.braceletsofhope.ca).
Gord, a chef by trade, and Anita, a respiratory therapist, became interested in the concept when it was presented by the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, a network of evangelical churches, in 2001. Seven years later, a Villages of Hope Africa Society has formed around four villages in various stages of development in Southern Africa: two in Zambia, one in Malawi, and one in Zimbabwe. The society oversees fundraising and administration. Most of the Cooledge’s funding comes from Canada. “It was in adopting twice that we became passionate about children, and what a stable environment and the love of God can do to change their future, providing healing from the past,” says Anita. But starting such an ambitious project from the ground up has been fraught with difficulties arising from bureaucratic red tape, an unstable economy, political unrest and an unfamiliar culture and language.
It is heartbreaking to watch what is happening in Zimbabwe right now, with an inflation rate at 100,000 per cent, Anita says. “A recent newspaper article said it best when it compared being able to buy a mansion in Harare for $14 million about 10 years ago, and not being able to buy a Coke with $14 million today. You can turn the channel in Canada, feel a momentary empathy, and go to the store with full shelves. But the people here live it day by day.”
The Cooledge family is already seeing the fruit of their convictions. “You just need to be part of getting a 12-year-old child a wheelchair who hasn’t walked in six years, and know that all the pain was worth it,” says Anita. “Or watch a seven-year-old child run healthy and strong and grow in height because she finally got a right diagnosis and treatment because you were there—to watch a five-year-old not lose her leg to gangrene because you had the money to get treatment—it makes it all so very worth it!”
Thank you and Thank you God!
