Goodbye 2020!

Happy New Year,
 
In the midst of all the world’s rather disheartening news, we hope this update is a joy and encouragement to your heart. At the moment we are so glad to say, that life and ministry continues here in rural Zambia reasonably unaffected by CoVid and our children and community continue to be invested in in wonderful ways!

The obvious highlight this past month was Christmas! This is always a time of year that we aim to create memorable family fun, as well as bless the kids through gift giving. We want each one to knows how very seen, loved, and cared for they are. Picking the right gifts for each of 23 children is quite the process, but also a lot of fun. A few of the favorite gifts that all the children received this year were new mattresses and raincoats! There are lots of other individual gifts as well that brought joy. As per tradition, we ended by lighting candles on a cake and singing Happy Birthday to Jesus!
 
We’ve asked Kennedy to share a little bit about the day with you…

This year’s Christmas was the best!!! Every Christmas we’ve been having has been wonderful and lots of fun, but 2020’s Christmas was the bomb…I might sound like I am exaggerating, but I don’t know. It maybe has something to do with growth where you begin to understand more of the things happening around you, you know!
 
We had so much fun. We went out for swimming and we had dinner as a family together…one of my favorite gifts is my raincoat. I don’t have an umbrella and the rains here falls like every day during this season. I am grateful to everyone that made our Christmas wonderful and memorable. God Bless you. 
 
Love, Kennedy

Thank you to all who gave above and beyond this year to help make this day so special!!!!
 
We’ve also asked Paul (one of our local staff members) to share from his perspective about some of our other community development initiatives that often don’t get the spotlight….

Project Samuel as a childcare facility have not just limited ourselves around the 23 children that are internal, but we have extended our reach to the community as well. We have 9 children we sponsor in the community with basic needs like food, clothes, school and health. We further have engaged community youths in skills training (agriculture). We have identified school dropouts, young youths, and provided them with land, piped water and all the necessary resources to manage a garden for their income generation as well a learning a survival skill. Other than the youths, we have also engaged women (mostly widows and old aged) into affordable gardening right at the Project Samuel facility. We have been and still supplying them with all the necessary resources to run the garden. Any profits made from the garden is channelled into a woman’s club maize field, which is exactly 1  hectare. As a Project we help them plant with a tractor, monitor the field, and continue providing guidance throughout as the system of farming introduced is new, affordable and efficient. The whole purpose of bringing people together is to encourage teamwork, self-employment and accountability as one way of community development. 

It’s exciting to be a blessing to the community as well and to share love through such practical means! 
 
Sending all our love,
Brenden, Kim and the Project Samuel Family