Today is a sweltering hot Zambian summer's day with the temperature in the high 30s, the humidity up and the air conditioning and fans churning sluggish heavy air. We all sit around complaining about the heat and longing for the rains to arrive – when of course the humidity will become unbearable, so we will have something else to complain about. It is 24th October – the day when Zambians celebrate gaining independence from Britain way back in 1964. The other really important thing that happened that year was that I was born. We have just had an election which saw the incumbent president lose to Michael Sata the then leader of the opposition. The election process and handover of power went very smoothly and gained Zambia a great deal of respect internationally as a result. Many of you may have heard about the elections which were notable internationally in that Zambia now has the first ever white Vice President in Africa – a Zambian of Scottish extraction called Dr Guy Scott whose forebears were missionaries here. The new government has made a promising start and has vowed to clean up the corruption which has affected much of national life in the country. We hope and pray that the country will continue to enjoy the peace, stability and tolerance which has marked its history and that poverty and corruption will be tackled effectively leading to an increase in prosperity for the ordinary citizen. Last time I wrote I told you about the sad news of Kondwani's death. A lot of time has passed since then and we have been able to come to terms with his absence in a way although of course we still miss him, and think about what could have been. His older brother Gershom has now started working with us at the Farm. He is a larger than life character, very cheerful and noisy, much like Kondwani, and has been working hard to finish the college course he had to abandon when his father dies some few years ago. In return for his board and lodgings and the payment of his college fees, he stays at the dormitory with the boys and acts as a boarding supervisor, meaning that he is able to deal with many issues and save Christine and I from having to do everything. This has been a great help to us. He is well liked and respected by the boys, and as a young Christian man he has been a very good influence on life in the dorm. Abigail has been at home for a visit to her family, and on her return was granted a further 2 year work permit by the government, meaning she is able to continue her work in developing her little school. She will go home again in November, spend the festive season with her folks and see her little brother safely married off (we hope) to a young lady called – of all things – Abigail! After that she is going to be chained to her desk for the rest of her work permit duration. Abigail of course helps Christine and great deal on the domestic side and also works on our website which is at www.omfzambia.com. If you just click on the highlighted link it will take you direct to the website where you will find lots more information on all our activities and of course lots of photographs. I have tried several ways of sending pictures in the newsletters but there are so many of you who either cannot see them, or cannot open them, that I end up sending out 4 or 5 different versions to different people. If anybody would like to see pictures but cannot access the website, please let me know and I will consult our IT specialist (i.e. Abi) and see what we can do. For two weeks in August our friends from the Heskethbank Christian Centre in Southport, England, came out again to run a Summer Camp of activities for our children, including fitness, music, drama and IT training. The camp was a great success and both the visitors and our children made friendships that we hope will last. The team also provided us with a gift of 10 laptops, which we intend to use to create an IT lab for our children and the small Community School Abi is working on.

Most of our lads are continuing well in school. Lucky is in his last year and is writing his final exams just now. He was Head Boy at his school in his final year and we were very proud of him. So imagine how we felt this year when it was announce that his successor would be another of our lads – Lingson – who is also Lucky's cousin, and that the Deputy Head Boy would be Owen who is also one of "the MacDonalds". Not only that, but we now have a further 6 youngsters as prefects, and a Head Boy in another school. And if that sounds like a proud Dad boasting – that's exactly what it is. We attended the annual graduation at Lucky's school where mot of the kids go, and as were so pleased to see a number of prize winners, including Lucky as best athlete, Memory (Lucky's sister) as Spelling champion AND Mental maths competition, and Humphrey for coming third in the senior spelling competition where he competed against pupils 2 and 3 years older than him.

Of course it is not all plain sailing. Many of our lads are getting particularly stressed as the combination of heat and exams leads to short tempers and irritability, and we have a had the usual quarrels, and with such a large group there are always those who are going through the delightful teenage phase of being bored with school, studying, chores, parents and in fact anything they should be doing, but by and large they are a well behaved bunch.

We have also taken in two new lads, Christopher Mbolela who is 17 years old; and Nickson Powanga who is 14 years old, both of whom Social Welfare sent to us.

Christopher is a stable and pleasant young man with difficult family circumstances and as a result of poverty was unable to continue living with his mother. He has successfully adapted to life at the Farm and we anticipate he will resume school in January next year. In the meantime, he is revising at home under Abigail's supervision, and getting invaluable help in the basics of education which so many children seem to miss in Zambia.

Nickson comes to us with a very troubled background. He has been HIV+ from birth and has a history of being in various centres but absconding from these to live on the street. He has a regular supply of ARVs but because of his erratic behaviour, he did not take these regularly and his health suffered as a result. He was also extremely malnourished and growth retarded. Since his arrival at the Farm he has detoxed from glue, which was a difficult process for him, and has stabilised remarkably, having now completed four months with us with only one attempt to run away. His behaviour is still poor, with outbursts of temper, and chronic sulking if he feels slighted or crossed in any way, but he is gradually learning to socialise, and is making great efforts to fit in and settle down. He has been “adopted” by Rommy Phiri one of our older lads and seems to enjoy having a big “brother”. He enjoyed the Camp run by our friends from Heskethbank, and showed great interest in the IT training. He will go to school depending on his progress in the next few months.

Unfortunately we have also had to suspend two of our residents, Owen and Davies Lusenga who are brothers. As I mentioned in a previous letter Owen has made one attempt to commit suicide while staying with us and has on several occasions threatened to try again. Following medical evaluation we were advised that his behaviour was manipulative and aimed at allowing him to dictate how he behaved, and as a result he was sent to boarding school during term, and asked to return to his uncle’s house in Ng’ombe compound during holidays. He has stopped all threats to kill himself, and was behaving in a stable manner until we allowed him to attend the Camp, when he assaulted another boy for talking to a girl Owen believed was “his”. As a result we had to suspend him although we are still paying for him to be educated as a boarding pupil. The fact that he has since been appointed Deputy Head Boy at school suggests that he is able to behave himself when he sees it in his own interests and this makes us particularly annoyed as it seems that the psychiatrist was correct in his assessment that his behaviour was manipulative.

Davies is an extrovert character who seems unaware that his behaviour is inappropriate in some situations. In particular he hasdisplayed defiance and disobedience to Christine when she has asked him to behave himself, and after a series of such incidents and several warnings, he was also sent to boarding school, where he has excelled in the end of term tests! He returned for the Camp without any problems, and we are not sure how we should proceed with him.

Another young man, Emmanuel Chola, who has been at the Home since the start of this year, has been doing very well, and took position 3 in his Grade 8 class at Tina Trust School. Unfortunately, following the end of his exams, he drank several sachets of alcohol and became very drunk while attending the school end of term party. He was hospitalised at Coptic Hospital as a precaution but suffered no ill effects apart from severe embarrassment. This episode was out of character for him, and he has sworn never to drink alcohol again! He was suspended for a week by the school at the start of the following term but has managed to stay out of trouble since then.

Christine, the girls and I were able to have a lovely family holiday in Cape Town – our favourite destination – in July. We are so thankful to Bruce and Heather Barrow for the use of their house by the sea in Betty's Bay and to Ann Mayo from Edinburgh who braved the ordeal of running the house while we were away. Sarah is now in her last year in school and is working harder than seems fair. She is also looking at possible colleges and universities where she can study Music and Theatre. Rachel is in her last year at Primary school, and will go to secondary next August all being well. Christine's little bakery enterprise is taking off and she gets several orders for cakes and bread most weeks.

Well, that’s it for another letter. Our love to you all and thanks for all your support.

Don, Christine and all the kids

 A Happy New Year to everyone from Zambia.  We hope that 2011 is a blessed year for all of you.  Here on the farm we have started another school year for all the Zambian kids, and Sarah and Rachel have started second term of their year.  There has been the usual rush getting everybody kitted out with uniforms, books, stationery and the frantic search for school fees so that everyone can get started in time.  With every year that passes we get more and more requests for help from desperate families and abandoned kids who see education as the only hope of escaping the grinding poverty they have grown up with.  We try to help where we can.  It is very sad to have to turn away those we cannot help but there is only so much to go round. 

Our Grade 7 class all passed their big exam and all 6 have now started Grade 8.  Their achievement is remarkable because not only have they all missed schooling while living on the streets but they all managed to skip a class and go from Grade 5 directly into Grade 7 last year.

With the 6 lads going into Grade 8 we now have only 5 left in primary school, and at the other end of the education spectrum, we now have 5 lads at college or university.  We are faced with clear evidence that everyone is growing up fast and as Christine said the other day to me, perhaps it’s time to get some more little ones!

Actually, the little ones are also coming to us in ways we did not expect.  Yvonne who helps with cooking and cleaning at the boy’s dormitory has had a very difficult year in terms of family issues.  Firstly her niece Bernadette who stays with her in her little house on our farm got pregnant.  The birth was very difficult and Bernadette needed an emergency operation to save her life.  There was no blood available at the hospital so several of our lads volunteered to donate.  Thankfully the outcome was a success and little Anna joined our extended family.  She is shown in the picture opposite being held by Rachel who is very proud of being an honorary auntie.

Then just two months ago, Yvonne got word that her sister-in-law was sick.  The following evening, her relative drove up to our gate, dumped the sick woman by the roadside, and shouted to Yvonne that she must look after her because she was the sister of the poor woman’s husband.  The whole terrible story came out.  Loveness the sick lady was married to Yvonne’s brother and had 14 children some of whom are grown up.  When confronted with a 15^th pregnancy she felt she couldn’t cope and went for a backstreet abortion which killed her unborn baby but also destroyed her own heart.  When her husband saw how sick she was he refused to take any responsibility and walked away from his family.  The lady’s relatives told him he had to take care of the situation and when he didn’t, they brought her to Yvonne who is now supposed to bear the burden for her brother who will not.

We took Loveness to hospital the same day as she was close to death.  Poor Yvonne had to stay with her and the following day suddenly realised nobody had checked on the children she left at home.  So Mr Banda and Abigail went off to investigate and found 5 youngsters aged 12, 10, 7, 4 and 2 at home alone.  They had not eaten since their mother was taken by relatives 2 days before.  They had been left with a 16 year old brother who in despair had told his 12 and 10 year old brothers that morning to put a pot of water on boil and that he would go to look for mealie meal to make some porridge.  By 4 pm when Abi and Banda arrived he had not returned, and the two boys, Joshua and Joseph, not knowing what else to do, and desperate to hold things together had started to bath their little sister Hope and their little brothers Emmanuel and Miracle.  It was a pathetic sight, and we just gathered them all up and took them back to the farm where they have moved in with Yvonne.  We could not put them in the dormitory and with all our problems with Social Welfare, we felt it was better they be with relations than with us.  The following week their poor Mum died leaving them without any parental support and only Aunt Yvonne between them and utter destitution.  So they have also joined the clan and have are now settling into life on the farm and going to school with Abigail, who now has a fairly full time job teaching them, our farm manager’s children and several little waifs and strays from the neighbourhood whom nobody sends to school.  Since last writing we were offered the chance to buy the local private school which most of kids attended, and we were seriously thinking of doing so if the money could be raised.  However the owners decided not to sell and Abigail is doing pretty well establishing her own institution!  Here she is teaching one of her little classes.

The Festive season came and went with its usual excitement.  Top request for present this year was MP3 players and we were able to get 25 at a good price in South Africa.  A couple of guys asked for bikes and got them on strict understanding that they work to pay back the extra cost.  We had a busy and noisy new year but lots of fun.  I had some time off so we organized 4 tournaments for Risk, Monopoly, Uno and Cards.  The noise levels and competition was intense, I got disqualified for “cheating” at Risk (it was the only way they could beat me) and in the end we crowned 4 champions!  Spending time with all the kids makes me realise what a special bunch of young folk we have and it is good to reflect over the past few years and see how much the they have grown and turned out to be (most of the time) very nice young men and women of whom we are absurdly proud.

We also now have a web site at www.omfzambia.com - another of Abigail's many inputs into our work, so if you get a chance have a look at it as it contains a lot of background information and photos of people and activities here on the farm.

Well, that’s it for this letter.  I hope that you enjoy the new format and the shorter length.  With love from us all

Don, Christine and all the children

A Happy New Year to all of you – 2010 has arrived safely and we wish you all a blessed and prosperous year. Here at OMF we can scarcely believe 2009 has finished, even the lads commenting on how quickly it seemed to pass.  It was a difficult year for us in many respects and we hope that things will ease up in the coming year.

Let me update you on how things have gone here on the farm since I last wrote in July.  One major event has been the finishing of the dormitory.  When I last wrote we were struggling to get our money back from the contractor who had failed to complete the building.  Finally we managed after getting the police involved, and we were then able to have the building completed in time for Social Welfare’s deadline and then to move the boys in.  They are very happy with their new surroundings and seem to enjoy the 4 to a room arrangement.  There is also a kitchen and a shower block at the new dorm so we now have a much quieter and emptier house than at any time since we moved to the farm.  Some days it seems almost deserted and we are still not sure we entirely approve of the new system, though we were forced into it by Social Welfare.  We miss the boys under our feet (well, sometimes) and the closeness we shared with them was one of the reasons why so many of them felt they belonged here.  So while the extra space and peace is nice, I hope the new building does not lead to a barrier between us and them.  We are now working on getting furniture for the rooms such as cupboards and drawers and desks and bookshelves.  We already have bunk beds for everyone and we and the boys are truly grateful to all of you who made the dorm possible. It’s completion marks the beginning of a new phase in OMF.  Inevitably the question gets asked “What will we do with the space now available in the house” and this is something we think about a lot.  There are so many needy kids that we could fill it 10 times over without any effort, but we don't have the other resources we would need such as staff and funding, and we really cannot stretch ourselves much further.  Yet it seems pointless (and wrong) to occupy a 7 bedroom house when so many youngsters still sleep on the street.

Another major event for us has been the arrival of Abigail Brown to work with us.  Abi is 24 and a qualified primary teacher from England.  She visited Zambia on several occasions and spend a lot of time with us on each visit.  She decided to give up her job and come to stay with us for a year, sponsored by her church.  We are very aware of the sacrifice this meant on her part and the part of her church and her parents, but we must acknowledge that she has been a complete godsend to us here.  She spends most of her day teaching boys not yet ready for school, helping with home work in the evenings, and assisting in running  the house, as well as being a good friend to Sarah our older daughter.  In a very short time she has become one of the family, and we find it difficult to imagine life without her.  In particular she has demonstrated a real love and dedication to the boys that has left an impression on many of them and they have accepted her as the “big sister” in the house.  God bless you Abi, you came at the right time and have helped more than you know.

From the boys point of view, the last six months have been busy with school.  Four children wrote Grade 7 exams in November and the results were just announced this week.  After all the anxiety of waiting, our four candidates did very well.  Memory – the only girl we have staying with us – led the way with 89%, followed by Isaac with 83%, Sammy with 83% and Rommy with 79%.  Remember that with the exception of Memory, all these kids lived on the street at some point and missed several years of education, and in Sammy’s case had done so well last year in Grade 5 that he was allowed to skip Grade 6 and go directly into Grade 7. We also had 4 lads write Grade 9 exams – results in February, and Edna, one of our boarding pupils wrote Grade 12 which is effectively the school leavers certificate.  The other lads all did well on their coursework, several taking top spot in their classes, including little John, who is now not so little any more.

We also had some comings and goings amongst the lads.  I mentioned Clifford in my last letter and he is still doing here and making good progress under Abi’s watchful eye.  Our latest addition is a boy called Joseph who is also schooling at home but has become a great help to Phil on the farm, and takes the responsibility of feeding the pigs very seriously.  Little Danny on the other hand has left us again.  We discovered a series of thefts had taken place, mostly from Abi’s room.  We decided to lay a trap which involved me hiding behind a bed in the room while everyone else was watching a movie.  The first night nothing happened, but the second night I heard the scrabbling and emerged from my hiding place to stunned looking 10 year old who’s knees nearly gave way with the shock!  His face was quite a picture, and it would have been funny if it hadn’t been so disappointing.  He confessed the whole crime spree and we had no option but to send him back to the orphanage where he came from.  The other boys were so annoyed with him that they were ready to lynch him, and he had to leave for his own safety as well as our peace of mind.  It really is very hard to understand why people will risk all that they have for petty theft.  Apart from this incident, the boys really have been very well behaved for the last few months, and several of them attended church camp in December and were obviously challenged by the messages.

Our girls have worked hard at school also and Sarah is due to write her IGCSEs in May.  She is specialising in Music and Drama and seems very gifted in both.  Rachel just takes whatever comes her way at school and seems to enjoy everything EXCEPT English and Drama.  Christine has had a busy festive season feeding us all and buying presents for countless other families and children we support in one way or another. I hope that she might manage a few days break away in January to rest and recharge her batteries.  Her Obstetrics and Gynaecology practise continues to be in great demand but she is happy with part time work and being a “mother of thousands” as one of the boys called her recently.  Just in case she doesn’t have enough to do she plans to start a small home bakery this year making Scottish cakes and other goodies, and will get some of the boys to help out in that.  She already has several orders in the pipeline so that will probably be our next project.

From a work perspective, the last year has been very difficult especially in financial terms, as the recession continued to bite.  Things are looking up a bit now and we hope the shop will return to profitability soon.  I was approached to ask if I would become the Commercial Director of Zambezi Airlines, a small airline which was started after the demise of Zambian Airways.  I agreed to do the job on a part time basis and to combine it with my work running the hardware store.  It is hard work doing both, but it helps pay the bills and I enjoy the challenge of being back in the airline industry.

We continue to wait for registration of the farm as a childcare facility and are hopeful that this will happen early in the new year, but we have been helped a lot in this by our friends in the police force and some very kind social workers who seem to realise we are only trying to help.  We continue facing challenges in our efforts as many people do not understand what we are trying to do and can be very unhelpful.  In particular we have been very distressed this year by a couple of lads who left us and made allegations of sexual and physical abuse against us.  This has been behind a lot of the scrutiny from Social Welfare, but thankfully they have stated they have found no evidence backing the allegations.  Nevertheless it is a very upsetting experience, especially when we realised that the boys in question were being manipulated by unscrupulous lawyers and police officers who were determined to extort money from us. We have defended ourselves as best we can but it is all unsettling and a big distraction from what needs to happen in order to help the many kids still on the street.

Finally I have managed at last to post some photos to a Facebook site.  If you would like to see them please click on the links below – you do not have to be a member of Facebook to use it.  I don't really make use of it to keep in touch but it does seem the easiest way to let you see the pictures.  The names of all the boys can be seen by clicking on their picture.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2159&id=100000286013171&l=e632a77f13

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2291&id=100000286013171&l=0cfdd448a3

So 2009 has finished with its problems and blessings.  We look forward to you continued support and interest in 2010, and will keep you posted on any other developments.  In the meantime, could I please appeal to those of you who help sponsor the boys education to send your contributions for this year as soon as possible to allow us to get everybody settled into school without delay this as we start the new session.

With all our love,

Don, Christine and all the kids



July is here again and with it school holiday time for some of our large family of children. Christine, Sarah and Rachel have already left to spend 2 weeks in Scotland and Nicholas and I will join them this week. We hope to spend a further 3 weeks there, visiting family and friends and catching up on all that has been happening. We are looking forward to the trip and we hope that we will be able to see some of you in the course of our travels. We plan to return to Zambia on 13^th August and pick up where we left off with the remaining 28 children. Our girls attend schools which follow the British school year and so this is their long summer holiday from July to September, while the boys Zambian schools run the academic year from January to December and so have only 4 weeks off just now during August. They will then go back at the start of September and will go into third term at the end of which they will write their main exams. There are 3 national exams in Zambia, one at the end of Grade 7 for entry into junior secondary, one at the end of Grade 9 for entry to Senior Secondary and one at the end of Grade 12 for entry into college or University. We have 5 youngsters sitting Grade 7, 2 doing Grade 9 and one doing Grade 12 this year so it will be a fairly fraught last term for us all.

Last time I wrote was in April and I told you of the difficulties we were facing from Social Welfare, then in my second email in April I was able to tell you about the intervention on our behalf of a number of Zambian friends who brought us to see the Minister in charge of the department. The Minister received us very kindly and told his officials to stop harassing us. Since then we have been left in relative peace but we have been pursuing registration of the work with the boys as a Children's Home in order to comply with the letter of the law. This has been a slow, and drawn out process, and is not yet complete though we are now close to finishing it. Part of the conditions for achieving final confirmation is that we complete the work we have started on the dormitory and the care givers house. I may have mentioned before that we had started the dorm, but unfortunately the contractor whom we paid to do the work on both buildings has stopped doing anything on our project. He used our cash for other projects and as a result is unable to finish what he started with us. We have been pursuing him now for months and have had to involve the authorities but when he has no funds left it is very difficult to get anything practical done. We hope and pray that somehow we will be able to finish both projects by the deadline we have been given of the end of September, as we do not wish to be closed down, even temporarily, by the authorities. It is strange that it is acceptable for children to be living on the street, but not acceptable that they live in our house with us, but that seems to be the attitude of the officials in charge here and that is why we have to build the separate dormitory for the boys.

We are truly grateful to you all for the support, prayer and sympathy throughout the difficult days, and we felt that we, along with all our children, were very much cared for by you all.

Of course lots has happened since then and much of it cannot be covered in a newsletter. The lads have continued to go to school and learn. They continue to make us proud with the effort they put in and the results they achieve. We now have 2 at University and a third writing Grade 12 this November for entry to University. Others have taken position 1 or 2 in their classes, while even those who may never achieve such heights have really tried hard and done their best – sometimes exceeding everyone’s expectations. For those who are not academically inclined, we try to find vocational training or apprenticeship places with companies in Lusaka. This has worked well so far and we hope that we will succeed in our aim of giving the lads a chance to achieve their full potential and provide for themselves and their families in the future.

We have been blessed with the provision of high quality volunteers in the last 6 months. We began with Anna and Chrisy, two young ladies from Canada who got stuck into helping out around the house and working with the boys on homework, extra lessons etc. Anna stayed for 3 months and Chrisy for 6, and both have been missed by the lads since they left. One of the things they really made a difference with was taking time to teach some of the little children who stay around the compound, and under their kind attention you could watch little boys and girls blossoming both intellectually and in their personal development. Some of theses children are pre-school and stay with their parents so they are not officially part of the Home, but the impact made on them has made us wonder whether the next stage of the work might be to establish a community school providing free education of a good standard to the children around us. We are now being helped by 3 other ladies, all from England, Kate, Dorne and Christine. All of them are ex-teachers, and again the input into the children’s academic work is phenomenal – I’m not really sure teachers ever actually become “ex” – they certainly seem to retain their authority! Kate is coming to the end of her time with us while Dorne and Christine are staying on – bravely – to manage the house while Christine and I are away. They have support from Cammy, a sports science student from Edinburgh who is great at managing the boys for games, bathing, washing clothes etc, and having spent the last 2 weeks being looked after by them all, I am actually very confident that the house will be run as well if not better than when we are around. The only complication seems to be the confusion caused by the similarity of their names to ours, but as they are normally addressed as Auntie and we are called Mum and Dad, we seem to have got over that.

As far as individual boys are concerned we have run into a number of troubles as well as successes over the past few months. We had an unfortunate situation where a couple of youngsters stole money from one of the volunteers. Of course they were quickly discovered and had to be expelled since it was their second offence. We took them to Social Welfare and asked them to find other places for them to stay, which they completely failed to do, and 6 weeks later both boys were on the street again in complete destitution. We really could not leave them there so we had to swallow our pride, bend our rules and allow them back. I do have to admit that they have both behaved extremely well since then and show every sign of having changed for the better. We have not allowed them to go back to school as we want them to see this as a privilege that has to be earned rather than a right to be abused. They are both Cliffordworking extremely hard at home with the volunteers and we are ready to allow them to go back either for this term or at the start of next year. A third boy is in the same situation for repeatedly fighting, and he also seems to have made every effort to control himself helped greatly by anger management counselling from Christine. It is very hard to know what to do with such boys in terms of discipline. If you are too soft, they cause havoc in the household, and upset the other well behaved boys, yet if you try to be strict there is the danger of wrecking their chances for ever. Most of them recognise this, and even when we expel them, they ask to come back and do not blame us for what we have done, which is a very unusual thing amongst children who have lived on the street. I think they also recognise that we do care for them as individuals and therefore do not speak ill of us even when under suspension. Unfortunately, there are always a few who simply want revenge and go around spreading stories of abuse, and unfortunately there are always people too ready to seize on these stories and try to stir up trouble. As one good Zambian friend said to me recently – “No good deed will go unpunished”.

In December I wrote of 4 new boys, Sam, Gift, Danny and Patrick. Two of these boys have left us, while two have stayed on. Sam didn’t last long as he proved very unreliable and troublesome, and in the end decided he didn’t like the rules at our place. Danny and Patrick both decided to make a break for freedom in February, but Danny quickly came back and asked to be re-admitted. He is now 10 and a real little livewire. He is the littlest boy we have ever looked after and is very bright but still very wilful and naughty, although he is also very loveable. We have seen very little of Patrick since he left. Gift has remained stable and constant throughout the year and now goes to school although he really struggles with most subjects because of the lack of foundational teaching in basics. We have also added another by called Clifford, whom I have referred to before as being a very sad retarded lad. His problems are compounded by many years of sniffing glue and abuse on the streets including sexual abuse, and he has great difficulty in learning anything new. He is being taught at home just now by Christine and Kate, and while he is a nice friendly lad, it is hard to see how he will ever progress to being self-sufficient. I have attached a group photo of 25 children (I have no idea where the others were) and one of Clifford, and all the comings and goings and returns mean that we are now at 28 boys and 3 girls in our “immediate” family. The third photo is of our little football team wearing the new strips and boots that were sent to them by a group called KitAid from England whom we would like to thank sincerely. Danny is second from the left in the back row. We have a number of boys who are gifted musically but have never had the chance to learn to play instruments. Does anybody now of a charity which collects old instruments and donates them to groups in Africa who can use them? If so we would like to hear from you so that we can try and give the guys a chance to develop their talents.

From a work perspective, we continue to struggle against the problems caused by the global recession and its knock on effects in Zambia. Business is very hard right now but we can record God’s faithfulness as we have been able to meet our family expenses so far often from unexpected sources. Christine continues to be part time doctor and full time Mum to 31 kids plus the many other families we try and help from a distance, and I never cease to wonder at how much she gets done in a day. Sarah and Rachel carry on well at school, and Sarah is now contemplating her future after she finishes school in the next year or two. She would love to study music and drama and is already looking at possible colleges. Nico and Mulenga are hard at work in their classes and Mulenga writes Grade 9 exam in November, which is why he cannot take time off to join us in Scotland this year – he has to attend extra classes all through his holiday.

Thank you all for your continued support. It is invaluable and very much appreciated. I hope we see some of you while we are home, and may God richly bless you all,

Love from us all

Don, Christine, and all the kids

It’s a wet, thundery evening here in Lusaka and the cloud cover makes it seem darker than usual. I could be sitting in our house in Edinburgh on a dark, dreich December evening but the temperature outside, and the noise from the living room assures me I am not. I am sitting in the bedroom, and I can here from the living room the sound of at least 15 adolescent male voices as they chatter and bellow at each other. The sense of excitement can almost be touched even from here. In the living room there are two main groups of children. One is watching in mounting tension as Mulenga tries out a computer game installed on an I-Phone. The other, larger group is gathered around Christine, offering advice and assistance as she assembles and decorates a gingerbread house decorated with sweets. They think that this is an astonishing thing to do, even though most of them saw her make one last year, and there are mutters of approval and awe as they watch the house take shape. The oft repeated conclusion is that “Mum is really clever.” Rachel, Memory and Sarah are in the mix somewhere, issuing instructions in assertive female tones (they might as well get started early) and I can also hear the sound of Kate and Jamie, who are over from Scotland visiting.

They (Kate and Jamie) are from a TV production company in Glasgow which is considering putting a TV documentary together on the plight of street kids in Zambia and attempts to deal with it such as OMF. As with most of our visitors, they have fitted in very well, and have become part of the family for the short time they are here. They have asked us to try and ignore the camera, and have filmed us at all times, so dear knows what they will come up with if they ever manage to produce a programme. As part of the project I took them on Saturday to visit City Market and an area called Soweto where many of the boys have taken shelter after being driven from the town centre. It was an eye opener for all of us as we met so many lads in dire straits including Clifford the retarded lad I mentioned before and others who spent time with us or came to our Sunday lunch outreach when we lived in the middle of Lusaka, including the infamous Jonathan. Today I managed to arrange an interview for them with the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of the Child Protection Unit.

At the start of December most of our boys went off to visit their relations and today was the day for them to return in time for the festive season here at the farm, so that is adding to the general air of excitement and chaos. Also since writing last time, we have had 4 new additions to the family. Samuel (the fourth Sam we have) came to see me at the shop and asked for help. He is an orphan aged 15 who has no relatives except his grandmother. He was born a twin, but his brother died when they were 10. They never knew their father, and in order to support them, his mother worked as a prostitute in a nearby town. When she inevitably died, his grandmother said she could not support him and he left to stay on the street in Lusaka. He managed to survive about 2 weeks, but found it terrifying, so was sent to see me by some of the other kids. Sadly, since he left, his grandmother has moved back to the village she came from, and he has no idea where she is, so is left with no relatives. Then there is Gift, who is also 15. Also an orphan staying with a grandmother, he has struggled to get through school up to Grade 8 but as a result of the economic downturn, his grandmother cannot continue to send him there. He also came to the shop and asked for work so that he could pay his fees. So he is staying while he works on the farm and we hope we will be able to send him to school next January. Finally there is Danny and Patrick aged 11 and 10, and the smallest boys we have ever taken in. They walked here from City Market - a distance of about 13 miles – looking for help. They are not related, but each of them lost his mother earlier this year. Patrick was abandoned by everybody and ended up on the street immediately, while Danny stayed with an uncle who treated him badly then one day went out, locked the door, and said he was going away on a journey. He left Danny outside and one week later, Danny, realising he was not coming back, made his way to the City Market where he met Patrick. After a few weeks, they were advised to come to OMF by some of the other little boys in the market. They are utterly adorable little guys and everybody loves them, though whether we will be allowed to keep them, and for how long remains to be seen. We have had to bow to pressure and register as a child care institution, meaning we are now subject to irritating and pointless regulation in our own home – e.g. displaying a weekly menu on the wall, and according to the law we need approval from Social Welfare and the courts before we can keep each child. We had a visit from Social Welfare this afternoon as part of the process, and they paid particular attention to Danny and Patrick since they are so much younger than the other boys.

Many of the older boys sat national exams before school closed, and we now await the results. In the meantime, Joseph and Cleopas are busy with their studies at University. Cleopas has done exceptionally well, finishing as the best student in his year in his Business and Management course.

The immediate family is doing well. As some of you will know, Christine and Rachel were in Scotland for the first two weeks of December. The day they left, I woke up with a very sore stomach ache which did not get any better, and after dropping them at the airport I thought I should go to see the doctor. The upshot if it was I was whisked into hospital, and had my appendix removed that afternoon. It was a short operation, and I felt much better when I came round. I was concerned about everybody at the farm with Christine away, and managed to persuade the surgeon to discharge me the following day.

I will close here as some of you have asked that I make the newsletters shorter.

With our thanks for your ongoing support, and our best wishes for 2009,

Don, Christine and all the children.

Dear All

Last time I wrote in June, I mentioned the cold weather.  Now in October we are experiencing the hottest weather since last year in November, and are sitting sweltering during the day.  For a Northerner used to the gradual changes of season in Europe, it is still strange to experience how Zambia can move from cold to hot season with almost no transition period.  Last month we were still experiencing temperatures of 10 degrees Centigrade at night, while just now as I type, it is 35 degrees outside.

I meant to send this letter a few weeks ago, but I lost my list of people who wanted to get the newsletters, so I had to try to recreate it from the Address Book on the computer.  So if you receive this, and do not want it, please let me know so I can delete you from the new list.  Also if anybody knows of other people who should be on the list, or would like to be, please inform me so I can add them.

On the family front we have enjoyed a more peaceful 3 months than previously, and we were also able to take a family holiday in August and have a trip to Cape Town – my favourite holiday destination.  This was made possible by the kindness of Joy Mackenzie and two of our “experienced” volunteers Abby and Becky.  Between them the formed a formidable team and planned to let us escape for 10 days.  We had a wonderful break and rest, and were able to catch up with our good friends the Barrows and the Rasmussens as well as spend time with each other as a family.  When we came back we were delighted to hear that the boys had behaved in exemplary fashion and had treated the “ladies” like gentlemen.  I was teasing them about it afterwards and they said “It didn’t seem fair to misbehave to Auntie Joy.”  So Joy, Abby, Becky, thank you so much and maybe you should teach us whatever you did to produce such a considerate attitude in a bunch of teenage boys. 

Shortly after returning to Zambia, I made a trip to Nairobi and was able to take Nicholas and Mulenga.  It was their first time to visit, but many of you will know that Christine and I spent 3 years there between 1992 and 1995 in our first visit to Africa.  As well as doing business I was able to fit in a visit to the two Kenyan boys we supported to school many years ago.  They are both grown up now, and it was very wonderful to see them again.

I also made a business trip to Rwanda and spent 3 days in the capital Kigali. While I was there I visited the memorial to the genocide which occurred in 1994.  It is a museum type with pictures stories and videos, and is built by the site of a mass grave where 258,000 bodies were buried.  It was almost unbelievable to see the stories and hear the survivors’ testimonies.  1 million people killed in 100 days for being from the wrong tribe – that works out at 7 per second, every second for 100 days.  And there is no doubt from the evidence shown that the roots of the problem lay in the behaviour of the colonial powers and the church.  They taught that the Hutus were an inferior race to the Tutsis and were descended from Ham and therefore additionally cursed by God.  The Tutsis, who are lighter skinned and have more European style features were promoted as “superior blacks”.  Before the white man arrived, both tribes lived peacefully together side by side.  When I see, as I often do in Africa, the lasting harm and cruelty done by the white man to his brothers and sisters of different colours, I wonder if it is we, and not Africans, who are additionally cursed.  One of the sections of the building is given over to other genocide events, including the Nazi holocaust, ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia and the slaughter of the Armenians by the Turks (this latter killed over 8 million people in early 1900s and is still officially denied today by the British and US governments.)  It seems we never learn. I just cannot reconcile the hatred manifested towards others by so many Christians with what we profess to believe, or even the simple injunction to love our neighbour as ourselves.

On a happier note, Sarah has started Senior Secondary, and she is able to be home every night as it is just across from the Italian school where she went before and where Rachel is.  She seems to have enjoyed her first weeks, and is already involved in the Music and Drama activities.  The school puts on a production every year in November, and she has already been picked out to perform either on the music side or as an actor.  She is talented in these areas, and is blessed to be at a school where they do so much to encourage the children to make the most of their abilities.  Rachel is enjoying being back home with her friends and has started year 4.  She has developed a mischievous sense of humour and really likes to tease people – as one of the volunteers said “well she IS your daughter Don”.  It is so funny seeing yourself in your children – and rather sobering sometimes.

As far as the boys are concerned, Nicholas, Lucky and a number of others have big exams in November; some to get into Junior High School and the older boys to get to Senior High so there is some hard work and desperate studying being done. The stress of this along with the hot weather is fraying tempers, and I feel very sorry for them all.  I remember how bad exams used to be even in the temperate climes in Scotland.  What it must be like when the thermometer is reading 35 in the shade, I can only imagine.  One of our oldest boys, Cleopas, got word today that he passed all his exams for his second semester, meaning that he has successfully negotiated his first year in University.  His lowest mark was 78% so I reckon he deserves credit for a very good effort.

Little John and Jeremiah came back after being away for 6 months.  They tried to come back much earlier but we did not allow them to as we wanted them to learn a lesson.  It seemed to be working and they were behaving much better than they did before they went.  However a couple of weeks ago, they set off to school, and only John came back.  He had some strange story about walking along the road when a car stopped and it just happened to be Jeremiah’s mother, who decided to take him with her.  It seems similar to saying “Jeremiah was abducted by aliens”, but at least John came back.  He is determined to stick to his story and in fact we knew that Jeremiah’s mother had married someone who did have a car, but did not want Jeremiah, so I guess it is possible.  Humphrey and Kenny, the two orphaned lads who joined us just as I wrote my June letter have now settled in and become part of the family, while their sister Sibeso is working hard at boarding school and sits her leaving exams in November in order to join University.  Eunice, the desperately poor woman we met recently has been able to go back to her village with her children and we have given her a grant to begin a small business selling fish, so we hope that her problems are being dealt with.  On the farm, the crops are growing well under irrigation, and we have a glut of tomatoes so Christine and her kitchen crew are busy cooking and preserving as many as possible and we sell or give the rest away.  The rest of the ground is baked dry and hard and the grass burnt to yellow.  We had a scare a couple of days ago when we run out of water and thought that the bore hole had run dry but mercifully it turned out that the pump had been lowered too far and had stuck in the mud at the bottom, so once that was fixed we had plenty of water.  The new dormitory we are building for the boys is making steady progress but seems to be taking forever to complete.  The boys are very excited about their new house and cannot wait to move in, though once we finish the building we will need to furnish it.  Bernard is with us again and is getting the house painted and the roof fixed in preparation for the coming rainy season.  In fact it seems like we live in a permanent building site as there is always some repair or construction going on.  The one thing we never seem to get started on is the much longed for swimming pool.  Especially in the hot season we all long for the chance to cool off, but there are always other priorities much to the boys’ disgust.  They would much rather have a pool than worry about things like school fees.

On the farm, Phil’s experiment of planting crops under irrigation during the cold and dry seasons has worked very well, and we have a good supply of vegetables and salads to supplement our food budget.  We have also had a good harvest of maize which can be eaten as sweet corn rather than ground for mealie meal, though the cost of meal has gone up sharply, making it difficult for many poor folk to make ends meet.  Doctors and missionaries in the rural areas tell us that between now and December they will see many people at starvation levels as they wait for the next crop to be harvested, and many people will survive on eating mangoes and wild fruit.  Phil has also been able to erect 2 large polythene tunnels thanks to the generosity of a church in England.  These are used during the rains to grow vegetables such as tomatoes which would otherwise be destroyed by the heavy downpours.

We also had a number of interesting visits over the past few months.  First, we met two teams from a group called Mission Direct, who came from UK to help in construction of a primary school nearby.  We think this is a very good idea as it allows church folk at home to visit the areas where their money goes and see for themselves the progress being made in the project.  This means they can be sure that the work is actually being done and that the money is going to help rather than disappearing into “overheads”.  There is so much corruption in the mission and aid businesses that this sort of involvement has now become essential in my view.  Unfortunately, the Mission Direct Teams brought us a donation of football shirts for the boys – English football shirts!

Then we had a visit from a group called Toccata.  They are a group of musicians and singers who bring stage performances to developing countries.  They organised a tour in Zambia, giving concerts to raise funds for orphans and vulnerable children.  The artists all give their time for free, and spend time rehearsing with local school children who then take part in the show.  The singing was amazing, and one of the performances was put on entirely for the orphanages at no charge so over 1000 street kids and others got a chance to see it, including our boys.  They enjoyed it immensely and recognised some of the songs from Oliver, Phantom of the Opera and other musicals.  We spent the following week listening to adolescent male voices giving uncertain renderings of numbers such as “Who will buy my sweet red roses” and “Any dream will do”.

On a national level, Zambia’s President Levy Mwanawasa died in August.  He had suffered a stroke a number of years ago, but seemed to have made a good recovery.  The nation was shocked, and in my view and that of many others, he had done a very good job in difficult circumstances, and the economy had improved remarkably while he had cracked down on corruption.  His death left a vacuum and now we are the grip of another election, which has meant people are holding onto their cash and waiting to see what happens.  This has made life in the hardware business very difficult, and now we are being buffeted by the financial chaos in the banking systems in the West, which has resulted in the cost of our essentials such as food and fuel rising steeply.  It seems incredible to me that people get off with all these kinds of activity in the name of high finance when the rest of us would be jailed for a fraction of it.  And it enrages me that Africans who have no control over any of it suffer because of the greed and mismanagement of the “developed” world.  Just consider one statistic.  70% of Africans live on less than 1 US Dollar a day, while the average cow in the EU receives $7 subsidy every day.  So we value our cows at 7 times the worth of an African child.  Something wrong somewhere surely?

In the middle of it all, we get strength from the fact that we continue to have the care and support from so many good people all over the world, and that God has never failed us in anything we have tried to do here.  We also get encouragement watching the progress made by the young men who have trusted us to care for them.  It is by no means a straight line of progress but mostly the movement is in the right direction as they struggle, sometimes against terrible difficulties, to change their behaviour and habits and do something worthwhile with their lives.  We continue having to turn boys away – most recently a poor retarded lad called Clifford who seems to have no-one asked to come and stay but we have no space nor the resources to deal with his special needs, and so he is left to carry on fending for himself in a world that doesn’t care.

As an illustration of the difference a caring family environment can make to these boys as individuals, I attach a copy of two photos of one of our younger boys, Simba.  The photo on the left shows him on the street aged 10/11, while the one on the right shows him now aged 13.  If you look at the strain and the evidence of his grim reality on his face before, and the relaxed pose now, you will see why it is worth it to try to help.

For now, all the best from us all

Love

Don, Christine and all the kids

Lusaka is in the grip of winter right now and we are all shivering in the mornings and evenings as the temperature drops to levels normally only felt at the end of June. It is still not cold by Scottish standards but when our houses are not heated it can feel quite chilly.

As some of you know I managed a quick visit back to Scotland at the end of April/start of May. I wanted very much to see my parents and spent a very nice time with them in Inverness and Dornoch while also managing to catch up on quite a few visits including speaking to groups at New Restalrigg church in Edinburgh and East Church in Inverness. My visit home reminded me as always of the generous support we have for what we are doing amongst family and friends, and even those we have never met, and it was good to realise that we were not alone even in the middle of difficulties. Special thanks to Martin and Trish Sinclair and Joy Mackenzie for putting me up (and putting up with me) while I was in Edinburgh.

Time flies and reading my last letter I can see we were then in the centre of a storm, which thankfully has abated somewhat. The biggest issue we faced at the time was the problem with David and his attempts to kill himself. Thankfully since then he stabilised, and had been receiving some counselling help from Prosper – a social worker I mentioned to you some time back. Prosper is working as a hotel worker until he can find full time work as a social worker. Some of you have helped to pay about half his salary so he is now able to help us and other centres part time. He is very good with the boys and we wish we could have him around the place all the time. Following their discussions, Prosper told us he thought David didn’t really want to change, and that until he did there was little we could do to help him. He had actually moved out for a couple of weeks before this but was coming to work at the farm. However the “work” consisted of watching TV in the servants’ quarters and quarrelling with people. Then he began to give us another set of problems, this time by being aggressive and in some cases violent towards the other boys in order to get what he wanted. This reached a peak in April while I was away in Scotland when he threatened to kill one of the boys – Rommy – and then later on threatened Phil with a hammer. I returned home on Thursday 9^th May and said I would speak to him on Friday but he got into another fight and beat up one of the younger boys quite badly, leaving him with a swollen face, and then walked out. When I eventually saw him on Saturday I had to tell him that we could not allow him to stay or work with us as his violent behaviour was a threat to the rest of us. He said he didn’t want to stay anyway but just needed money to set up his own business. I would have helped him again but Christine and Phil were of the view that he was just trying to take advantage and that he should not get any money unless he works for it. Mr. Banda also agreed with them, and on balance I think they were right – I just find it very hard to say no to the boys when they need help. So anyway, out he went and we did not hear from him for a few days, then he turned up for work saying he would behave, but of course it didn’t last and we had to tell him there was nothing more we could do for him. Mr. Banda assures us that what he needed was a shock and to realise that we were not going to give in to his threats by giving him money. Needless to say I feel rather foolish as I had always hoped love and understanding would have had the desired effect, but I am glad things have settled down and now I know that we did all we could to help him. One of the hardest things I find about working with the lads is the fact that so many people here seem to regard attempts at kindness as a form of weakness which can be abused and taken advantage of.

We also said goodbye to my cousin Christina Macritchie who spent about 9 months with us in total. Christina blew in on a flight one day, settled into life in Africa, and quickly became part of the family, sharing our trials and tribulations and the good times, and becoming a friend to all the boys. She was particularly good to Sarah, who enjoyed having an older sister for a change and who misses her terribly, as we all do. Meal times are slightly more peaceful now, as I have nobody sitting beside me who can without any warning, drop a plate or knock a glass of water over me, but on the other hand there is nobody to jump up and make the coffee after dinner so I reckon we are quits. God bless you Christina, you are in our hearts and I hope we see you again soon. We now have some other visitors, including two young ladies who have been out before. Isla is Christine's niece and Katie is an SIM volunteer who is studying to be a mission worker in the US. Both of them have fitted in well and spend all day and most of the evening helping the boys with school work and supervising the running of the house with Christine. We also expect Fiona Nea soon. She visited last year with her cousin Hugo. Since they first came out to visit all of them have been active in raising funds for the boys. One of the things I was asked in the various talks I did while in Scotland was how best people could help, and I was able to point out that even a brief visit can be very helpful as you can spend time with the boys, helping some of them to read and do their homework. Doing so makes them feel very special as this will often be the first time anyone has shown enough care for them to spend time with them. Giving them a sense of worth in this way is a great gift that cannot be over valued. We also have Bernard Blendell staying with us again. He is a mission worker in North Western Province in a very remote part of Zambia. He is a plumber by trade and when he retired in London, he came out to Zambia to set up work amongst rural orphans. He is in Lusaka for a few weeks and has been a terrific help in sorting out plumbing and other jobs needing done around the farm.

The boys seem to be in good heart most of the time. They are busy working at school as usual, and apart from complaining about the cold, are occupied all of the time with lessons, homework and games. A couple of lads who have been working on apprenticeship schemes have now decided to move out and live on their own so we will see how that will work out for them. There is no shortage of children to replace them or indeed to add to our number. Although we do not go out looking for abandoned youngsters, there seems no end to those who either pitch up at our door or are referred to us by other people. While I was visiting Scotland, Christine met a poor woman in a desperate position. She is HIV positive, widowed, and has 4 children aged 8, 12, 14 and 17. She was walking round Ibex Hill looking for piece work at the farms in order to get some food. She had her two youngest boys with her, and was sent to see us by one of our neighbours who could not help her. When she arrived, she poured out her story to Christine and Yvonne, and finished by saying if we had no work she would go, but could she please give us her boys as she could not bear to see them suffer any more. I cannot imagine how desperate she must have been to offer to hand over her kids. Yvonne went to see where she lived and came back in tears. She said they would have been better off living in our pig shed. The house is a derelict old one room building belonging to a neighbour who cannot afford to pull it down. It is down hill from the river and the earth floor is constantly wet. They have absolutely no furniture or cooking utensils; in fact the only things in the house were a straw mat which the mother and 2 children slept on plus a blanket they shared. They have literally only the clothes they wear, and when they wash the clothes they wrap themselves in the blanket until their clothes are dry. There was no food in the house, and they have survived on food given by neighbours who are poor themselves for the 2 years since the husband died. Yvonne was so upset she bought them some mealie meal and meat. When the boys saw the meat they did not know what it was, and tried to eat it raw. The poor mother just sniffed it in disbelief and said she had not seen meat since her husband died. The 14 year old child is a girl who has been selling herself on the streets in an effort to get enough to eat, and the 17 year old boy had disappeared. Faced with somebody in such a situation, what can you do but agree to help? We gave the poor woman some work to do on the farm. She walks here every morning with all her children. Beatrice and David – the two oldest – heard that someone was helping and came back home, hopefully before either have contracted HIV, while Obadiah and Joshua are very cute though malnourished little guys. They come every day and play while Mum and David work on the farm, and Beatrice helps in the house. The joy on all their faces at having full stomachs and the prospect of hope is heart breaking to see, and I feel tears of compassion and frustration when I think about it all. How can we allow our fellow human beings to suffer like this? What is wrong with us? Where has basic humanity gone? And why is it that this woman’s neighbours – below poverty level themselves – helped to feed her, while the “developed” world and its counterparts here in Zambia have shut our hearts to these people and their cries for help? It is not a question of Right or Left but a question of right or wrong, and this is just plain wrong. God save us all from our evil actions and their just consequences.

We will keep the family together, provide work for the mother whose name is Eunice, try to teach the children at home, and then enter them into our program. David the oldest boy will probably study a trade, and the others will go to school. It looks as if they will be joined by another family of three children brought to us by the lady who brought Mulenga and Lucky and Memory to us. She is a teacher in a Catholic school in Ngombe – one of the poor compounds in Lusaka – and she arrived in my office yesterday with another very sad story. She has been teaching the children in this family, and their mother – who had been a teacher in one of the international schools in Lusaka - died 2 months ago, leaving them orphaned. Nobody is interested in helping the children, and they have been living together in the rented house since she died. The oldest is a girl on Grade 12 (about 17 years old), and the 2 boys are on Grade 9 and Grade 7 though I do not know their ages yet. They are all in exam years at school, and after their mother dies the nuns agreed to teach them for free and have been trying to feed them. Now the money has run out, and the rent is due and they are about to be evicted from their home. Mrs Mutinta – their Good Samaritan teacher – felt she couldn’t leave it to happen so came to us to ask if we could take them. Squeezing the boys in somewhere will not be a problem. I have told our own boys about it and they are willing to make room and welcome them. The difficulty will be finding somewhere for their big sister as we really do not have facilities to keep both sexes. Still I am sure we can find some space somewhere. So it looks as if our family is about to grow again after being stable at 30 for many months. Oh well – nothing else for it but to get on with it and go forward, even though we often feel paralysed in the face of so much need.

Christine also came across a good work being done in Lusaka by the YWCA. They run a small refuge for little girls who have been sexually abused and are awaiting the trial of the case against their abuser. The little ones are lovely, but sadly many are HIV positive. Christine has been consulted on a number of cases as a doctor, and felt she wanted to do something for the refuge. Again it is shocking to see how little they have to help the girls with, and we would like to appeal to anybody who feels moved to help with paying school fees for some of the little ones. Since the cases are still to come to court, the girls live in danger of being abducted to silence them, and the centre has to operate very quietly and anonymously. The centre is called and we would be grateful if you would pray for the little ones who are there. Christine managed to send one little girl to school, and she was so delighted to go. Her little friend said “Ah thank you auntie I being so happy. We being so boring colouring all the time”. What a sad world we live in when such wee souls suffer at the hands of those meant to protect and nurture them. And spare a thought for the bravery and compassion of the ladies in the YMCA who run such a worthwhile enterprise in spite of threats and physical danger.

On the farm, the crops have been good this year and the animal contingent has grown again with baby goats and pigs, more hens – now 200 – and geese, sheep ducks and turkeys. That part of the work gives very few problems thanks to Phil’s expert management and dedicated work. I don’t know what we would do without him as a colleague, friend and counsellor. We have finished construction of a farm managers cottage and Tuesday Banda – or Mr Tuesday to distinguish him from the original Mr Banda – has moved in with his family, so that is also a great help. We continue construction of the new dormitory for the boys, and when that is finished we will have a much quieter house. Maybe that is where we can fit in some girls.

The end of February beckons and I need to get back to the laptop and tell you all that has happened since November when I last wrote. Looking over that email it seems that everything was reasonably hopeful with all the boys and girls (and adults) looking forward to Christmas and a New Year beginning. The weather was hot and wet and the crops were being planted and school terms were coming to an end. Looking back now it seems like a very peaceful, innocent time compared to now. Since then on the countrywide scale, Zambia has had huge rainfall, so much that many crops have been ruined and homes washed away in the floods which resulted. Again we see how tenuous the grasp on life here is. The rainfall in Lusaka area has been double the amount for the whole of last year so far. Despite the problems and the resultant hunger which may come, the economy continues to do well, and we see new developments springing up every week. My venture into the hardware/DIY market has gone well, so well in fact that we are planning to expand and open a second store in a town called Kitwe in the Copperbelt area in the north of Zambia.

From our family point of view, we have enjoyed many blessings and encouragements. Most of our lads finished the Zambian school year in December with honour and passed into the next class. Two others managed to get apprentice posts with the main Nissan dealership in Lusaka, and will train as mechanics. Sarah and Rachel did extremely well in their mid year exams (how can you give a seven year old exams!), and on a family and personal basis we have been truly blessed. Christmas was a great time for everyone and we had various functions for different groups of street children and poor families, ably assisted by the Holiday Inn as last year. We were visited by Christine’s mother, whom the boys regarded with a mixture of curiosity, respect, and amazement – she did not understand half of what they said and they understood less than half of what she said – and when she spoke to them in Gaelic, they collapsed laughing. They were particularly intrigued that an old lady could read! We also enjoyed visits from Janet Logue and Christina Macritchie (my cousin) who is actually still here. Janet is a social worker from Edinburgh, and was really a great help while she was here. She was teased mercilessly for her “social work speak” – as when she described Christina as “having nose issues” after a sneezing fit – and I am pleased to report that she went home with several “issues” of her own – but she took it all in good grace and teased back. I even discovered I had several issues including realising how good it would be to have someone who cared for the children and had some proper social work training working with us here. She was able to help a number of the boys with some of the real and painful problems they face following rejection and neglect by their families. So Janet, hurry back whenever you can – we all miss you. Then of course there is Christina, who has become a part of the family, and Christine's right hand woman in handling the smaller children – and the object of much romantic attention from the older boys. She went back to Scotland for New Year, but came back again, and resumed where she left off – in her first 3 days she broke as many cups and glasses, and has now earned the name “Crashtina”. She spends so such time helping the boys with homework and being sister to the younger girls it’s hard to imagine how we got by without her.

Our project with the boys has also been recognised on a wider scale. We have been visited by Child Protection Unit officers who stated that our model is one they wish to see implemented in Government efforts to deal with street children. I have also been invited to go to Botswana to address the government there on our project. All of this needs time to deal with, and while it is tempting to think that we might influence how a country deals with street children, I am sure I do not want to spend time on committees discussing endlessly and achieving nothing. Our efforts have also been recognised within Zambia by Celtel – the largest mobile phone company in Africa. They have started a television program called “Touching Lives” which takes stories of ordinary people who have overcome difficulty or helped other people to do so. Many of the people featured are real life heroes, quietly doing what they can and it is nice to see them being recognised. However, in order to launch the start of the program, Celtel decided to make special awards to 3 people who typified what they wanted to see happening. We were notified that they had decided to make an award to Christine and me for our work with the street kids. We were invited to attend an awards dinner with Mr Banda and 7 of the boys who got all dressed up for the occasion, and looked brilliant. We got a reserved table right at the front and had to walk in on a red carpet then go up on the stage to get the award – it felt like the Oscars!

However as I look back over the past 3 months, my overall feeling is one of failure and difficulty, at least as far as our work with the boys is concerned. It has been so bad at times that I have really wondered if I personally can keep going with what we are trying to do. It is hard to know where to begin with it all. Firstly, we have lost 5 boys who have decided to run away. The first to go was little Steve who is about 11 and is suspected to be autistic. He just went to school one day and at home time took off to town. He has not been seen since and is reputedly in Kitwe. Then our terrible twosome – Little John and Jeremiah – decided to do a bunk, again from school. They are now in a drop in centre in town, back to the old life of glue and begging, though we have not seen them out and about. This was followed by Matthias, one of the older boys telling us he wanted to leave. We found his leaving the hardest to take, as he has been with us over 3 years, and seemed to be settled and happy in every way. He was one of the nicest boys we had helped, and was incredibly helpful around the house. He said he needed to go back to see his old Grandmother who was sick and blind and is his only relative. He has been concerned about her for a long time and spent the Christmas holidays with her. He also got money from us to go and see her every second or third weekend and buy her food. When he said he wanted to go, we said we would have to deliver him to his Grandmother if he was leaving us for good. But when Mr Banda took him to her house in Lusaka West, she saw him on the path (so much for being blind) and ran to him exclaiming, “Matthias, I thought I was going to die before I saw you again.” It turns out not only is she not blind, but Matthias did not spend the holidays or the weekends with her, and she received none of the money we sent. We have no idea where he spent the time or the money. She and Matthias’ aunties (more relatives) tried to reason with him to stay in school where he is on grade 7 and has his exams for entry into secondary in December, but to no avail. He claimed he wanted to work with his brother in a dangerous part of town, but whether he will or if his brother even exists, we don’t know. Finally Evans, one of the older boys we took from National Service training camp and gave a job as a farm worker decided to leave, and took the tools the government provided him with. These were sold to buy a mobile phone, and some driving lessons. To make matters worse, he then complained to the labour office that we had not paid him the money he was due when he was working for us, so now we have to defend ourselves in a case investigation. Up till now we have enjoyed a very low runaway rate and this is one of the features that has lead people to start examining what we are doing. Now of course we have to face the reality that not all our boys want to stay after all, and deal with the sense of failure and rejection that brings, but most difficult of all is the sense of sorrow and loss when one of them goes, as they have all become very dear to our hearts and are part of our lives.

Then there is the case of David. He was one of the oldest boys we took in at the beginning, and he trained as a carpenter. He had a bad drug problem with cannabis. Eventually he got restless and decided to move out after 4 years with us. He then proceeded to mess up his life completely and lost just about everything we gave him. Anyway, at the end of it all, last April he was accused of raping (defiling they call it here) a little girl of 7. We could not believe he would as he was so good with our own girls and Memory. He was falsely accused and was eventually cleared at trial – but not before he spent 9 months in a remand prison. We were so happy when he was released and came back to us just before Christmas. He was so glad to be free but eventually the whole experience took his toll on him and he has been getting more and more depressed, then 2 weeks ago he said he wanted to leave and run away somewhere where he was not known. He said this was because he kept hearing people accusing him of defiling the little girl in the townships, and since I had taken him back, I was accused of being involved in the original crime and in covering up for him. It all got too much for him, and he became more worked up and eventually said he was useless and he just wanted to kill himself. We tried reasoning him, but I know from experience this doesn’t work. Christine managed to get him to see a doctor who said he was so suicidal he needed to see a psychiatrist, which he absolutely refused to do because he “was not mad, just needing to die”. Anyway last week he seemed a lot calmer and just said he wanted to go but would not harm himself, so as we have no power to keep him against his will, we had to let him go. At 8pm we got a call from an unknown woman saying she was with David and he had tried to kill himself by drinking insecticide. She had managed to pull the stuff from him and throw it away but they needed help because they were restraining him. So Phil and I rushed off to the darkest end of town to a foul, dark Dickensian hell hole, where we picked him up and took him to the local psychiatric hospital. We spent ages looking for anyone who could admit him, and ended up waiting for the doctor on call in a huge secure ward with some of the poor inmates shouting to us and one who kneeled in front of me and prayed because he thought I was an angel since I was white.

When we eventually saw the doctor he was quite thorough and said David was depressed and this is what had caused his suicidal tendencies. He said they would admit him – in a private ward – and treat him for 7 days and then see. He and the nurse left to get the drugs, and David, who had been sitting quietly, saw his chance, and made a bolt for freedom. They had left the secure door open, and he punched one of the people I brought with me, and fled leaving his T shirt in our hands. Phil chased him in the car and got ahead of him at the hospital gates and tried to cut him off, at which point David approached with a brick and said he was going to kill Phil. He got out and ran like one possessed (which he probably was). We looked for him but couldn’t find him in the dark, and I went home sure I had seen the last of him and that he would be dead before morning. I cannot tell you what it felt like. I couldn’t sleep, and then about 1 am, Christine heard someone knocking on the gate. I went to see and it was David in a taxi, asking if he could come back in. So at least he was alive and I let him in not knowing if he was going to finish me off or what. But he went off to bed quietly enough, and we tried to sleep, but the night turned into a furious thunderstorm with torrential rain, lightening and wind as if the furies of hell were raging at us all. He is still with us and we are trying to keep him occupied, but every now and then he will lapse again into talking about dying. We cannot get him to agree to go for treatment and he is not willing to trust us after the episode at the hospital. So we go from day to day trying to keep an eye on him but not knowing what will happen.

All of this turmoil and emotional upheaval brings its own pressures and we have grown very weary. Sleep has become difficult, and we find we are constantly tired and trying to catch up. It also becomes difficult to concentrate on issues at work. At present Christine has managed to take a break in Scotland as she accompanied her mother back to Inverness so I am very glad she has managed to get a way for a few days and will enjoy visiting family and friends again. Thankfully I have a wonderful team of friends and helpers here who have taken over a lot of what Christine does and have made her absence bearable for us all. I have to give special mention to Phil and Christina, true work-fellows, and so far we have muddled through though we often sit at the end of the day and wonder how Christine manages all she does.

Amongst it all I must be honest and say that I wonder sometimes if we made the right decision to try to help so many youngsters. It just looks so enormous sometimes and when we see them going back to the street where they came from, I cannot help ask if it is worth it. I also seriously wonder if it is sustainable. Anyhow, I do not wish to end on a negative note, especially when we have had so much support and prayer from so many wonderful friends. Without you we would have given up long ago, so I ask you please to keep us in your mind and prayers so that we might choose the right way ahead for us all.

With much love from us all

Don, Christine and all the children

PS Since writing the above, we have had a serious development in David’s case. On Friday 29^th February he was paid as it was month end. He went out and got very drunk then came home and made a further attempt to end his life by slashing his wrist with a broken piece of glass. I was called to help and found him pumping blood from an artery all over the floor of his room and wailing that he just wanted to die. Phil and I tied a tourniquet around his arm and rushed him to a nearby hospital where they stitched the wound and stopped the bleeding. All throughout the time we had to keep him pinned down as he struggled and moaned, asking us to kill him. The hospital staff were superb and arranged for a psychiatric consultation the following day. The psychiatrist seems to have got through to him and while his wrist is healing has arranged to have a number of sessions with him to discover the reasons underlying his depression. Please pray he will be healed from the mental trauma he is going through, and that his life will be redeemed rather than destroyed.

We are now into the really hot part of the year in Zambia, and the temperatures have soared over the past three weeks.  The rest of November will get hotter and more humid until hopefully the rains will start at the beginning of December.  This is a crucial time for the locals as if the rains fail, the majority of Zambians will face severe hunger in the coming year, so all across the country many people are praying that the planting would go well and that the rains would arrive as expected, though over the last few years they have become much more erratic, and this has been put down to global warming.  It certainly makes us think when we live in a society so dependent on the seasons, and brings home to us how tenuous our grip on life as human beings really is.

There has been a lot happening amongst the boys.  First up must be the story of Jonathan – which seems to have taken a serious turn for the worse.  As I mentioned in my last letter, he had agreed to go into a drug rehab project run by an American lady.  The programme there insists on coming off drugs completely and you get one chance to clean up.  Well, when we took Jonathan there he was searched and discovered to have supplies of drugs sewn into the pockets of his jeans.  This is not unusual so he was allowed to continue with the programme, after the drugs were confiscated.  It is usual for the addicts to go through some very bad times as they come off the drugs, and Jonathan was no exception to this.  However what we did not foresee was that he would become a gang leader amongst the other inmates.  It emerged that he had been a dealer while on the street and even while staying with us, and that he had a number of criminal contacts, whom he somehow managed to contact while he was in rehab.  As a result he began to bring drugs in to the centre.  When this was discovered, he was challenged by Carol the lady who runs the centre and he assaulted her.  The same day, as some of the young girls in the centre were coming in from a supervised trip out, Jonathan and his gang made a break for freedom, and after attacking the girls to create a diversion, ran out the gate and disappeared.  Not unreasonably, Carol has refused to take him back and he is now being sought by the police.  He turned up two days later at our gate asking for help again, but in the light of his behaviour we simply were not prepared to allow him back in with us.  It was a difficult decision for us, as we have spent so much time with him, and still regard him as a desperate, wasted, sad individual rather than a villain, but the risks for our family and the other boys are just too great.  And whether we like or not, he is now a criminal on the run from the police, and we could not shelter him in defiance of the authorities.  When we told him we could not keep him any more, he sat outside with his head in his hands for hours, before finally disappearing.  So the whole chapter of Jonathan looks like is closed for our little project.  There is now nothing more we can do for him except to pray that he would be rescued by God himself.  For him however the tragedy continues and he faces a life outside the law, an outcast except amongst his fellow dealers, living off the misery and addiction of others, an existence characterised by violence, deceit and betrayal, and in all likelihood an early and painful death, before finally meeting the consequences of his choices.  Against this sort of tragedy, I find it hard to believe that there are still people who maintain that cannabis is not a dangerous drug.  Maybe not all users are affected in the same way, but try telling Jonathan – or any of his victims – that it is harmless.

Amongst the other boys, we have recently brought back John, Isaiah and Patrick.  These three boys were part of Jonathan’s gang while he was here, although we did not realise the extent of the hold he had over them.  As a result they were regular users of dhagga without our knowledge.  When we realised what was happening we expelled all three of them.  Just a couple of weeks ago, John came to see us asking for another chance, closely followed by Patrick, then finally Mr Banda met Isaiah at a drop in centre.  He was horrified at his appearance, emaciated and dirty after his time on the street.  We took him in and got him cleaned up and fed, then agreed with all three of them that they could come and work on a daily basis for a few weeks until we saw if they had really changed and were prepared to stay clean from drugs.  They earn enough to stay together and have so far been reasonably conscientious at reporting for work and behaving.  Please pray for them as they struggle between the “Jonathan” option and coming back to stay with us.  As Christine says at least while they work with us we know now that they get fed twice a day and have a roof over their heads.

The boys who stay with us full time have had a very good two months, and the transformation in them all over the last year is amazing.  When we look at them compared to Jonathan or Isaiah, the contrast is even more startling.  Most of them have done very well in school, and face the end of year exams with justifiable confidence.  Even the most reserved of them has made great progress and is now noticeably more comfortable with us.  In particular I would like to mention Wisdom, a very badly abused little boy, and Joseph, who was a deeply miserable, depressed kind of lad.  Both of them now smile and joke and laugh, and Joseph even told Christine recently “Ah Mammy I feel happy today!”  Those of you who have met him will know just what an amazing development that is.  Our older boys are growing into pleasant, responsible young men and the littler ones are settling into family life and making progress in almost every way.  There are of course the usual stresses and strains of having so many teenagers and children around the place, and no doubt, after sending this letter many of them will have a wobble or throw a tantrum just to keep us from becoming complacent, but all in all they are a very nice bunch of youngsters to have around and they seem to grow more appreciative of what we are trying to do as they get older. 

At evening prayers we decided recently to have a hot seat in which each boy would take a turn and tell us all about his life, why he ended up on the street and how he came to stay with us.  The stories have been heart-rending and in some cases, stomach turning, when we hear of the abuse the boys suffered from those who should have known better before they left for the street.  The acknowledgement of what was done to them seems to have helped many of them, and also made them more sympathetic to each other.  I plan to collect these stories and record them separately and I believe they will make a riveting if harrowing read.  Suffice it to say they have reduced the adults present to stunned and often tearful silence.

With the rains imminent we are also thinking of planting and have been looking at acquiring another piece of land in order to grow more maize. The plot next door looked as if it would become available for sale and some generous friends offered to provide the asking price.  However when the owner heard we were interested, the price went up and continues to do so, so we wait to see if they really are willing to sell.  The family living there have been rather difficult neighbours as the old grandmother brews local beer which she then sells along with the local cannabis (illegally).  She sells to anybody including school children and has been remonstrated with by local people who are unhappy with what she is doing, but her response is that this is how she makes a living.  Needless to say, her merchandise has been a great source of temptation to our lads and we have had several instances where she has passed beer and drugs through the fence to them.  Buying her out seemed like a great idea, but her son who holds the title deeds is holding out for now.

Our project to build a dormitory for the boys has been put on hold as Jim Burnett, our contractor (who is from Georgia, NOT Texas), has been asked to help out getting the Mica hardware shop ready in time.  He and his gang have been working round the clock, and it looks as if we will be ready to open on 5th December as scheduled.  I had a staff meeting with the folks we have employed and they seem an enthusiastic and capable bunch of people.  They astounded me by suggesting – unanimously – that we begin each business day with morning prayers, and have committed to coming in 15 minutes earlier to do so!  Getting everything ready on time will be a challenge, but with the team spirit they are showing I believe we will succeed.

The cost of the dormitory has escalated to approximately US $60,000.  We did not have this kind of money, but as has happened so often in the past, just when we did not know how to proceed, we got a message offering us the money we needed.  I am almost embarrassed telling yet another story of marvellous provision – there seems to be so many of these “co-incidences” and I feel sometimes it must sound like I am making them up, or at least sending begging letters out.  But I am not, and the funds appear every time, just as they are needed, without telling anyone but God.

Over the past weeks we had tremendous help from two ladies from Scotland.  Joy Mackenzie took early retirement from Dobbies Garden Centres where she was Director of Catering and came out to help for 6 weeks.  She was an incredible help as she was able to put a little project together encouraging our staff to make cakes, biscuits and bread to sell at the local craft markets.  They have proved extremely popular, and made some profit for the folks involved.  Unfortunately we need help to manage to entire process as it is too much for Christine to take on in addition to her present workload.  However we have managed to set up a little shop at the gate to sell baking and farm produce and one of the boys will run it so I hope this will be successful.  If we had a manager to run the enterprise, I believe we could set up a proper little bakery with industrial ovens etc, and would be able to generate a lot of income to support the projects we are involved in.  We have also had Christina – my little cousin – out on a gap year visit, and she has been great fun, helping the little boys with reading and sums, and generally keeping everyone cheerful – apart from an unfortunate tendency to drop dishes - usually behind me - so she can watch me jump out of my skin.

Of course we are now also gearing up for the end of another year and the usual celebrations, and the children are all giddy at the thought of Santa coming again.  The little ones are going out of their way to be noticed being “good”, while the older ones act cool, but are not above trying the same trick albeit a bit more subtly.  I am giddy at the thought of how much needs to be done, but I am sure it will be wonderful as usual, especially watching the faces of kids who never had a present before in their lives. 

So another month slides by, and another year is almost gone.  It is hard to believe how fast it goes, but we do thank you all for the great interest you take in the lads and for making it possible to continue with them.  I will probably write again early in the New Year, so till then, God bless you and yours,

Love

Don, Christine and all the children

Hello again from Lusaka. July was a busy month for us as Christine and I reached our 20th wedding anniversary on 9th and I made it to 43 on 17th. We have also had a visit from Christine's sister Jo, her husband Peter, their daughter Erin and grand-daughter Zoë. It has been really nice having them around and they have been a tremendous help in many ways. Peter is and electrician and after recovering from the horror of the poor state of the wiring, has set about improving it with a vengeance. We also managed to spend 5 days in Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar with them and enjoyed the peace and quiet of there only being 8 of us to look after instead of 40. In August all our children were off school together, something which happens only in August and December each year. However for the boys, lessons continued with tuitions every morning to help them catch up in weak subjects. In the last week they had a proper holiday and many went to visit family or friends for a few days, meaning the place seemed very quiet. We had hoped to have a family break in Cape Town, but were not able to do so; however it has been nice to have the children at home and to spend time with them. Sarah and Rachel will start another academic year in September, while the boys and Memo will be into the last term of their years and will have exams in November. The last few days have been the usual chaos trying to get everyone kitted out in uniforms, shoes, books and stationery, but Christine has supervised 26 demanding pupils with her usual efficiency. On the work front, my efforts to set up my own business seem to be coming together nicely but I will need a new permit which would allow me to be self-employed, so I have made application for that.

Following my last letter, I received a remarkable number of replies all dealing with one thing. It seems the story of Shadrack and his lack of school fees touched the hearts of many people, and we have received several offers to pay for his schooling. This would be very good news indeed if it were not for the fact that I cannot find him. Just a few weeks after restarting the night patrols, we woke up one morning and discovered that all the street boys had disappeared. It was so strange driving through town and seeing where they used to hang out empty of life, with no little faces at the car windows looking for money. The strangest thing of all was that nobody seemed to know where they had gone, but gradually the story has emerged. The government has launched a Clean Up Zambia campaign, part of which involved removing the children from the street and keeping them in holding centres so that they will not be a nuisance on the street. We have mixed feelings about this. Personally I have a great deal of sympathy with the government as it is always accused of not doing enough/anything for street children, yet when it tries something people start screaming about “human rights” – don’t you wish that all these rights activists would just shut up and actually do something helpful? On the other hand, it is rather alarming that police can descend on a bunch of kids in the middle of the night and take them off to holding centres where they are basically held in school classrooms converted to makeshift dormitories against their will with no idea of what will happen to them. And the fact that the media have failed to follow up suggests that they and many people in the public are just happy that the boys are no longer visible, and are very content to let them disappear out of sight and out of mind. As I said, it is so easy to hit out and blame government, but at least they are trying to do something. The problem in my view is that those of us who hold the solution in our hands are not prepared to make the effort to do what is needed. Locking street children up all day in classrooms will never address the issue. What these children need more than anything else is a stable and loving family environment. Governments cannot provide this anywhere in the world - but that is what so many “ordinary” folk have and have provided for their own children. So if we were all prepared to take on responsibility for one of these lost boys, we could rescue them from the street, give them roots by providing stability and love, and provide wings for their future by education and training them. It is not rocket science, but it does need time, dedication and perseverance in a task that is not easy but very rewarding. And in our present “throwaway” societies, anything that asks for our time is unlikely to be successful – basically we are all too “busy” being busy to reach out and rescue the perishing. Sadly this also seems true of most of the Christians around Lusaka. While a few are making brave efforts to help, most are content to sit back and discuss the issue on an intellectual level. I wonder what Jesus would say if he visited Lusaka in 2007.

We are trying to discover a bit more about the boys’ situation without appearing like we are accusing anybody of harming the children, and without belittling the efforts that have been made to address the problem. It is always easier to criticise from the sidelines. Hopefully we will be able to visit some of the lads soon, and take some of them into our care, including Shadrack. With that in mind we are pressing ahead with a big new project – the largest we have ever undertaken. We are hoping to build a 32 bed dormitory at the top of our garden, where we can house our existing lads in 8 study bedrooms with 4 boys in each. This will improve the space the boys live in and give them a sense of a place of their own as each will have his own bed, desk, wardrobe, and locker space. It would also give us a dedicated kitchen, shower block and dining/common room and this will be a relief on our over-stretched showers and kitchen in the house. It will also provide a focal point for the boys to socialize together in the common room and stop them having to eat outside under the trees. It seemed like a great idea when we discussed with some of our friends in Lusaka, so we decided to go ahead with it. Some friends seem to have taken this project to their hearts, and have provided some initial funding for the building, so we have actually been able to start construction. Our contractor – a cheerful retired Texan called Jim Burnett – has given us a quotation at cost price and has agreed we can build in phases as we can manage the cash flow implications.

This project is different from anything we tackled before in many ways. Not only is it much bigger and more costly than anything else we have tried, but it is the first time we have actually had any funding before we started although the size of the project is so big that we are not sure when we will get it finished, but will take it as it comes. We especially want to thank the following givers – the Diplomatic Spouse Association of Lusaka, Ray Brennan from Ireland, Taunton Baptist Church youth group, the Berry family in Herefordshire, Raja at MIT (who gave up his birthday celebration and sent the money to us instead), the APC congregation in Toronto, the D’Silva family and of course all the regular sponsor of individual children. I realise I am starting a dangerous path acknowledging donations – I will inevitably miss out someone, or include somebody who would rather be anonymous. If either event happens, please believe me it is not intentional, and I am simply trying to put on record our heartfelt gratitude to you all for caring and sharing with our boys.

The dorm will give us good facilities for our existing boys and will free up space in the house for visitors and new lads or younger children who need special attention. We would also be able to house some of the little street girls in the house with us for their protection. The possibilities go on and on, and now we are finding that our own time and capacity to manage is becoming the main limiting factor. The scale of need is not any smaller, as many of the destitute children have been forced into hiding by the clean up, or have resorted to poorer parts of town where their presence causes less offence. Christine and I often feel stretched to breaking point and beyond, but we have always felt the power of God helping us to keep going. We have been blessed with a series of volunteers – mostly young folk but a few oldies as well – who have done a tremendous amount to help with the boys – in particular by helping them with school work and remedial lessons in English reading and writing. Every one of these volunteers has added their own special something to the farm and have illustrated to the boys the size, reality and scope of the extended Christian family. Special mention needs to be made of Abigail, Becky and Andrew – all from Baptist congregations in different parts of England, Ruth Tricker from Phil’s church who came out for a second visit – the first couldn’t have been too bad – and Peter and Margaret Seccombe who spent a night with us on the way through to Petauke where Peter is speaking at a conference for pastors. We have also been able to bring in another staff member to help look after some of the littler boys. Her name is Pamela and she is a lady in her twenties who was training to be a nun in a closed order called the “Poor Claires”. Her fellow nuns did not feel she was suited to life in a closed environment so she had to leave and as she had nowhere to go we offered her a place to stay. She is a very pleasant, quiet person and although she must feel the rejection of her colleagues she has adapted to her change of circumstances and seems to enjoy spending time helping the little boys, Rachel and Memo with their work and being part of their games.

The farm is now well established and Phil continues to supervise it and work very hard to bring it all together as well as doing his “main” job at Covenant College in Petauke. He recently employed a man from Petauke as a farm manager. He was a deacon in the Baptist church there and had come to Lusaka looking for work, leaving his family behind. We were happy to have him, and he has now been able to bring his wife and children to stay with him. His name is Tuesday Banda – or “Mr Tuesday” so that he is not confused with the other Mr Banda here. He is doing good job and this relieves a lot of pressure from us when Phil is in Petauke. In time we hope to be able to build him a little house and bring the whole family to live on the farm as part of the extended family. Our livestock now include 7 goats – we had twin kids born 2 weeks ago who have been named John and Jeremiah after our two littlest boys – 5 pigs who get fatter by the day, and 50 chickens, who will be joined by another 50 every 3 months till we have 200 in all. Plans are still going on to add quails, rabbits, ducks, geese, sheep and possibly fish, and in the next few weeks Phil and his team will have to start planting crops again before the rains due in November or December, so there will be no shortage of work for everybody. Meanwhile all our schoolchildren are back in harness and working extremely hard for their last term. Tests in November will determine if they have passed their current class and can move up a grade next year and nobody wants to be left behind. Some of them have national exams in November, including our Grade 7s – Mulenga and Danny - Samson on Grade 9 and Cleopas on Grade 12. If Cleopas does well enough he will be called to university and he hopes to study law if successful.

As far as our older lads are concerned, sadly Patrick has run away again, and John and Isaiah have also left and gone back to addiction on the streets, while Jonathan continues to be a major headache. He repeatedly leaves and then asks to come back again, and our patience has been stretched to the limit by him. Recently we worked out that he is very heavily addicted to dhagga – the local brand of cannabis, and this has helped us understand and tolerate his behaviour. We did not know what to do with him as we did not know of any rehabilitation services for drug addicts in Zambia, and we have neither the skill nor the capacity to run a rehab centre. Thankfully we have just found out about one such service run by an American lady with local volunteers. So far we have been able to have a counsellor visit Jonathan and he has admitted his addiction and agreed to go into the rehab programme, so we hope and pray that this will provide the deliverance he needs. I guess the process must be very hard as many of the boys have severe withdrawal symptoms including sudden nose bleeds, vomiting, aches, cramps and shivering, and they need 24 hour supervision in a locked room for at least a month. Please remember Jonathan as he goes through all this and pray that he will be cured and keep away from the temptation to relapse when he is finally clean. He is such a sad big lad – very nice in many ways, and very intelligent, but utterly helpless to resist his addiction, and he swings between drug induced euphoria, withdrawal symptoms, and utter self-loathing which has got so bad that he has planned to kill himself recently. Let’s hope he gets through it and then can come back to stay with us and do some training or school. I would also like to mention that the counsellors who work with the boys in the rehab centre are all part time volunteers as there is no funding to give them full time jobs. Jonathan’s counsellor is called Prosper and seems a very nice young man, and if anybody out there feels they could pay his salary or part of it I believe by doing so you could do more to help a lot of street kids than almost any other action you could take. I would be happy to arrange for the connection between the centre and any donor who feels they would like to help.

Charles has recovered from his broken jaw and is back working although his teeth were rattled so badly he has difficulty chewing meat. He comes to our church services every Sunday and usually visits at least once during the week, and we continue to admire his courage and resolve in making his way in the world. Poor David is still in prison and I have been visiting him in an attempt to keep his spirits up. His case has been postponed 4 times now for the least excuse, but yesterday the court met again and there is now only one witness to be heard before the magistrate decides if David has to defend himself against the charges. The lawyer who I found for him is hopeful that the case will be dismissed without a defence being required. If he is released he will have to start again and we will offer him the chance to come back with us for a time to allow him to regroup. We have also taken in three more older boys who had been on the street then taken by the government to a National Service training centre where 2 of them - Evans and Godwin - were taught Agriculture and Jackson was taught Motor Mechanics. Jackson has been able to work with our Scottish friends Adrian and Lynne who are setting up a workshop, while we have employed Godwin and Evans as farm workers to help Tuesday. So the family grows and shrinks, with every day bringing its own demands and pressures as well as its joys and laughter. It is very hard work but very rewarding and when we look around at the happy faces when the boys are having fun, the intense concentration as they study, the surprised joy when they realise someone thinks they are worth something or the vigour with which they sing at evening prayers we know we really would not be without any of them.

Till next time, all our love and gratitude for all the support,

Don, Christine, Sarah, Rachel, Nicholas, Mulenga and all “the boys”