WayMaker

Making A Way

Seasonal greetings in Jesus' name

Indeed, 2024 has been a great year of different happenings. It started with many threats, including the cholera pandemic, which caused our children to report one month late for school.

We thank God that our district was not affected, so none of our children were infected.

Drought Disaster

The year progressed with the nation suffering from its worst drought.

The country has a history of drought years:

  1. 1987/88
  2. 1991/92
  3. 1994/95
  4. 1997/98
  5. 2001/03
  6. 2004/05
  7. 2011/12
  8. 2015/16
  9. 2018/2019

This sequence implies that the country experiences drought every 4 to 5 years, and the frequency is projected to increase in the future due to climate change.

Almost 1 million hectares of corn have been destroyed by the drought that forced Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema to declare a “National Disaster and

Emergency.” Food shortages and malnutrition may be the order of the day until the next growing season, which is many months away, due to a severe drought exacerbated by climate change and El Nino.

Many families in Zambia are subsistence farmers who survive on their small holding farms to feed themselves. Maize, the main crop, heavily depends on water to grow. The drought has forced many to not harvest.

Many have no food left because they did not harvest enough last year, and this El Nino-induced weather phenomenon has killed their slightest hope of feeding themselves.

 

No Electricity

Zambia is experiencing one of the worst “load shedding” cases in history. Load shedding is when a country cannot produce enough electricity to supply the entire nation simultaneously. As a result, the government supplies electricity to one-half of the nation while the other half experiences a total blackout. They then interchange the power supply between the two regions throughout the day.

Zambia’s main electricity supply is hydroelectricity, mainly through the Kariba dam. Following the effects of climate change that led to a drought in the country for most of 2023, the government has taken drastic measures to sustain electric supply across the country. “We’ve been having no power for as long as 21 hours every day! And it’s only been getting worse,”

Due to this, the young men who were meant to be doing an IT course with one of our partners have been negatively affected. This course, which highly depends on Internet connections, has faced huge challenges, as the Internet depends on power, which has not been supplied effectively. We pray that with more solar panels, this class can continue to hold up.

Feeding Program & Streetlife

We remain grateful to God and all of you for being faithful in the regular gifts you send to us. Our activities have continued, with numbers spiking high in the feeding programs, as we witnessed many families going without food.

We now have over 100 children enrolled at Dayspring Academy, from baby class to Secondary level. Thanks to all our sponsors, who put a smile back on a Child’s face. We still have others in other schools. Our gratitude goes to God for some whom we witnessed graduate this year.

Aqua splash is another notable activity our children look forward to each year. For some of them, it’s the only outing they experience once a year.

My heart has been taken towards the actual buildings of our two homes as we have seen deterioration catching up. The roofs are still a challenge as they are leaking and the face of the house compared to our newly built school is deplorable. My prayer is for the house to be refurbished. We thank God that part of the house at Grace has been redone, including part of the roof, but 80% still needs a touch. We thank God also for the wall fence rebuilt at our Girls Faith Centre, though the roof still needs to be redone.

However, we remain really grateful to all our faithful partners.

During our last visit to the UK, we were blessed with a donation that enabled us to buy close to 1,000 bags of 25KG mealie meals. Under the Streetlife project, we do family-strengthening activities, but not to that magnitude. It’s been an awesome experience giving to some families in the southern part of Zambia who have been depending on wild fruits or mangoes to survive hunger. It was hard to keep our tears back. May God richly bless all who have given towards the Drought Relief food packs.

Thank You

I can retell the wonderful stories that have happened, but let me say A BIG THANK YOU TO GOD AND ALL OF YOU. Know that it’s only God who can reward you handsomely for all you do in helping us deliver care, love, and support to our people, some of whom are children and could otherwise be on the Streets.

SHALOM