Zimbabwe Partnership Trust

Partnership

The Zimbabwe Partnership Trust was established to raise awareness of the needs in the Lord’s work and among his people in Zimbabwe and to partner with churches in Zimbabwe by sending support to the Lord’s people there. We have felt, however, that whilst we provide a channel whereby churches and individual believers in the UK can express their support in addressing these needs through the work of the Trust, there may be situations where a church might wish to identify a particular project where they could then partner directly with the Lord’s people in Zimbabwe.

This has already happened in two specific instances:

Firstly, Anna Stolarski from the Southport church has spent 3 months during 2014 working as a volunteer in the Sandra Jones Centre which specialises in caring for children who have suffered abuse. As well as giving daily support to the permanent staff in the care of the children, Anna has also been involved in giving help to the girls with their schooling and helping out with the pre-school children at the Centre. For more details of Anna’s time as a volunteer please see the Orphan Work leaflet. The Sandra Jones Centre are always grateful for the help of volunteers like Anna to support them in their ministry and this is an area of partnership between churches in the UK and the Lord’s work in Zimbabwe that we are keen to encourage.

Secondly, we have been able to link the fellowship at Meadow Way Chapel in Hellesdon, Norwich with a rural community in Zimbabwe which was without a supply of clean safe water; as a consequence a number of children within that community were suffering from water borne diseases and some had died. The friends at Meadow Way Chapel undertook to fund the drilling of a borehole, having funded similar projects in other countries in Africa.

Through contact with a Christian brother in Zimbabwe we were able to identify this need in Makamure, a very rural area over 200 miles from Bulawayo, and this brother acted as our agent in dealing with local contractors to obtain quotations and organising for the work to be undertaken. This has been completed and the borehole is now operational, providing clean safe water for these people for the first time. In addition the church is also providing funding for an area of land to be fenced off and a garden established where crops can be grown to provide food for the community. This garden will be irrigated with water from the borehole.

The church in Makamure has taken ownership of the borehole and it is not only a witness in the area to the compassion and care of Christ, it has brought together a number of churches from the locality in a united endeavour to reach out with the Gospel to the surrounding villages. A further aspect to this partnership is that plans are being made for two members of the Meadow Way Church to travel to this area and lead Bible teaching in a conference being organised for the church leaders in the area.

We trust these two examples of what has already been done might inspire other churches here in the UK to want to partner with specific projects in Zimbabwe in a similar way.

Contacts
If you would like more information on this possibility please contact our secretary, Roger Prime, whose contact details are below.

	Firstly, Anna Stolarski from the Southport church has spent 3 months during 2014 working as a volunteer in the Sandra Jones Centre which specialises in caring for children who have suffered abuse. As well as giving daily support to the permanent staff in the care of the children, Anna has also been involved in giving help to the girls with their schooling and helping out with the pre-school children at the Centre. For more details of Anna’s time as a volunteer please see the Orphan Work leaflet. The Sandra Jones Centre are always grateful for the help of volunteers like Anna to support them in their ministry and this is an area of partnership between churches in the UK and the Lord’s work in Zimbabwe that we are keen to encourage.
Secondly, we have been able to link the fellowship at Meadow Way Chapel in Hellesdon, Norwich with a rural community in Zimbabwe which was without a supply of clean safe water; as a consequence a number of children within that community were suffering from water borne diseases and some had died. The friends at Meadow Way Chapel undertook to fund the drilling of a borehole, having funded similar projects in other countries in Africa.
Through contact with a Christian brother in Zimbabwe we were able to identify this need in Makamure, a very rural area over 200 miles from Bulawayo, and this brother acted as our agent in dealing with local contractors to obtain quotations and organising for the work to be undertaken. This has been completed and the borehole is now operational, providing clean safe water for these people for the first time. In addition the church is also providing funding for an area of land to be fenced off and a garden established where crops can be grown to provide food for the community. This garden will be irrigated with water from the borehole.
The church in Makamure has taken ownership of the borehole and it is not only a witness in the area to the compassion and care of Christ, it has brought together a number of churches from the locality in a united endeavour to reach out with the Gospel to the surrounding villages. A further aspect to this partnership is that plans are being made for two members of the Meadow Way Church to travel to this area and lead Bible teaching in a conference being organised for the church leaders in the area.