Imagine if you were from a country where it's normal be be hunger and not feeling well? I just got a report from Zimbabwe that made me stop and thank God for his overflowing provision for not only my physical hunger, but my spiritual hunger.
"Barry Fitzpatrick (Chester, UK) and I (Alan Scotland) have just returned from a trip into Zimbabwe. The heart of the story has not been told even in the press. The people are seriously in trouble. Many people are faint from hunger and disease. We heard reports of families who are eating warm cow dung, trying to get nutrients to survive. The economy is in total collapse. People can only buy food and other things with US dollars or other foreign currency; but people are still being paid in Zimbabwe dollars which means they cannot buy anything really because Zim dollars are not considered tradable capital.
We had the privilege of taking a love offering from the churches in the UK by which we were able to provide food for 13 churches across the city of Harare. We were also able to help several pastors by giving sufficient funding to bless them for the next several months.
We then traveled to the orphanage spending time with Livingstone and his wife. They were looking forward to coming to the UK for a few months of refres.hing in the word, etc. but the British Commissioner rejected them so they have been unable to obtain their visas. They have been a little disappointed at that. Maybe it will be possible to get Livingstone over to the Horthrope Hall meetings on a tourist visa.
We were able to give the orphan children some special gifts of oranges, pencils, lollipops; things that we would take for granted but they treasure them over there. In terms of development of the program there, the footings and foundation are in for the toilet buildings, and we've now commissioned the purchase of all the materials so that they can start building in earnest in April, 2009. We want to see at least three or four homes built for the children within this next year.
In January 2010, we would like to run a Fast Forward in Zimbabwe with teachers from the UK and the USA to give their time to bless the church as it endures the suffering of the times they are in."
Link Link's Feb. 2009 Newsletter
