2011 Mission Trip Report Event

The 2011 Beacon of Hope Mission Teams are very grateful to all of our friends and supporters who made it possible for us to take the 2011 mission trip. We would like to invite our prayer warriors, supporters and everyone who has any interests in our mission activities to come and be part of our trip report gathering.

Why: We will serve Malva pudding and other delicious desserts.

When: Saturday October 1 at 6:00 pm.

Where: Smiths' House, 24851 Costeau St, Laguna Hills, CA 92653.

We had two mission trips that happened this summer.

1. One was to Entebbe and Jinja, Uganda.
2. The other was to our normal destinations in South Africa, and also a new destination of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.
3. Besides this one of the pastors we work with in South Africa is from Nigeria. He went to Nigeria this year to visit his mom and taught the AIDS prevention education program to thirty High School seniors and three pastors. Now the pastors want to continue teaching the program in Nigeria.

Come and hear from the teams, see some videos, consider how you might be part of our program which is now starting to expand beyond the boundaries of South Africa.

Zimbabwe Part Two

Youth for Christ Zimbabwe.

We finished out Smart Choices program with the Youth for Christ team on Monday. We had them prepare and teach all of lesson four and part of lesson five back to us. They are enthusiastic about the program and did a great job of teaching their sections. We are presenting the program to thirty-three students at an orphanage/private school called SOS. It is financed by a European organization, I think from Germany. It is a secular organization but the administration welcome Christian content programs.

Tammy and others from the Baptist Church go out there weekly to do activities with the kids at SOS and at least two other orphan care facilities. The Youth for Christ team that we trained are doing the whole program and we are just filling in a few spots for one of the team members that didn't show up. They are doing a great job of teaching and are all very enthusiastic about the impact that it will have on the community. It is now Friday morning and we have completed the whole program at the SOS school.

During our downtime in the morning we have visited several orphan care facilities. One lady who is originally from Australia has adopted four girls that live with her at her home in town and she is also responsible for another 96 children who are living at a Youth for Christ campground about 18 Km out of town. They are required to vacate the camp site by the end of this year so they are frantically searching for a location to move them to. They have found a hotel that is available and would be an ideal property but the owner wants $800,000 for it. The caretakers are hopeful that the owners would accept $500,000 and are prayerfully seeking financial support to come up with the money. All of the children that are cared for by this organization have been victims of some kind of sexual or physical abuse.

One family that we have met that also attends Jeff and Tammy's church have adopted fourteen children and are currently living in a three-bedroom house. He is English and she is Matabele and their place is spotless. Considering the children's backgrounds they are all extremely well behaved with wonderful manners and so friendly and welcoming to visitors. As soon as we arrived one of them grabbed each of us by the hand to show us all the shrubs and trees growing in the garden, then a tour of the vegetable garden, and than a visit to the chicken coop before getting a tour of their bedrooms.

It is time to start packing up and getting ready to head to the Bulawayo Airport for the long journey home. I will add some pictures to these posts when I we get back to California so come back and visit this blog in a few days time. Also plan on coming to be part of our trip feedback evening soon. We will let you now the exact date and time shortly.

Glynn Smith

Bulawayo Zimbabwe

After taking about two hours to get through customs at Bulawayo it was great to see Jeff and Tammy again. The departure and arrival terminal at Bulawayo is an old barn type building that has been acting as the temporary terminal for about 20 years. There is a nice new terminal building (well seventeen-year-old building) that has never been equipped and completed to serve as the new terminal. In spite of our two-hour encounter with customs because of 14 team shirts that I bought in South Africa for our Zimbabwe Smart Choices team and having to pay $84 tax and customs duty on the shirts it still feels great to be back in Zim. after thirty-six years.

We started immediately on Friday, August 26 to train the Zimbabwe team who were all recruited by Youth for Christ. Some of them are also from the Bulawayo Christian Bible League. We also had one Pastor who I mentioned in my last blog that we met at Zodwa's church in Soshanguve who is from Harare. After returning home from South Africa he immediately returned back to Bulawayo so that he could be trained. I provided him all the material that he needs to build a kit to teach the Smart Choices program, so we will see how successful he is at getting the program running in Harare.

On Sunday we attended three services at Jeff and Tammy's church, Bulawayo Baptist Church. Jeff preached all three sermons. The 8am service uses all hymns and one piano player for worship and is mostly attended by the older crowed. We all loved singing the old hymns and based on their gusto the rest of the congregation did to. The 10am service used more contemporary worship very similar to VCI's worship. TK is a very gifted worship leader and they made use of a keyboard, two guitars, drums, and four vocalists. I guess the church was about 80% full and I estimate about two hundred people. They have a great racially balanced congregation. The majority is African but there are a lot of Caucasians as well as coloreds (mixed blood) and even a handful of Indian families. Needless to say everyone we have spoke to just love Jeff and Tammy.

In case anyone should think that Jeff and Tammy are deprived or in danger or living under any kind of hardship in Zimbabwe, I want to put your mind at rest. They absolutely love being here in Zimabawe. Their church is thriving, vibrant and vital in the Bulawayo community. Their members are having such a huge impact on the community and the difficult aspects of their life which we in America might consider to be real hardships are nothing more than inconveniences to them. They simply love living in Bulawayo.

I will end this post here but will try and post one more tomorrow about the progress of the Smart Choices program before we start heading home on Friday.

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Glynn Smith

Beacon of Hope International

Phone: 949-305-1922

Cell: 949-795-0042

Web: http://www.beaconint.org/

Blog: blog.beaconint.org

Skype: africanson3