Merry Christmas and Family Impact News

Our visitors from the UK: L - visiting Ebenezer Agricultural Training Centre; R - hard at work painting the Family Impact office building

We were amazingly blessed to have a team of 14 visit Family Impact in Bulawayo from the UK in August. The visit was coordinated by John and Ali Delaney from the UK and all the team members were from Trent Vineyard Church in Nottingham, which is the church our Director, Lynne, attended when she was at university in Nottingham. Trent Vineyard has been hugely supportive of Lynne and the ministry of Family Impact and this visit was an opportunity for people to come and see what Jesus is doing in Zimbabwe.

During their two weeks with us we shared devotions together and the team blessed us by raising the funds and then helping our local staff to paint the outside of the whole office building! One of our long term staff was just so in awe and thankful for the demonstration of God's love and provision and said “...it looks so nice that people will come to visit and they will think they are in a different place!"

The team visited and served at a number of local ministries including Our Neighbours, Baby Heroes, Encounter Kids Clubs, Ebenezer Agricultural Training Centre and New Creation Church. One of the team is a lecturer in marketing at Nottingham Trent University and he blessed some local businesses with two training sessions on planning and conducting a marketing campaign. We were so impressed by the way the team jumped in and helped out in all these places and we know it was such a blessing to those they served.

It is an encouragement to have people come and see what God is doing in another place and to see Him grow and change them through that. And we are also changed and grow in our faith as we share our lives and ministry here in Zimbabwe with people and hear their stories. We hope to host another team in 2017! Email us to find out more.

We were privileged to have a stand at the Truth Be Told conference run by Christians for Biblical Equality in Johannesburg in September. The conference aimed to empower local leaders to positively impact the families, churches and communities they serve through laying a biblical foundation for equal respect, service, and authority for men and women.

One of the speakers said "The moment we dichotomize humanity, we have a problem. Violence becomes an inevitable means of control. I am reminded of the words of Jimmy Hendrix: 'when the power of love becomes greater than the love of power, the world will know peace.'"

Family Impact had a stand and talked with people about the Living as First Man Standing (LAFMS) resource, which we contextualised with our partner Restored. LAFMS is designed to inform and train church leaders on the vital issue of gender based violence by helping them explore what the Bible has to say about men and women and thinking about how the church can and should respond.

We had the opportunity to give away Family Impact resources on marriage and family (click here to download) and to promote our Real Man Campaign (see the Facebook page and website).

It was great to have Stephen and Simon from Power A Life visit in September. Power A Life was linked to us through our long term partner, the Zimbabwe Rural Schools Development Program. Through them, we were able to facilitate 83 students in Grades 4 - 7 at Peace and Good Hope Primary School receiving solar lights. Family Impact will monitor the use of the lights and track the students grades to see the impact having these lights has on educational outcomes. Keep an eye out for videos and photos from the project on our website and social media.

Power A Life uses a buy-one, give-one model: For every 'Wee-Pal' power pack sold in the UK, they provide a solar light to a child in rural Africa to help them study at night and improve their grades. Check out their website for more of their story.

Lynne and Joanna attended the GCF5.9 conference in Orlando, Florida. Joanna helped with registration and logistics and Lynne participated as a member of the leadership team. She facilitated a group that spent the week looking at the strategy of GCF moving forward. We also met with the families focus group and discussed ways in which we can continue to advocate for family locally and globally.

From the Director