Christian Evangelical Baptist Union of Italy

I only knew the plight of orphans through my mother’s lifetime testimonies. She herself had been born an orphan and over these years I and my siblings were always victims of these historical stories. It was until April 2009 when I got employed as an on site Distance Adoption Programme Coordinator that I came to understand that you cannot change what you do not acknowledge.

The Distance Adoption Programme Zimbabwe is a partnership between the Baptist Convention of Zimbabwe (BCZ) and the Baptist Union of Italy (UCEBI). It started five years ago with the aim of mitigating the effects of orphanhood in children of member Baptist churches across Zimbabwe’s ten administrative provinces. Baptist Union of Italy provides financial assistance through adopting parents and the Baptist Convention of Zimbabwe provides technical support.  According to the Distance Adoption Programme records; there are six hundred orphans under the age of eighteen. The programme supports fifty percent of these children. It has coverage of eighty percent of Zimbabwe’s administrative provinces. The financial assistance mainly caters for the children’s school fees but can extend to cover health concerns of the child. The programme was walking and now it is marching, tomorrow it will be sprinting. It has now become part of the language.

The day I started executing my duties I quickly saw that it was my moment to bless and to be blessed. I did not see it as an occupation but I saw myself as a pillar of strength to these little angels. I stopped being driven and got back to the driver’s seat and started driving the vehicle of Distance Adoption Programme. I become the fuel that drives the vehicle of orphans and other vulnerable children’s welfare. During my initial initiation I did not understand it because I was stuck in the office with my calculator and phone trying to dish out money. Indeed, I was like a blind man judging a beauty contest. Impossible! My first visit was in Sanyati. I was greeted with melodious drumming beats on rawhide skin with ululating voices from young orphaned girls. I saw that these little angels need more than money; they need love, they need to belong to a family, a community, to a people, to a culture; to a world of love, they need you and me. Despite their HIV positive status, their hunger, their dirty feet, their lovely dark moon faces managed to smile.

Their stories range and vary as much as their names and ages range and vary. I used to cry and feel for them. Later on when they cried I cried with them, when they laughed, I laughed with them and when they recited their little prayers I closed my eyes and meditated silently. We are today prevailing with them until we, one day prevail. This programme has so far mentally emancipated, socially transformed and economically empowered the most vulnerable members of our community.

My most memorable day was when I visited Ganyungu in Gokwe. I saw one child, ill clothed, sitting under a tree during the night. The naked tree stood silent, waiting for spring. I thought the child was a little ghost. She had gone for two days without food so she was just loitering in order not to think about her empty stomach; but how can a ghost get hungry? I wanted to run away with much speed. But how was I supposed to run away when I was called to lead children into Canaan? The child’s parents had passed away due AIDS; she is only ten years old and stay with her sixteen year old brother. I knelt down and wept. I empathized with her, that despite her plight she had the zeal to go on and greet the sun of the future as it dawns. I quickly incorporated her into the programme. She is now going to school and eating decent meals. Her dream is of becoming a nurse one day.

Through this partnership I have seen children’s spirits rising to greater heights. I saw hope and power, life and liberty, health and wealth; motivated by love and activated by faith. When the Italian delegation visited children in November 2009, it was dreams come true for many of these children. They saw their mother in the person and character of Anna Maffei; President of UCEBI. She painted a picture of love and wrote a chapter of compassion in their hearts and little minds. Never again shall they be imprisoned by the imprisoning past. Like Paul in Philippians 3 V 13 they have forget the pessimistic past for the positive present.

As a young sociologist, I have learnt through this programme that a life lived for others is a life well lived. It reminds me of African “ubuntu”, a spirit of togetherness, I am because we are, we are therefore I am. One Shona idiom says “Rume rimwe harikombe churu” meaning “One man cannot surround a ….. alone” Together we can do more! It is my confession, to borrow from Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr, that I have been to the mountain top and I have seen the land of milk and honey, I might not reach there but I know that one day all these children will reach there because mine eyes have seen the coming of the glory of the Lord. May God always grant favour to the fatherless.

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