Greetings my family and friends
Happy Easter to all.
Surprise. I know it has not been long since I posted but just felt today as though I needed to share. I walked out simply to go to my office and an eery silence struck me. The college is earily silent. Yesterday our grads had their end of term party.
The government has forced shutdown of all schools, colleges and other institutions. And no, it is not due to Covid. The government has called for a country wide sensus and all citizens are to go to their respective homes. This means our college is litterally shut-down as all our boarders had to leave. This was sudden and we had to change our schedules to accomodate the order. As a result, our semester had to be shortened, classes crammed in and our exam dates moved up. Wednesday was our last 'special chapel' with the entire on-site student body. I was privieged to lead a communion service. Pictured below is the on-site student body along with staff present for the sevice.
So, on-site classes are now finished and it is strangely quiet.
Good news...our young sponsor girl, who now is not so young as she is eighteen. Time has indeed passed quickly. Maka was in grae four, if memory serves me correctly and now she has just gotten confirmation that she has passed her 'O' level course...equivelant to our grade 12. We are so proud of her! Maka, her mom Linda and her borther Panashe are coming to spend Monday with me and we will celebrate her accomplishment by going out for dinner to one of her favorite places.
Today is Good Friday and I chose not to go to the Easter Conference and instead spent the day marking exams from yesterday.
I did attend the Easter conference on Saturday and Sunday. The conference was certainly a time of renewal and celebration of all that Easter represents for us in the Christian Community. But, alas, sadness struck and just as the conference ended a young 1-1/2 year old boy was run over in the parking lot and killed. How sad for both families involved; and indeed for the entire PAOZ family. I attended the burial. It was a rainy day and it seemed as though God was weeping with us all. I have been doing some grief counselling as the community struggles to deal with the tradegy.
May 6th, 2022. Well, another couple of weeks have passed and perhaps I should finish this blog. It has been a busy time with final exams and marking papers and the like. I finished marking for the semester and then took a break and went to Bulawayo to spend a few days with our friends, the Mullers. It was a welome break.
Since I last wrote, Makanaka has been accepted into nurse-aid training with the Red Cross. That will give her a taste of nursing and then it is her goal to enter registered nursing. Indeed, we are so proud of her!.
Inserting here a picture of her when we first met her and a picture of the beautiful young lady she has grown to be.
We have two graduations upcoming. Our PACC grad on-site will be on the 21st, and then we will travel to Kwekwe for our Distance Ed certificate graduation the following weekend. Will try to blog following those events and post some pictures.
I'll sign off here. Will be in touch before I return to Canada. Blessings to all who are following my blog.
Marj
