NESHURO ORPHANAGE

Kristen Fowler and Jenna Clendinning are university students from Mississippi who came to Zimbabwe this summer as participants in the One Life Student Ministries. One Life ministry projects are promoted and funded by Baptist Global Response for college students who want to be involved in human needs missions on various levels; praying, giving, and going. at the orphanage at Neshuro in southern Zimbabwe. Living at the orphanage was a different lifestyle than the girls were accustomed to. Jenna laughingly told us that, "One of the challenges was washing our clothes by hand."

They both agreed that the highlight of the summer was getting to know some of the kids who lived at the orphanage.

One of their frustrations was not being able to speak their language, but they felt they were able to overcome the language barrier through playing games and singing songs with them.

Jenna mentioned that, “One Sunday we were able to lead a Bible Study on holiness and leadership. One of the young men in the group encouraged me through some of the insights he shared. I discovered that he was a real prayer warrior with very strong faith.” One day the girls had an opportunity to teach a Bible Lesson at the elementary school. “That was one of my favorite days,” said Kristen. “The kids all sat under a tree as we taught. I never thought I would teach that many kids at one time.”

“We didn’t get to spend as much time with the high school kids as we would have liked to”, said Jenna “because they were busy in school during the week and had sports at the schools on weekends. But we attended the sports functions and watched them with the other high school students. While we watched, students would come one by one to visit with us, talk to us, and ask us questions.” It seemed like we had the most impact in their lives during these informal visits.