News from Malawi

October 11: 

It took a while before I was able to update the newsletter. There are many reasons, but the main reason is that we, both here in the Netherlands and in Malawi, have done a tremendous amount of work!

 Where to begin:

New land great news, because the entire community believes in us and supports us, we've been given a large plot of land on the edge of the village! 

This was completely free and previously owned by the parents of our adopted twins, Benjamin and Bright. A whopping 2,500 square meters.                                                                                                                                                                                               Great, but unfortunately, we don't have the money yet to build a house on it.We can barely afford our basic monthly needs.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 We're desperately searching for funding, but this is such an unprecedented opportunity that I've decided to advance everything until a sponsor is found who can, I hope, supplement my pension!             

This week, we had 16,000 bricks baked and purchased to start building a community center/storage/office. This was necessary because there are only two months of the year when there's enough clay left, dry enough to do this. In the photo above, you can see how they're stacked to form a kind of oven, which is then heated with wood and hardened.                               More about the construction in the next newsletter! 

See the photo for the land donated to us and its location relative to the village.                      

More news! 

We're busy looking for land to cultivate ourselves. (See the photo with the trees.) We're negotiating for 4,000 m² of agricultural land, which is currently covered with shrubs and trees. I hope to hear more about this in the next newsletter. Unfortunately, there's no funding for this yet either! 

Meanwhile, we've been able to provide the most vulnerable people in the village of Kande with their basic necessities every month. With incredibly happy people who consider me a kind of emissary of God, ha ha. 

Just a quick note for the new sponsors: every month we try to bring the underprivileged from the local community up to the (low) level of the rest of the population. We select strictly, and they are usually partially from broken families, but also mostly people with disabilities, AIDS patients, orphans, grandmothers with grandchildren, etc.

Saturday, August 2nd:

 I want to thank you so much for your donations.

Today was the first day that we, with your money, made 45 families and two orphans incredibly happy! 

We were able to buy 45 50kg bags of corn and soap packets for everyone. 

Both washing powder and regular soap. Below are some photos (not all) of very grateful people, and also proof that your money was well spent, of course. 

What has been done so far:

We have 5 local people on site who, together with the village elders and Medicine Man, are making an inventory of the greatest need during the establishment of the foundation in the Netherlands.

This is done by visiting families who are known in the village and surrounding area to be even worse off than the already low average. 

This is so that if there is sufficient money, we can do something extra there besides the basic necessities.

Think of blankets, sheets, mattresses and beds. 

The need, due to the bad weather, was so great in my eyes that I donated money myself before the foundation was official. 

This had two goals:

1) Trying to solve the great need somewhat until everything was officially arranged here 

2) To see (check) whether everything with the distribution and the management there, would go well. 

And if that were the case, to collect the evidence to be able to show the donors, that is you, that 100% of the money is also being spent well! Everything went super well, apart from that, the first thousand euros were of course too little.

So i am proud of the board and the other people helping in Malawi!