Children of Zion Village Orphanage (written July 19th)

God works in crazy ways and I’ve found that the world is very small sometimes! So our teammate Erin had been in the Caprivi area earlier in June working around the biggest town in the area, Katima. While in Katima one day, a guy noticed the large Gator sticker on her car and asked if she was from UF. Turns out he was a Georgia Bulldogs fan (I know, but not everyone can be a Gator), and they got to talking. This guy is named Travis Curry and along with his wife, Lorna, they are directors of an orphanage for children orphaned by AIDS. They are also believers. Erin told me this story, and I immediately wanted to meet them and see their orphanage.  So we bought some really small things like soccer balls, stickers and toy cars for the kids in hope that we would be able to stop by the orphanage. We had an email address for them, but no phone number so I managed to squeak off a quick email to them before we went to Bum Hill where there wasn’t even electricity. Tim finished up his last game drive this morning and we wanted to stop at the orphanage on our way to Chobe (back in Botswana). And this morning when we got to Katima, we still hadn’t heard from them so we were just going to go off of what Erin thought the directions were. But then, we had stopped for lunch and they pulled up right behind us! They gave us directions which was good because it turns out Erin was thinking of a different place.

 It was really, really cool what they’re doing at this orphanage. They have 59 kids, with ages ranging from 10 months to 21 years old. They have a school on the property where the kids are following the PACE curriculum (a Christian curriculum used by homeschoolers in the US where the kids learn at their own pace).  They also have a garden and facilities for animals and chickens. They also are starting a transitional house where they can send their older kids to be trained and prepared to be successful out in the world. As Lorna put it, “We want to raise Godly Namibians to go back into their communities and be salt and light there.”

Travis and Lorna’s story is a testament of how God works in powerful and mysterious ways. They were both successful, he was in software and she’s a Physical Therapist, and they felt lead into ministry. So they heard about the orphanage and sold everything and moved to a place where HIV infection rate is about 45%, the river completely floods their compound each year, and they are far from pretty much everything. And they’d never even been to Africa before they took this assignment! I was very encouraged by their faith and their stories. We brought them You can read more about them and the orphanage at http://tlcinhisservice.blogspot.com/2010/02/children-of-zion-village-message.html

Sorry about no pictures for this post, we were too busy talking with Lorna and Travis to take pictures.