Time for another update about my Zimbabwe trip. Between the Fundraisers for Zimbabwe 2007, the 50 Days of Prayer and Fasting that I’ve been participating in (which includes writing and publishing the devotional that my church is using) and my normal day job – I’ve been kept extremely busy and have barely had time to maintain all the websites I manage/own let alone put posts up. Yet, it’s really no excuse, I guess the creative part of my brain is just exhausted by the time the night rolls around and I haven’t been able to muster up the energy to put words down. I haven’t even twittered!

Anyway, tonight I’m finally taking some time to write up another installment in my Zimbabwe 2007 series.

Walk-athon Fundraiser

This was held on Saturday April 28th and all participants walked 10km (The number of average steps in 10km = number of kilometers to go to Zimbabwe). We collected pledges for each km or for the total distance. At last count there was close to $1200 collected for the project!

Gord and Anita Cooledge and their family were with us for that weekend and it was great getting a chance to meet the directors of the Village of Hope. Since I walked with Gord on the walk-a-thon I had a great chance to get to know him and talk about what its like for them in Zimbabwe. I really enjoyed our conversation and I’m really impressed by the faith and genuineness of this couple. I’m looking forward to seeing them again when I go to Zimbabwe in June.

STM Team Retreat

I joined the rest of the team this past Saturday at the Schaab’s cabin for a day retreat. We spent the day working on some conflict resolution exercises (I’m an owl and a teddy bear according to the test…) and we also spent some time looking at our spiritual gifts. Brian O’Gorman, a leader of a team that went to Zimbabwe in March, came and shared with us some of his experiences and there were a number of helpful tips he gave our team. We also heard from Dr. Stretch who has been on numerous missions trips to Ghana. Dr. Stretch gave us some health and safety tips for traveling to Africa and there were a number of things we wouldn’t have known otherwise had he not shared with us (I’ve crossed sandals off my list…don’t want to be invaded by egg laying bugs..) All in all, it was a great day to bond closer together as a team and get more prepared for the trip.

Countdown…

As of this post there are now 36 days until we depart. It’s hard to believe there is just over a month to go! As we get closer to the date I’m getting more and more excited about the adventure that awaits. Of course, there is also a bit of nervousness due to the vast distance we will be traveling and the stability of the country we are traveling to!

I’m also really excited that fundraising goal for the project has already been exceeded! We are well over our original goal of $27,000 and are quickly approaching $30,000. As a team we are praying and hoping that between now and our departure we’ll have raised an additional $10,000 (for a total of $40,000) to add to the amount we can give to the Village of Hope for their ongoing projects. It certainly is within reach! If you want to contribute please feel free to chip-in using the widget in my sidebar.

One of the things we discovered as a team when Gord and Anita Cooledge visited the church is that we will most likely have internet access each day. That means I’ll be able to post updates about what we’re doing while in Zimbabwe. So if you are following my journaling about the project you’ll be able to continue reading as I send posts from Harare. I’m thrilled that I’ll be able to keep all my supporters up-to-date!