Update: AIDS Crisis in Zimbabwe, Africa

Many tourists and even frequent visitors of Zimbabwe see the lovely game parks, exotic flowers, colorful birds and trees. They may never notice that behind this pristine tropical paradise is the AIDS nightmare that has gripped the country for almost two decades in a slow-motion suicide.

Mortuaries in Zimbabwe are always full. Over 1200 people die every week from AIDS-related causes alone. Most of them are young parents leaving a generation of orphans. In Zimbabwe, with a population of approximately ten million, there are 800,000 orphans. Children often are infected with the dreaded disease at birth. Grandmothers are left to care for all the grandchildren when their children and spouses have died of Aids. One grandmother said, “We are living in a strange world today; instead of children burying their parents and grandparents, the grandparents are now burying their children and grandchildren.”

Funerals have become commonplace. Churches are busy burying members. In Zimbabwe, one out of four young adults between the ages of fourteen and forty-five are infected with the HIV virus. The forecast for Zimbabwe is more death, devastation to the family structure and economic development, and more orphans. Patients go to the hospital to die, not to be treated. The drugs that slow down the virus are not available or affordable in Africa.

The AIDS epidemic in Zimbabwe is part of a burgeoning epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa. It has already claimed more lives than the Holocaust during World War II. It is estimated that 33 million adults worldwide are living with HIV infections or full-blown AIDS; two-thirds living in sub-Saharan Africa. Just by way of comparison, North America has 890,000 HIV/AIDS infected while sub-Saharan Africa has over 23 million! In this world of quiet horror, AIDS has become the leading cause of death in the sub-African continent with over 5000 deaths each day.

The need for homes for the AIDS orphaned children is a challenge for the nation and for the Church. The traditional extended family in Africa, which normally took care of orphans in the past, is now unable to care for the children because of inflation and because of the large numbers of children orphaned by AIDS. Yet in this raging storm, small efforts here and there are being made to provide shelters for innocent victims. One such shelter is the self-supporting Simbaredenga Newstart Children’s Home on the outskirts of Harare.

In January 1999, my wife Grace and I were directed through the narrow streets of Mabvuku to a small tool shed where ten children who lost both parents were living. The oldest was sixteen years old and was now the head of the family. She had no skills to enable her to earn a living for her large family and so she worked the streets to feed her young brothers and sisters.

We wanted to take all of them and give them food and a decent place to live. Their pleading eyes broke our hearts. But we had no place to care for all these ten children. We offered to care for five of them, but their sister’s heart could not bear to see her family split off. “We lost both parents and now we want to stay together,” she said.

They had no food and no furniture in their little “home,” but they had each other. This was a dilemma for us; all we cold do was supply them with enough food to last them a month or two! Before many days passed, the “head of the home” came to tell us the children were hungry, and requested that they “be taken to the people who gave them food.”

So we took the five youngest children in temporary quarters at Simbaredenga to provide them with food, shelter, and education. We decided right then to build an eight-bedroom home for them and 30 other orphans at Simbaredenga. The home would be named Sibaredenga Newstart Children’s Home (Simbaredenga means “Power From Heaven”).

Things started to happen quickly. Crest Breeders International donated twenty-five aces of land next to Simbaredenga SDA Primary and Secondary School. This will be sufficient to build three homes and still have enough for a small farm.

A group from Oregon Sunnyside Church, under the direction of Dr. Ron and Nancy Franzke, offered to bring 38 builders and students to put up the structure March 17 to 31. The foundation was completed in spite of heavy rains in Zimbabwe and a severe fuel shortage.

$50,000 US has been raised for the exterior construction of the first home, and this segment is almost complete. $5100 US has also been donated by World Medics for one of two boreholes needed to ensure we are not totally dependent on rainwater for the sustainability of the farm, which will be the source of food for the children.

It is our aim to mobilize one of the two wells for the SDA school next door. This will enable them to water their gardens much more cheaply than using municipal water. The cost of using municipal water has become so prohibitive that the school took an action to discontinue the gardens, as the cost of the water was more than the income generated by the garden. This is a big tragedy to the school as the sale of garden vegetables to local markets was subsidizing the tuition and keeping it at a level that people could afford.

The second borehole for the orphanage is needed to grow gardens which will provide food ad sustain the project. It is possible that enough maize and garden vegetables could be raised to not only feed the children, but to see a profit which will provide for the needs of the children, such as clothing, school tuition, and other expenses. With the water, the land, and a tractor, the Children’s Home can raise funds from the farm on an early basis and make the operation sustainable. Therefore, the provision of this borehole is crucial for the development of the program.

It was our original plan to build the exterior, interior, and furnishings for $50,000 US, but materials and transport in Zimbabwe have skyrocketed in the past few months, so that the total amount has been needed for the construction of the exterior of the Children’s Home. The interior will be completed when funds are on hand, for items such as screens, plastering, painting, cupboards, kitchen furnishings, furniture, and bathrooms, flooring, and laundry. It is estimated that $10,000 US will be needed for this purpose.

The Home is well underway to being self-sustaining. Twelve acres planted in maize will be ready to harvest in April and May. Maize is the staple diet in Zimbabwe. This will be enough to feed the children and the staff at the Children’s Home.

This home is the first of three being planned at Simbaredenga and will cater to children who are between the ages of three and seven. The second will cater to children between eight and twelve years of age, and the third for youth between twelve and sixteen years.

Each home will care for 40 children. It was decided to construct three separate structures rather than one large single dormitory in order to provide the children a homelike atmosphere. A wonderful Christian couple has been found to be the housemother and housefather, to help create a Christian atmosphere for these children.

The children will be educated in an SDA School from elementary through high school next door to the home. Students who excel in school will have opportunity to go to Solusi University. It is our aim to provide them not only with a home, but with a Christian education and invite them to join God’s remnant people.

Because of the magnitude of the orphan problem in Zimbabwe, it was decided to first accept only those who have lost both parents, or those children abandoned at birth. We have received requests from the hospital to admit children who have been abandoned, but we have not been able to accept them for lack of proper accommodation. We hope someday to be able to take these little ones who are born into a hostile environment and are not wanted.

The long-range plan is to establish a vocational school for these orphans, so that students will be able to make a living in areas such as farming, carpentry, building, auto mechanics, metal work, and sewing.

The construction of the exterior of the first home to house boys and girls aged three to six will be completed in April 2000. The interior will be completed as funds are available. The second home for boys and girls aged seven to twelve will be constructed in 2002. The third home for ages thirteen to sixteen will be built in 2004. Each home will have a wing of bedrooms on the right for girls and a wing of bedrooms on the left for boys separated by a common kitchen, dining, and living area.

A church structure will also be erected on the campus in the near future as a beacon of hope in the dark night.

This home is like a small lifeboat in a dark and stormy ocean of pain and suffering. One can easily conclude that the problem is too huge and the effort too small to make a difference, especially when we consider there are ten million orphans in sub-Saharan Africa. However, even though we are not going to be able to help very many, our Lord Jesus said: “Because you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.”