We would like to bless this incredible group of people to a weekend of teaching and impartation at the Shofar Convergence 2016 conference as well as show them the beautiful Cape Town for the first time in their lives! To most of them it will be the first time in their lives that they leave Zimbabwe. We need the funding for their transport, conference fees as well as their food for the weekend.
Mama Chipo is a Zimbabwean woman with an incredible capacity to love. She literally picks people up off of the streets and welcomes them into her home. She now has about 30 children whom she cares for. She puts them through school and university by trusting the Lord for provision. Her home has been referred to as an oasis by the people there, as whoever is hungry or in need goes there.
Our aim is to bring Mama Chipo to Cape Town for a Global Church Conference called Shofar Convergence, in order to aid her and her children in the different ministries they run. Read more about those below.
The impartation and ideas that mama Chipo and her children shall receive will help her to enrich the good work that what she is already doing.
We believe that these children at Mustard Seed have been called to share a message of hope with their fellow Zimbabweans in many hopeless situations currently happening in Zimbabwe and Convergence 2016 will equip and empower them to do so.
Our heart’s desire is to bring mama Chipo and her 13 eldest children to Cape Town in September. The cost per person for travelling, Conference fees etc isR6000 per person. That is a total of R84 000.
Milestones:
Every R6000 is a milestone and will mean another person can attend Shofar Convergence 2016, see Cape Town for the first time in their lives and go back to Zimbabwe to impact and bring hope to many lives. We need your help for this.
More about the other ministries planted form Mustard Seed:
1. Shekinah Mary Stella Restoration Program
The Shekinah Mary Stella Restoration Program supports people suffering and recovering from Mental Illness who would otherwise be living in the streets. This program also supports the children of the people that are in rehabilitation.
Shekinah started as a result of mama Chipo’s upbringing without the care of her mother, who she was suffering from severe mental illness. Her death was as a result of lack of care by family members and the community who would see her in the street and never cared to help.
2. Agape Love “Behind the Walls” Ministry
The suffering of the families of a man or woman who finds him/herself at a Correctional Institution (Prison) is the same. In most cases this has a very negative impact on children who are left behind and do not understand why ‘dad or mum’ is living in a confinement where they cannot come home and can only be seen at specific times through “a pigeon hole” in the case of children under the age of 18 years. This leaves children in a very traumatic situation that has lifelong negative effects on this vulnerable group of children.
Many ex-offenders have gone out of prison and Agape Love helped them with reunited with their families and reintegration into main stream society. Mama Chipo felt there was no better way of passing on the ‘ Agape Love’, (Unconditional Love) of Jesus Christ, than to do this and help a person who cannot be with his/her family because of a prison sentence. She continues to work with both inmates and ex-offenders to help them live without crime because she believes: Behind every prisoner there is a vulnerable and hurting child who is desperate for help. This marked the birth of Agape Love “Behind the Walls” Ministry.
It is the passion of relieving the suffering of such vulnerable children who find themselves in such a predicament that fuels mama Chipo with joy and commitment to give care and support. If these parents, after finishing their sentences are supported, they can look after their children without committing further crime.
3. Elshaddai Widows and Widowers Ministry
El-Shaddai was born as a result of so many orphans who live in the catchment area of Mustard seed Child Care Program. “In Chikomba, the poor area that the Mustard Seed operates within, at least 37 289 AIDS orphans have been identified. (Catholic Relief Services, 2008). Mustard Seed Ministries has currently targeted the most desperate 120 of these.
As of August 2009, the Mustard Seed Social Worker assessed and found out that 30 of the orphans were living in child headed families. 15 of these had to be urgently removed under Section 15 of the Children (Act 1996) to a ‘safe house’ leased by the Mustard Seed. 15 still live in child-headed families while 60 of them live in the homes of poor, elderly grandparents in the rural areas and 30 live with their parents mostly widowed mothers/fathers who are living with HIV. None of them has a regular income.
Armed with this sad state of affairs regarding a huge number of orphans, mama Chipo felt that the need to support these children needed a double prong strategy. She realised that Mustard Seed was on the receiving end of the HIV/Aids pandemic that had left so many children without parents or extended family to care for them. And this is how El-Shaddai was birthed…
We are a group of crazy out-of-the-box Christians that went to Zimbabwe to serve the community and encourage people during the current hopeless situation in Zimbabwe. We never realized that we will return encouraged more than we ever expected, challenged about our lifestyles and the things we add value to, beyond what we could ever imagined.