Mutare area

14 – 19 February 2012

House mother and orphan at Fairfield Orphanage

On 14 February the team traveled to Mutare, the third largest city in Zimbabwe.  Here is Old Mutare Mission and Africa University (AU), a Methodist related university for all of Africa.   At Old Mutare we visited the Fairfield Orphanage.  The orphans live in 8-10 child households with a mother who is the head of the family.  The children in each home are of various ages.  This is done to make the orphans lives more like living in a family.  The children attend Old Mutare Mission schools.

Africa University

At Africa University we met with university officials and toured the campus.  AU and McDaniel College, Westminster, Maryland are developing a partnership in which they will exchange students, faculty and resources.  The partnership is in its early stages.  To date one McDaniel student has spent a semester at AU.

Bazeley Bridge Community Center

While in Mutare we visited three completed projects.  Two were done in partnership with the Baltimore Washington Conference.  Bazeley Bridge Community Center was completed in 2011, with about $80,000 provided by Baltimore Washington’s Hope Fund, which raised $600,000 for Zimbabwe UMC projects. 



Muradzikwa Church



At Muradzikwa, the Hope Fund provided about $60,000 to build a church that seats 400. 



Munyarari Clinic



We also visited Munyarari Clinic, completed with Hope Funds contributed by the UMC, Bel Air, Maryland.  The clinic serves a remote area that previously did not have local medical care.  The clinic provides care to 30-40 patients a day.  These projects and several others were started or completed with Jim’s help in 2009 when he lived in Zimbabwe for five months assisting UMC Zimbabwe manage Hope Fund projects.