Poultry project gives promise for economic independence
 In December 2010 a poultry project was launched at the new site of HCOC. It began in one building as a brooder with a storage facility for feed. The project began with 600 day-old chicks. These chickens were marketed in six to eight weeks weighing an average of 3 ½ pounds.
Note a second building is shown in the picture on the right. It is only partly complete due to the lack of funds. When it is possible to complete this building, the chicks will be moved into this facility between two and three weeks of age. This will allow for starting another batch of day old chicks in the brooder. Ideally the project would like to have chickens available for purchase at all times.
The goal, when facilities are available, is to start a new batch of 1,000 day old chicks every two weeks. In order to do this, it will be necessary to construct two or three more buildings like the one under construction in this picture. Community members are involved in this project. They have made all of the brick for the buildings. Cement is the biggest single expense. It is presently costing about $12.00 to $14.00 per bag. The cost of putting up a building like this one is approximately $5,000.00 USD. In addition feeders and waters are needed.
Chickens are readily marketable in Zimbabwe. It is the only meat that most families can afford. Some families cannot even afford that. When the project is fully productive, it will also supply some meals of chicken for the orphan feeding program.
This poultry project is an effort to not only provide meat for the Feeding Program but to help HCOC become self-supporting. Can anyone help them achieve their goal?
Petronella’s story gives inspiration to other orphans
Petronella is the youngest of five children. Her father passed away in 2003, leaving her mother to raise five children alone.  The mother is a severe asthmatic and is unable to work. In Zimbabwe children like Petronella are classified as an orphan. Petronella is provided support services by HCOC, the Orphan Care Center.
Petronella does extremely well in school. At the end of her seventh grade year she excelled in all of her subjects. The decision was made, at the Orphan Care Center, that she should be sent to a boarding school for Forms one through Form four, equivalent to U.S. grades eight through grade eleven. The Boarding School offered subject choices that were not available at the local Secondary School.
January 2010 Petronella enrolled at Nyahuni Secondary School. In June 2010 Ralph and I were invited to an awards ceremony held for parents and guardians of the children enrolled. Petronella received an award for standing at the top of her class.
Earlier this month, January 2011, Petronella enrolled for her second year at Nyahuni Boarding School. A donation of $325.00 paid her school fees for one term at the Boarding School. Each term requires tuition of $325.00 or $975.00 will pay for tuition for an entire school year for Petronella or another deserving students.
Jessca’s story inspired Heather Chimhoga Orphan Care Center
In 2001, Jessca was found in a north Zimbabwe village where all the adults had died of AIDS. She was living under the care of her 12-year-old cousin, Evelyn, who was also trying to care for her own sister and three other cousins. They were scavenging for food, near starvation. Jessca was the youngest of them all and, though unaware, was HIV positive.
Evelyn heard that some white people were distributing blankets in the Murewa District some ten miles away. Desperate, the 12-year-old girl walked those ten miles alone and found missionaries Ralph and Roberta Pippitt.
The missionaries saw that Evelyn could not carry six heavy blankets by herself for ten miles. So, they loaded her up with the blankets and drove her home. That’s when they met Jessca and the rest of the little orphan family, and discovered they had no food. They also noted that Jessca was probably HIV positive.
The next day, Ralph and Roberta delivered a supply of food – and determined that something had to be done for these children and for thousands of others like them. And the idea for the Heather Chimhoga Orphan Care Center (HCOC) was born.
Since then, much has happened. The Orphan Care Center has grown to the point where it is now feeding and helping to care for about a thousand children every day. For many of the years in between, however, doctors and medical supplies were very scarce. The hospital in Murewa was able to test Jessca and confirm that she was HIV positive. But they were unable to do much in the way of treating her or helping her. After medicine became available, she would walk to HCOC each day to receive her meds but had strength for little else. School, which was several more miles away, was out of the question.
 Every year, when the missionaries returned to Zimbabwe, they found her worse. By their departure in 2008, even though HCOC was finally able to employ a full-time nurse who was caring for her daily, Ralph and Roberta had little hope they would find Jessca alive when they returned.
But God, in his mercy, had other ideas. Upon their return to Zimbabwe in the spring of 2009, Jessca was one of the first to greet them. Under the constant monitoring and care of Nurse Beauty at HCOC, she had grown healthier and heartier. Beauty makes sure Jessca always has the medicine she needs and that she gets to her doctor appointments at the hospital in Murewa much more regularly. The steady diet of healthy foods made possible by the HCOC vegetable garden and the Moringa trees cultivated there have also had a remarkable effect. Now Jessca is attending school again, and it is apparent that she can look forward to a brighter future, as long as she remains on AIDS medication.
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