Dear Sponsor,
“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every
morning; great is your faithfulness.”
Lamentations 3:22-23
Thank you for your sponsorship and for your invaluable prayers, that is making a difference in their life.
So much has happened and time has flown since my last update. Please accept my sincerest apologies for not updating you sooner!
Since the beginning of March the children have been practising action songs and learning how to share the Gospel using The Wordless book, in preparation for an outreach we had recently! The children are passionate about Jesus and sing and dance with enthusiasm! We had also bought drums for the outreach
and Kelvin in particular plays them extremely well.
Praise Jesus the outreach was absolutely amazing, with five women and several children accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior! Our children performed with passion giving glory to Jesus through song and dance! It was an amazing blessing to see Aneth, Cairo and Kelvin share the Gospel using The Wordless book with a fervent love for Jesus! I thank God for these students who are so on fire for Him and I can easily envisage them as evangelists and preachers!
After celebrating my birthday in May we now celebrate all the children’s birthdays including Sekela’s. I have encouraged the children to bring a gift of Scripture or a song, a gift that costs them nothing and is such a blessing to the person celebrating their birthday. A Tanzanian tradition we enjoy is to feed the birthday person with a piece of cake!
We love having visitors at the center! It was great to have a fellow Kiwi come and visit us in May! Murray Grindlay from Wellington was visiting Zambia, Tanzania and Uganda.
As well as having visitors at the center, we warmly welcome volunteers! Friends of mine from New Zealand came and volunteered for ten weeks at the center and during this time I returned to New Zealand and Australia for a six week vacation.
Julie is a management accountant and oversaw the financial and reporting and Pauline is a teacher and both her and Julie taught English and undertook arts and crafts with the children. Sekela and the children absolutely loved Julie and Pauline and we were sad to farewell them at the end of August!
We were extremely blessed to have two team members accompany Henry and Darlene recently; Edy a Messianic Jew who lives with his wife Costina and family in Romania and Allie from California, who is one of our board members and is sponsoring two people at the center! Henry, Darlene, Edy and Allie were here primarily to undertake a three day evangelistic outreach, provide Bible seminars to pastors and church members and to visit us at the center! This was Edy’s second time to Tanzania and he ministered to Sekela, the children, us and others through his musical gifts and love of the Bible. Allie was overwhelmed with meeting in person those she sponsors and to be here to celebrate Neema’s 6th birthday and bless her with verses from the book of Esther.
I thank God that He has given us all different gifts, to be used for His glory and honor! I continue to be blessed as I see my brothers and sisters come and serve at the center and to see them operating in their gifting’s. Please pray about coming to visit us at the center and to see what you have sowed through prayers and sponsorship. If God calls you to volunteer, you are most welcome to come and use your gifts for Him. Whether you are a visitor or a volunteer, I am confident that God will impact your heart.
English tuition at the center has expanded and now nursery and primary students are learning English. Secondary students completed their six month course at the end of July. It’s very refreshing to hear English being spoken at the center.
We have two students, Christopher and Vaileth, who attend private schools and they are role models to the rest of the children. They illustrate to the other children that providing they apply themselves and
do well at school, they too can attend a private school. However, due to the cost of school fees at private schools, each student who is selected to attend a private school needs three sponsors.
In the last few months projects completed are a new toilet & cess pool, a water tank and new flower beds. Before the raining season starts in November, we expect to have guttering and large receptacles in place to capture and utilise the abundance of rain water.
If you have Internet access, I suggest viewing our regular updates under https://www.facebook.com/naomiruthorphancenters or www.naomiruth.org. Updates including prayer requests are normally posted at least once a week on Facebook and then onto our website.
Please know that we do thank God for the important role you have in the lives of our children and Sekela. Without your sponsorship and invaluable prayers, Sekela and our children would not have the practical and spiritual support that they do need.
On behalf of Sekela and our children, we say “Asante sana na Mungu akubariki!” – “Thank you very much and God bless you!”
With sincerest thanks and much love in Him
Darlene and Henry Matarrita
Directors, World Mission Outreach
Maara Heather
General Manager-Director, Naomi Ruth Bread of Life Orphan Centers