Week 43 (Our Final Week)
Progress Report for Hope CentreI guess that this is the news that most of you have been waiting to hear. Pastor Leonard, his children and some of the orphans have now moved into and are living in the three houses.
We, as a family, left Bujumbura, Burundi, last Friday and arrived in Lancaster on Saturday where we are now living in a rented house. We feel so blessed to be living here as the area is beautiful. Many that know us in the Westhill area (Aberdeenshire) will hopefully get a chance see us when we make a visit to Westhill this weekend. We are so looking forward to seeing our friends again and thanking them personally for all their support.
We may now be living in the UK but we are far from finished with Burundi. It will always be on our hearts and there will always be much to do there. We hope to be able to return there from time to time as our finances allow and give more support to the
Hope Centre orphanage - but that is not all, as the planned vocational school and clinic will be important projects to try to get started as these are desperately needed by the local community in Gatumba.
We trust that with us not now living there you will still continue to remember
Hope Centre and continue to support it in whatever way you can. If possible we will still try and keep you up-to-date with weekly progress reports of the work but, more importantly, how the children are getting on in their new homes.
So how was our last weekWell our last week was very busy but all our mzungu friends and Burundian friends were brilliant. Our church gave us a great send off, we had a lovely Indian meal with a family who have become good friends, Simon and Lizzie had an evening get together of all our friends to say goodbye and our church Pastor also did the same and gave us parting gifts.
It's amazing how things change. Most of our boys were desperate to leave Burundi all through the first three/four months of being there but after returning to Burundi at Christmas things changed. Basically they began to make good friends and this week Matthew would have been happy to stay in Burundi without us being with him. When we were at the airport our Samuel received a call from one of his school friends to say that a few of them were coming to say goodbye. In fact they hired a bus and a large group of them came to say goodbye to him. That was so amazing.
Beds for Hope CentreBasically all the important work that was required to allow Pastor Leonard, his family and many of the orphans to move in to the three houses was completed. We started to bring all the bedding and clothes to the homes along with the curtains etc. All this stuff was donated before we left the UK and much of it had been in the container.
Some money had been specifically donated for Pastor Leonard and his wife to get a new bed. Until now they have just been sleeping on a grass mat on the floor. As for the children's bunk beds, the children of Crombie Primary School in Westhill raised £1,000 for these so we were looking around for the best prices for all of these. Some money was also donated for some tables and chairs.
In this photo Pastor Leonard is bartering for the best price for the bunk bed matresses:
In this photo Pastor Leonard is bartering for the best price for his own bed:
On Thursday all the beds and matresses arrived:
Val is sorting through all of the bedding and curtains that you all donated.
We put Pastor Leonard's bed together first:
We found a person who made all the bunk beds. No Ikea here so we were concerned that the completed bunk beds would not fit through the doors so we had them deliver them in sections to be made up in each room. All of these arrived on the Thursday and were erected so that the children could move in and sleep in
Hope Centre on Thursday evening which they did. A soon as the first bed was ready we let some of the children come in and have a look. There was a lot of excitement in the air.
All three houses have running water, showers, toilets and sinks which will make all the difference. Although Pastor Leonard's house has been completely wired for electricity the connection hasn't been made yet but hopefully they will do this soon.
Here are all the bunk beds and two single beds which arrived on site in kit form to be erected in the children's bedrooms:
You can see here how good house two and three are looking. Security is a bit of an issue with the there not yet being a stone wall around the property and the original temporary matting fence now deteriorating. Some of the matting is blowing in the wind like a flag, leaving the site open for anyone to come in. We do have two night watchmen who also stay on site over the weekends but they will now really need to replace the matting until the wall has been built and the remaining houses are completed. All this costs money so please keep raising the money for this project and letting others know about it.
It is really amazing what has been achieved here in a relatively short time and in a poor country such as Burundi. You are all so much part of this and again we have to thank you for your generosity:
Earlier in the week we had many of the children of
Hope Centre come to the site for a photo opportunity and for us to get up to date individual pictures of all the children. Here they are outside house number one:
After we took each child's individual photo we gave them a bar of UK chocolate. Most of them had no idea what to do with it as they will probably never have had chocolate:
Vincent put together some really sturdy shelves in the main cupboard for all the bedding and clothes:
Val and I wanted to have photo of ourselves at the site on our last day. We have been amazed how good Africa has been for our heath. We were never really ill and generally felt better heath-wise than we would have been here in the UK. Ironically I haven't been all that well since returning to the UK. I guess that my body is now not used to the toxins that build up with eating fast foods etc:
Here are a couple of our friends that came to say fair well. Seth (looking very smart in his new hand-made suit) and Trina:
Here is Simon Guillebaud torturing John in the evening that he gave us a fair well meal:
Continued support still required:Can I just say that it is great how many of you have donated or been involved with this project in some way however there is still much to be done and, even after the houses are complete, there is still the need for a vocational school and clinic in the Gatumba community. This, however, only scratches the surface of the problem here in Burundi so please encourage many more people to get on board and find ways to help where they can. This requires a lot of sacrifice with your time and money but every little bit of help goes a long way.
Please continue to give of your time and money to this project and other projects like this.
House no 1 = funds already in hand for completion
House no 2 = funds already pledged
House no 3 = funds already pledged
House no 4 = £7,000
House no 5 = £10,000
House no 6 = £10,000
The actual cost will be more like £18,000. This is if we make all the blocks ourselves but if we substitute clay bricks for the inside walls then we may be able to bring this down a fair bit.
Total to Complete all of the Houses = £43,000
The following is also required:
Water to the site: MI has temporarily forwarded the funds for this
There is mains water available in Gatumba and to have this piped to the site will be = £2,200. Work will begin on this this week but we still need the funds to come in for this.
Electricity to the site:
There is mains electricity available in Gatumba and to have this delivered to the site will be = still to be confirmed.
N.B: We have been given prices between £1,500 and £10,000 by the electricity company so we haven't been able to confirm a realistic price yet.
The latest quote this week is £4,200
Workman's/Security Guard's Hut:
Basically everyone has employed workers that act as security guards and do general gardening and repairs etc. The cost of employing someone to do this is only a few pounds a week. They are normally provided with a place where they can rest and get cover from the rain and get cleaned up after a days work. We have already put the foundations in along with the necessary plumbing for a small workman's hut. We will still need to build this up above the foundations. It will be a very basic construction. This is over and above what we were originally requesting but now that we are here we see that this is an essential for Hope Centre security. Money required to complete = £1200
Perimeter Walls:
At the moment we have a temporary building site type fence surrounding the whole of Hope Centre. This has been very successful for providing some sort of security for the site however this can't be a permanent arrangement. We had hoped that Pastor Leonard would be able to try and raise the required finances to build a perimeter wall but, although he has been successful in getting trees and exoneration certificates etc, this one may be a bit of a problem for him. So we would also like to try and raise the additional funds to build a very basic wall built with stones and red earth. This is pointed with cement later. This is a system that is commonly used here and can last many years. If possible we would like to be building this wall now.
The estimated cost is reported to be: £2,800
Outside Cooking Area:
Cooking is normally done outside with charcoal on a small charcoal burner. It is not practical to do this inside so we will need to provide each house with a small covered area, just to the rear of each property for cooking. These will be very simple constructions and the cost of these will be = £300 each.
Outside Toilets:
Included within the area that we have built the houses on is a large piece of ground situated within the area where the trees have been planted. This will be a great area for the children to play ball games etc in the relative safety of the Hope Centre grounds. Each of the houses will have a toilet but we have already put the foundations in, along with the required plumbing, for an outside toilet block with a shower. This will stop the children from traipsing in and out of the houses. Outside toilets are more commonly used here than inside toilets. The additional cost for this will be = Still to be confirmed.
Non-GiftAid Donations: 
GiftAid Donations: 
Here are different ways to contact us in BurundiEmail:
Val Carr = vcarr@HopeCentreBurundi.com
Charles Carr = ccarr@HopeCentreBurundi.com
New Mobile Phone Numbers:
Val Carr: (00257) 79239810
Charles Carr (00257) 79239809
Our New House Phone Number:
Use this number sequence and you will only pay 4p per minute.
Dial: 08444 287287 & wait for a voice and then..
Dial: 00257 22259608Please email us and let us know if you don't manage to contact us on these numbers.
Pastor Leonard
Pastor Leonard's StoryPastor Leonard was born in 1971, the youngest of five children. His parents were killed in a mass killing of their ethnic group in 1972. The children struggled to survive and look after each other for many years.
As a teenager Leonard was full of hatred and wanted to avenge the killing of his parents, but he became a
Christian when he was 18 and was able to meet and forgive those who had killed his parents. He felt God told him clearly that he was to look after others who were orphaned as he had been.
At the time his circumstances did not allow him to do this, but he was ordained as a Pastor in 1996, and was able to take in his first orphan in 1997, just before he was married.
His wife partners him in this ministry and they now care for over 40 orphans in addition to their own three children.
Around about April this year Pastor Leonard's land-lord for the house that he was staying in asked Pastor Leonard and all the family and children to move out of the property which they were renting. Obviously this was an impossible situation for them. Latterly Pastor Leonard managed to negotiate a compromise with the land lord whereby his immediate family and a few of the orphans could stay in the property until his house was built. This meant that the remaining orphans had to be farmed out to friends that would be willing to take them. Pastor Leonard continues to provide food and clothing for these children which is now even more difficult for him. Thankfully though you have helped him greatly with your regular child support donations.
February 13, 2009, 07:09:39 PM
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