Tandridge/Edenbridge Chronicle May 2012


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5 Baubles bring cheer to orphans in Tanzania


A REPORTER once pointed out to Mother Theresa that her tireless work with some of the world’s poorest people was just a drop in the ocean. Mother Theresa wisely replied: “Yes you are right but the ocean is made up of drops”.


That is exactly the view of an Edenbridge church congregation, which is adding a few more drops to help relieve that vast ocean of need by raising money towards a new orphanage in Tanzania. People from the Eden Baptist Church have already managed to collect the cash to buy a plot of land in Dodoma and last Christmas raised enough to purchase the bricks needed to construct the building. And it’s all thanks to an ingenious money making idea conceived by one member of the congregation about 10 years ago. John Nichols took up the challenge posed by one of the church’s pastors to take a £10 note and multiply it for a worthy cause. John went out and bought some baubles with the idea of selling them for £10 each. The baubles would then be hung on the church’s Christmas tree. The scheme was a great success and the church has staged a Bauble Appeal every year since then, raising money for many different causes such as Send a Cow and orphanages in Romania and the Lebanon. Then in Christmas 2010 it was decided


to collect money to help set up an orphanage in Dodoma. A total of £1,750 was needed for the land – that money was raised and the land purchased.


Last Christmas the goal was £2,450 to buy 3,000 bricks and amazingly £2,800 was raised from the sale of the baubles. The connection with Dodoma has come through church member David Adamson, a former missionary in Tanzania, who had accompanied Pastor Graham Wood on his sabbatical to the country in 2010. David was overwhelmed with the enormity of the problems there and the huge impact on the orphans over the last few years.


“I had met a Tanzanian lady called


Veronica Mvuyekule in 2008,” David explained. “She was already looking after orphans but didn’t have a place for them to live. The idea is for her to be involved in the orphanage when it is built.” Called the Aljeco Home Organisation, the idea came from David’s friend Allan Conrad from Denmark, who he had tracked down at the Mission Aviation Fellowship – a Christian organisation, which operates over 135 aircraft to bring physical and spiritual care across 35 countries.


David introduced Allan to Veronica and he has been helping her ever since. “People may say what we are doing is a drop in the


Work is


progressing on the site of the new Aljeco orphanage in Dodoma, Tanzania


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David Adamson with Pastor Graham Wood in Tanzania


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ocean,” David said. “We cannot save the world but we should do what we are able to do instead of just thinking the task is so enormous and there is nothing we can do to change the situation.”


The orphanage is also being helped by a church and a company in the Netherlands and it is hoped the first stage of the project will be up and running by the end of the dry season in November. For more information about the project visit www.edenchurch.edenkent.org or www.aljeco.com.


Thursday 24th May Talks at 11am–1pm & 2pm–4pm


David Clegg explains the background to the Trebus Projects and talks about the benefits of life story work and the opportunities and challenges of supporting creativity in care settings.


Summer Open Morning


Friday 18th May 2012, 9.30am – 12 noon


Contact Nick Tappin on: 01883 733889 or registrar@hazelwoodschool.com


www.hazelwoodschool.co.uk


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