Here are Hudson and I working on the next proposal for Hudaga.  Now that the pre-school is going well, he has a few more things to get the farm going better including moving the poultry unit over to the farm from his house.  Then it is on to phase 3 of his project - start building the school on the farm for grade 1 through 4 for orphans and vulnerable kids.  This next step will take more prayer and more support from Africa Hope Mission, but God-willing, he hopes to have his first class of 20 first graders in school by January 2018!

Not sure where Hudson gets all the energy, but since my last visit he himself have adopted two kids.  Here is Terrence who we met last year - he was living with his vulnerable mother at the hospital because her mother was ill.  Now he is helping at the farm with Agatha and Hudson.  He is being supported in school and was number 8 out of 100 kids in testing for second grade!  Hudson also adopted a girl named Blessing who is 6 years old and living at their house. 

They had a good year for pigs and here are the new kids in town!  2 sows gave birth to 11 piglets!  He will raise them up, keep 3 sows for further breeding, hope to buy a male for getting different genes in his breed.  They have 3 sow now, ate the lone male and sold another female.  One of the 3 sows had babies that did not survive so they will also sell her.  If things keep going well, they hope to build another 4 stalls.  Besides all the bacon these guys provide, the poop has been an excellent fertilizer for the fields, saving costs there, and also used to mature the fish ponds. 

Here they are grinding the Kassava, which will be dried out, milled, then can be used as feed for the pigs or to make nshima, their staple food.  It takes 3 years for Kassava plants to mature - they do have a few fields where they mix Kassava plants with maize or nut production to save room.

We spent the day exploring Hudson's farm.  There was a good rainy season so crops did well.  Here his farm hand is holding Monkey Nuts - which are very marketable in Samfya.  They hope to make about $1000 for this crop.  They also raised Maize - half for consumption, half for sale, hoping to make about $400, along with pumpkin, sunflower, peanuts, Kassava, and some pineapple and sugar cane.  This month they will spend harvesting all their crops.

Hudaga PreSchool

Here is Hudson's son, Jeremiah, in front of Hudaga PreSchool.  They got the toilets fixed so were able to re-open the school in January and just finished their first term.  They are on a 2 week break, starting the second term early in May.  They have a class of 15, 12 of who are orphans, 3 paying clients.  This phase of the project is up and running, now on to Phase 3 - the school on the farm.

Samuchinwe Massage Group

Today I was able to meet up with Gabriel, Irene, and Davies who have been trained over the years by physical and massage therapist and have started a small business, Samuchinwe Massage and Physiotherapy Group.  They are seeing about 40 patients a quarter, usually at their home.  Through kind donations from Africa Hope Mission, we were able to professionalize their look a little more!  I met a client of theirs earlier in the day who had back of the head and neck pain.  He had never had a massage in his entire life and at first thought Gabriel was going to "Pop my head off!"   But after he was done the pain was gone and he said he felt "angelic."  They also described a patient we saw in the fall for their practical exam, Jeremiah, who had a severe stroke when we saw them in the fall.  Though they tried to encourage him to go seek further medical attention, the family never did and he sadly passed away recently.  So goes life in Zambia....sad.