Vic Gillons trip to Mozambique
When Victor Gillon first visited Africa in 1998, he had a feeling that one day he would be going back for more than a fleeting visit. Now, ten years and five visits later, this is coming to fulfilment as Victor makes plans to go out to the House of the Sparrow in Mozambique in February for six months to work with HIV/AIDS orphans.
Victor, who is a care worker at Cromwell House, has been to Zimbabwe three times, Malawi once and Mozambique once, mostly with teams from New Hope Christian Centre, of which he is a member. Earlier this year he went for three weeks to Mozambique and, although based at a mission in Maforga, made frequent visits to Nhamatanda where the House of the Sparrow is based – about two hours from the port of Beira. He was struck with how poor Mozambique is, particularly compared to the Zimbabwe of ten, or even four, years ago. But the children won his heart and he is sponsoring two of them – both called Antonio – who live at the orphanage.
Victor home-studied theology with the Open Theological College between 2000 and 2007, and last year graduated at a ceremony in Cheltenham. “After seven years of studying, I can now put it to good use teaching in Africa,” he said. He expects the work to be a mixture of practical – such as helping improve some of the buildings – and teaching, as well as befriending the children and spending time with them. “Last time, I took them a football which went down extremely well,” he said. “This time I want to take some board games and material to help them with their English.” Mozambique is of course Portuguese-speaking, though some of the older boys speak reasonable English and they are keen to learn more. “The older ones can act as interpreters for the younger ones,” said Victor.
Victor is a Trustee of WORD, headed by Everjoice Makuve, and in both Zimbabwe and Malawi Victor was able to visit food aid projects run by Word. “In Malawi, we saw this line of little children queuing up with plastic plates for their weekly high-protein meal. We were able to add some support which meant the children got more than one of these meals a week to supplement their very basic diet.”
Victor will be on a pretty basic diet himself at the orphanage, though they do keep a few goats and chickens and Pastor Daniel, who runs the House of the Sparrow, has a vegetable patch. Will he miss England? “Not very much!” he said, “Friends, family and church and watching football on TV perhaps.” Does he have any great expectations? “It will be nice not to have the pressure of work here but instead to work in a more relaxed environment. I hope to have time to deepen my relationship with God and also to enjoy getting to know the children.”
If anyone is able to give some basic Portuguese lessons to Victor, and to one or two others who plan to go on shorter trips to Mozambique next year, please could they contact him via New Hope on 01603 617905. And if anyone is interested in joining one of these trips, Victor and the people at New Hope will be very pleased to hear from them
Picture Vic Gillon in Mozambique |
