River Of God
ROG Children’s Center is located in the city of Chimoio, Provence of Manica, Mozambique surrounded by breathtaking mountain views, and nearly an hours drive to the boarder of Zimbabwe. The children’s center has naturally expanded with new buildings, children, and team members from it’s small beginnings of four children that were left at our door in September 2008. There are currently 20 children and youth being cared for by our team of workers and missionaries.
There are three houses at the center, two of them are full of kids. The third house is getting furnished with beds and lockers for more boys. We are in an ongoing process of interviewing family members of orphaned and vulnerable children in order to provide the best aid and housing for children in need. We celebrate and pray together each time new children move in and adapt to life inside the center. We plan to continue developing children’s housing for up to 40 boys and 10 girls. We dream of building more houses, school/training rooms, and guests rooms in the future so that the Children’s center becomes a Children’s Village and a Worship & ministry training center.
Looking to the Future
We constantly look to the children’s individual futures and the future of the center as the family expands. We pray that they are happy to remain in the center until they complete high school or are successfully re-integrated into a substitute family. The Brandon and Todd’s Boys houses, girls’ house, playground, and kitchen are built on one-third of a spacious 150X150 meter property with lots of land to cultivate and develop. The other two-thirds of the land is partially used for a vegetable garden, a maize field, and space to raise chickens. It is ideal for new buildings and new projects for the sustainability of the center, and our dream of strengthening and expanding programs that impact the surrounding community.
Some of our ideas for sustainability for the center are to produce meat, eggs, vegetables, and grain for the kitchen use in the ROG Children’s center. We also dream of having a bakery at the center, and building a comfortable and secure group of houses for missionaries and a lovely worship building that may be rented as a source of income for the normal costs and upkeep for the children’s center.
Impacting Local & International Communities
We reach out to our staff and the local community through mercy ministry outreaches in the prison and hospital, and a weekly meal with street children. We spend time in fellowship, group prayer, one-on-one prayer, evangelism, and youth worship meetings. We also teach on fun subjects like Prayer and worship, Inner Healing, deliverance, prophetic ministry, and soaking in the Spirit.
We partner with leaders of 35 local Iris Ministries bush churches that run with Iris Ministries heart of ‘stopping for the one’ and loving the unlovely. The Mozambican church leaders lead simple lives, and yet they care for the poorest of the poor.