Facts of Zimbabwe Life Source: Unicef

• Average life expectancy in 1990 - 60
• Life expectancy now - 37
• Infant mortality rate 1990 (deaths per 1000 live births) - 53
• Infant mortality rate now - 81
• National income per person - $340
• 5.5 million Zimbabweans live with HIV
• 1.1 million children have been orphaned by AIDS
• 6 people in every 100 have a telephone, compared to 47 in South Africa
• 56% of the population earns less than $1 a day

The Presbytery of Yellowstone partnered with Denver Presbytery a couple of years ago to support the Zimbabwe Mission Partnership. Several years ago, after a mission trip to Zimbabwe, mission co-workers from Denver Presbytery began collecting usable goods that would normally have been thrown away. They are stored in a large overseas shipping container and once the container is full, the U.S. Department of Defense will ship the container to Zimbabwe as part of its humanitarian aid efforts.

Denver Presbytery also began supporting an orphanage and children's school called Heather Chimhoga Orphan Care. In the fall of 2008, under the leadership of Paul Nishangwe, the presbytery began the process of opening a health clinic in a local church in Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe.

St. Andrew serves as the collecting point for the Zimbabwe Mission Partnership in Yellowstone Presbytery. Usable goods for health and education, including Pentium II and faster computers, clothing, fabrics and just about anything that is clean and not worn out can be shipped.

Please bring your usable goods or financial donations to the church office during business hours:

• Monday-Thursday - 9am to 5pm;
  
  
• Friday - 9am to 12pm.

Excerpts from Chris McGreal, in the Guardian, Sat., March 17, 2007

"Among the many signs of a country sliding into chaos, one has largely gone unnoticed: Zimbabwe's morgues are filling up. It's not only that more people are dying, but also that the families of those who are cannot afford to pay their medical bills any longer. To escape them, relatives are registering the sick under false names. When they die, the bodies cannot be claimed.

The practice is just one of the increasingly desperate measures Zimbabweans are taking to survive in a collapsing economy where inflation runs at 1700% a year and the value of local currency can plummet in a few hours.

Savings were long ago wiped out but now even salaries are frequently worthless. It often costs more to pay the bus fare to work than people earn.

Many hospitals have lost more than half their doctors, and nurses often report to work no more than twice a week because they cannot afford the bus fares.

(The headman of Mandluntsha village, 88 year-old Ludidi Ntzombane says), "The threats (from Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party) are tied to food. They threaten not to give food to anyone who doesn't support Zanu-PF. That's the pressure; somebody who is not a member of Zanu-PF is regarded as an enemy of the government."