Photos from Zimbabwe







Rural Village

Our Guest House

Our Guest House

"Nothing But the Blood" in Ndebelle Hymnal

A School in Mawabeni

A School in Mawabeni

A School in Mawabeni

A School in Mawabeni

A School in Mawabeni

A School in Mawabeni

A School in Mawabeni

Walking in the Neighborhood





Walking in Town

The Soup Kitchen

The Soup Kitchen

How Deep The Father's Love For Us

How deep the Father's love for us,

How vast beyond all measure

That He would give His only Son

To make a wretch His Treasure

These song lyrics have been in my head, as well as several other teammates, for the past week and a half. With every day that passes, it seems He shows me more and more what this even means. For the past two days we've been going to a school called Lighthouse Christian Academy. LCA is a school for kids that are considered vulnerable in some way, many of them being orphaned. Most if not all of these kids are way behind in school for various reason so they are on a special accelerated program for their schoolwork. This school is such a blessing! They go above and beyond teaching them or catching them up on their schoolwork. They even pay one of the girls to make the daily porridge so that she can attend school and still help provide for her family. Without this, she would be forced to quit school all together and more likely than not, resort to selling her own body as a means of making money. The one thing that is different in this school from many of the other places we've visited, is that these teenagers know that they are loved, and not just by the staff. While we were there one of the boys wanted to sing and play guitar and worship with us. Of course we all loved the idea, but we had no idea of the blessing he was about to be. He immediately began singing of God's love for him. He did not just simply sing words of how great God's love is, he meant them with every part of him and it was so very obvious. He then decided to share a song with us that he wrote. This part blew us away. This 17 year old orphan, who was still on about a 6th or 7th grade education level began to sing that even without the love of an earthly father or mother, even when his sisters and his brothers abandoned him, he would praise God for the vastness of His love that covered all that could ever go wrong in his life. He thanked him for his trials because "through this I found Your love". It's one thing to sing and know that God's love is enough even if we lost everything we had and everyone we loved, but it's another thing to actually lose it all and still come out on the other side saying, "God, you can take away even more, and I will still praise you!" He showed us more and blessed us more than we could have ever done for him.

"that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have the strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."

Ephesians 3:17b-19

Living With A Little Less

One thing that I've learned in the short time I've been in Africa is how little we actually need things. Even though I am mostly in a city setting, things that we consider necessities like daily running water and power, aren't always available here. And I love it! We only have running water 4 days of the week, and power 5, but even when we do, we use it as sparingly as possible due to shortages in the country. We've already become used to washing our clothes by hand in a small tub and hanging them to dry. We cook our food over a small gas stove while in the city, but anywhere else we just cook it over a fire, and we have it good The people here aren't worried about having a hot, 20 minute shower everyday, or having the convience of an electric stove or microwave, and they certainly aren't worried about having a working washer. The only kind of dryer they sell  here is two poles and a wire. Not everyone has a cell phone, and even those who do use it sparingly as minutes are not cheap and few people have an actual plan. There's no McDonald's on the corner, or Walmart to run in and just get whatever you want or need. People here have to be very resourcefull, and they just make do with what they have, not worrying too much about what they don't. And again, I'm in a larger city in Africa the majority of the time. I find myself being convicted daily of how materialistic I am, and how much our society puts importance on having lots of "things". I can be so worried about having "necessities" that aren't necessary at all, when I should know that God tells us He will provide for His children. Basically, I'm spoiled rotten.

"Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity than a rich man who is crooked in his ways" Proverbs 28:6

"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?" Matthew 6:25-27

Prayer Requests

There are so many different things that I could ask for prayer for, but I want to share some that are especially on my heart, as well as the rest of my team.

A Deeper Understanding
Our missionary here made the comment "The gospel goes wide here, but it doesn't go deep." the first day that we arrived. With every different ministry we've helped with I've found that this is so true. Little kids grow up singing church songs much like we do singing "Jesus Loves the Little Children" and "This Little Light of Mine", but don't really ever learn the deeper meanings of what they sing. The adults are just the same. They can tell you that Jesus loves them, that God is the only God, but it doesn't go much deeper than that. A concept like how deep God's love truly is for us, or even that Jesus didn't just die for sin, but thier sin, is so foreign to them, and very hard for them to understand. Because of this a lot of people claim to be Christians because they "know who Jesus is" but there is no personal relationship with Him. Please pray that we well be able to help people understand on a much deeper level Christ's love for them, and that they will begin pursuing a personal relationship with him.

True Love Waits
There is one particular place that is very heavy on the whole team's minds right now. This is somewhere  that we've visited a few times. There are about 65 kids there ranging from 4yr.-20yr. and it is way understaffed. The last time we were there we were helping them clean up and pick trash up while the kids were at school. While doing this we discovered a hidden mattress on the ground behind some storage buildings and some items that don't belong anywhere in this place. This broke our hearts, but it also started a fire in them. We've done some bible studies every time we have visited, but as it has been for everyone at the same time, this is a subject that's inappropriate to just bring up. We're going to talk to some people in the next couple days to see if it would be possible to do a mini true love waits study with the older kids. Many of the girls have been through some kind of sexual abuse, and feel as if the only love they receive is when they give themselves away sexually. Many of us girls on the team have been given testimonies of how God can completely restore and heal you physically and spiritually, and we're hoping to get the chance to share that with these youth. So please pray for open doors!

A Special Request
Our van driver for the entire summer is named Request, and he's lost. He sings every "church song" he knows with us, he even teaches us some we don't know, but he has never walked into a church and he doesn't have a personal relationship with God. We've invited him to church every time he takes us, and his attitude about it is lightening up, but he still hasn't accepted. He's also opened up to letting us pray with and for him every time we get off the van. Please pray that we will be an example of Christ's love every single time that we step foot on that van, through our attitudes, our words, and our actions. Pray that he will see Christ through us, and that he will come to have a personal relationship with our Heavenly Father.

I thank you all for the love and support, and the many many prayers I know you've already prayed!

 

Our Traditional African Dinner

Monday night the half of the team that goes to PS Baptist on Sundays were invited for a traditional African dinner at the pastor's house. The whole church family was there to help prepare our meal and fellowship with us. We all crammed into an itty bitty house with hardly any room, but a whole lot of welcome. They had no electricity and the sun goes down around 5:30-6 here, so we ate a candle lit dinner, and kept each other warm in the tight space. The menu was:

• Fried chicken (not exactly like ours, but still good!)
• Butter nut squash (my favorite!)
• coleslaw
• rice with a potato, beef stew to go on top
• cooked cabbage and carrots
• a spinach and peanut butter dish
• okra (they cook it very very very slimy)
• boiled chicken legs
• sadza of course (this is their staple. It's a very fine meal that they cook like instant mashed potatoes, a good bit stiffer though.  It's tasteless, but filling. They usually eat it with something like stew or veggies.)
• macimbi worms (no, not actually worms... caterpillars!)

Most of the meal was very good, even better than we expected. Some of it was... well, I tried everything, and I'm glad I did. But I wouldn't mind if I wasn't offered a select dish or two again. A few of my team members practiced the missionary's prayer, "Lord, if I get this down, please keep it down!", but it was a very good experience. While we were there they also taught us some more Indebelle. We learned how to say "my name is'" "I'm from'" "I stay in'" and "What's up." They also gave us all African names. In African the names are given based on the meanings of them, not how they sound. Sometimes it's a name given for the hardship the family had during the pregnancy, sometimes for what the child means to them. Regardless, every name has a meaning so it was fun to watch them figure out a fitting name for each of us. Tanner was givien Ngqabutho. It's a name for the first born son and is a sign of respect and honor. It has a click in it and I can't even try to pronounce it. But he was more than ecstatic with his click and practiced it for two hours untill he had it down pat. He's the only one of us who has even sightly learned how to click. Ashely was given Nobukhasi (no-boo-koe-see) which means, "Mother of royalty." Taylor got Sibusisiwe (see-boo-sissy-way) which they also call Boosy for short. It means "We are blessed." Amanda was given Slethemba (see-le-tim-ba) or Timba for short, which means, "We have hope." I was given Nokuthula (no-goo-too-la) which means "Mother of peace." Overall the night was wonderfull, and filled with a lot of fun and laughter!

Week One

Week one has flown by so fast! So far we've been able to help with a soup kitchen, go to a relocation camp, experience three different church services, visit a local hospital, and my favorite, two orphanages! The week was filled with so many different things but I'll highlight the most memorable parts of the week, and what God shown me.

 Our church services

The team has been split up into two groups of six to go to two different churches throughout the summer for Sunday morning and Wednesday night service. My group will be attending P.S Baptist Church and I'm already in love with the people. There are about 10-15 members of the church not including us makiwas (white people). The church is just one tin wall and a tin roof held up by some wood and with some feed sacks sewn together for two additional walls, but man is it a church. These people come together and praise and worship God with a joy I've never seen before in such a small group and are so hungry for the word! Their Sunday morning service starts at 9:00 with about 1 1/2 hours of worship, followed by a 2 1/2 hour sermon with personal testimonies mixed in. But the crazy part is NO ONE complains. No one gets too tired, too hungry, or too restless for the word of God. They are there to glorify Him, and that is exatly what they do. We also have attended BBC for a youth service on Sunday nights and have partnered with them in most of our ministry. This is a rather large, mulitcultural church, and a rare sight in Africa. Actually, this church would be a rare sight in America too. They exemplify the body of Christ more than I have ever seen in a church. They have an outreach for every possible ministry, and are never lacking in help for them. They reach out to the homeless, the orphans, the widows, the elderly, the sick, youth, families, litterally every category you can think of. But what really amazes me is the attitude that they have while doing it, and the fact that the WHOLE church is involved. I've seen so many people sacrifice their time, money, convenience, and all sorts of things just to reach out to someone. Anyone. They work together effortlessly, and are so willing and ready to help out any ministry that needs them. It's unbelievable and so challenging. I'm very excited to continue to work with them this summer.

 The children.

 Oh. My. Goodness. I'm in love! Anyone surprised? I would love to spend all day every day with these precious kids. For these children to end up in one of these orphanages they have to go through a whole system, similar to ours, where they are first placed with an extended family member if possible, and if not, they go to the community (which is like the extended family here). If that isn't possible, they become available for adoption in general, and then after a certain time they are "institutionalized", or in other words, placed in an orphanage. These children have been turned away multiple times before they get to this point. Some of them are old enough to know it, some of them aren't. But what gets to me, is the joy they find in the simplest of things despite any of their circumstances. All it takes is for a couple of mikiwas to come and tell them a Bible story and spend some time with them and their faces are LIT UP for the rest of day. They trusted us almost immediately. They have faith that we're going to come back and see them, that when they jump into our arms, we'll catch them. And they just met us. Such a reminder to have childlike faith.

The Beginning of my Adventure

On the way to Africa I thought a lot about the people and especially the orphans that I will be ministering to this summer. I couldn't help but remember though, that I am not an orphan, I have in fact been adopted. Ephesians 1:5 says that In love, God predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will. Not only did Christ die for my sins, but through Him I have become an adopted child into the family of God. No longer should I have a spirit of fear, but I can cry out "Abba!" to my heavenly father.(Romans 8:15) Is that beautiful or what? My goal this summer is not just to minister to these people by meeting their physical needs, but to show them the gospel. The gospel that tells them that they too, can be adopted into a family far greater than any here on earth!