Thankfulness

HAPPY BELATED TURKEY DAY!!
Well we have past the halfway mark for our time here in Zimbabwe and in the spirit of the American holiday that we celebrated ourselves on Thursday on a small “date night,” we are so THANKFUL. Now, we must admit that we are not thankful every moment of every day here, as you have seen, but as a whole, we are so very thankful for our time here in Zimbabwe. Thankful for the people we have formed relationships with, thankful for the places we have been able to see, thankful for the opportunities we have had to bring the Gospel to many people here, and thankful for being able to use our gifts in helping people here learn how to counsel and lead for God’s glory.

Where we left off on the blog last week, we were preparing to go to another “bush” area of Zimbabwe. The plan was to head out on Thursday, and we did end up heading out, but not to where we thought we were going :-). Before going into more detail though, I must tell you about our day in the slums of Harare!! On Tuesday afternoon we went to Mbare, basically the projects of Harare. Lots of old buildings that house hundreds of people in very unsanitary conditions. We went to Mbare because in our time here, we met a young teenage boy who lives there. This boy, Noel, has decided that he wants to leave his life of drugs and live for God. We were able to talk with and pray with Noel one night at Tatenda and Lucia’s house. During that talk, we decided that it would be good to come and spend some time in Mbare, meeting Noel’s friends and introducing as many people as possible to Jesus. Noel was so excited about this, because he feels very alone amongst his friends now that he is changing his life. So last Tuesday afternoon, we brought a soccer ball and the Jesus Film and set up camp in a dirt open area, with trash and broken glass, in the middle of the “projects.” Lots of people came out to play and watch soccer and hundreds stayed to watch the Jesus Film at night. Justin played soccer with some unbelievable players, and I tried to entertain about 200 children (a difficult task in Mbare, let alone with the language barrier :-)). The whole experience was even more eye-opening to the poverty and need of the people here – physically and spiritually. We are hoping to get back there again before leaving and when we are able to buy some Bibles, one is definitely getting in the hands of Noel. Pray for him. Check out some of the pics on the Picassa Album of Week 5 Pics.
So, Wednesday we did more ministry around Harare, we visited a pre-school (check out the pics in the album, so cute!), Justin did a leadership training at one of the churches, and then on Thursday we were ready to leave for the “bush.” Like I mentioned earlier, we did leave, but not for the bush. We ended up heading southwest of Harare to three towns along the main road to Bulawayo (the 2nd biggest city in Zimbabwe). We had never been to this area before, so we were pretty excited, and it was just us and one of the pastors in this area as our guide, so we felt pretty adventurous and independent. However, maybe we probably should have asked more questions about this area, because apparently not everywhere outside of Harare in Zimbabwe is hot like all the other places we have been. It rained almost the whole weekend here and was even cold at times. We were kicking ourselves just a bit for only packing flipflops and clothes for extreme heat. Oops! Except for that, the weekend was awesome, jam-packed with goodness. The pastor that accompanied us lives in Kwekwe, so that is where we spent the three nights. He and his wife were super hospitable, which was so inspiring when seeing how simply they live.
So, while being based out of Kwekwe, we did lots of things. Friday we stayed in Kwekwe (technically, a township of Kwekwe, Torwood), Saturday we traveled to Gweru for the day, and Sunday we stopped in Chegutu for the day on our way back to Harare. Throughout this time, we showed the Jesus Film two and a half nights in Kwekwe (one night it just was raining too hard, so we had to end it early) and crowds as large as 500 people stood around the town center to learn more about Jesus which was amazing! In all three places, we attended some church services where Justin preached, and we each did trainings for the leadership and caregivers of the churches. I did a counseling training and Justin did a leadership training. It was great meeting the people of these churches and we are looking forward to reconnecting with them at the December Conference when all the churches of Eternal Word come together for four days in Harare. In Gweru, we formed such a bond with them, that we received our first live thank you gift…..a chicken! It came home with us in a box and we left it with the pastor who was our guide for the weekend. I did get my picture taken with it though!
This week we have been doing a lot of office work as we are preparing for some larger trainings next week. I will be doing a three-day counseling training to the top 10 coordinators of the orphan program here. They are hoping to open up a counseling center next year! Justin will be doing a one-day business training, focusing on micro-enterprise to 10 selected people, and then he will spend the rest of the week working with their accountant helping them organize their books and creating some organizational structures for the church and their non-profit. Yeah, I’m glad I get to do a counseling training!
Please pray for these trainings and Justin’s work with their organizational framework and record keeping. We are so thankful to have a community of people behind us in this! Thank you for your prayers and support. We value you all so much and are so THANKFUL for you! We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday with friends and family and continue to have a great holiday weekend! We did end up having a delicious “date night” thanksgiving dinner at Leonardo’s, an Italian restaurant close to where we are staying. So we didn’t get any turkey or mashed potatoes (my fave), but we did have some great salad and pasta (which we don’t get a lot of here) and even ice cream for dessert! And that is totally something to be thankful for! :-)