MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Weeks 7, 8, and 9 Picasa Photo Album

We miss you all! The last few weeks have been great, but busy... so just a Photo Album and captions this week.:-) Thanks for all the prayers! ~ J & K

Zim Weeks 7, 8, and 9 - Trainings, Ochocki's Visit, and J's Haircut!

Week 5 Picasa Web Album

Zimbabwe Week 5

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! :-)

The Plight of the Orphans

We don't have a lot of time to spend on the Internet today so we'll post a blog later this week with details of our adventure this past weekend. It was jam-packed goodness! Oh we ended up going to a different place than we thought we were going too (surprised?).
In the meantime, if you get a chance, take a look at this article. In light of some of the counseling training I (Krista) was able to do this past weekend and will do a lot of next week, I thought it would be fitting. A very dear friend of mine sent it to me and I think it does a very good job of giving people an idea about what is going on in Zimbabwe and the need for counseling. The people we are working with, Tatenda and Lucia, would like to eventually open a counseling center as well, which as you will tell from the article, would be filling a huge need.
Okay, here it is.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8349788.stm

Zimbabwe Week 4 Web Album

Zimbabwe Week 4 - Hatcliff Visit and Kotwa Trip

Hitting the One Month Mark!

We have now officially been here for over a month! Here is what we did this past week:
This past week we got to participate and help out with a lot of really cool things. And for one of the first weeks, we did a lot of it on our own which was cool. On Wednesday we went to another orphan “feeding,” kinda like their version of a soup kitchen for orphans in the communities that they have a church and an orphan program in place. This time we went to Hatcliff (check out the four pics in this blog and more on picasa). There were the fewest number of children at this feeding, but this area is probably the poorest out of all the places we’ve been. The community was uprooted from their homes during the dangerous election time when Mugabe just transplanted several communities. So now these people live in makeshift shacks with walls of cardboard and plastic. There is no plumbing or electricity and when it rains, their home definitely gets wet and begins to wear down. The children here were so sweet and it was a precious time. We want to go back to this place and also think and pray about how we can help this group of people. I mean, just some bricks for them to start building some actual structures to live in would be a huge blessing! Make sure to check out the Picasa album for all the pictures!
Then on Tuesday and Wednesday nights we went to minister in another area around Harare, Glen Norah. Here we met up with a pastor and his family (two really cute kids, named Praise God and Worship God….Praise and Worship :-)) to show the Jesus Film to people in his community. Tuesday night the sound wasn’t working, but Justin and our friend Danmore were able to get everything working again for Wednesday night. It was really cool to meet this family, hang out with his kids (the little boy, Praise was attached to my hip both nights), and watch God work through a film that was created many years ago.
The highlight of Thursday, especially for me (Krista), was going on a run with some of the kids at the orphanage where we are living. After a pretty relaxing day of getting ready to go to Mozambique by running some errands and getting supplies, we came home and around 5:00pm took 9 kids on a little run with us. One of the youngest kids here, Energy, even came with us, and definitely lived up to his name. Most of them ran barefoot and still kept up with us! Halfway through the run we stopped and even did some exercises like lunges and jumping-jacks :-). I loved it! I wish we had pictures of this, but we didn’t take the camera. We’ll just have to do it again and get some pics to share.
Friday we left for Mozambique…..or that was what we thought. Remember how a PLAN is just a PLAN….well, we ended up not actually going into Mozambique :-). We went to Kowta which is just 15 minutes from the Mozambique boarder, but when we got there, we found out that we would just be staying in Kowta for the weekend and doing some stuff there. At first, we were frustrated, especially since Lucia decided to head back to Harare and we would be there by ourselves. BUT, it actually ended up being one of our favorite weekends so far (funny how God does that)!! We stayed with the pastor of the Kowta church and the overseer of the whole province in that area and his family. His wife is a certified counselor and they have two super cute kids. They were extremely hospitable and did everything to make us feel welcome and comfortable, which at times was a difficult task because Kowta is another very HOT place :-). This time around, I brought my fan which I had blowing on my face all night long! Anyway, they are great people and we would love to go back there someday and work with them again! Saturday we both did some training for the leadership and orphan program coordinators in the Kowta area. Justin did about 2 hours on Leadership, which was really good, and I did a 2 hour counseling training which went well too (check out the pic). The people were so appreciative and responsive! Then on Saturday night they had a special service just because we were there, and I got to preach. I’m learning to like preaching, but it still isn’t my favorite thing in the world :-). Anyway, I preached on the Parable of the Good Sower and how the condition of our heart determines how God’s truth will produce fruit in our lives. They really resonated with the idea of giving ALL areas of your life to God and His truth, which was really cool to see. Then on Sunday, Justin preached at their big church service. Two other churches from around the area came into the center of town because we were there, which meant some people walked 10K just to be there – crazy dedication! Justin did an awesome job preaching on the Kingdom of God and how we must be poor in spirit, like a child, and humble to enter into it. They loved it! (see the pic). Church was from 9:00am to about 1:00pm with lots of Praise and Worship, some testimonies, and prayer. We were able to pray for anyone there who wanted prayer as well, which was a huge honor.
After church, the pastor of Kowta and his wife who we stayed with (amazing family by the way – check out the pic), took us to go see the Mozambique boarder! So we drove 15 minutes north to the big gate and waved at Mozambique :-). That might be as close as we get this time around. Maybe we’re just not meant to go to Mozambique, who knows, but, I’m really glad we didn’t go this time, because our time with the people of Kowta was so wonderful and something we will remember for sure! After waving at the border and dropping the pastor back off at their home, we drove back to Harare. Justin is pretty much a pro now driving on the right side of the car and the left side of the road! We made it back to nice and cool Harare where we have electricity and running water, which becomes a huge blessing when you spend any time in hot places without it. This coming weekend we are supposed to head down south into the bush of Mwenezi. It’s about a 10-12 hour drive (we think). They are still working on getting a car and a guide to go with us (it’s the bush with lots of dirt roads so you need some kind of truck). We would love prayers for this trip! Thanks!