Saturday, 13 April: Traveling to Maputo

I woke up a long time before I planned to get up for breakfast at 8:00 am. I struggled getting back to sleep. I'm not sure if it was the bed or the excitement of knowing that I'd be in Maputo later that night. Around 7:00 am as I laid there, I heard the gurgling sound of the tank of the toilet filling up. This meant we had water again. I would be able to take a hot bath. I got up to use the bathroom and discovered that the power was now out. TIA!

When 8:00 am finally rolled around, I went into the main house to the dining room for breakfast. For breakfast, Jake and I finished the cinnamon rolls Nancy had made earlier in the week. After we ate, Jake talked about the civil war after independence and what happened in the years following (see Gukurahundi).

Zimbabwe, for the most part, is split geographically by the Ndebele (20% of population) and Shona (70%) people groups. Most of the fighting during the war took place away from Matabeleland (provinces where the mission stations are located) and only a few guerrilla raids posed a threat to the missions. However, as the missionaries' terms expired, they were pulled out of the country at the request of the national church.

After the war, BICWM was slow to allow the missionaries to return. Many returned under different organizations such as MCC. Jake returned under the Zimbabwean church.

Though much of Matabeleland went untouched during the civil war, after the war things got much worse. The Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) political party rose to power under the leadership of Robert Mugabe. Mugabe was a part of the Shona tribe as much of ZANU was.

Despite being outnumbered nearly 4 to 1, the Ndebele people had the attitude that they could beat the Shona if it came to war. They were great warriors descended from the Zulu. Things eventually got to the point where the Ndebele gathered an army and marched on Bulawayo to fight the Shona army there. In Jake's opinion, the Shona were about to be humiliated. The Ndebele had amassed a large amount of firepower that included tanks. Before there was bloodshed, Joshua Nkomo, political leader for the Ndebele intervened to stop the oncoming battle. No one is quite sure why he did it, but the days were about to get even darker for those living in Matabeleland.

To keep the Ndebele people in line, a special detachment of the army called the Fifth Brigade was created. They were essentially the Zimbabwean equivalent of the Cold War era Kremlin. Their sole existence was to strike fear in the eyes and hearts of the Ndebele people. They began in the Pumula region (north of Bulawayo). There they enacted a curfew from 6:00 pm to 6:00 am which soon became a 24-hour curfew. This kept the people living in that region from escaping and telling of the atrocities that were being committed.

However, some got through. They told of the mass executions and brutal beatings.

During this time there was a Jewish doctor serving at the hospital at Mtshabezi. This doctor began writing weekly letters to President Mugabe pleading for the atrocities to stop.

Jake was soon one of the most outspoken critics of the genocide. He was careful to keep out of the politics and focus on the safety of the people. He attended interdenominational conferences in the Shona half of the country. Often, he was the only representative from Matabeleland due to the fear of traveling. He urged the Shona brothers that as Christians they had a duty to speak out against the crimes being committed. Unfortunately, the leaders were too afraid of Mugabe.

Jake knew that he only had to fear God and this gave him the confidence to preach boldly even when members of the 5th Brigade would show up at a church when he was preaching. At times like this he would take full advantage of the captive audience to preach the gospel to the soldiers.

Eventually, things got better. The international spotlight was forcing Mugabe to disband the 5th Brigade. Finally, the terror was over for those in Matabeleland. Around 20,000 people were killed and thousands more were beaten to a pulp. To this day there has not been an apology for the actions of the 5th Brigade. The closest anyone has come to an apology was when Mugabe, in a speech, said that the killings should not have happened. Jake was sitting beside Mugabe that day.

It was now almost 10:00 am so I went to the guestroom to take a much appreciated and needed bath (You can thank me later, Christina!). Once I had freshened up, I packed my suitcases and carried them to the entrance way.

Before leaving for the airport, Jake gave me a tour of the rest of his trophy animals. In the hallway leading back to the master bedroom were a brush pig, another type of deer, a warthog, and a wildebeest. Also on the counter were numerous hippo teeth (very interesting), giraffe femurs, the wildebeest tail, an elephant tail, and many other pictures and artifacts from his hunts. He also showed me a lamp made from the foot of a giraffe.

In the bedroom was the skin and head of a 14-foot crocodile he had shot in the Zambezi. He had wanted to have it fully mounted, but Nancy objected asking where he'd put it. Now in retrospect, she wished he would have gotten it fully mounted so they could put in by the pool!

Also in their bedroom I got a sjambok that my boss, Jonathan, had wanted. A sjambok is a whip made from the strip of the back of a hippo. When they go hunting for lions, they shoot a hippo to use as bait. Some of the guides will cut a strip off the back of the hippo's hide and whittle it into a sjambok. Then they have it tanned. Jake claims sjamboks are the best way to kill a snake.

We left for the airport later than we had anticipated, but Jake wasn't worried since the Bulawayo is so small. The main terminal has been in the process of being renovated for years. The airport is currently run out of the old terminal which is in an old corrugated steel hanger. I realized how small the airport actually was when we got inside and I saw the daily schedule for all flights—there were only two arrivals and two departures (one to/from Harare and the other to/from Johannesburg).

I got my boarding pass, but then had to wait for the immigration counter to open. Jake found some people he knew and talked with them while we waited.

The immigration and customs counters finally opened at 11:45 am. I said goodbye to Jake and thanked him for inviting me to Zimbabwe and for the time he had taken to teach me about the culture and church in Zimbabwe. I got my passport stamped and headed through security. I only had to wait about half an hour before we boarded the bus that took us to the plane (They use the tower at the new terminal so we had to be bussed to the plane there.).

The flight to Johannesburg was uneventful. They served us a cold lunch. I got chicken again. Fortunately it wasn't spicy this time. I spent the rest of the short flight reading.

This river shows the extreme drought Zimbabweans are facing.

When we arrived at Johannesburg, I navigated my way through the now familiar queues and got to gate A8 where my flight was scheduled to leave at 8:15 pm. It was 2:30 pm so I had a good chunk of time to catch up entirely on my journal. Once I had caught up, I spend most of the rest of the time reading and walking around the airport. The hours passed relatively quickly and I boarded at 7:30 pm.

The pilot said the flight would only take us a little less than an hour, but in actuality it only took about 40 minutes. I was thankful for this because I couldn't get my ears to pop (Anyone who has experienced this knows the pain I'm talking about.). They served us a small chicken wrap with a chocolate for dessert for the meal on the flight. It was enough to hold me over until I got to Maputo.

I was near the back of the plane so I was one of the last people to get off the plane. I hurried to get to immigration because there was a large plane that had arrived shortly before ours. As I came to the top of the stairs overlooking immigrations I saw that it was a madhouse. There were 200-300 people standing in line to get their passports stamped.

I quickly grabbed the immigration form and chose one of the seven queues. I filled out the form and stood for another 5 minutes without moving. I noticed that some of the queues on the right were moving so I left and joined one of them. It moved much faster although I still watched my luggage going round and round the carousel so many times that I lost count.

When I got to the front of the queue I realized I was at the desk for nationals returning to Mozambique. The official didn't look happy, but still let me go through his line after asking if there were any other nationals in line behind me. I did my best to be courteous despite being exhausted and he stamped my passport.

Next I grabbed my luggage from the carousel and headed to the queue for customs. I sent my bags through the scanner and the officer told me I had to take my brown suitcase to have it searched. I was nervous because the sjambok was in it and it would most likely be confiscated. I might even have to pay a fine for trying to import it. I patiently waited my turn trying to think of a good explanation.

The girl in front of me (approximately my age and white) had her bag searched. When she was finished, the customs officer said something to her and a man in the line beside me jumped in front of me. The girl turned to me and said that the officer thought I was with her so I could go without having my bag searched! Thank the Lord! I was happy and headed out into the throng of waiting people to find Christina.

I guess I should have known better—that Christina would certainly find me before I found her. She did. The crowd of people all took a collective step back and parted like the Red Sea as a shrieking Christina came running towards me. As the crowd slowly returned to normalcy, Christina gave me what must have been the biggest hug in the history of the world.

Her friend Mikael had kindly offered to take her to the airport and bring me back to her house. As we loaded my stuff into his vehicle, he pointed out that his spare tire had recently been stolen. We climbed into his car and headed out of the airport.

We came to a roundabout and Mikael told us how he was recently in an accident there. A driver tried to make a left turn from the right lane and smashed into his car. A little further down the road he talked about some friends he knows who had been robbed while they were stopped by the police. I was beginning to wonder what I had gotten myself into.

Arriving at Christina's house, I was met by Luna. Luna is one of the Perssons' (Hasse and Sonia Persson are missionaries from Sweden who Christina is staying with) "guard" dogs. They're not overly scary, but most Mozambicans are afraid of dogs. Luna also enjoys jumping on everyone and also nipping at your heels.

The yard was dark and I was distracted while trying to ward off Luna as I followed Christina around to the back of the house. A low hanging clothesline nearly decapitated me, but I made it to the door.

Once inside I set my bags down in a side room. Christina got my bed ready by setting up a mosquito net over two chairs. My bed consisted of a mattress on the floor of her tiny kitchen. I joked that the mosquito net made it look like I had a "princess canopy" that many young girls often have.

5-star accommodations, especially they had recently conquered the roach infestation.

After everything was all set up, I was able to exhale and finally have a chance to rest. It was already later than I had stayed up any of the nights during the previous 2 weeks. We stayed up talking until 12:30 am. She had a lot of questions for me, but refrained from asking all of them at once (I was thankful).

Picture sent to my dad to show I had arrived safely. The next morning, her face hurt from smiling too much.

The main topic of our chat was my time in Africa so far. About every 5 minutes, Christina would smile and giggle, "You're in Maputo with me!" Finally we both decided it was late enough and went to bed. I climbed into my princess canopy and tucked in the sides to keep the mosquitoes out.

Friday, 12 April: Wanezi and TCZ

Today was another early morning. I woke up at 6:00 am and we had breakfast at 6:30 am. Jake and I were getting an early start because we were going to Wanezi mission, which was 45 km further than Mtshabezi mission. We took the same road as we did to get to Mtshabezi, but made a left towards Masvingo at Mbalabala before the turnoff for Mtshabezi.

When we arrived at Wanezi, we drove past the primary school and went to the mission farm. This farm manager was one of the better managers. He understood the basic business concepts. Jake explained setting a price for a 10 kg bag of mealie meal that would cover transportation costs (including both fuel and maintenance costs) while still being able to keep it low enough to benefit those in the community. The manager seemed to grasp this idea fairly easily, which is a hard concept for many in rural Zimbabwe.

We toured the rest of the vegetables in the gardens. The cauliflower was doing well and ready to be sold. The tomatoes (pron. "toe-mot-ohs". You say "toe-mate-oh", I say "toe-mot-oh".) had been a complete disaster. Red spiders (a common pest) had gotten to them and the crop was now a total loss. We also checked on the chickens and pigs.

At 9:30 am, we sat down for tea. This was my first "official" tea where I fully participated in more than just the biscuits (essentially cookies). We were served hot cocoa with 3 slices of bread and a hard-boiled egg. Drinking the cocoa was more like drinking hot water with a splash of chocolate, but I somehow got it down. The bread and egg made it more bearable, but I didn't ration them very well and was forced to drink the last third of hot cocoa on its own.

After tea, we went to look at the cattle walking through the pasture trying to avoid the cow pies. Then we walked through the fields where there was a nice crop of green maize. We brought some home with us.

Nancy was leaving for a women's retreat at Matopo so we didn't stay much longer. We headed back to Bulawayo so Jake could check that the van was okay for Nancy to drive.

When we got back, we had lunch on the veranda. Afterwards, Nancy left for Matopo. She had a full van full of other Zimbabwean ladies who wanted to go.

Jake took me to the Theological College of Zimbabwe (TCZ) so I could get a tour. Jake had some business to attend to regarding the recent board meeting so he dropped me off with Dr. Bob Heaton. Bob is the academic dean of the college. While I was in his office, I also got to meet the school's president, Ray Motesi.

The school is actually an old motel. With the Zimbabwean dollar devaluating, the school was able to purchase the land, motel, and everything in the motel for only $100,000. They had raised $200,000 so they were able to put $100,000 into renovations.

There are currently around 40 students at TCZ including 17 women who are in a certificate program. The school offers a 2-year diploma program, a 3-year B.A. degree program, and a 4-year honors program. They are looking to expand to a master's degree program in the near future. I learned that there are no educational opportunities available in Zimbabwe for those wanting to obtain a master's degree or higher in Zimbabwe. For this reason, all students wishing to do so must study aboard, and many who do so do not return to Zimbabwe.

At the end of the tour, we found Jake waiting in the lobby. Bob and Jake had a good conversion about reaching the men in Zimbabwe. Some people say that reaching the men is hard, but Jake disagrees. He has helped the BIC churches to reach the men in large numbers. He contextualized one of their traditions biggest celebrations, the Beer Drink.

By seeing that the real point of the beer drinks was the socializing and not drinking beer, he was able to help the church organize monthly meetings for the men of a similar nature but without the beer. During these meetings, he focused on finding out the interests of the men and using that to build a relationship with them.

Jake also told a story (I had already heard the story, but I'll tell it for your sake.) about going into a village where the witch doctors were trained to talk to them. While Jake was talking and preaching to them, the witch doctors started making deep, guttural noises and some of the women began falling over and writhing on the ground. The people of the village attributed this to evil spirits. Surprisingly, Jake was invited back on other occasions to preach.

Jake's boldness in Christ allowed him to reach a people whom others dared not try to reach because they were afraid of being possessed. Jake doesn't see this as a valid excuse since if Christ lives in you, then how can an evil spirit also live in that house?

After Jake was done with his stories, we headed back to the house. I was ready for a bath, but the water had been off since the previous evening. It was supposed to come back on tomorrow morning around 8:30 am or 9:30 am. I hoped that it would since I hadn't taken a bath in a day and would possibly be without one for two more days when I met Christina. She would definitely appreciate it if I could get a bath before leaving Zimbabwe.

I spent the afternoon reading The Fellowship of the Ring. The night before, I had found a quote by my favorite character, Samwise Gamgee, which really captured how this trip was making me feel:

Yes sir. I don't know how to say it, but after last night I feel different. I seem to see ahead, in a kind of way. I know we are going to take a very long road, into darkness; but I know I can’t turn back. It isn't to see Elves now, nor dragons, nor mountains, that I want—I don't rightly know what I want: but I have something to do before the end, and it lies ahead, not in the Shire. I must see it through, sir, if you understand me.

For supper we had a casserole that Nancy had left for us and a salad of lettuce, tomato, and avocado. Afterwards, Jake told me more of his hunting stories. I went to bed a little before 10:00 pm very excited for the next day, but also praying that the water would be back on in the morning.

Thursday, 11 April: Around Town

I got to sleep in until 7:30 am today. Our plan was for Jake to drive me around Bulawayo to see the different BIC churches around the city.

We left shortly after we finished eating breakfast and ran an errand to the Zimbabwean version of the DMW. Jake had to renew his temporary export permanent so he could drive his vehicle out of the country. At the office, the man with the stamp wasn't in, so Jake left the paperwork there and was told that the official would be in around 3:00 pm. TIA. So far my two experiences with the African DMV make me more thankful for the American DMW.

We drove around to numerous BIC churches. There are around 20 just in the city of Bulawayo, a city of around 800,000. The BIC church in Zimbabwe is larger than the BIC church in the United States (and the Churches of God).

Jake explained the strategy for starting new churches in the Bulawayo. Whenever the city starts developing a new suburb, the church goes to the city council and asks for a stand to start a church. Because of their long history in the area, they almost always get one. The church puts up a small section of a building that they use until the rest of the church can be completed.

The general plan for the church is L-shaped. The smaller leg of the "L" is what the church builds first. Once they outgrow it, they build the walls for a large sanctuary on the other leg of the leg. Once the walls are up, the church can receive assistance from the General Conference to put the roof on it. The two requirements to receive assistance are that the building is made of kiln-dried bricks and the doors are made of steel. Both of these conditions ensure the building will survive the climate and insects. Most of the funding comes directly from the congregation itself. When the roof is completed, the church moves into the large sanctuary and uses the smaller section as classrooms.

We stopped at the church with the biggest congregation, Lobengula BIC. They have around 1,500 members, but Jake said he's seen them cram 3,000-4,000 into the building with people all around the outsides. One of the ladies who works at the church (coincidently, she had Jake as a teacher at Mtshabezi) gave us a tour of the church.

Entrance to Lobengula BIC.

First, we went into the sanctuary. The lady pointed out that the church had recently painted the roof. She said their future plans included painting the walls and tiling the cement floor. Jake bluntly asked her, "And when are you going to plant a church?" She fumbled along without really answering his question directly.

The sanctuary.

When the benches are full, they use chairs.

 The next thing we saw was there bore hole (well). They had recently been having problems with thieves stealing the pump so they put a small concrete slab over it. It didn't look like it would stop a very determined thief.

Our last stop was the Sunday School building that also doubled as classrooms for a small school/daycare. When we walked into one of the rooms, Jake said, "There's something in here that has been stolen." The room was empty except for a pair of crude candelabras. It turns out that he was talking about the candelabras. He explained that long ago when he was doing weddings, people always wanted to have candelabras but they were in short supply. So, Jake made a pair of them that wondered off one day. Now they finally turned up, here in this classroom. The funny thing was, no one at the church knew where they had come from.

The candelabras Jake made.

The very last place we got a tour of in the Sunday School building was the office of the woman leading the tour. She was the development officer and ran an AIDS program in the community for those affected. She had recently developed her own curriculum and was more than happy to show it to Jake.

One of the main things I learned from visiting this church was the need to be careful to remember the Great Commission and Acts 1:8. Too often, churches tend to plateau and get comfortable. When this happens, they frequently become inwardly focused on their own needs instead of having an outward focus on others.

We drove past a few of the other BIC churches then returned back to the house for lunch. Lunch consisted of toasted ham and cheese sandwiches and fresh avocados (I've really grown to like avocado, especially considering the fact that prior to the retreat I had no idea you could use avocado for things other than guacamole.). During lunch I also learned that the sick calf at Mtshabezi had died.

Jake had a board meeting for TCZ and Nancy needed to run some errands, so I took a nap and then a hot bath. We ate chicken, sweet potatoes, and gem squash for dinner.

After dinner I spent some time on Facebook chatting with my pastor, Zack Wilt, and Christina. I shared my excitement with her and I’m pretty sure she returned it a thousand-fold. It was only two days until we would be seeing one another for the first time in a long time, in Africa of all places!

Wednesday, 10 April: Mtshabezi

The day started early with breakfast at 5:30 am. A Zimbabwean rode with us which made the cab of the farm truck extremely cramped. Being the smallest, I had the privilege of sitting in the middle seat. The trip took us about an hour driving south on the main road between Bulawayo and Beitbridge (pron. "bite-bridge"), on the border of South Africa. Once we reached the turnoff for Mtshabezi, we turned off the tarred road and onto a dirt road for about 10 km. We passed quite a few herds of cattle along the road. Jake explained that today was "dipping" day when the local farmers would take their cattle to the dip tank at Mtshabezi mission to dip them in water ridding them of ticks and other pests.

Just dipping day, that's all.

Our first stop on the mission was the milking station where Jake's cows were in the process of being milked. We walked into the field so that Jake could look over his herd. During this time, he discovered that one of his calves was very sick. Heading back to the truck, I met the District Overseer.

Next, we drove further down the road to the hospital. Jake had some business to attend to so he had scheduled a tour for me. I met with the hospital superintendent who sent me with Chibane (pron. like Chobani yogurt but with an "i" instead of an "o").

We took the ambulance (a converted pickup truck with a cap and a mattress in the back) to drive around the mission. Chibane was educated on the mission, went to the Bible college, had pastored a congregation, and now worked for the hospital as a driver. He was also working on an honors degree at a school in South Africa. His dream is to one day be a youth pastor for one of the churches in Zimbabwe (currently very few of them offer full-time salaries for youth pastors).

My tour vehicle.

The first stop on our tour was across the Mtshabezi River (which is where the mission gets its name). We were headed to Ekuphileni Bible Institute (EBI). There we went into the administrative offices and met the administrative assistant, Lynette, and the librarian. They had a fun time making me pronounce the name of the school. The two of them gave me a tour of the Bible school.

Lynette unlocking one of the classrooms.

The school has about 15 students enrolled in a three-year program. They can also receive a degree through TCZ (pron. “tee-sea-zed”. Theological College of Zimbabwe). We toured a couple of the classrooms. The first one had a newly installed permanent projector. For the other rooms, they had a portable projector that they moved from room to room.

One of the classrooms at EBI.

The next area of the tour of EBI was the kitchen and cafeteria. They also had an outdoor cooking area for when the power goes out. One interesting thing I noticed there was a solar cooker. EBI also has a garden where they grow a lot of the food for the school.

The corn wasn't doing so well.

This crop was doing much better. Not sure what it is.

The last place in the school I got a tour of was the library. Just outside the main room of the library is the computer lab. There were probably 10 computers in the room, but I was told that only 2 or 3 actually worked. The computer room also housed the only printer on campus for both the students and teachers. The librarian explained that she was in the process of cataloging all the books in the library. They had recently gotten 10 new steel bookshelves donated from the United States. There were also two wooden ones. The wooden ones do not last very long so they were in need of some more steel ones to hold all the books.

Inside the library.

The next stop on my tour of Mtshabezi was Teen Missions in Zimbabwe. Teen Missions is an international organization based out of Florida. Teams from the United States travel to different locations like this one throughout the world to attend military-style boot camps where they also do some service projects.

I met the on-site director who was an African who has lived all over Southern Africa working for Teen Missions. When I told him I had just come from Beira, we had a good chat about how bad the roads in Mozambique were.

The tour of Teen Missions included their farm, kitchen area, and hostels. Around the premises they had different obstacles used during the boot camps for team building (similar to the co-op course at Camp Yolijwa).

Chibane found a friend.

We left Teen Missions and headed towards the high school. On the way, Chibane soon filled the back of the ambulance with people wanting a ride. At the school, I met with the headmaster. He was interested to know what I wanted to see so he could tailor the tour to my particular interests. After discussing this, we walked down to the secretary's office to get the keys for different buildings. The students were on holiday (aka vacation) this week some most of the buildings were locked up. We made sure to mention that the secretary was single, and from her reaction, this must have been a common occurrence.

He had some other business to do, so he found another employee to give me the tour. He headed to the garden. There the students who were taking agricultural classes were able to test their skills by growing vegetables and raising chickens. Judging from the height of the maize, the students were receiving high marks.

Compare this with the previous picture of corn. These two fields are only half a mile away from each other.

Next, we toured the school’s library. The library was in a very small room, slightly smaller than the size of your average living room. It was overflowing with books and other materials.

A bit cramped.

After seeing the library, we headed to the Home Economics classrooms. All the rooms on the campus were designed with final exams in mind. For instance, the cooking classroom had six stations with ovens. Since there are more students than workspaces, they rotate groups during exams.

Sort of reminds me of my home economics classroom in middle school.

Our next stop was the science wing. We couldn't enter the rooms, but looking through the windows I saw the old familiar lab stations like I had in middle school and high school. Another interesting course they offered as a part of their science curriculum was metalworking.

The final destination on the tour of the high school was a walk past the dorms which were vacant due to the holiday. From there we returned to the administrative offices to say farewell to the headmaster. When we got there, he was in a meeting. We were pressed for time so we left and headed back towards the hospital. On the way, Chibane pointed out the church, tuck shop, and farm building.

Back at the hospital, Chibane and I parted ways. He asked for my email address so he could contact me in the future. I went back into the supervisor's office where I met a young doctor named David. He would be giving me a tour of the hospital. I noticed that while he was waiting he had been looking at some of the TED talks on an iPad.

Our first stop was the outpatient receiving area. Next we passed through the laboratory. That is where they test all the samples that are taken from the patients. Malaria is not a major problem in the Mtshabezi area, but other diseases like TB and HIV are.

From the lab, we headed to the theatre (The theatre is not for entertainment, but rather where the surgeries are performed.). The most intensive surgeries done at the hospital are C-sections. Surgeries that are more complicated than require sending the patient to the hospital in Bulawayo.

One of the minor theatres.

After that we headed to check out the hospital's water supply. The water for the hospital is pumped from a nearby dam. They have their own water treatment facility by the storage tanks to purify the water.

Water treatment "facility".

The next stop on the tour was the pharmacy which was closed for tea. I met the Sister-in-charge. Here I learned that she was overburdened with all the work and would like another sister-in-charge for help. We continued on to the children’s ward. The main function of the children's ward is to treat children suffering from HIV and AIDS related illnesses.

Then we headed by the maternity ward. The maternity ward is much different than it is in the United States (or I assume it is. I have not been in one since 1994.). At Mtshabezi, pregnant women come weeks, even months, before the birth. The reason for this is the lack of reliable transportation. The hospital prepares accommodations for these women to stay at the hospital. The women and their families are required to provide food and any other amenities.

On the backside of the maternity ward was the Environmental Office. The lady in this office is in charge of community awareness and investigating health conditions in the Mtshabezi area. For instance, when a case of malaria is found, she has to go to the region where the person lives and test mosquitos there.

The next stop was the building which housed the x-ray room and mortuary. David explained that their large x-ray machine was broken and they only had a small one which was inadequate. On our way back to the administrative offices I got a quick tour of the chapel which is used for services each morning and the laundry/kitchen building. These two areas were both in the same building despite it being against regulation. In the laundry room, David showed me the broken ironing machine and mentioned that the washing machine also breaks regularly. We stopped by the pharmacy before returning to the supervisor's office.

We did not enter.

Jake was waiting for me and we headed out for one last stop at the farm fields. We drove out to the field to see how they were doing. Then Jake showed me one of the dams they had built to supply water for the farm and both the primary and secondary schools. He also mentioned that the farmers were having problems with baboons and wanted him to come hunt them. Finally we left Mtshabezi and returned to Bulawayo.

Back in Hillside, we ate lunch and I took a nap since I was tired from waking up at 5:30 am. When I woke up I discovered that the water had come back on so I was able to take a hot bath. It was interesting taking a bath since I hadn't taken a bath (I take showers) since I was a young kid. After my bath, dinner was ready and we had rice was a pork sauce poured over it. I spent the rest of the night relaxing.

Tuesday, 9 April: Errands in Bulawayo

I woke up around 7:30 am. We still didn't have water, but fortunately I had two buckets of water so I could wash and flush the toilet. Breakfast was at 8:00 am. We started with a short devotional and prayer led by Jake. We had granola (homemade by Nancy; it was delicious), strawberry yogurt, a piece of toast, and full cream milk.

After breakfast, Jake gave me an introduction to the history of BICWM work in Zimbabwe. He pulled out a map of the country to show me where the four mission stations were in relation to Bulawayo. The first mission was established in Matopo (pron. "ma-toep-oh") in 1898 by the first BIC missionaries. This station was built on land given to them by the Rhodesian government. The second station was established further south at Mtshabezi (pron. "em-sha-bay-zee") in 1906.

The first missionaries emphasized building schools to teach the local people how to read and write. From these two missions, the church expanded to the east. The missions wanted a more central station for the Missions Superintendent, so they built the third station at Wanezi (pron. "wuh-nay-zee"). The fourth mission was built north of Bulawayo out in the bush at Pumula (pron. "pu-mool-la". Alternately can be spelled "Phumula" with same pronunciation.).

The only item on Jake and Nancy's agenda for the day was to run some errands, so I went along with them. Our first stop was so Jake could give a book to someone. He wasn't in, so Jake left it with a lady working at his business. Next we went to a seed store to buy some seeds for Mtshabezi mission. Then we dropped Nancy off at the bank while we went to the post office. We circled back to pick up Nancy and proceed to the Matopo Book Centre so Jake could meet the farm manager of Wanezi there. Our last stop was a wholesale store where we got cattle feed to sell to local farmers at Mtshabezi.

Bulawayo looks fairly modern.

On the way to the store we passed by one of Bulawayo's power plants. It's a large coal plant that looks just like Three Mile Island with the big nuclear reactor-like smoke stacks. Despite being large enough to power the entire city, it is rarely functioning at full capacity (or in today's case, not functioning at all). Something is always broken. Zimbabwe imports a lot of electricity, but this is sporadic because the other countries shut the power off when Zimbabwe stops paying for it.

You can kind of see the towers through the trees on the left.

Zimbabwe has the potential to be a rather rich nation. They have lots of gold, silver, platinum, chromium, and diamonds mines. The sad part is that corruption keeps the money with the powerful instead of being used to help the country and the people who desperately need it.

On the way home from the wholesale store, we stopped at a local grocery store to get a few other items. Then we stopped at a gas station. Nancy went to a store next door while Jake got out to talk to the attendant. While he was talking, a young lady who worked inside the station out came and began talking with Jake. Once again, the conversation was in Ndebele so I had no clue what was being said. It appeared that they were talking about me since Jake kept looking back at me that little mischievous smile of his. After filling up, we picked up Nancy and headed back to the house for lunch.

We ate lunch on the veranda. After lunch, Jake told me about two of the biggest issues the Zimbabwean church faced during their history. The first stemmed from class system of the Ndebele culture. This people group was a break off from the Zulu nation. Their leader was one of the generals of the Zulu's most ruthless chief. As they came north, they annihilated every village in their way taking the women and livestock for themselves. They effectively wiped out all the peoples living in western half of modern day Zimbabwe. The leaders of the new villages that were established were members of the higher class.

Jake and Nancy's veranda.

This caused some problems when the church was deciding on church leaders. The first bishop was from the higher class and there were no problems. The second bishop, however, was elected from the lower class and many people in the higher class had problems with that. It took the church a long time before they were able to get past this societal boundary.

The second major issue the church faced was polygamy. Polygamy stemmed from the days of tribal warfare where there were fewer men than women. It made sense for men to take more than one wife to see that all the women were cared for.

The question before the church was whether polygamists could keep their wives, be baptized, and allowed to be members of the church. In Jake's opinion and study of the Bible, he believed the church should allow the polygamists to keep their wives without taking any more, be baptized, and join the church. The rationale behind this logic was that forcing the polygamists to keep their first wife and sending the others away while financially supporting them (the other position that was held by many) created broken families similar to the effects of a divorce. The Board for World Mission in the United States researched this topic and came to the same conclusion as Jake in 1910 or 1915 (long before Jake was in Zimbabwe), but for some reason, this was never communicated to the missionaries and national church in Zimbabwe.

The church chose the other position and forced polygamists to give up all their wives except the first one. This turned many polygamists away from the church. It wasn't until 1993 that the Zimbabwean church finally changed their position. Currently, even though it is still legal, polygamy is on the decline and almost non-existent in the church (While I was there, one of the stories in the news regarded accusations about a politician who had 26 wives!).

I had the rest of the afternoon to myself since Jake had to catch up on some office work.

For dinner we had steak and potatoes. A few minutes into the meal, Jake remarked, "Dear, this is not beef. This is kudu." The kudu steak was very delicious. It didn't have a speck of fat on the entire cut. Dare I say, it was better than any venison I've had in the United States.

You were a very tasty steak, Mr. Kudu!

After dinner, Jake told me about some of his more memorable hunting trips. There were a lot, so I'll just share the most exciting one here. He was in the northern part of Zimbabwe hunting elephant near Lake Karibe. He had a bushman with him who served as a tracker. They were following a herd of elephants and unbeknownst to them, they ended up in the middle of herd. Jake found a large bull and shot it. The bushman and he climbed to the top of an anthill to see where the rest of the herd was. As soon as they got to the top, a three bull elephants spotted them, let out a trumpet (It's quite hysterical watching Jake imitate an elephant's trumpet. He really gets into it by throwing his head back and shaking it from side to side.), and charged them. The bushman was scared out of his mind and tried to get Jake to run. Jake calmly lowered his .375 Magnum and popped one of the charging bulls in the head. It dropped dead and the other two turned and ran away.

I don't think you have to worry about this stool collapsing on you.

That's not a badly shaped Africa. That's the right ear of an elephant.

I went to bed early. Jake and I were planning to leave early the next morning to visit Mtshabezi mission.

Monday, 8 April: Drive to Bulawayo

The drive from Gorongosa to Bulawayo (pron. "bullah-way-oh"), Zimbabwe was going to be a long drive and we would be making it in one day. All of the other teams, except Mozambique, were planning to split their trips into two days. The Malawi team would be spending the night in Tete (pron. "tet". A city northwest of Gorongosa) and the Zambian team would be staying in Mutare, just across the border of Zimbabwe.

I got up at 5:30 am to pack and take a quick (and cold!) shower. I loaded my things into Jake and Nancy Shenk's vehicle then headed up to the house where we were having a cold breakfast. Jake wanted to leave as soon as possible so I ate quickly, but was interrupted by questions concerning recent changes to the missionaries' health plan. Jake came over to let me know they were ready to leave. I hurried to finish my breakfast and said my good byes to everyone.

We hit the road at 6:30 am with the hopes of arriving in Bulawayo before dark (Nancy doesn't like traveling at night because of cattle that wander along the roads.). We drove to the main road and headed south towards Inchope. At Inchope we would turn and head the opposite way as Beira on the Beira corridor to the Zimbabwean border.

When we got to Inchope, we were stopped by another police checkpoint. They asked for our passports (passportes?) and search two of the suitcases in the back. The first one was mine. They felt my bathroom bag then put it back after finding nothing. Next, they searched Jake's suitcase and asked him a lot of questions about medications he had. Finding no reason to fine or delay us longer, they let us go.

The rest of the drive through Mozambique was scenic. We drove through some villages and by large mountains. The roads west of Inchope were much better than the ones east of it. Jake explained that this was because they were built prior to the Chinese building roads in Mozambique (aka they were well-built). This drive was fairly uneventful except for one oddity I'll mention. I saw an albino Mozambican. At first I thought it was strange to see a white man walking along the side of the road. Then I realized that he was albino. This was the first albino person I can remember seeing since one of the girls at my elementary school. I wondered about the challenges of growing up as an albino in Africa as opposed to the United States.

When we got to the border at Machipanga we had to go through Mozambican immigration. Jake had to fill out some paperwork for his vehicle. It took us a while to get our passports stamped because there were only two workers and the one queue wasn't moving at all. We finally got to the lady who stamped the passports and was generally friendly. She appreciated me using my little knowledge of Portuguese. This is one thing I picked up. People of another culture will really respond to you if you can speak (or attempt to, in my case) their language, or else, they appreciate the opportunity to test their English on you.

We received our gate pass and moved on to the Zimbabwe side of the border crossing. Here I had to fill out an application for a visa. Jake and Nancy went straight into the queue since they had their residency. I joined the queue once I had filled out the form, about 8 people behind Jake and Nancy (It could have been more, but many of the Mozambicans needed the help of an official to fill out the form in English.).

When Jake and Nancy got to the immigration agent, Jake said that I was with them so he called me up to the front of the line. This action was partly the result of Jake’s interaction with the official. Jake is an amazing communicator and knows the culture of Zimbabwe extremely well. He greeted and spoke to the official in Ndebele (pron. "en-da-bay-lay"), a language which is often looked down upon by the Sena speaking people in the eastern half of Zimbabwe. I'm not sure what Jake said, but after a short conversation he had the man laughing and in good spirits. He didn't even look at my application when he stamped my passport.

After getting my visa, Jake and I stood in the line to pay for the road tax. They didn't have change for Jake so I gave him $10 for the tax (Zimbabwe uses USD and South African Rand as currency.). We received the gate pass and were now officially in Zimbabwe after spending an hour at the border.

The eastern part of Zimbabwe is very hilly and mountainous. After Mutare, we drove through Christmas Pass where the road was under construction. A lot of the roads in Zimbabwe were under construction. This slowed us down, but it is good that the government is maintaining them. We headed north towards the capital Harare (pron. "ha-rar-eh") until turning off that road towards Chivu (pron. "chee-vu"). We continued on to Mvuma (pron. "ma-vuma") where we stopped for petrol and to get something to eat. This was at 2:00 pm.

Christmas Pass, although with all the construction is could have been  the ghost of Christmas past.

At the fueling station, Jake and Nancy went to the restroom and met a lady who worked at the station who had been a student of Jake's at Mtshabezi mission. After talking for a while, we got milkshakes from Creamy Slice. Slice is an interesting chain. It started as Chicken Slice and has expanded to a strip of a couple different stores, all ending with the word "Slice". For some reason, I found Creamy Slice a humorous sounding name.

Well, Chicken and Pizza Slice make sense, but I'm still a little unsure about Creamy Slice, not to mention the logo with mad cow disease.

Mvuma is at the junction of the road between Harare and South Africa and the road to Bulawayo. Because of its strategic location, Mvuma is starting to see some businesses move into the area. We proceeded onwards through Gweru (pron. "gway-rue") and arrived in Bulawayo at 5:30 pm, 11 hours after leaving Gorongosa.

An important part of this story is a description of Jake's driving. Before the trip, multiple people warned me of Jake's driving. They told me my prayer life would be much deeper after riding with him. I found that his driving wasn't as bad as people made it out to be. He drove 110-130 kph (69-81 mph) on most of the decent roads. I only found myself praying for my life on 2 or 3 occasions when we passed on a turn.

There are five main things I'll mention about driving in Zimbabwe. The first thing was all the construction that was happening. At each spot flaggers were directing the flow of traffic to one lane. The longest we had to wait was over 15 minutes. This was on a newly tarred section of road. The open lane curved and weaved all over both lanes. We had to follow a bus driven by a construction worker just to know where to drive.

The second thing was the numerous toll booths along the road. At each toll booth we had to pay $1, except for the one before Bulawayo where they were only counting cars. Between the road tax at the border and all the toll booths, the government was receiving adequate funds to keep the roads in good shape (maybe even better than in Pennsylvania!).

The third thing was the police speed traps/checkpoints. These occurred quite often along the road. There would usually be 3 officers in bright yellow safety vests standing beside the road under a tree. One would have a radar gun. As long as you were paying attention you could spot them in the distance and slow down by the time you got to them.

The fourth thing was all the people along the side of the road. I saw a lot of people along the side of the road in Mozambique, but there were stark differences between the people in both countries. In Mozambique, the people were almost always walking towards their destination unless they were standing at a chapa stop. In Zimbabwe, nearly everyone I saw tried to flag you down for a ride. They would stand there and try to get you to give them a ride. If you didn't, they stood there until the next car came by.

The fifth thing was Nancy reminding Jake every time the speed limit decreased. Jake and Nancy have a wonderful relationship that a couple can only develop after loving one another for many decades. She would say, "Jake, the speed limit dropped down to 80." He would respond with a smirk and, "Yes, dear. I see." It was quite comical from my vantage point because it happened so often.

The sixth thing: there were also a lot of cool rock formations. Zimbabwe's a gold mine (quite literally!) for geologists.

Since the Shenk's had also been away the week before the retreat, we stopped at TM, a South African supermarket chain. There Jake and Nancy bought groceries for the week. At the checkout line, Jake talked to the young woman in Ndebele. I couldn't understand what he was saying, but from the way she reacted it must have been something about me.

After the supermarket, we headed back to their house which is in the Hillside suburb of Bulawayo. Jake explained that Hillside is classified as low-density housing. This means that the population density is low compared to other areas of the city and only individual family houses can be built. There are also medium-density and high-density sections in the poorer parts of the town. The low-density sections of Bulawayo are where the whites lived before independence. Jake and Nancy were able to buy their house from one such family during a time when many people—both white and black—were fleeing Rhodesia (what Zimbabwe was called before independence). Jake said he had a friend who told him that for $5,000 he could get him any house in Bulawayo that he wanted. This was because it was at a time when it was difficult to get foreign currency and people were willing to sell low to have cash on hand.

One of the first things I noticed while driving through Hillside was that all the houses were surrounded by walls, many topped with barbed wire. Jake and Nancy's house had a wall but no barbed wire and a blue steel gate across the driveway. Their house also had steel bars over the entryway and all the windows. It was a little like they were living in their own little compound. They also had an alarm which Jake had to disarm upon entering the house. Every door had multiple locks. I wondered if all the security was a reflection of the current situation in Bulawayo or remnants of the past.

Entrace to the the house. You have to get through this before you get to the door.

Entering the Shenk's house, I greeted by the décor of their living room. The first thing that caught my eye was a full body mount of a leopard. There were also shoulder mounts of a kudu, a lion, an impala, a reed buck, and one other type of deer. Other novelties included two stools made from elephant feet, two waste cans of the same, two smaller containers made from hippo feet, a painting on an elephant’s right ear, and bookends made from buffalo hooves.

The pride and joy of Jake's collection.

The guestroom where I stayed was separate from the rest of the house (technically it's connected but it feels seperate). I had to walk through the kitchen and out into an open air pantry area to get to the room. The room had a queen-sized bed plus a single bed. There was also a full bathroom attached.

The room wasn't much bigger than this, but it was more than enough room for me to stretch out.

Both the power and water were off (both regular occurrences in Bulawayo) so Jake fired up a generator so Nancy had power to cook dinner. The power came back on during dinner, but we'd be without water for the rest of the night.

My bathroom. Notice the buckets for flushing.

For dinner we had chicken with some other vegetables which Nancy had bought at TM. After dinner I was able to catch up on some of my emails and got a chance to check Facebook. Then I went to bed. It had been a long day.

Sunday, 7 April: Last Day of Retreat

I got to sleep in later the usual on Sunday. The roosters must have taken the morning off or my body had adapted and tuned them out. After breakfast we had a short session with John Hawbaker. A part of the session included me telling my story of how I came to work in the missions office, so I'll tell it here. It is a long story so please bear with me (Who am I kidding? You've already beared with me this long. J ).

Picture of a blue duiker (pron. "dike-er") to hold you over until the next picture.

To preface the story, please read Luke 5:1-11. This is the story of Jesus calling his first disciples. The key verse here is verse 11, "So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him."

I love trail running—even now that I've given up competitive running, I still enjoy running through the woods with trees flying past me on the left and right. I had a philosophy professor at Juniata College, James Roney, who upon hearing that I liked running asked if I ever felt like with each breath I took, the "breath of God" was entering into my body. This question completely transformed the way I look at running. Now I look at trail running as a way to connect with spiritually God.

I do a lot of running at Gifford Pinchot State Park. There are 16.5 miles of trails and I have run every single mile of them at least once. The only problem with running at Pinchot is that many of the trails are extremely muddy (like lose your shoe muddy) and have standing water for most of the year. Even running them during the winter and early spring can be difficult.

During my many years of trail running, I've developed pretty good strategies for running on muddy trails. Usually it's best to run along the edge of the trails to avoid going into the ankle deep mud. Your mind tells your feet that this is the best route to take. However, at the right temperature, the mud in the middle of the trail is frozen because there is more water there. In these situations it is more advisable to run straight down the middle of the trail despite your mind telling you otherwise.

Following God’s will is a lot like this. It’s counter-intuitive to what your mind thinks is right. My life is the perfect example of this.

I graduated from Juniata College with a B.S. in Mathematics. Not only did I plan to go on to graduate school and had scored a perfect 800 on the math section of the GRE, but I was accepted into a Ph.D. program at the University of Florida. Every fiber in my body and mind was telling me that this was what I was supposed to do. Okay, enough bragging about myself. This is where the story starts to get interesting.

Part of my summer included doing an internship at Texas A&M University (Gig'em Aggies!) which was a grad school prep course where I was getting paid to learn. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me. The week before I left for this program, I learned that due to cuts in federal funding, Florida had to cut scholarships and I would have to pay my entire way. The other big shock happened on the first day of my internship. The math professor told us to open our books to a certain chapter and said that we should have covered everything in the book up to that point in our undergraduate courses. I had no clue what I was looking at and began flipping back through previous chapters until I found where I had left off at. I finally found that place—10 chapters back! Now not only was I going to have to pay for my entire schooling, but I would also have to take remedial classes which would add at least another year to my schooling. It was pretty clear that God was telling me He had bigger plans for me than teaching at a university.

Yep, that is an academic building that says "Gig'em"

I returned home really unsure of where I was headed, but with a renewed sense of trusting God to lead me where He wanted me to go. During the months after deciding not to pursue my doctorate, I applied to different jobs all over the United States. Most I never heard back from. I didn't have the stellar résumé. Mine was built around getting into a doctoral program not getting a job. I got a couple phone interviews, but they never turned out well. I could be having the best interview in the world and would suddenly self-destruct right at the end. It was a hard time for me.

After 6 months, I really needed a job since the deferment period of my student loans had run out. It was late October so I took the easiest job I could find, a package handler at UPS. For the next 6.5 months, I worked the 4:00 am to 8:00 am shift unloading tractor trailers at a rate of around 1300 packages an hour.

By June, I was ready for a change. Literally anything that didn't involve putting boxes onto a conveyor belt. Money was another issue. After subtracting gas and student loans costs from my paycheck, I was making a meager $10 a day.

Then one Sunday during Sunday School the teacher, Donna Sturr, mentioned that there was a data entry intern position available where she worked. I jumped on it. The irony was that she had mentioned the same intern job the previous summer and I had politely declined because I thought data entry was boring and beneath my great mathematical mind. Now my circumstances caused me to stop running on the edge of the trail and start running down the middle—right where God intended for me to be.

Remember when I said data entry was boring? Well, it was. For 3 months, I did nothing but compare church directories with a database. But I was good at it. I finished updating the database (with the help of another intern) and there was still money left in the grant, so I took on other jobs. I battled the database to find a way to create a denominational directory. I updated all the information on the “Find a Church” function on the website despite not knowing a lick of JavaScript code. I even came up with a project on my own researching church attendance going back as far as 1930.

At one point one of the two Executive Secretary positions opened up and I was given the opportunity to interview for it. I prayed about it and politely declined the offer. The position involved a lot of event planning. It wasn't me. More importantly, it wasn't where God wanted me to be.

I continued working on my odd projects until I was essentially given notice that they could only keep me for a few more weeks because the money from the grant was running out. They really wanted to keep me, but there was no money.

When I had two weeks left, my boss at the time, Pam, approached me and informed me that the Human Resources Manager in the missions department was looking for an assistant. He had asked Pam if she thought I'd be interested in the position. I had no experience in missions outside of being a part of a short term missions trip to New Mexico and absolutely no knowledge or training in human resources. I prayed about it and felt God nudging me to interview for the job. I was a bit weary of the interview due to my prior experiences, but this interview couldn't have gone better.

When I was hired, my boss, Jonathan, told me they had 6 months of work for me. Now after 1 ½ years, I'm still there and really feel an affirmation that I'm where God wants me to be. Now back to Mozambique.

The rest of the session was a group discussion of Paul and Silas's miraculous escape from prison. We then had a short break before having a worship service at 10:30 am. Piet, Ria, and Sakkie joined us. After singing some hymns and hearing a short message for John Hawbaker, we closed with communion.

Sakkie was feeling better.

When the service was over, we had free time until 4:00 pm. At that time everyone was going to head up to the house where we would be having a braai (pron. "brie") (A braai is a South African/Afrikaans version of a BBQ that lasts for several hours and with lots and lots of meat consumption.).

Before heading to the house, I walked around camp looking for something to do. I found Micah playing by himself in a dirt pile. Today he was "Koala". He had a red excavator that he made out of Duplo blocks. I asked him what he was making. He told me it was a tree house for Heather. Becky came over to get Micah to head up to the house. As I stood up, I came face to face with the scariest creature so far of my trip. It was a spiny-backed orb weaver spider inches from my face.

It was quite intriguing upon closer inspection.

It took the walk to the house for heart rate to return to normal. When I got to the house, only a few people were already there. Julie was in the pool and Heather was sitting along the edge with her feet in the water. She called me over to join them and Lois came along too. The water was nice and refreshing after a hot day.

Even the dogs wanted to join us at the pool.

Sakkie came and prepped the fire while Ria brought out water, lemon juice, and iced tea. A little while later she brought some chips (french fries) and dip. Sakkie and Piet cooked and served strips of steak and pork roast which we ate with our fingers. Judging by the quantity of meat, the braai appeared like it was going to be our dinner. Unbeknownst to us, this was only the appetizer despite the fact that we powered through numerous cuts of meat while talking and singing (Father Abraham was the highlight of the singing).

Everyone got into Father Abraham, even me (far right).

During this time I had a good conversation with Julie and Heather about future plans. None of us had a clear idea of what our futures had in store. I asked what their dream jobs would be. Heather said she would really like to work for herself, maybe own a bed and breakfast. Julie was unsure of her dream job (I jokingly asked if she wanted to teach my boss, Jonathan, how to grow blueberries.). She sprung the question back on me. I had no idea. I replied that I was still discerning what God wants me to do. I believed I was where God wanted me to be right now, but I was unsure about the long-term. I believed I was called to missions, but not sure of what capacity or role. At this point in my life, I was just trying to be open to wherever God was leading me.

Steve interrupted the braai to direct us into the dining room for the main course. As we gathered, we noticed large T-bone steaks, pork chops, 24-hour salad, and gem squash waiting for us. I had a really difficult time finishing my meal (but still managed dessert which was a piece of chocolate cake).

If you think this is a lot of meat, you should have seen the amount of meat we had already eaten.

After stuffing ourselves with copious amounts of meat, we returned to camp for our last night's devotions. We sang three hymns in an effort to wake people up. Tonight was Jake and Nancy's turn to share. Since Jake is the Regional Administrator, he gave updates on the BIC church in Botswana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. After prayer, everyone went straight to bed.