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.