Before I get into the blog part of my blog (don’t worry I confused myself too), I want to tell you about my trip. I went with the older kids in my mission group, so the age limit was 15 to 20 (there were 10 of us), and 8 adults. We went to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, which is in southern Africa on the other side of the equator (it was their winter, cool huh!). In the part of Bulawayo that we were staying was just like any other city, and it was pretty close to Nacogdoches on size. Our mission was to go and tell Bible clubs in schools and orphanages around Bulawayo. We went to three different places to tell our clubs: Mawabeni, Trenance, and the Sandra Jones Center.
Mawabeni was about an hour outside of Bulawayo, and we were there the first two days. We were at a school at taught kids who were in the sixth and seventh grades, and there was little language barrier. Outside of the classroom you would have thought that these are normal kids who love to act up (only just a few times right?) in class, but once they got into the classroom they would stand up to answer questions, never say a word out of turn, and when it came to playing games they never got out of control! The second day after our club we got the opportunity to go into two homes (which were actually huts! How cool!) of the Mawabeni people to have a traditional African meal. I had this amazing conversation with a man about African verses American life! The next day we went back into the Mawabeni community for Sunday morning church to teach our Bible club during their Children’s church. After we got split up and my group got to our church, I found out that the man that I was having a conversation with the day before was the pastor of that church!
Monday and Tuesday we went to the community of Trenance. Those people were VERY different from the people of Mawabeni. The people in Trenance were extremely poor, and they were also squatters which are people who are living on government land without paying rent. They made their houses out of whatever material they could find: tin, bricks they made, mud, and etc. They also could not afford the tuition to send their kids to school (which is about 250 American dollars per 3 months), so most people there were uneducated. We had planned on splitting up into our 5 teams like the previous two days at Mawabeni for our Bible club, but because of the language barrier we had to teach one large club with an interpreter. But it was amazing because we got to learn African worship songs!!!
Wednesday, our plans to go back to Trenance had been canceled, but we got the chance to go through a drive through safari! None of us thought that the ministry would have the time, and especially the money to be able to go! Lions, and cheetahs, and zebras, oh my!
Thursday and Friday we went to the Sandra Jones Center. Basically it is an orphanage for girls who have been sexually abused or forced into prostitution either because her family needed money or because she was sold by someone. The age limit ranged from 3 to 18, and sometimes a girl who was pregnant would come into the center and decide to go through with the pregnancy. You see in most hospitals in Zimbabwe if a girl comes to them and is raped and pregnant, they immediately abort the baby without the mother’s consent if she is under 18. But the Sandra Jones Center gives the mother a choice, and no girl that has come into the center pregnant has aborted their baby. Now going into this place knowing the situation with these girls I was worried that these girls would be introverted and not want to participate at all. As soon as we got there, the girls ran up to us with HUGE smiles on their faces and they were so excited to hear more about Jesus! All in all we reached 870 children, teens, and adults and there were 50 decisions to Christ, but that was just with my group!! Bulawayo Baptist Church (which was the church that we were working with) has separate ministries at each of these places, AND there were at least 3 other missionary teams from Tennessee, United Kingdom, and Australia just while we were there. Bulawayo Baptist Church hosts missionaries year round all the time!
Ok here comes the blog blog! Before I went on this trip, I knew it was going to change me, but I didn’t know how and I didn’t really know how until last week. While I was visiting all these places, the people I met had some sad situations. While we were in Trenance, we had the opportunity to walk around the community and pray with the residents about their needs. We met this one boy named Nelson. He was about 13, and he was an orphan living in a small room with a thin mattress. Not only was he an orphan, but his leg was broke. All he had to walk with was a stick, but it wasn’t much help and he had to be carried or pushed in a wheelbarrow. Luckily we found out that a neighbor kind of taken him in and made extra food for him and helped him bathe. The pastor that went with us donated $30 for food for Nelson only and that would last him for a month! We also had some extra money and bought Nelson some crutches!! There was another situation that just broke my heart! I had met this 16 year old girl in our club at Trenance and I found out that she was pregnant. Sometimes its customary for girls to leave home early to get married and start their life, well this wasn’t the case. Come to find out she was raped. This happens all the time to girls of all ages in Zimbabwe. That’s why the Sandra Jones Center was opened. There were also people who had no running water at all!! They had to get their water from a broken city water pipe from the ground to wash clothes and drink. Sometimes the city would find out that the pipe was broken and would come fix, but then the people would just break it again. And there were several more situations from no money for food or school to poor health.
But you know there is a big difference between these people and myself. When it came to casting their anxieties on God they did it!! ALL the people I came in contact with, no matter the situation, trusted God with all their heart, mind, and soul! They cannot count on their parents to give them extra gas money when their car is running low or even count on something that seems as small as health insurance when they are sick. I know that I can count on things like these so when it comes to bigger things like getting the money together to go on this trip, I rely on myself to do it instead of giving it to God to take care of. The verse that sums up my whole trip is 1 Peter 5:7 Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.
This verse is so simple and easy to memorize, so how hard can it be to actually put it to use? Yeah, very hard. God hasn’t really tested me on this since I’ve gotten home, but I’m guessing that since I’m expecting it He probably won’t test me until I am unaware. But seeing all these people in these situations with practically nothing AND still having the joy Jesus Christ in their eyes was most definitely life changing for me. I just want to challenge all of you to start giving all your worries and stresses and complaints to God because He DOES care about your more than you will ever know!!
Love, Michelle
This is me dancing with some kids at the Mawabeni school.
This is Nelson.
This is the broken water pipe that people have to drink out of.