And since everyone seemed to enjoy the buffet style (everyone loves buffets) here is what’s on the menu for today
(Part II) ‘Things of Africa- in case you were wondering…’
What am I doing here??
Learnings
Coming to an end…what already?!
*beware many of these will have subcategories. But press on brotha! Press on sista!
Things of Africa- in case you were wondering…(Part II)
Weather- HAHA it’s becoming winter! So everyone is busting out their winter-wear. For Africans that means almost anything and everything with long sleeves including a variety of Christmas sweaters.
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The clouds here, they ALWAYS cease to amaze me! (HAHA ABDC anyone??)
Safety- so if you know anything about Zimbabwe history/politics you know that it has been under some corrupt corrupt leadership. Robert Mugabe’s picture is EVERYwhere (straight up Big Brother is watching you) And the president dictator lives here in Harare. The state house is not too far from where we live and we always pass by it to get to town. The place is super strictly guarded. It’s surrounded by guards carrying guns (who apparently are given drugs so they are not influenced by their consciences), you’re not allowed to walk on the side of the street by the state house, and there’s even a curfew for cars to drive by the place. By 6pm they put spikes in the road and if you happen to take a wrong turn in the night, these guys can shoot you on site…oh and you are not allowed to take ANY kind of pictures/video of the area or again fear the risk of getting shot.
In the beginning it was kinda like “O_O omy” but as long as you follow the rules you kind of just get used to it. HAHA I went from talking about clouds to possibly getting shot. Nice transition eurri.
Moving on…
Communication-
In general- it’s way more difficult to communicate in Africa, like unnecessarily so. People here don’t have cell phone plans. They have phones and then you buy “Air time” or “text” from these scratch cards being sold on every street corner, which run out in a few days or less depending on how much you use it. So you can imagine what communication is like here. Which trickles into schedule and things being WAY late.
As a team- probably one of the greatest obstacles we’ve had as a team and ministry is the lack of (or mis) communication. There was definitely some spiritual warfare going on with this. Satan trying to bring disunity. Please pray against this.
Atmosphere-
That was then…
Since this is the beginning of establishing a mission base the beginning pace of my trip was very slow, mostly just settling into the house, alota cooking&cleaning, making new relationships, especially with Zimbabweans, praying for discernment into these relationships/partnerships for the ministry + praying for provision.
This is now…
Now we still do all of the above PLUS a lot of ministry on top of that, which requires even more of the above, way more. So the past month and half has felt like it’s been on fast forward since my first weeks here.
That said…
What am I doing here??
Recent ministry events:
We had a women's conference
**Pictures of womens conference
I actually didn’t even get to stay the whole time because a team of us had to leave for Bulawayo
So if you remember from my first Zimbabwe blog entry, I arrived the day the Jourdens + team moved into their first permanent residence.
Previous to my arrival though the team (since January) had been living in Bulawayo (see map)
Picture taken from the world map in our prayer room
Thinking that that’s where they were going to establish their base they had begun a house of prayer movement, which now meets once a month, which means that once a month a portion of our team takes a roadtrip to Bulawayo. (4-6 hour drive)
KCM circle. Haha. This is totally not how the prayer meetings look. It’s more like people walking around the room shouting. This was just to close the meeting
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We are one body with Christ as the head
Other Bulawayo happenings
we planted a GenerationWon church pastored by P. Lackson
introducing the team/praying for people
One of the trips also included doing a night crusade. What is a night crusade you ask? Basically you set up some low-tech sound equipment in an unused part of a neighborhood (i.e deserted parking lot?) and make a RUCKUS until those living around are forced out of their homes to find out what all the noise is about
Brian’s introduction by one of the pastors, P. Dube “Everyone come and listen! You can offend me by not listening but DON’T offend the WHITE MAN OF GOD who came all the way from AMERICA!” AHAHAH
On the most recent trip to Bulawayo (last week) We had our montly HOP meeting, but as a special treat us student missionaries (Brittany, Dani, and myself) were left behind at a farm with no electricity or bathroom for several days. HAHA
But in all seriousness, the purpose of our time there was to serve sister Marilyn, an awesome woman of prayer, and assist her in building a children’s home. (Our first orphanage =D ) As well as encourage her “neighbors”
Seriously though the bathroom was an outhouse like half a mile away. And we weren’t gonna walk that far! (especially after dark) just to pee in a hole! HAHA let’s just say we marked our territory in more than one place. Teehee. I also realized during those days that a cultural difference of being Korean extends also to my ability to pop a squat. Each time we’d go on a peeing quest one of the girls (I wont say who) would say “DANG, why am I so BAD at this?! ...can one of you guys give me some more toilet paper” AHAHA EVERY time.
Arighty, some pictures…
laying the foundation for the Father's house
sister Marilyn =)
Since we don’t have funds though for bricks or more cement, we mostly helped work on the church at the farm, including doing some gardening work.
Here’s the garden that we cleared of weeds
In between days of manual labor though we spent a day devoted just to visiting people and encouraging them through prayer. Her “neighbors” though live like miles away
Out of an entire day devoted to walking we visited three homes, whose residents included a widow with HIV (left in the picture) who takes care of four orphans as well as a blind man who cares for 15 orphans. The parents of these children mostly died from AIDS. Some of the kids have HIV too =( Please pray for them
Sister Marilyn is strongly gifted in intercession and I learned a lot from her, especially the value of laying hands on people in prayer. Cus seriously we could have just lifted up prayers for them from the comfort of her home, but there’s no glory in comfort right? (will talk more about this in Learnings)
Sometimes our prayer for others is reduced to just good thought and good intention. But intercession is more than that. It’s PUSH (remember that??) Praying Until Something Happens. And sometimes, many times even, we are the answers to our own prayers.
Something I thought was cool
This is what we ate for lunch every day.
It’s literally food that saved people.
Just a few years ago people were dying of starvation in Zimbabwe (even some people that Marilyn knew) and baby bellies were swelling due to malnutrition, all because corrupt Zimbabwean leadership made it illegal to buy food from other countries. It was only available to/from certain groups (political control) But God was so faithful to Marilyn. She would smuggle in food and when she’d cross the border miraculously only HER bags wouldn’t get checked or the bus SHE was on would be allowed to pass without inspection. Dang so crazy no?? God protected her from jail! Because His laws supercede the laws of men =] Someone might be the president of a nation but God is the president of the WORLD. But yes that and these shipments of what we ate [distributed by Campus Crusade] helped save lives. She said when malnourished children would eat this their bellies would go down. =O Haha some on my team didn’t like it cus 1. There were ants ALL up in it the first time we ate it and 2. I guess it doesn’t taste very good (I disagree) But yea I duno I thought it was cool. I felt like I was EATING HISTORY! AHAH that plus it taste like friend rice to me (soy + rice sorta like soysauce + rice?) MM HMM. Just thought that was neatO
Besides all this, the rest of my time in Bulawayo (also my last time) included visiting an old castle and taking a gazillion silly pictures. I will most definitely be posting some of those in another entry. Perhaps I’ll do like a “Blooper” entry just about the silly things of my trip…good idea.
Alright though, back in Harare
We had a leadership summit, where we invited anyone/everyone from our various ministries who felt convicted to become more involved to come.
We set up the prayer room with the projector and both Pamela&Brian took turns teaching on Leadership using powerpoint + a lunch fellowship time in between sessions.
PTL! (praise the LORD)
Man I have been praying that God would provide bibles to the people of our ministry ever since we started and we found out the next day at church (cus the leadership conference was on a Saturday) that right after the people left the leadership summit, when they got off the bus, someone was giving out FREE bibles. Like the whole thing (New&Old Testament) So crazy huh?? So they all got one =O I was SUPER pumped about this, that God would hear my prayers. He is good.
continuing ministry
Epworth
This is the church we planted and we attend every Sunday, a place just outside of Harare that no one really knows/cares about, cus it’s not even on the map. But you know what, Epworth is going through some crazy things.
“God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty…”
Epworth is where we first had VBS for the kids. And the church started out with mostly children and a few adults. (We were getting a reputation for being a kid’s church =/ )But even in such humble beginnings Satan was trying to come against what God was starting.
Incidents – they just get crazier and crazier…
Incident 1- For VBS we did crafts (the tissue paper flower, crowns, etc) And it was so sweet cus the kids were like GLOWING from them. Most of them have never even seen colored tissue paper or construction paper. And as we were parting ways from our first day of VBS, I saw this one kid walking home all happy with his flower when these 3 other kids stopped him on the road. To my horror I watched as they ripped up his flower so that all he had left in his hand was an empty green straw. Then as the boy walked home I saw him wiping his face. >=O Danng I wanted to run back and punch those kids in the mouth!! But I just prayed for that boy, that he wouldn’t be discouraged and that God would bless him times like a thousand for what was taken from him!
Incident 2- One of the student missionaries had brought a buncha extra clothes to give away and found favor with one of the kids in Epworth. So one day after church she discreetly pulled him aside and gave him a small grocery bag of clothes. Little did we know that small act of kindness would start a series of misfortunate events that returned with unkindness =( What happened was right after we had left this kid got beat up for the clothes and then he went home and told his parents that he got beat up by members of our church. So his mom with a bunch of other angry ladies came and beat up one of the elderly lady members of our church with sticks. Ay carumba. But rather than get discouraged from being part of the church she said that maybe God is testing us.
Incident 3- So we have church service outside with the adults while the children play games not too far from us. We can see and hear the kids from where we are. And one Sunday in the middle of the sermon we see the kids RUNNING, like just dispersing everywhere. Some of the younger ones even come towards us and they’re like SCREAMING and CRYING. So we interrupt the service to see what the heck is going on and then we see a buncha witch doctors coming up the road O_O
Ok, I wanted to take a picture of them but in the chaos I didn’t have time to whip out my camera. Instead I google imaged ‘African witch doctors’ which is where this image was taken from. Unfortunately I realize that his sitting in an office chair kind of takes away from the authenticity of it, but this one was the closest looking to the ones that I saw. And I duno, I would still be pretty freaked if I came into the office and this guy was sitting at my desk. So I can imagine as a little child that I would be QUITE afraid of THREE of them walking in my neighborhood. Man there was this one little girl who was crying like it was the rapture. I scooped the poor thing right up but she was like in hysterics.
Brian and the good fellas ended up telling them to go away and not to come this way anymore. They were just trying to disrupt our service cus I found out later that they had come the week before as well (While I was in Bulawayo)
What crazy stuff huh? SOMEone doesn’t want to see God’s kingdom grow. Too bad “He who is in [us] is greater than he who is in this world.” So God we thank you for VICTORY in Epworth. And I’m still super pumped about the bibles you provided! yippee
Whew. That was a lot, are you still with me?? Finally now to what I’m learning
Learnings
This will be just a teaser because I am learning mucho. Too mucho to fit here. Mucho enough to be an entry on it’s own in fact.
And as is indicated by the title of the next section, my time here is nearing its end, which means I don’t have too many blog updates left here in Africa. So of all my learnings I’m gonna share what I’ve been learning about GIVING.
Back in Los Angeles there once was this couple who was way struggling with finances. But they wanted to bless this pastor and so they wanted to give him money as an offering. But the pastor was like “Aw man, how can I take this from you guys when you guys have like nothing?” And so he refused to take the money. Then later, another pastor rebuked him saying “You are taking their blessing away by not receiving what they give, because they need to learn what it means to sow into God’s kingdom.”
In the bible, David is trying to buy this plot of land to build an altar to God. But the landowners like “You’re the king! Just take it” But David says “Why would I give to God what costs me nothing?”
Jesus even says that the widow who gave out of her poverty gave more than all those around her.
God is pleased with sacrificial giving. He desires it, He deserves it.
Being here, one of my teammates has commented that I have been “so generous.” And it’s true, I’ve given a lot of money because I’ve been blessed enough financially (a lot of it by you guys, my supporters) to chip is more than some of my other teammates, who have been struggling to get financial support. But it’s ironic because I’ve actually been learning more about giving through her. Cus even though finances have been her greatest frustration on this trip she still gives. She gives everything she gets. I realized though that I, on the other hand, have only given really when it’s out of abundance.
And then a few weeks ago my wallet was stolen, all my money and atm cards with it. So I wasn’t even able to withdraw money if I needed it. All I had left was $100 bucks that I had back at the house. And then that’s when God started to really teach me about the kind of giving He desires.
I am so blessed to know so many people who are mission-minded. The other girls on this trip have never been on a mission trip before and their friends/family back home haven’t either. Supporting missions is not as prevalent in their backgrounds as it is in mine. Dang, I’m even more thankful for my supporters.
Many of you have even asked me if I need any more financial support while I’ve been here. God has blessed ME with enough for my time here but I’m not gonna lie, this ministry needs A LOT of finances. We pray almost everyday for “Provision for the vision.” So that coupled with what I’m learning about giving I’m convicted to ask ALL OF YOU to prayerfully consider giving towards this ministry.
Being part of a mission planting team I feel like I’ve been given the privilege to watch a baby be born and even help in labor. And I want this baby to grow dang strong and healthy, to live for many many years to come (Who knows maybe I’ll come back to visit. Maybe even with a team?? A KCM TEAM?!! AHAH)
Here are some of the long-term goals of this ministry. Please give through the PAYPAL method. And know that ALL of what you give will be going towards establishing these things. Most immediately the bricks&cement for the orphanage in Bulwayo.
Coming to an end…what already?!
As for me, I leave Africa in exactly one week =O Good grief three months went by fast. We started debriefing yesterday. This trip has been one full of extremes, a lot of highs and hards (not really lows). But being such a volatile trip I realize HOW important the end is, particularly the note I leave this trip on. So a prayer request (and I’m just now realizing I should have asked for more prayer more frequently on this thing but o well..please pray now =) is for God to really seal the things He’s being doing in&through me here.
i was genuinely scared when i saw the witch doctor.
ReplyDeletei would be even more scared if i saw him in an office.