I know that a picture is supposed to say a thousand words, but whenever I take a picture of a landscape, it never seems to do it justice. The rich and raw beauty of the expanse is never quite captured.
As we drove down many dirt roads in the bush of Zimbabwe, I knew that my camera would not communicate what my eyes saw. And goodness, was it beautiful. It felt as if I was given a gift that revealed what the Lord intended the land to look like when he created it.
Zim’s recent political history is written in the land and in the lives of people that I visited this month. Living in the homes of black Zimbabweans and white Zimbabweans, I encountered lives that were vastly different but affected by that same history.
Let me attempt to give you a brief synopsis of the political climate we walked into. I really mean attempt, so don’t quote me. At one time, Zim was a major exporter of crops such as tobacco. They’ve got some good dirt. There were many large farms that were owned by white Zimbabweans. Over the last 10-15ish years, a shift in the political climate resulted in a majority of those white farmers being kicked off their land. The land was divided up and given black families for them to farm. These new clusters of families formed villages and utilized the main farm house as schools. This resulted in some families being left with nothing and other families being given land that they did not have the experience to farm.
This month, we lived life on both ends of this spectrum.
My team and I partnered with Redeem a Nation Ministries in Doma, Zimbabwe. We were in the bush. The nearest town with a grocery store was an hour and a half away. We were really really in the bush. The vision of the ministry is to impact people’s lives in the villages by aiding to establish financial stability through farming which opens the door to impact their lives spiritually. This is done through a flower program which exports seed to different countries. Our ministry host arranged for us to go and live in different villages each week and do life with families who are participating with the flower program.
Let’s just say, we were diving into the deep end. Two by two, we moved in for a few days and did life just as the families we were living with. We fetched water and carried it on our head, washed dishes, swept, helped to cook the meals over the fire and worked in the fields. There was such delight in the eyes of our host families as we chopped veggies with no cutting board or attempted to stir the sudza. (Sudza is the staple food made from very fine corn meal. It’s cooked to a very thick mashed potato-like consistency. You need some serious upper body strength to stir this stuff.) With each task we completed you could see how we were walking the line of being a spectacle and changing people’s paradigms.
Working in the fields is when things really started to make a difference.
Going out to the villages, I sort of had an understanding of the significance that it was going to have but in reality, I had no idea. White people working in the fields of a black farmer was unheard of. This does not happen. The family that I was staying with could not believe that they had white people working in their field. (Ok, ok, I know what you’re thinking, but over here, if you’re not black you’re white.)
Because we did this relatively simple act, the door to share the Gospel flew right open. On the last night of our stays in the village we held a Bible study. The house was full of wide-eyed members from the village yearning to know why we were there. And we told them. We were there to love them because God loves them. Simple as that. This resonated deeply. We were able to pray for people and had more people come the next morning to ask for prayer. This was beautiful.
When the Lord is on the move, it’s not surprising to come up against resistance. Midway through the month, our ministry host had to change plans because were were no longer permitted to go out into the villages. Living in the villages is tough stuff and to be honest, as a team we weren’t terribly heart broken. But there was no doubt in our mind that the Lord was using us to make an impact, to break barriers.
With this change of plans, our prayers had been answered and a trip to Victoria Falls was in the works! Not only were our prayers answered about the trip but goodness, were we blessed by people who took us in. We had dinner with a family who’s friends with our ministry host and they coordinated for us to have free lodging for our entire trip. The blessing was overwhelming.
The people that we met and stayed with were white Zimbabweans and some had been kicked off their farms. We heard stories of loss and yearning for a return to farming. They could not wrap their minds around what we’d just done. White people living in the village and working in the fields of a black farmer was unheard of. This does not happen. Yes, that’s right, we lived in the villages. One family knew that this is what their church needed to hear. Get out there and do life with people that you want to share the Gospel with. The Lord was using us to make an impact, to break barriers.
The raw beauty of the land in Zimbabwe has deep stories that affect all the people of Zimbabwe, no matter the color of their skin. The time that I spent working the land was minimal but it showed me, in a very tangible way, how doing the unheard of, the breaking of social norms opens the door for deep impact on people’s lives.
