So this blog is probably going to be full of a lot of missing details and stories that might not make sense, but I’ll do my best to organize my thoughts.
The past week has felt like an entire lifetime, but only a millisecond.
We left launch in Chicago on Saturday and flew to New York and spent the night in the airport. I legitimately felt like death when I woke up the next morning, but I slept! I’m sure this will happen a million more times in the next few months.
Our squad left New York on two different planes for Atlanta on Sunday where we promptly flew to Johannesburg on a 15 hour flight. Fifteen hours. I FINALLY got to watch The Avengers! It was wonderful. I fell asleep watching Charade, a movie with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant, I think. It was so good to fall asleep to an old movie like that when I’ll be without Turner Classic for so long. World Race Perks.
When we arrived in Joburg it was really surreal. It didn’t seem like we were already in another country – our first stop in a great 11 month journey. We spent the night at an awesome compound that is used for soccer camps and such. It was incredible – we’re talking toilet paper, showers, electricity…the whole nine yards! The people who run the compound are so incredibly nice. We had the opportunity to spend the next day relaxing, fellowshipping, and hanging out. We jumped on a trampoline, climbed on a playground type deal, and set up our tents, not to mention Frisbee, guitar jams, and so much more! It was so much fun to be together as a squad for a full day.
We left Wednesday from Joburg on our supposed 19 hour bus ride to Mutare, Zimbabwe. We were shocked and surprised to find that they fed us our first meal! How incredible! We finally made it to the border between Zim and SAfrica sometime around 9:45pm and didn’t make it out until sometime around 3am. It was unnerving and frustrating and absolutely annoying. To add to it, I pulled something my mother would pull – when I stepped off the bus to go into customs I rolled my ankle on a curb that I didn’t see – my left ankle, which if I’m not mistaken is the one that my mom has rolled at least three times in the last fifteen years. So, mom, if you’re reading this, don’t wish ill on me anymore. Haha!
We finally got to Mutare after being stopped a billion times on the road there, sort of sleeping, and wishing they would turn down the radio because it was loud. We stepped off the bus sometime Thursday afternoon and met our host, Jenni, and her husband and precious little baby girl! To celebrate our arrival we treated ourselves to pizza (with really spicy pepperoni), and Coca Cola – it’s true, it’s better here. We also found Top Deck Cadbury chocolate which is incredible – it’s white chocolate and milk chocolate on the bottom! Chocolate from other countries is always better.
ALL of that aside,
Our first day of ministry was today. We hung out at place called Tafara: Christian Caring Trust in this place called Sakubva. We helped make lunch (including cutting up chicken and stirring this crazy corn meal stuff called Sedza in a huge pot with what were basically oars) and spent the afternoon playing with children – some were orphans, some had been affected by HIV or AIDS in some form (whether they suffered from the disease or someone close to them). It was incredible.
I felt pretty out of my element because children are so hard for me to relate to when I have to relate to them. I’m not good at sporadic relationships with them, but I’m learning.
I was touched mostly by the conversation we had with the pastor. He opened his heart to us and explained his vision for the children, but also the sorrows upon the community. What really hit me was the fact that these children have almost no hope for an education. School for people in the US is basically free. There are discount lunch programs and scholarships for people who want to go to private school. It’s part of our state and federal initiatives to hold education to a high standard because, after all, “THIS is the future of America.” Well, not so in many other places, including Zim. Here, school costs money. For primary grades it’s roughly $90 a year. For older kids it’s well over $200. These kids, as orphans, don’t have anyone to take care of them and because of cultural traditions aren’t being cared for by their communities. Some, like I said, are dealing with HIV and are struggling to even get their tests (that cost $2 a month) to get their medicine (which is free) to help them cope with their body attacking itself. How does that even make sense?
I had the opportunity to grow up with dreams – big ones – to be a teacher, a writer, an architect, a mother, a graphic designer, an editor, a barista even – but these children don’t even have that opportunity. They don’t even know how to DREAM or HOPE for their potential because they are stuck. Their education is ripped from them because they don’t have money. They have no family or very little that is disorganized and dysfunctional.
Yet, they can spend hours playing with one coloring page from a coloring book.
They can make soccer balls from plastic bags.
They know how to care for others.
Their creativity makes mine look stunted and underdeveloped.
I know “fair” isn’t how this world works, but isn’t “just” how our God works? Justice is His middle name practically.
I’ve not been blind to the fact that I was blessed with an incredible opportunity for education while so many others don’t have that opportunity, but it really just sucks when you see it face to face. It’s reality. And it absolutely breaks me that these children don’t have the opportunity to grow up and be “the change they want to see in the world,” if you don’t mind my cliché.
Perhaps I am closed-minded when it comes to education, but I feel like education is so empowering.
Without it, aren’t we just stepping backward?
