The other afternoon, we had the pleasure of accompanying some of the kids to their swimming lessons; Auntie Carol has a swimming pool at her house and graciously offers it for the enjoyment of the young ones. While the kids were swimming, Carol told me a bit of her family’s backstory. Back before the political revolution that rocked Zimbabwe beginning in the 1980’s, Carol’s family owned one of the largest dairy farms in the country. They employed 150 families (not workers… families) who all lived on the property. Carol has a daughter who’s one year younger than I am. When Carol’s daughter was four, the country fell into the political unrest that kicked off what is now a dictatorship, and Carol’s family got a note on their door that said they had two days to get out. They lost their farm, the 150 families all lost their jobs, and Carol’s family scattered. Other than Carol and her husband, the entire rest of her family now lives in South Africa and Canada.
Carol’s story is not unusual. In fact, as I was sitting on her porch thinking about what she had told me, I realized… Everyone here has lost something. This beautiful country, full of beautiful children, incredible animals, and one of the Seven Wonders of the World, has been utterly and completely decimated by loss. Every single person within the borders of this country has lost something.
Some people, like Carol’s family, have lost jobs and a way to support themselves. Zimbabwe has a 95% unemployment rate. A Forbes article I read recently said that logistically, Zimbabwe has no functioning economy. A healthy economy tends to function between a 4-6% unemployment rate. Only 5 in 100 working-aged people here have a job that enables them to provide for their families.
Some people have lost loved ones. We did an activity with the older girls at the Sandra Jones Center and asked them to draw a time when they were happy and a time they were sad. I lost count of the number of times a girl would talk about the loss of a mother, father, brother, sister, or child. And they don’t really have the ability to stop and dwell on it; they have to keep moving forward. They have no choice but to keep going and not look back, regardless of how painful it may be.
Some people here have lost their innocence/rights to their own body. The statistics are staggering; 1 in 4 women in Zimbabwe has been sexually assaulted, and those are purely the reported cases. In talking with some of the staff here at the Center, I’ve learned that the real percentage is closer to 30%, or about 1 in 3 women. The vast majority of the time, this abuse goes unreported. Pretty much every child at the Center has experienced some sort of physical or sexual trauma, and it’s been bad enough to get Social Services involved. These cases are the worst of the worst. There is a young girl here who was raped so many times before the age of 3 that she now has trauma-induced autism (which I didn’t even know was a THING). I’ve never heard her speak, and she’s about 5 years old now. There’s a young woman here who has a child that she struggles to have any sort of a relationship with because the child reminds her mother too much of her mother’s rapist. There’s a young boy here who was fully castrated by his mother because she was incredibly physically abusive. And those are just 3 of the 70+ beautiful young women and children who are here at the Center. Everyone here has a story like that.
Some people have lost friends and neighbors due to civil wars and ethnic wars within the country. Some people have lost the ability to access education. Some people have lost their homes. Some people (many people) have lost hope. The list goes on and on.
It’s hard to reconcile so much loss within such a small area. These people have stories I can’t fathom, and have experienced things no one would wish on their worst enemies. It doesn’t make sense, and I don’t think it ever will. I was talking to one of my teammates about how it blows my mind that people can live in a world of such intense, in-your-face loss and not have a relationship with the Lord. I can’t imagine how someone could lose so much and continue on with the worldview that says that, once we get through this life, it’s all over. What striving, what exhaustion, what pain, and all for… Living a good life? Having fun? Some nice memories? Eventual death? I couldn’t do it, and I’ve had the blessing of being raised in America with an incredible family, amazing education, and quite frankly, pretty much no loss. I don’t understand how someone in a place like Zimbabwe could function under a worldview that offers no answers and no reconciliation for pain, loss, abuse, heartbreak, and death.
And while we, brothers and sisters, may still have no answers for the pain, loss, abuse, heartbreak, and death, at least we know it’s not futile… at least we know it’s not just bad luck or the “just the way the cookie crumbles”. At least we know that we have Someone who cares for us deeply (deeply enough to sacrifice His own life and face brutal execution) and who longs to truly, intimately know us and to spend eternity with us. At least we know that we are made for something more, something so incredibly BETTER than this fallen world. We know that we are made for ecstasy, for Eden, and we have the promise that we get to spend out eternity THERE, with the ultimate lover of our souls, surrounded by the saints in a posture of forever-worship. We have the assurance that there will be a day, one day, with no more pain, no more tears, no more goodbyes, and no more loss. We have hope.
