i’ve called africa my home for about 1.5 months. and it’s been the best month and a half of my life. but don’t get me wrong, zimbabwe has been an adjustment. our home here is much different than our home in namatama (zambia). which is WAY more different than my home in the states.
here in bulawayo we live in a compound with a large metal gate (that we broke last night), 2 fluffy doggos, and our pastor and his wife.
[last night we had some friends from church come over and cook us an authentic african meal- YUM. we played some card games, played signs, laughed, ate caterpillars, and because gathering sixteen 18-28 year old always ends well, we broke the gate ??]
our ministry here in zim is different every day, and every week. here’s a sneak peek.
some days we go to the church and do random projects they need done, we help with the church’s soup kitchen, we help lead a young adult group, we go to a squatter camp (killarney) and play with kids, we help lead a youth group, we mingle and be in community with the people who volunteer at church, and we go to yummy lunchs with people and share god’s love.
some days i’m super motivated and pumped, and some days i’m exhausted before i even get out of bed. but the things that keep me going are the smiles of the kids at killarney when we pick them up and tickle them, the laughter that happens when your friend puts a fish eyeball in his mouth & the screams of chasing down the ice cream carts. those small things are what make it all worth it.
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this past friday morning during soup kitchen, i got the opportunity to give a short message to everyone. the days leading up i kept wondering what scripture to use. and matthew 6 kept popping up everywhere. in the podcasts i’ve been listening to, in my devotional, flipping to it over and over in my bible. the night before when i was writing it, i knew exactly what to say, but i was wondering who it was for. matthew 6 talks about serving in secret and praying in secret. jesus talks about our motives for praying and serving. he talks about what being a humble servant looks like.
this scripture is really cool, and it invokes a lot of personal growth. but when i thought about this scripture playing out here, in bulawayo, i felt confused. because i see humble servants everyday here with no hestitstion. there’s a man named steve who is at the church everyday. everyday he’s doing something different. some days he’s cutting vegetables, some days he’s waxing the floor, some days he’s sweeping, but he’s always running around doing odd jobs for people. and he’s doing these jobs during the day when no one is around. he isn’t the face of service on sunday mornings when everyone can see him, he’s the face of jesus when he serves him humbly everyday.
regardless of my confusion for who my message was for, i still shared friday morning. afterwards i got to meet a man named stephen. he was telling me about the problems he’s having with his disability. and i wondered how i could help. because i’m an american in africa on mission so i’ve got to fix things.. right?
wow. i realized maybe i needed to go back and reread matthew 6 again. am i serving humbly? sometimes the mindset here is messy. sometimes we want to fix things when they don’t need to be fixed. sometimes we want to fix people who don’t need to be fixed by humans. they need to be wrecked by the father.
but you can still do one thing, love them boldly.
p.s. wifi is a struggle in zim! blogs may not be as often, but i’ll do my best!
love,
hallie
