My team has been in Zimbabwe for about a week now and I’m loving it here. The weather in Zimbabwe feels INCREDIBLE, the high gets up to 70 degrees and sunny during the day and 50 degrees at night. In Indonesia, Vietnam, and Cambodia the temperatures were over 100 degrees and the temperatures would “cool down” to about 80 degrees at night. I had forgotten what it is like to step outside and not immediately start sweating. The weather feels like fall weather and it’s glorious. We are staying with local hosts and they have been incredibly hospitable to us. We are spending our first two weeks in a village called Bulawayo and the other two weeks we will be in village called Binga. Our hosts do everything they can to make sure we have whatever we need and will do whatever it takes to make us feel comfortable. Our hosts cook delicious meals for us three times a day. We have eaten rice with a very tasty curry like sauce, fried chicken, and pasta or fries made with real potatoes. Electricity is limited here because the government only allows for a certain amount of electricity usage per day. The electricity is mostly turned off during the day and comes on around 8-9 pm. I have grown to really enjoy team dinners with one of my teammates wearing a headlamp. We are staying in a nice house with our hosts in an area with lots of different trees and birds. I have enjoyed going on runs and being in awe of the beautiful area we are in. My favorite part about the house is they have a fire place. Drinking warm beverages wrapped in a blanket by the fireplace makes me feel at home in the best possible way. I share a bedroom with four other women from our team. We have mattresses lined up on the floor like one big sleepover and with the amount of laughing we do every night before we go to bed it feels like a sleepover. I am loving Zimbabwe so far and all the beautiful people I have met here.
Our ministry for this month involves building relationships with locals in the area. If we feel led to have a spiritual conversation we share about our faith and invite them to come to church. I am looking forward to being a part of a ministry where I get to have lots of contact with the locals. We are partnering with Hope Ministries whose vision is to transform the community with the power of the gospel.
