This past month our team partnered with Hope Ministries. Hope is an organization that is involved with many different projects for the Kingdom. They are involved with church planting, pastor training, door to door evangelizing, food programs for kids, setting up orphanages and many other things. Working with them and just being in Zimbabwe gave me a lot of first time experiences.
Zimbabwe really gave my team and I a chance to experience a different side of Africa, different from South Africa. Since getting to Africa we have heard the saying “African Time” and this month we really got to know what that meant. For example if we are leaving at 8:30 that can either mean we’re leaving at 8, 9, 9:30, 10 or some other time. You never really know so it keeps you guessing. We really got the chance to see what the bugs here are like… Hand-sized spiders, common bugs you’d see back home but are significantly bigger and I personally got to experience cockroaches as a new type of alarm clock. Which got me up and out of bed faster than any alarm I’ve ever had.
This month we spent about 6 days in the city of Bulawayo and then the rest of the time out in the bush in a tiny village call Pashu. Daily ministry was a lot of door to door evangelism which partnered alongside church planting. Door to door evangelism was definitely something new for us and to be honest was nerve wracking at first for me. I mean what would you reaction be if someone knocked on your door, spoke a different language than you, started telling you about a God you potentially had never heard of, and told you they were starting a church under the big tree by the school? Thankfully, the people here were so kind and willing to have us and God eased those nerves for me rather quickly. Throughout the month it led to some really cool God and Holy Spirit moments, relationships, and games at a school with some kids.
For me, Sunday’s offered the most new experiences. I’ve given plenty of presentations over the years in school but definitely never in church or on my beliefs. This month though God I got the chance to step out in that and speak at church on the first two Sundays. The last Sunday I was going too but we got a flat tire driving to church and missed the service but we made it in time for the Baptisms and that was such an amazing experience! The first sermon I gave was on Luke 8 and the Parable of the Sower and to be honest I am not even really 100% sure what I said because I was so nervous. Here I am, a golf pro, standing in front of 45 people being their “pastor” for the week. So not entirely sure how it went but that left a lot of room for improvement in week 2!
Come next Sunday I am ready to go, got my notes ready, feeling good, definitely going to make it the 20-25 minutes they want and then they throw me a curveball. Service starts at 10 and at 9:56 I’m told that when the service starts I need to get up there and lead a 45 minute Bible study to get us started. I ask if they mean sermon and they say no Bible study. Alright, cool, now what? I need to talk double the time, what I prepared definitely can’t go that long without just rambling, and I don’t have a whole lot of experience to fall back on. So I just start praying and the only thing I felt like I got was “speak your truth” and honestly I had no clue what that meant so I just decided I’d go back to Luke 8 and make this an interactive Bible study with the congregation. Which quickly got shut down by the pastor as I asked my first question to the congregation so I scrapped the whole thing and just decided to go with the topic of Gods love and how He has shown that love to me and how He shows it in the Bible. So essentially it turned into a Testimony, Sermon and Bible Study all in one and without a doubt He got me through. When I was talking I was seeing in my story where the Fathers love was in situations I hadn’t before, there were times it felt like He was airdropping me passages to read, and it was just a really cool experience. Personally, I’ve felt that when we come as missionaries some people, or maybe its just us, expect us to have these big and elaborate messages and sometimes we make them our words and not the Lords words, and honestly I think thats what would have happened had I gone up there with what I prepared and I pray that isn’t what happened that day or anytime I have an opportunity to speak. The whole reason we are here is for God and his Kingdom and the minute its about us we’ve lost the point.
My favorite moment from the month happened at church that same Sunday when we were out in the bush. This church had been planted the previous week and the 50 some people are meeting under a shack structure. These 30 minutes were the most amazing and humbling because I got to see what true cheerful giving and pure joy looked like. The church was having their time of offering and similar to American churches it lasted about a whole song. During that song almost all the 50 some people attending gave some kind of donation. In the end there was a grand total of $16.25 of Zimbabwe currency (currently about $.04 USD), some grain, a can of beans and some matches. These people literally gave anything they could to the Lord. Honestly, it was like watching the widows offering in Mark 12 come to life and they were so excited about all that was given and excited to see how God wold use it for the Church. Then after that there was an alter call and four people made the decision to give their life to Christ. After the four people prayed for salvation 2 women came running up to the front of the church saying we couldn’t end the service because this was a reason to celebrate and praise God. So for the next 20 minutes all of us were dancing and singing around the church praising God and it was a PARTY!! Then after, one of the ladies who had just accepted Jesus donated a block molder and enough sand and cement to make 1000 blocks so they could actually have a church building. By far the most humbling experiences I’ve ever been apart of and one of my all-time favorite worship moments in my life.
It honestly blows me away how God will ask things of you or give you opportunities you‘d never see coming. Yeah I know I am on an 11 month mission trip so I shouldn’t be surprised i get to be apart of them but 2 years ago if you had told me that God would use me in all these ways for His Kingdom, I would have laughed. It still blows me away that God has called me here, to this point and that I just get to be apart of it!
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
-Ephesians 2:10
We also crossed the boarder at Victoria Falls so that was pretty cool!
*Disclaimer*
All this actually happened back in September and beginning of October I am just really far behind on blogs. Hoping to have something up on Zambia within the week. Thanks for reading and all the support!
-Adam
