Three months. The amount of time we would be spending on the continent I was the most nervous about when coming onto the Race. Three months in Africa. A pretty significant amount of time, yet our shortest period of the three continents we would venture to on our World Race route. Let me be honest for a moment. I have never in my life had any desire to go to Africa. Ever. However, since three out of the eleven countries were African, I had to get over that sentiment real quick. That I did, and in May, N squad entered into our first African country, Malawi. Malawi, was challenging, yet so much goodness came out of it. June, we arrived in Zambia, another challenging but amazing month. Towards the end of our stay in Zambia, we learned (kind of) what our month would look like in Zimbabwe:
We would be in the middle of nowhere, 3 hours outside of the city, and we would be sleeping in tents outside.
Alright, so I accepted that this was going to be another month where we would be “roughing it”. I pictured living outside, with nothing around and accepted another month of cold bucket showers. That’s fine. A decent amount of my months on the Race at that point had been cold bucket showers, I could do this again. It’s going to be challenging, but I could do this again. Well, I kept telling myself this, mainly to combat my exhausted mind and body. Let’s be real for a moment, the World Race is freaking exhausting, and at this point, at the end of month 6 and beginning of month 7, I was well passed being tired. So, I tried to pump myself up and be ready for a cold (yes cold, it’s winter in Africa) dirty, and exhausting month.
We crossed the border into Zimbabwe, took a long bus ride to the city of Harare, and rode 3 different mini-busses to take 9 of us and all of our packs to the town of Doma. A town where even locals didn’t know where it was. As we jostled through the African dirt roads uncomfortably jammed into the mini-bus, I had lost any sort of positive attitude, and expected the worst. That all changed when we turned the corner, and pulled into Eden Children’s Village. It was at that moment where God said “see? You thought the worst, you became angry but look. Look how beautiful this place is, and you get to live and serve here for the next month”.
So after officially feeling like a jerk and an idiot, I actually became pretty excited for our upcoming month in Zimbabwe. We would be working with an organization that had any type of ministry work you could possibly think of. Not only that, it was located in an absolutely BEAUTIFUL location. Yes, it was practically in the middle of nowhere. Yes, it was an organization that was sitting right in the middle of the Shona culture and villages. And it was beautiful. We were also incredibly blessed to have hot showers AND a washer and dryer! In addition to my team, there were going to be 2 other teams from my squad there, so it was practically half of an all squad month ;). I’m going to attempt to sum up all of the amazing work that is done at Eden Children’s Village, and I’m going to attempt to describe the month. There is no way this blog is going to even come close to capturing the amazing experiences and life we lived in month 7, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that it was beyond incredible.
Eden Children’s Village is aptly named. This place was beautiful. Beyond beautiful. Every morning when I rolled out of my tent at 6 in the morning for staff devotions, I could see the sun starting its rise over the lake. It was usually very cold, and in the morning, there was sometimes a mist that hung over the lake while the sun would start to rise. I’m sorry to say that I never got a picture of this. But there is no way a picture would do justice to it. So, this picturesque memory is mine, and I will always remember the beauty I would see every morning when I woke up. The main house was surrounded by gardens, gardens containing plants, vegetables, herbs, so many things. Gardens that helped to feed close to 800 Shona people a day. Beyond the gardens were animals, cows, goats and some pigs. This self-sustaining place fed not only us, but the village. To be able to stay in a ministry where almost everything came from right there is amazing. Knowing that it was not only us who benefited from this, but the Shona people as well showed the heart of the people of Eden Children’s Village. Their heart to want to help provide, their heart to provide employment for the people. It’s eye opening. Not only did Eden provide food and employment, but they were in the process of putting together a building for their clinic. A free clinic for the village that focuses on using herbs grown there, but no issue with using Western medicine if needed. Eden also had a school for the village children where I believe they had classes from Kindergarten through high school. I apologize to Eden (and to you reading this) for my lack knowledge about everything they do at Eden, but it is quite a bit :). So, what did I do for ministry that month?
The first week there, the teams helped to paint 2 homes. The homes had been burned down by a fire previously, and by the time we had arrived, were re-built and ready to be painted. Once they had been painted, we were able to essentially pick what we wanted to do, and work on other things for the organization. What I was able to do was incredible, practically a dream. I was able to work in a…..ready for this?……a LIBRARY!!! My book nerd heart was so happy! The Library was not open for the kids yet, so for most of the month I was able to cover, organize, and shelve books. I loved it, not only for the peace and quiet it provided, but for being able to see a difference at the end. Going from a Library barely filled, to having to bring in extra shelving was exciting to see. Myself and two other Racers helped 2 women from the village who worked in the Library, and being able to spend time and build relationships with them was (in my opinion) the best part. Building relationships with the people you do ministry with and for is so important to ministry work. It’s arguably probably the most important.
In addition to our daily ministry work, we would have Bible study at the son of our contact’s house every Tuesday night. The bible study consisted of the 3 World Race teams, and some of the other staff at Eden. These nights made it feel like home. We were in a house, with real “American” type food, with other English speakers (I forgot to mention earlier that our contact was American). It felt like home. The first time it has ever felt like home on the Race. Then, every Wednesday night we would go into the villages, and eat the traditional dinner of Sudsa, greens, and sometimes chicken, with the Shona families that lived in the village. It was such a good experience being able to spend time within the culture.
Zimbabwe was good. So, so very good. I feel like there is so much in this blog, but not nearly enough to describe it. It’s impossible to describe. I grew that month, with a heart for the ministry, with a heart for our contacts, with a heart for my teammates, a heart for the other members of my squad there. My friendships grew with some of them, as we lived and served this amazing ministry together. This was the first time I had a hard time leaving a ministry. There have been moments in the Race where it was difficult to leave a contact, but this was the first time I was sad to leave both the contact and the ministry. So, thank-you Eden Children’s Village. Thank-you Kevin and Susan. Thank-you to the rest of the staff there. Thank-you for welcoming 17 exhausted world Racers, and loving us. Thank-you for a rejuvenating final month in Africa, thank-you for making all of us feel like we were back at home with a family for the month. The work you do is beyond amazing. It’s admirable, and more importantly, it’s glorifying God.
Thank-you Eden Children’s Village. Thank-you for possibly the best twenty-eight days of my World Race journey.
