Sometimes I think Zimbabwe feels a lot like Texas. More specifically, the ministry I am doing in Zim feels extremely similar to the ministry I did in Texas. Camp Ministry.
Besides a few minor differences like schedules, scenic views, available activities, oh and monkeys, camp feels the same in Zim. Both camps have games, seminars, singing songs, activities, heat, good food, devotional time, worship, and exhaustion.
For me, having experience in this type of ministry has been a huge blessing. I get to use all the things I learned the past two summers to serve. I have used my training in lifeguarding, leading devotions, interacting with students, and facilitating ropes course activities.
For our first group of campers, I worked with a couple staff members at the abseiling tower where students could repel down one side of the tower. Our ministry host placed me there because she knew my experience with ropes courses. So, I harnessed the students and clipped them in to the tower to climb it.
As I watched the kids abseil down the tower, I was amazed at the fearlessness. Almost every student at the camp (about 70 or so), participated. Some were excited and others were nervous. Abseiling is a really cool thing to watch because the students’ progress is controlled by them. Yes, we have someone at the bottom of the rope to stop a student from falling if they lose grip, but they are completely in control of their descent. There are students that go down really fast because they feel comfortable with the motion of feeding the rope, and there are students who descend much slower because they are nervous to go too fast and lose control. It didn’t matter the speed, I was proud of them all because they were brave enough to walk down a wall. Before sending the students up the tower, I asked some of them to rate their excitement from 1 to 10. Most kids said between 6 and 8, but what was exciting for me was that when they got back on the ground, every single one of them rated abseiling higher than before they started. They loved it! Even the ones who were terrified to go loved the thrill of it.
I learned a lot about their testimonies of abseiling. They helped me to see that even if fear is present, it can’t have power over you if you don’t let it. They taught me that the hardest part about hard things is not necessarily doing the thing but overcoming the fear. Once you do that, it’s all worth it.
