Everything is green and yellow and red—the colors of nature, the colors of life. The grass in the vast flat open fields grows tall, punctuated by hearty bushes, cacti, yucca, huge aloe, trees with small sparse flat leaves, and the occasional evergreen or pine tree. Where the grass is cut short, it grows with roots on top, fighting passed gritty reddish brown dirt. Large natural rocks and rock formations lie here and there surrounded by smaller rocks in random patches. All this plant life sways and dances in a wind that blows across it often, bringing a chilly breeze down from an endless blue sky stretching out toward the edges of the fields.
This is Africa.
Or, it’s a part of Africa. It’s Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, my home for the next month.
And it’s funny to me that the one place farthest from home—9,007 miles from Keller, Texas, USA— is the one that looks most like it. I look out on these vast stretches and I am reminded of the plains and hills of my North Texas home; my endless Texas sky; and the rocks and clay dirt one finds in our most natural locations.
For me, Africa is my biggest unknown. Before the Race, I’d traveled to Asia and to Europe, but Africa is an entirely new place that comes attached with a lot of preconceived notions. It’s a place I think most of the western world thinks they know and understand, but on the plane here, I reminded myself that much of what I probably think I know about this continent is wrong.
I’ve been turning over ideas in my head about race, stereotyping, colonialism, and God’s position in all of this. Before coming here, I’d been taught that Africa—always referred to as the continent not as the unique countries residing within it— is a place of severe poverty and hunger; it never rains but is always swelteringly hot with the earth dry, dusty, and dead; electricity and wifi are impossible to find; good luck finding any soap or shampoo, in fact stores don’t exist; every person wants to harm you or scam you or steal your identity; and if the malaria doesn’t kill you one of the many dangerous snakes or big game animals will.
Now, I’ve only been here a handful of days, but I can already tell you that most of these notions are sweeping generalizations and stereotypes. In fact, I’m starting to wonder if we in the western world use these stereotypes to keep African countries firmly in the box of “the other”.
I want to pause here and recognize that yes, there are probably parts of Africa that are still in despair, and yes we must do what we can to help them. I also want to recognize that there is nothing wrong with wanting to serve this continent. I am simply wrestling with ideas of a “white savior” mentality and offering my thoughts on the subject since coming here.
Like this moment where I had to check myself. We were driving from the airport to our ministry host locations (in a car, on a paved road) and we passed a billboard for bank loans that said “Our belief in Africa is as unshakable as yours”. It was directed at potential Zimbabwean homeowners, but it made me wonder if I believe in Africa—if the Church believes in Africa.
I held this question of “do I believe in Africa?” in my heart as I walked into a girl’s college to lead a bible study for seventeen and eighteen year old students our second day here. These girls are the future of Zimbabwe. I told myself, if I am to believe in anyone, it’s them.
As they introduced themselves, I asked all of them to share what their dream in life is. They want to be mothers and wives, doctors, biologists, accountants, business lawyers, psychologists, and one brave girl wants to be president of Zimbabwe. Hearing them talk about their passions made me believe and continued to help push this eye opening journey I’ve been on since leaving home.
Believing in Africa means seeing it as a continent of people who can only be saved by Jesus and served by the Church. And by believing in them, I think we can serve them well. Africa doesn’t need handouts, it needs open hands who see them as individual partners, not problems to be fixed.
Because even here in Zimbabwe—where the currency is literally worth nothing, the world record for hyperinflation was set, and unemployment runs rampant— these problems cannot be fixed by outsiders. I am still working out these answers, but I hope that my perspective shift that has already happened from the short time I’ve been here continues across the three months I’ll be living on this continent.
I know only so little of this world but I do know this; God is still sovereign from the slums of Thailand, to my home in Texas, to the fields of Zimbabwe.
