I spent May June and July in Africa, my last month being the country of South Africa. We worked with a company called Zimele. They help to empower local women into building up their own communities.
My team (HORIZON) was sent to Matubatuba, in KwaZulu natal. Because we were in a very rural area we moved houses every week. This way the mamas weren’t to strained taking care of us. All of the families we stayed with were great, and each was diferent in its own way.
Each family was part of a diferent Savings Group, Zimele sets up these groups so the women in the comunity learn to trust eachother and work together. All of the groups can focus on what they are passionate about. Crafts, feeding programs, farming, and a myriad of other activities. Some that made money and others that gave back to their community.
Our job was observing, learning, helping, and going back to Zimele with suggestions. Which were few and far betwen as they do an amazing job. One suggestion that we had was something to help the women fund for a fence, or conecting them with someone who can help them out. They already had a program in place where they fund half the fence if the mama can come up with the other half.
Horizon spent most of the time making crafts, going to Savings Group metings, and having down time. Not unusual as this was Adventures In Misions first time working with Zimele. Typically if you work with a new host, said host isn’t quite sure how to take advantage of you yet.
While I think the down time was god for some, it semed to make most of us restless. Have you ever sleptin and then felt tired the rest of the day? That was kinda our month. We craved down time because we had to much of it. We were slepy at work and couldn’t wait to get back and rest some more.
Because of this we began to clearly define what was ‘Ministry Time’ and what wasn’t; which isn’t a problbem when you don’t live with your host. But this definition made us lazy to help out our host when we were ‘off’ and teamates began to treat people that would come over to say ‘Hello’ coldly. It didn’t show to much. But God opened my eyes to the fact that ‘Ministry Time’ is all the time. We should always put Love first! Especially if someone came over just to meet you. We were literally the only reason some people came to our mamas house, so its our job to great them gladly. To say ‘Hello’ and ask how they’re doing. Perhaps even pray for them if they’re open to it. And they probably all would have been. But that ship has sailed. All I can do now is learn, pray for them, and try to do better the next time someone knocks on my door.
