After the excitement of last week, this week found it hard to compete. Yet, it started out really awesome. We were in Chingami. Chingami is the church that Sherry and I fell in love with last time we were here. We spent three days with them, holding a revival, evangelistic, whatever meeting. We worshipped and prayed together, I preached, Sherry shared her story, and we ate together. It was glorious. And Sunday we once again were privileged to worship there. One of the highlights, and there were a number of them, was seeing the freshly painted church. Before we left last year, we made them a promise. If you fix the cracks (and there were many) and promise to do the painting yourselves, we will buy the paint. They fixed, and we kept our promise. It is beautiful, white and red. They thanked us for being promise keepers. That is the second place we have been thanked for that. The other thing that one lady said really impressed me, “No matter how you look, how pretty you are, if your clothes are dirty and torn, you will be considered ugly. Now we are no longer ugly.” I admit a tear or two formed with that. I preached, of course, and it was just a great morning. After church we had lunch, sadza, chicken, rice, and some relish. And cold 7up. We were spoiled.
The rest of this week has been a little slow compared to the last couple. I was the one bringing devotions for the staff all week, and that was fun. We had money being sent from generous people, some helping with the Village, orphanage, fire, some helping with a medical clinic that needed some supplies, and some to replace some toilets at the village. We met with the pastor we are helping at our Chiredzi church and mentoring the associate pastor on studying the Bible. As I am preaching on Sunday, I had some sermon work to do. I had some tax stuff to deal with and we made a change in insurance so I spent no small amount of time on the phone. Thank goodness for Wi-Fi calling.
Today, Friday, Sherry and I and Simon and his wife, he is the pastor we are helping, went to the church building to spend some time in prayer, think our Half-Day Prayers at SCC. We will see what fruit that time will yield, it is a God thing. And we have seen lots of God things already. We are approaching the half-way point in our time here; it is hard to believe. The mission and pace are different this time. While we are far from experts on Zimbabwe, we are understanding and appreciating things in a much deeper way this time. I am discovering that one of the lessons I learned long ago applies here as well. Sometimes it is not being busy, it is not the work you do, but it is simply being present. So right now, we are working hard at being present, helping where we can, changing perspectives of people from the States, and loving people and God along the way. And I am preaching when I can, and so far, that is every weekend somewhere. This week I am back to Chiredzi Christian Church.
