I want to tell you all that I am leaving the Tariro Youth Project as the Project Manager. I will remain a Trustee of the charity. I have given all I can to the TYP over the past few months and past year or so, but now I feel it is time that someone else take over and lead the project. It has always been important to me that a Shona male or female lead the project, due to the cultural differences, which I didn't realise would be this large. I am struggling with certain parts of Shona culture, especially the leadership expectancies, which make it very difficult for me to carry on being a leader within the Project.
I have come under a lot of opposition from elders and one or two Shona people over the past month or so. I think it is time that I move on to new pastures. The project is big enough and stable enough to keep running without me now! It will be really hard to move on, because the relationships we have built up in the house have been that of a father-son sort of thing!
I am looking forward to see over the next month where God will lead me and where I choose to go and what I get involved with next... I can get involved with so much here. I know my passion is for orphans and I will continue working with orphans. My journal and blog have not ended so please keep reading and supporting me here!
The more I am here the more I miss the daily pattern of a monastery and prayer life. The ups and downs, the struggles and the cultural differences all pose a challenge to maintain a spiritual life, social and healthy mental life! At the end of the day I am not African. I still, and always will, find it hard to walk down the street and see suffering and hurt people without quesitoning God, humanity and myself.
I have a 'mother' here called Bev. She looks after me so well. She says the right things at the right time. But she has the heart of God when it comes to people. When she sees a hurt person, or someone in need, she forgets herself and carries the cross of Jesus!!! The other day she got out of her car to help a homeless, sick and ill person. She took them to the hospital, found a sheltered home for homeless and took her there... Bev truly took this issue and used the hands of Jesus to really bring peace, comfort and joy to someone's life.
I love it in Zimbabwe, but I'm not made to live here. I am called to work in the Church of England for sure. However, Zimbabwe will always be a place I will visit and come, because here I see the hands of Jesus, his eyes, face and here I feel his embrace.
This is not the end of Tariro Youth Project, or of me! In fact this is only the start of something big in my life, your life and in the life of TYP. Better things are yet to come, greater things are still to be done in this place!!
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