12th November
I am now staying at Venitia and Richard’s from Church. They said they would like to put me up for a time until I find somewhere more permanent to stay. I moved out of Tariro House this week, which was rather sad and we had tears from all the boys. I am being looked after very well here!
Well, what a week! Or should I say that was one ‘hell’ of a week! I stopped writing blogs for a few days after our house was burgled on Thursday night. Some clever thieves hooked valuables through the windows of a bedroom. The windows here ALL have bars and security latches, even if the latches are somewhat worn. Meredith’s laptop, credit cards, phone and camera were taken, along too with my passport. This happened about 11pm when we were ALL at home, awake! Meredith nipped to the shower and I was up talking, some of the boys even awake doing their homework in the study. No one heard a sound. Of course, we rushed outside to find they had fled, but they had left they cleverly hand made hooks behind.
In this country the police don’t come to the scene of a crime unless its murder. To make them come you have to go and collect them from the police station. So about an hour after the crime, the police ‘turned up’, in our car, funnily enough! However, they were good. They searched the garden and the empty house next door. They comforted us and reassured us – the whole household! The younger boys were quite shook up by the events. It was obvious that two people, or more, were involved, and that they had been watching the house for some time, or they knew our routine and so on. They had hidden in the bush in our garden and watched the rooms. They made hook-type-tools from the empty house’s garden and used wire washing line, also from next door, to create the hooks.
We spent hours that night at the police station. What an ordeal. The conditions of the police station are just horrible. Meredith was in great shock and was hysteric over the smallest of things. The night police were tired and kept yawning, they were hungry, and obviously underpaid and generally disheartened by conditions. I gave them all a drink before they left our house, including some beer!!
I got angry with one of the constables when he asked me for money! Because I was angry and upset with what had happened anyway, I just shouted at him!! This was the first time I had flew off the handle for a long time. He was very apologetic when he saw I was serious and angry and that we were both actually vulnerable and scared. He called me ‘boss’, said sorry and carried on investigating! I have to admit, he did a pretty damn good job for the quite frankly shit pay he got. He wore a tatty uniform with holes in and a hat that looked like it had been run over by a tractor.
Praise God that the police were handed in a passport and credit cards the following day. We took them a 10kg bag of mealie meal to say thank you for their hard work the night before. I now have my passport and Meredith has some kind of I.D and reassurance of her bank and accounting items. We never expect to see the laptop, phone and camera again, but we are at least all safe and OK. Shaken, not stirred – as they say!
I moved out of Tariro House today, into a friends house, from church. The couple have offered to put me and Meredith up for a while. I will be working with Meredith on a number of other projects with orphans, which excites me deeply, and also as the Rector’s PA, at Avondale, the Anglican Church we attend.
I am tired this week after a long weekend. I have to admit I am worn out and fed up! Although I am fed up, I am not giving up! I haven’t come this far to go home again. Have I failed? NO! How many other 22 year olds have opened a home for teenagers? I have learnt a valuable lesson about myself, others, but more importantly about God. In some sense, I’m not sure what I’ve learnt, but I have learnt something. It’s one of those deep feelings – those feelings where you feel so unsecure, unsafe, unsure, but yet Jesus has me in his arms and is carrying me all the way. I know my weaknesses, and knowing them is scary, but real because it means I can be in contact with myself and know myself fully. Sometimes we have to jump off the cliff even if we don’t know where we are going, and just let Jesus catch us. I hope he catches me in this next phase of this pilgrimage to
4th November
Today I spent a few hours with Bev just talking. It is so good to have someone listen to me, just totally openly and honestly. She presents no worry or concerns, gives no unwanted advice but says exactly what I NEED to hear all the time.
My vision is to let every orphan know that they are loved. In recent weeks, the scale of the issue or orphans has become apparent. Even within my circle of friends here in Zim there are orphans. There is a lovely man who runs
The poverty in this country is huge. Not only materialistically, but deep within people there is an air of hurt and un-forgiveness. I realise that when I walk through the high density areas and see the people struggling, how much I really appreciate everything I have in life, or at least how much I should appreciate it. The feeling at the time is a simple feeling – it really is only the recognition of how much we take for granted in life. This ‘being grateful’ for everything in our lives, hits so many nerves and emotions. Being thankful and grateful makes the core of our human nature. We grow up in societies that teach us that we cannot live the latest ideals, items and so on. However, we go through life in Zimbabwe and we realise and discover that in fact we can get through life without these things; this then causes us to come in contact with so many feelings and emotions – it is that feeling that can either make or break us. As I look at all those in Epworth or Highfield that really need help, I know in reality I cannot help all these people or save them. However, I can go away and attempt to live the rest of my life in order to help the lost and hurt. The one big thing that Zimbabweans need is time. Time is rushed, time is precious, time is valued, time is a personal thing – people need time. There sometimes seems to be no time to stop and listen to the lady who lost her husband, or to give a lift to the women found on the street corner badly beaten and bruised. I think when I leave TYP I will be a lot more free and ‘loose’ with my time. I WILL be able to stop and give some help, or talk to the beggar who asks for money – this is what I have always wanted to do and have never found the time, thinking that my time in Africa has to be jam-packed with business and daily doings, being rushed and doing everything quickly. I am here to serve and I hold my hands out to God. I am shit scared of what the next few months may bring, but God has trained me up and I am strong enough to deal with whatever God has in store. Now all I need to do is let go of the pride and selfishness and really feel the thankfulness, joy and peace that comes from Jesus. Over the next few months, I plan on getting my hands dirty. If I see a beggar on the street who asks for money, I will stop and talk to them. If I see a women who needs to go to hospital I will do my best to help her. My help may be abused and I may be used for personal gain, but that is a risk that I want to take. It is a risk Jesus took on the cross. He risked being abused but did not retaliate. Jesus was mocked but did not accuse in return. That pain in Highfield is still within me. I am going to step into that pain to release what is waiting to be unloaded – I can only hope it is packed with goodness and faithfulness to God’s world. How can our lives reflect the concern and passion for the poor?
Here is a day from last year’s African journal, Wednesday 20th August.
After lunch me, Andrew and a group of youngsters from the Church walked through Highfields. At first I didn’t really take much in or much notice about the things around me, but as we got deeper into the streets the houses became denser and denser, the crowds of people became thicker and thicker and the smell got worse and worse. I soon came to realise that this was something out of a movie. Well, so I was hoping. It was like something out of hell - complete chaos. There was heaps of rubbish burning and children climbing through piles of dirt and garbage to find things and mothers with their children on their backs searching on the floor for something- but what? The smoke was thick, the sewage ran through the street, the earth was dry, but yet hundreds flowed through the streets. People looked at us with glares as we walked through. Children stopped and turned as we walked past. I wasn’t scared but more concerned and horrified that I was seeing these things! Such awful conditions, such cramped lifestyles with so little. I had nothing to give but a stare; I had nothing to offer but a prayer. Where was God in all this chaos? Surely he wouldn’t be here, he wouldn’t want to be here, I didn’t want to be here. This is for TV! After a minute or so, it wasn’t long before God started to appear. He was there. In fact he wanted to be there. God was hurt and concerned for these people. These are the people he wants us to look out for and defend and help and love. God was clearly with the child on the rubbish tip, through all that smoke God was there. He was with that baby crying on its mother’s back and peering through the window of the slums. He was in the child with the gleaming smile who stopped to look at us. God was everywhere! In fact I’d never seen God so present in my life. I think somehow my whole image of God just grew and grew. I once had empty prayers for these people, praying for the poor- but they were just empty prayers and praying for what? I don’t know. All of a sudden all those years of prayers for the poor just became real, they became fulfilled and answered and true. I was the answer, we are the answer. To reach out our hands and arms in love and to embrace the world as Christ’s arms and hands. I was planning to bring Christ into this place, but found he was already here, resident in the tears and pains and joys and happiness of all his people.
There are answers to my prayers like the Mutasa family who are working within the parish of Highfields to bring youngsters together in hope and love and to meet as friends, to ask and seek guidance, to find money for an education and so on. The answer is never to leave the poverty, however nice that seems- it will always exist, but it’s finding a way of overcoming the poverty and almost using it in one sense as a stepping block for a brighter future for these youngsters. As we met they told us their backgrounds and their stories. They each gave their story one by one and I just couldn’t help but cry after everything I’d seen today. Orphans, poor, lonely – you name it we heard about it! But to hear their commitment to God was stronger because of it and to see such joy from God because they had put their trust in him was amazing. I just cried throughout the evening and my throat got more tight and tight as the stories went on. I try very hard to place my hope and trust in God and I have most things, if not more than I need to live and get by. I had a mum and a dad, brothers and sisters, a place to live, a brilliant education and friends and places to go and see and so – yet it is so hard to have faith in God. These people have so little, yet God is so much to them.
Today was probably the most heart wrenching, moving and spiritually draining of my whole entire life and that is no lie! To be honest it seemed like hell on earth, but turned into a prayer in action – God at work. You only expect to see these like that on TV, but I’m so glad I’ve seen it for real now. I feel drained from everything I’ve experienced today alone! I am angry at the state these people are left in- angry at the government and with richer countries and myself of course. These are people. Real people too. People with hopes and skill and talent and faith. Real faith. God is at work in his people, building a kingdom of power, not empty words; a kingdom of love, not division and bitterness. God was using the nothingness to bring them everything. How I long to be part of that kingdom at home!
I have to admit I now miss everything about home. I miss my family and friends and the comforts and securities. I’ve had enough sadza to last a life time and there isn’t even hot water or electricity to wash my face or my feet or boil the kettle for a cup of tea! I am in the company of the most prettiest little girl with wonderful plaited hair and huge brown eyes and a tiny English vocabulary, and she is most inquisitive to how I got white skin! She asked me: ‘So Carl, you have white arms and white legs and a white head, what colour is your body?’ Bless her! She made my day! She touched me sharply and quickly to see if my skin was real or if it felt different, and she pulled the hairs on my legs to see what it was! Jesus said, let the little children come unto me, and I can see why now.
Christ has no body but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands with which he blesses the world.
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
Teresa of
Today has been a day of matching up real life right now with stories that Jesus told and the gospel writers recorded in the New Testament. Jesus rarely spoke of rich kings or wealthy men and when he did it often ended up with him giving everything up, welcoming into his house the whole of the poorest communities, or him not having a place in heaven. Jesus said it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. I think he meant that quite literally in some sense too. Having everything brings us no closer to God at all! The story of the women who gave all she had to the temple offering today became real. The story of the man who, in all his pride, shew no remorse for his sin, yet the quiet man who beat his chest in repentance, became real today. The story of the beggars, the lame, the deaf, the poor and the stories of healing and sickness all became real. The Gospel actually became for me, real. It really became Good News. The Gospel smacked me round the face and Jesus whispered to me: Here I am, here I am.
2 Corinthians 4:7-11 comes to mind: ‘But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our bodies. For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.’
We cannot not measure how you heal, or answer every sufferers’ prayer
But we believe your grace responds where faith and doubt unite to care.
Your hands, though bloodied on the cross, survive to hold and heal and warn,
To carry all through death to life and cradle children yet unborn.
The pain that will not go away the guilt that clings from things long past
The fear of what the future hold are present as if meant to last.
But present too is love which tends the hurt we never hoped to find,
The private agonies inside, the memories that haunt the mind.
So some have come who need your help and some have come to make amends
Your hands which shaped and save the world are present in the touch of friends.
Lord, let your spirit meet us here to mend the body, heart and soul,
To disentangle peace from pain, and make your broken people whole.
5th November
Bon fire night and I am so depressed that there are no fire works here, although I did see a fire work party next weekend advertised. Remember, remember the 5th of November, gun power, treason plot, I see no reason why gun powder treason should ever be forgot. Usually I would be attending the local town bon fire and fate.
Today has been filled with little joys. At a local
Today also I have been looking around and thinking about where I will be staying when I leave Tariro. I need a place where I am still close to the project, so I can visit and carry on working for TYP, but also a place that is easy for me to be involved with other project dealing with orphans. I think the nearest place in only a few minutes away from Tariro House and it looks promising because I will be able to carry on at church and continue working with orphans elsewhere. I am also planning a trip to Chipinge to help begin a new orphanage programme and orphanage near some tea estates. I am so excited that so many new projects are emerging and that so many vision have been given a vision.
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