The Future!

28/11/09

Well the troubles with the chairman continued when I arrived back from a fantastic trip at Penhalonga, apart from having the flu. I thought the differences and attitude shown by our chairman had calmed down, but obviously not. Now he is accusing both me and Meredith of some pretty rubbish stuff, like ‘starving the boys in the house’ and ‘being white means lacking compassion, therefore whites should not work with children.’ At first I thought I had upset him and just pushed the wrong button, now I’m sure it’s more than just me, but more racially motivated. I have left the house already, but his attitude to try to ‘stop every project I get involved with’ is just totally evil. He has an attitude that people are saying is bitter and filled with hate, which is rather sad. He is trying to report me to the authorities and although he has no case to argue with, I am not even risking the justice system here as it is simply unfair and diabolical!

Anyway I am flying home on Wednesday evening and should arrive early Thursday morning into Gatwick. I can’t say how excited I am about flying back. I love it here and I am more than sure that God wants me here. Also, however, he wants me to be safe, so he is leading me to safer grounds, where I am loved (hopefully) and where this evil work that is chasing away the good work of so many people, cannot affect me.

Am I sad? YES – extremely sad. I am sad because I wanted to see the whole year through and I am also sad at the fact that somehow, maybe one day I will know how, I have upset someone and made them be filled with such hatred that they feel they have to affect the work of so many people here in Zim, in a place that needs so much help.

However, I have set out what I achieved to do. At 22 years old, I have literally made a pile of bricks a home and opened a safe haven for teenage orphans. I am concerned that that work will be spoilt by the current management that doesn’t seem to give a diddly-sqat about the way things are run and managed, about their trustees and members and about the person who had the vision for the home in the first place!

My work with orphans will never be stopped however and I plan to continue raising money in England for orphans in Zimbabwe, especially for education and health care. Last week we paid for two girls to go to school in Penhalonga. I was down to my very last $5USD note. One girl owed the school $5USD (about £3) but was suspended because she couldn’t find the money to pay. We took her to the school and paid the cost and she returned to school THAT day! God is good! Another girl hadn’t been to school all year and needed $90 to attend for the whole year. Fr Nicolas had told me that he had some money given to him for this, and so we offered to pay for her school fees. Nyasha, who is 22, who we have been helping for sometime, needed a job and someone to live, in Harare. Meredith knew a contact who employs young people as apprentices, gives them work and a small salary to get them on their feet. Today we found somewhere for him to live. This is how I will continue working with young orphans, and I hope people at home will help me by sponsoring a child for school or raising money so we can help as many orphans in the community as possible. When one path is blocked, God opens another very quickly, and this he opened the next day. I have NO doubt in me that this is one of the things God wants me to do – have a passion for those children whom he has a passion for himself. We also came across a little boy asking for money, so I went into the supermarket and brought him a loaf of bread.

I would like people NOT to give to Tariro Youth Project as it is being run at the moment. Rather, donations and money can go to Fr Nicolas at CR with a CLEAR request to be used for Carl’s Mission Project. Also another CD is being recorded with the local church choir, and practices are sounding good. I won’t be here for the recording, but it should be around in February time all being well.

Well the decision to fly home was rather quick, as things here are tricky enough without the added troubles of an angry chairman! I’m not entirely sure what I will be doing, although raising money for Zimbabwe is still a high MUST. I am willing to preach, do talk, evenings and so on to raise money, as well as inform you generally of the work we have done in Zimbabwe since I came in July.

"Mission goes out from God. Mission is God's way of loving and saving the world...”

(Lambeth Conference 1998, Section II p121).

So, from here my blogs probably won’t be very interesting, however, I will try my very best to keep it updated and interesting – some how! I hope you have enjoyed reading as much as I have enjoyed writing down what I have experienced? I particularly found the Chipinge Experience moving, meeting those two little girls, one with burns and another who was being abused but had serious learning disabilities. I won’t forget them or any of the other amazing people I have met over the past four months and before! I won’t forget Zimbabwe. God has totally rocked my little and comfortable world. God has totally changed me into a person who cares about every person I come across, whereas before I would have walked past. God has taught me new things about myself, things good and bad, things that need improving and others that need toning down. God has exposed my weaknesses and given me new strengths. This strength is in God: a God who cares for his world and for his people and a God who loves us all so very dearly. I know you’ve probably heard that before, but do you really know it? I thought I did until I came here! To wake up every day and see suffering, quite literally, all around takes some getting used to. To try and balance your faith with all the suffering also takes some getting used to. To try and find Jesus in everything takes some seeking. But, in Jesus’ gentle and loving way, he is there – here, and he takes great joy in being found. He takes great pride in being associated with those who suffer and he humiliates the rich as he celebrates with the lives of all those who are poor and starving and hurting and bleeding. I have seen that – hurting, bleeding, pain, even in children. My faith keeps asking me why is this happening and why aren’t we, the rich, doing more to help, in fact, to stop, this great darkness of hurt and pain. But in response to my faith’s questions, my Jesus replies I am always with you, I will never leave you, I love you, my children. Every day I wake up to see a new beggar or child who needs even a few dollars and every day my heart asks these questions – why, how? Every day, 24 hours, each little minute, each tiny second, I don’t stop thinking, I must do more… I can only do more… I would love to do more… I don’t know why I can’t face this human pain and suffering without questions and quizzes, but I do know, somehow, not sure how, but somehow, Jesus is here and that he loves me and that he loves every person.

A mission is a journey that you take to live out God’s vision. God’s vision is to see every human, especially the poor and hungry, vulnerable and weak, loved – by his Son, Jesus. Somehow I have stepped onto the same path that Jesus has been walking since the beginning of time. It is a walk with humanity at its most worst; a walk with humanity that strips the insides and leaves you feeling empty, but fulfilled; a walk that takes about your wealth, but leaves you feeling rich; a walk that lowers your status, but puts you on the highest possible level; a walk where danger is fully visible, but where you are shielded and protected by a love that conquers fear.

God is faithful to his promises. He promised me a family of children, even though I cannot have children of my own. A little girl in Chipinge turned to ask me, after playing a game with the group: “Morongu (white man), will you be my daddy?” My reply, after a moment’s thought, was “yes, I already am and Jesus has taught me how to be.”

Father Timothy from CR said to me in an email that love and pain often go together. At first, I thought he meant that they go ‘well together’. Thinking about it, they don’t. However, they do meet. In that pain you can find love and you can find the ability to love the unloved. The pain of that love is often where it starts – with us. My pain comes when I try and truly understand that I am loved by God, by someone, by anyone at all. When I try and answer ‘why’ people love me in the first place at all. Of course, I will never understand, and maybe I will always feel that pain. I do know that in wanting to know and in wanting to understand, God uses me to love the unloved. My pain sits alongside the pain of so many others in our world, my experiences speak to so many other people who walk through the same experiences, and my life speaks to those whose lives need Jesus. This is the only answer I have, the only way forward I know. Otherwise we may sit around in darkness and pain all our lives. My pain makes prayer difficult, at times a real struggle. But that tiny assurance of love, however small it feels at times, means I am able to mumble a few words. Sometimes I’m not sure what I want to pray for, but God just gives me the one or two words I need.

I hope that on my return to England, I will be able to piece together just one more piece to life’s jigsaw puzzle. I hope that God will reveal to me one more scar to add to the rest. I also hope that God will continue to relieve the pain and suffering and attend to the cries of all those children in Zimbabwe.

30/11/09

So, on Wednesday I leave Zimbabwe! How Am I feeling? Excited as well as sad! I will be out of the way of the firing line of a very angry African man and also be flying home to merry ole England! WOO!

I’m not entirely sure what the future holds for me now, but I hope to continue fund raising after Christmas and also develop my spirituality, putting into practice and trying to make sense of all the things I learnt at Mirfield and also in Africa.