Relationships

These past two months in Zimbabwe God has brought about relationships
with a variety of people of diverse characters and circumstances. But
each has climbed into and claimed a special place in my heart, and I
want to ask you to join me in lifting up their hearts and futures in
prayer. Let me introduce you to a few of them.

The first is Victor, an eleven-year-old boy who sought me out when I
visited his school to play net ball. Victor is a special little boy;
there is a light in his eyes and a warmth in his heart that is absent
in too many of the children here, as well as a sharp mind and strong
hope for the future. He walks an hour every day from a neighboring
village to attend school here, and one weekend he ran the entire way
to take me back to his home to meet his family. They live in a tin
shack-well furnished inside-on an immaculately kept plot of land with
gardens both practical and pleasing. Victor's father Mike works
hard in order to pay for and begin building his family a house, brick
by brick. Victor visits me after school whenever he can; we talk
about Jesus and family, always praying together. I believe God has
good things in store for his future.

Another relationship which has been a blessing to me and Tersia is with
a woman named Blessed. She was misdiagnosed for a disease and given
treatment which made it worse, and is now crippled in both her legs
and hands. We began visiting her twice a week in order to help her
with her physical therapy and give encouragement. In just one week
she showed improvement which is increasing! And she has become an
encouragement to us as well, her faith and the peace of Christ shining
out of her eyes.

But perhaps the most encouraging relationships have been the most
challenging. Twice a week I meet with a family of sisters-Florence,
Prisca, Mama Jones, and Ceaser-their niece Tambusai, and occasionally
their friends. Each of these women gave their lives to Christ for the
first time after our first couple weeks here, and they are hungry for
Him and His word. They are all at the house almost every time we
meet, asking challenging questions and giving good insight. Their
faith and faithfulness is wonderful to behold, even in their difficult
circumstances, seeing the ways God is coming through for them in
providing for and speaking to them.

Their love and hospitality is so sweet. They have almost nothing yet
delight to serve us. A while back Tersia and Christine brought them a
supply of food when discovering their need. The following meetings
they fed US from what we had given them, tasty bean dishes and boiled
pumpkin they had prepared. I delight in their company, sitting and
visiting, laughing, reading the Bible and praying. It is a challenge
too, as their stories and lives are full of heartbreak and
difficulty-poverty, abuse, AIDS, cults. Yet still they cling to hope.
Please pray for them, that 'He who began a good work in (them) will
perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus'. (Phil. 1:6) Amen

Journal Entry

Friday, May 29, 2009

It is so incredible to me to see the shift in my life and focus. Incredible and wonderful. The entire center of passion and existence for myself and the team is the Gospel. We were all sitting together over dinner in the dark-again-and all we spoke of was the 'God story' and the meaning of the Gospel. We were sharing perspectives, asking questions, looking up scriptures and getting excited. We spoke of the consequences of sin being death, the significance of Christ having to die and the meaning of the resurrection, how best to explain sacrifice, and we read the Bible together with real enthusiasm.

This morning I practiced sharing the 'God story' with the team, for the first time with excitement and not nervousness, and received real encouragement from their response. Half of our conversations are concerning ministry, teaching and sharing the Gospel, confronting religion and false doctrine, and how to make the word understandable and applicable with language barriers. And this is what we WANT to talk about! Not because we have to or that it's our "job", but because this is becoming the very core and center of who we are.

It blew my mind when I realized this tonight. The shift has taken place so gradually, we've moved into it without thinking. Not that it didn't come without challenge or that I wasn't without passion for God's word before. But I feel for the first time I can say He is truly first and foremost in my life and all else stems from this. The realization hit me tonight for the first time and filled me with such joy.

This evening was my first time leading a meeting on my own as Tersia couldn't make it. It was awesome. Two days before we had asked that they read John 1, which was probably a mistake because they only have the original King James Bible. But I sat and we read the first fourteen verses together out of my Bible, which I explained and paraphrased before having them repeat what it means and says about Jesus to them. It was powerful seeing the light go on in their eyes, hearing them translate to each other, and hearing their opinions.

I've had dreams at times of preaching the Gospel, or living out my life with the poor. I dreamed again last night of being home, but I was passionately sharing the 'God story' and living out the Gospel, while preparing to go out again to "the nations". For the first time I woke to the knowledge that my dreams are a reflection of my waking life! Incredible. May it continue to be so.

God is amazing! He is teaching me and growing me so much. But even as He refines me and sloughs off the dead and rough edges, bringing challenges and conviction, He daily teaches me my worth. Every day I see His love and faithfulness to me as I learn to more clearly hear His voice and follow the leading of His Spirit.

Our Ministry by Aaron Marshal (leader and fellow teammate)

There are 10 christian tv channels and an infantry of churches and cults in Vic Falls, so the environment is very “religious”. Strangely though there is a huge shortage of bibles here. That being said there is much heresy and false doctrine floating around. It was very discouraging at first, especially at bible studies when people would start voicing false statements about God and the Gospel. A few of our team members attended a crusade where the leaders were blatantly scamming the people for money in the name of Jesus. Nearly everyone believes that they earn their way to heaven and that if they have enough faith God will do anything for them. Many people lean heavy on the TV evangelists, who focus on healing, prophecy and prosperity twisting biblical truth and forming “religious” idols.

Our strategy initially was to lead inductive bible studies as we began to focus on a few key people. Once we discovered the goofy doctrine floating in we shifted gears to teaching God’s story and personal stories and that is when things began to change. Telling the story helped the people see that they didn’t really know the Gospel. Telling the story also made them hungry to know more. We are now teaching them to tell the God story, with good initial results. We hope to record some of them and share it with you. We are using 5 chapters; Creation/Rebellion/Sacrifice/Redemption/Commission. We give them verses under each chapter and help them to summarize each scripture and combine all the summaries into a story. It’s powerful to watch them help each other expand the story from their own personal study. Occasionally a new section will pop up in someones God’s story that we didn’t teach them ourselves.

When we discover a specific idol/sin that the group dealing with, we integrate scripture into the God’s story aimed at that issue. For example, Munya told the God story to a group and placed special emphasis on sacrifice, addressing the issue of traditional animal sacrifice for ancestors. The results were immediate and a man who is a “church goer” repented of having sacrificed chickens that week to his ancestors. He is now one of the key guys that we are working with, and he craves to hear the Gospel explained. Last night we read Galatians with him and unpacked the first several verses that discuss false gospel. Being a common false belief here, we talked extensively about not being able to earn your way to heaven. With glazed watery eyes he responded by saying this “right this very second there is a preacher in Vic Falls that is preaching that I have to go to church and tithe or I will go to hell, what you guys are telling me is just melting me, its amazing”. Needless to say you can see this guy being set free the more and more we explore the Gospel with him.

We have redefined our strategy a bit. Rather than focusing on starting reproducing communities we want people to have a rich understanding of the Gospel. We don’t want to start anything that doesn’t start and end with the Gospel. You can see the freedom in peoples eyes, they are at the foothills of adoring Christ.

To be totally honest I think we all feel like we are in the foothills of adoring Christ. There have been times of severe discouragment for our team as we battle through dietary issues, team tension and totally foggy vision of what we are suppose to be doing here. Repeatedly hearing the Gospel and attempting to share it has been the redeeming element of everything that we have done here. God is loving us, He is showing up at just the right times, and He is making a difference in the community.

The Adventures of Living

Daily living is so crazy and quirky and beyond the norm, half the time
we don't know whether to laugh or cry. Usually we just carry on
without thinking about it, though on occasion we temporarily go
insane. A missionaries' life is neither exotic or romantic, but no
one can deny it's an adventure! Every aspect of daily living is a
challenge, yet it's amazing how quickly we adapt.

We do our laundry by hand, last time I peeled the skin right off my
knuckle while scrubbing. Tersia has since introduced me to the method
of on treading the clothes with my feet. Wringing out my towel is an
experience unto itself. Our showers are open cement stalls, only one
of which has hot water. And if someone decides to use water in
another part of the house you lose yours. A lot of yelling back and
forth takes place in the mornings.

Our current mode of eating is enough to make a carboholic go on the
Atkins diet for life. The staple food here is sadza-or maize meal-a
fine corn porridge substance cooked in a variety of ways for any meal.
I am quickly developing the African booty. We drink coffee like
water, trying to make up for the energy crashes from lack of protein
and good sleep.

But in the midst of the craziest circumstances we make some of our
favorite memories. Loss of power to load shedding is becoming much
less frequent. However, last week we lost both water and electricity;
as soon as one came back on the other went off. So there we were,
sitting on the cement floor of our kitchen eating by the light of one
candle, sharing stories and laughter. Having no sweets, Tersia passed
out packets of orange cool-drink powder and we sat dipping and licking
it off our fingers, laughing hysterically over the pathetic picture we
presented. If they could see us now! God has a sense of humor. But
in every circumstance-the good and bad, the fun and difficult, the
crazy and the awe inspiring-He comes through and meets us where we're
at, proving His love and faithfulness