Introducing Big Bird...

Hello again,

I hope you are all well. We’ve seen clips of the snow on the news here - wow! I’m not gonna lie, I’m a little bit jealous. Just a day of snow would be wonderful, then I’d happily come back here to the sunshine. Sadly that’s not quite how weather systems work... So instead I will have to enjoy the sun and storms we’re getting here! In fact, I have a tan! Well, a driver’s tan - my right arm is noticeably more tanned than my left, from where I’ve had the window rolled down in the car as we’re driving a long. But still, I will take any tan I get. How strange it will be to have a sunny, hot Christmas...

Anyway, back to my news. Things are changing in our routine a bit now, as Oasis projects quieten down over the month of December, so a lot more of our work is at Northside. But I’ll go into that “just now” (which in Zim means “soon”, we have learned!).

Mbare Pre-school: We finished at Mbare for this year just last week. The children have a “graduation” ceremony as they move up from the pre-school into Grade 1, and we watched them practice it and had a final chance to play with them and talk to them. Their presentations for the graduation were very sweet: reciting months of the year, days of the week, numbers, nursery rhymes... They know a surprising amount! It will be interesting getting to know a new group of kids in the new year, but hopefully we’ll feel useful right from the beginning as we’ll have a better idea of what is expected of us and how to adapt our activities to suit their age and English-speaking abilities! The netball at Mbare also finished for the year, and again hopefully next year when we return I’ll be able to join in coaching a little bit, and we’ll get to know the coaches and girls even better.

Jewellery-making: We’ve still loved doing this, and now Kate has gone to the UK she is selling some of the things we’ve made over there. We have a nice array of necklaces, earrings and bracelets that we’re all quite proud of!

Foundations For Farming: I am now (un)officially a farmer! Helen, Jess and I, along with the Oasis director’s gardener, Ouda, are tneding to our little plot of land outside the Oasis offices. It’s bigger than 6m x 6m though! We have 494 holes, each with 3 maize seeds planted in them. That makes 1482 little seeds planted in our plot. Each with love and care. We were very proud of ourselves when we dug the holes, put in the fertiliser and planted the seeds all in one (hot!) morning. Now we have to keep checking up on the land to weed and things. I feel like a protective mother - I was so proud when we saw the first green shoots sprout up from the ground the other day. Hopefully the maize will be fully grown before we leave, in time for us to harvest, but we’re not entirely sure...

Gateway Grade 6 Camp: So I mentioned this in my prayer requests in the last blog (and a big thank you to those who were praying for me!). The camp went really well - I loved it, and the 90 kids did too! Basically, we were leaders on a Grade 6 (aged 11) activity camp in Sanganayi Creek, aka. “the bush”, about 2 hours outside of Harare. The overall aim: to help the teachers select prefects for next year (by seeing how the kids worked in teams and who the leaders were), while also slipping in some God-stuff (it was a Christian school). It was brilliant, but absolutely exhausting! Lost my voice too - trying to get yourself heard over a large group of kids takes effort.  For those of you who know of Scripture Union camps, think of that, then cross it with boot camp, and you have Grade 6 camp! While in Britain there are many rules about child safety and child protection, it’s not such a big issue here. We were allowed to “punish” the kids in whichever ever way we saw fit - so long as we did the exercise with them (promoting the idea of being a team ... make sense?) So, each morning at 6am they had to do exercise for 45 minutes, run “to the grid” which was about 500m away, do push-ups (“When I say one, you say one. ONE” “One, thank you sir!”), that kind of thing... And at night, if they were talking past lights out, we could get them up to make them do things, until they stopped talking. I felt so cruel, but I was actually a very nice leader in comparison to what some of the guys made their campers do! What’s more, the kids didn’t even seem to mind - well, they asked for it! I mean literally asked for it. Helen was asked by her dorm as they were being punished if they could do 20 push-ups. It was really quite funny, and so different to any Christian-related camp at home. I had some really good kids in my group, and some absolute terrors. Hence why I lost my voice. By the end of it they worked pretty well together, but they were shattered. They had to do so much though that it was to be expected.

We had some interesting experiences in Sanganyi - the most memorable of which might be hitch-hiking on a truck of manure. Lovely. The colour of the pool there will remain with me always too - it was green. Really green. You couldn’t even see your hand if you put it just under the surface of the water! But the kids seemed to love it - that was their washing for the week. I dealt with bucket-showers instead though. It was so hot there, you needed to cool down any way possible! In terms of the Christian side of things, it was slipped in a lot as the kids were doing their activities in terms of how we should act (supporting each other, etc) and then each morning we led devotional times with our team. I was really encouraged by the response of my group - they know a lot about the bible, but when we talked about it many of them had not thought about what it really meant for them. Therefore, many of them got a greater understanding of just how much God loves them, and how much He wants to have a relationship - with them! It was also the only time when they all listened to each other, ALL the time, which made a nice change...

It was a really good week as well, in terms of us getting to know the young adults in our church too, since they were the other leaders. When we first went to Northside we weren’t really having many conversation other than “how was your week...?”, but now we can have such a laugh with the group that were leaders at the camp too.

Northside Community Church: We are now a lot more involved with the work in the church - as Oasis quietens down, things get busy at Northside! The school term has now finished, so things move into holiday mode. No more Wow Kidz (although the last session of that was a lot of fun - we made Christmas cards and had hot dogs!) or paired reading, but a lot more work, ironically.

Christmas time! - Jess, Helen and I have the responsibility of delivering the children’s talk in the Sunday morning services in the run-up to Christmas. I am actually really looking forward to it, although it will be a bit daunting speaking in front of the whole church! However, we have some good ideas, and it should be fun to present the Christmas message in different ways. The first service today went really well, with a focus on the “surprise” of Christmas. The kids loved the fact we had sweets for them at the end, and the lesson stuck with them which is nice! The adults seemed to appreciate it just as much too. We’ve also been decorating the church for Christmas, which has been lots of fun. I climbed the ladder to the top of the huge Christmas tree (although it’s a pine tree, not a fir...) to put our handmade star at the top. It was a proud moment. The tree is also flat at the back, but being the innovative, resourceful, fantastic team that we are, we managed to make it look festive and tree-shaped! We’ve also done a lot of star-making and star-cutting, for a few of the things going on around Christmastime.

Nativity Parade - Last night we had a nativity parade in the nearby shopping centre before they switched on their Christmas lights: it was our job to shepherd the little children and watch over them at night. We assured them that they need not be afraid of the bright lights from camera flashes as they flocked towards the stable scene. The children were wise and followed our instructions; I reckon our presents comforted them. Well, that’s what we thought we were going to be doing (sorry, I just really wanted to write all that - Helen and I had spent some time coming up with it!) What we actually ended up doing was dressing the kids for the nativity parade, then dressing up ourselves - as children’s characters! My alter-ego? Big Bird, from Sesame Street! Helen was Sylvester and Jess was Bugs Bunny, from Looney Tunes. What had happened was that the young adults from the church who were supposed to be doing it didn’t show up, so they needed three people to fill in - and we were those lucky girls! I can safely say that I did not expect to be dressing up as Big Bird and walking up and town a street for two hours while Christmas lights are being turned on and carols are being sung out. It’s tiring stuff: waving to kids; making up handshakes with teenagers; posing for many a photo (what was brilliant was that no-one could see my face, so I could pull funny faces and no-one knew!); being slightly abused by kids who are “too cool”; and getting very, very hot! God has some interesting plans up his sleeve, for sure. But Northside’s aim over Christmas is to get involved with the community, so while we were doing that there were competitions and things going on by the stage, where Pastor Cross was presenting. All in all, it was a ridiculous, fun, absurd evening, and an experience I will never forget! I now have something for my CV if ever I apply to work at Disneyland...

I think what I’ve learned from all this is that we can actually serve people in so many ways. Just by doing the odd jobs that no-one else wants to do, or has that no-one has the time to do, and by being completely available and completely willing to throw ourselves into anything, we’re helping a lot. And who else can say that they dressed up as Big Bird in Zimbabwe?!

And everything else...:

God at work: We’ve seen God answer prayer here - a lot! Even with the little things. It is pretty strange for us, being thrown into living on our own and things for the first time in another country, but whenever we’ve had difficulties there’s always been some way out. The Lord’s provision is incredible! He’s been watching over us for our whole time, and granted us good health - although Helen and I have each been a little ill in the past week or so, it’s passed in a matter of days. Each of us has had a cold, and Jess has been bitten alive, the poor girl, but in general our health has been really good, considering we’re in a new climate, with some new foods, new routine and everything. God is good! Again, I’m constantly challenged here, in my own personal quiet times and in the way I act towards others or in certain situations. Sometimes you need to be taken out your comfort zone to see what’s really going on in your life. I know that coming here has helped me to appreciate what I have at home, particularly friends, family and church, and it has helped me realize that actually there is a whole lot I can do at home to serve others too.

It’s also been a challenge these past couple of weeks without Kate - but again God has surrounded us with wonderful people on whom we can rely. Which leads me onto...

Relationships: We really have been blessed in terms of the people who surround us here. Since Kate has left, Sarah Cross, the pastor’s wife, has stepped in as our “overseer”. Other women (and men!) at church have been equally caring and supportive, which is brilliant. One of the most interesting characters we’ve met here is Tiri - I call him ET, for Enthusiastic Tiri. He led the Grade 6 camp, and is very active in the church. It was Tiri who asked us to dress up as children’s characters. He is so positive, so enthusiastic and so encouraging, you cannot help but smile when you’re around him! We also feel a lot more part of the goings-on at Northside since camp and since we’ve started working there more often. We’ve even been to play tennis a few times with some of the young adults! The pizza and ice cream place just across the road from the church has proven to be a handy spot for impromptu socials too! Several people have invited us round for dinner, so we know more of the families in the church now too, which is lovely.

We’ve continued going to our bible study on Saturday nights, which we are still really enjoying. We feel like we know the people there really well now, and when we meet up with them it’s really just a chance for us to relax with friends and enjoy ourselves, away from responsibility, which everyone needs once in a while!

Culture: We have learned a lot about Zimbabwe as a country. And we’ve also picked up some of the commonly used phrases (“just now”; “guys”; “shame”; “ya”). My accent is slowly being lost, which is quite tragic! I think it’s the English influence from Jess and Helen too though, if I’m honest. We’ve learned a little bit of Shona, but not huge amounts. “Makadini” is “hello, how are you?”

In our bible study we’ve heard quite a lot about the farming situation here, and a man named Ben Freeth has come to the study twice now to talk to us about his experiences of being kicked off his farm. He has suffered awful injuries, but through it all has stuck to his faith in God. It’s very interesting how much of a heart he still has for Zimbabwe - despite all he has gone through he remains in Zimbabwe, instead of running to a different country. He and his father were involved in a court case where they took President Mugabe to court for  taking their land from them. I won’t tell you the outsome - the film is called “Mugabe and the White African”, which is really moving and challenging. I absolutely recommend it!

Sorry, out of time just now, but I will post up my points for prayer soon hopefully! Main things are safety, Upward sports (a soccer camp where we'll be leaders, leading devotion times and things with the kids), health and our holiday - we leave in two weeks for Antelope Park! Also that all the Christmas outreach things that Northside are doing will make people think. I'll post in more detail soon.

God bless,

Jo