From Katie: I'm looking for Christians/missionaries around the globe, especially in Europe. Can you help me out? Thanks!
If you don't know Heather, you need to know she's a character. She was my roommate in Guatemala, and, in the market, she bartered with a Pop Tart. <>< Katie
The Team
Fuge summer camps sent out an email to all of their staffers
saying this was an opportunity. Ten of us from the United States signed up and
we worked with an organization called ACTS (African Christian Tours and Safaris)
who provide guides who try to make the team as comfortable as they can be by
filtering water, cooking, and handling things that went awry. Their job was to
serve us, but we wanted to serve them too. It was fun to go back and forth
trying to help them out as best we knew and a lot of times it didn’t work out
but that’s ok. Each mission team has two guides (ours were Dax and Caitlin),
but there were also seven guides in training who joined our team. So we went
from a group of ten to a group of twelve to a group of nineteen before being a
group of twenty-one once we got to Sanyati. Those last two, Matt and Randy, are
older men who’ve been to Sanyati before with another group. They flew in a few
days before us and got stuff prepared and then worked with us which was such a
blessing. It was really cool to see how the Lord provides this craziness and
the way He built our team.
All twenty-one of us celebrated our birthdays while we were
there. It started because I was hoping I’d remember to take my malaria pill on
Thursday, and we were talking about birthdays. I looked at Micah was like,
“What’s on Thursday?” He didn’t know. I said, “It’s your birthday, Duh!” We
even made a huge birthday sign out of a 2005 calendar where every day we’d
cross of the names from yesterday’s birthday and write new ones.
Sanyati
After spending the first night in Harare (the capital), we drove five hours in Busta the Birthday Bus to Sanyati. It was Sunday and we learned they hadn’t had any power or water since Wednesday. That was one of the most interesting experiences because we had to filter water all day every day—water we used to clean dishes, water to drink obviously, water we cooked with, all water. They got it out of the new hundred-foot well that Auntie Patience’s husband said he dug himself and put it through a filtering system that purified it. I didn’t filter the water but I did take a turn getting it from the well. As the bucket got closer to the top, it got heavier. Then they pour it into a water barrel before it’s filtered.
We did some construction work that was mostly roofing. We
were replacing the roof of the hospital because it was made of asbestos and
cement. The sheets were really big and heavy. At the beginning of the day, two
people could carry a sheet but as the day progressed more people were added on
because our forearms were hurting so badly. I remember one piece there were
five or six of us carrying it. It was really funny.
We were working at the Sanyati Baptist Hospital, and they
don’t have any doctors, they only have nurses. They can only do minor medical
things (including childbirth). Every day we walked about seven to ten minutes
from the house where we were staying to the hospital along a dirt road where at
any point you could see kids walking with no shoes, families running around,
donkeys or cows carrying things, chickens everywhere, and boys cutting the
grass with huge metal devices (It was intense. I was scared the not-machete was going
to fly out of their hands and cut off my head but it didn’t). It was really fun
walking.
One of the days we got to go on a tour of Sanyati Baptist
High School. There were kids everywhere. They’re so pretty! They were super
excited about taking photos! I put my camera on sports action shot because
otherwise everything was blurry and just kept snapping photos. Some of them look
like a flip-book when you go through them. Except then my camera died.
That afternoon we toured the hospital. It’s just not what we
would assume a hospital would look like. We did a prayer walk and prayed over
the people who were, I guess, admitted. We saw a girl who was 18, and she went
to the high school but she was in the hospital and had to a have a surgery that
they can’t do there. Basically she was lying in bed in pain day after day until
they could figure out something to do for her. I got to pray over a woman named
Emily. She was really pretty and it was
hard to see her suffering. There were two men and you could literally see their
bones and other things you’re not supposed to see through skin. For one of the
men, it hurt to lie in the bed, so he was sleeping on the floor. Every bed in
the hospital (what we would consider cots) had mosquito netting tied up around
it. There was also one little baby and a couple of really cute little kids.
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| Yup, that's a white Jesus in the stained glass window of the hospital's chapel. They have chapel every morning at 7:30, and they invited Micah to lead worship. |
Lessons I Learned
I learned a lot about sacrificial serving. The guides would
have to get up around 3:30 or 4am to filter water and get breakfast ready. It
was a continuous process. They would get up and literally serve us all day
every day. As soon as they finished breakfast, they’d start on lunch. As soon
as lunch was done, they’d start on dinner. Since we had nine guides instead of
two, they paired up to cook and clean all day. Those who weren’t cooking were
at the hospital with us working.
Since we were without water and power unless the generator
was running, I really realized how selfish I am. It was the end of their summer
so it was really hot. By the end of the week I had mortar in my hair, I was
covered in bug spray, sun screen was everywhere, I had sweated a disgusting amount,
and I had asbestos and cement on me. I was tired and hot and just not having a
nice time for like twenty minutes. I wanted a shower, which were like super
crazy trickles and cold which was glorious. All I could think about was how
nobody would know if I took a seven-minute shower instead of a two-minute
shower. But then I remembered all of the other people who hadn’t had showers
yet. When I turned off the water I realized how selfish I was being and trying
to be secretive about it, too.
I also learned materialistic things aren’t what matter in
life. I can get rid of something and know that the Lord will provide. Things
like how many pairs of shoes I have and how many tie-dye shirts I can make
don’t matter. What really matters is relationships, being in community. When I
first went, I knew nobody, and now I have twenty new friends. It was really
cool to see how the Lord brought us together; it was a really big blessing. It
was really, really hard to leave. We cried. That doesn’t happen by just hanging
out together. That happens with hearts connecting and the Lord being there.
Sure, we could have worked together, eaten, and had a good time, but the Lord
was worshiped and glorified and therefore His redemption came. It was really
cool to see the community he can build in a nine-day span. He doesn’t build His
body lightly. There no way people from three different countries (United
States, Zimbabwe, and South Africa) can come together in Sanyati and worship
the Lord other than this is the way God wanted it to be. Every night we sang
and danced and praised the Lord. Forty-five minutes would turn into an hour or
more; we’d just lose track of time. It was really cool because you could feel
the His presence. I kept thinking about how one kid was singing and praying in
Shona and I had no idea what he was saying but my Father who created both of us
knows. It was such a sweet time.
One night we ate with a family, and after we ate we did a
time of songs, testimonies, and prayer. They invited us to sing three songs,
but it was hard to figure out three songs every knew from three different
countries. We sang “Waves of Mercy,” “Amazing Grace,” and I don’t remember the
third one. I wish we had recorded “Waves of Mercy” because it was horrifically
fantastic. We did the motions but at one point we were all half-singing,
half-laughing (me more laughing that singing). I think we probably looked like
a cult going around this circle sort of dancing and singing. It was such joyful
worship. Then we did a few testimonies, and Shep translated what we were saying
into Shona because not everybody knew English. We sang “How Great Thou Art” in
Shona. (The video is me singing and Katie humming in the middle of the coffee shop).
Another thing I learned is how imperative water is. I've read
about the 1000 Wells Project (Blood:Water Mission) where they try to build wells in different places,
and I know all of that, but I’ve never experienced where it’s a possibility that
I wouldn’t actually have water to drink. Not to shower, not to cook that’s fine
but no water to drink, becoming dehydrated, and dying from something so simple.
Really? That was an interesting eye-opener.
They think America is much smaller than it
is. They thought we all knew each other before. They didn’t understand it would
take a week to drive across America.
We can learn how to legitimately have joy in the midst of
craziness. Each night there was singing and dancing of some sort. There was
sharing of talents, if you will. Not in competition but in a matter of “what can
I offer?” It was an awesome gift exchange.
Pray
Especially pray for those who claim Christ to be their
Savior. Pray that they continue to build real relationships with people who don’t
know the Lord because there are a lot of other beliefs there. It’s hard because
on the way to Sanyati (on Sunday) we passed a lot, a lot of different groups
just randomly in the fields all wearing white. They’re called Zionists, and
they’re growing. It’s not a cult but really it is. Even though they claim to
believe in Jesus, they don’t let people read the Bible.
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| Auntie Patience with her grandkid. They do everything with their babies on their back—work in the field, sweep, wash the bathtub, etc. |
Food
One night our team split into two groups and we were able to
go to homes and eat a traditional meal with a family. The woman whose home we
went to was Auntie Patience. The leaders took up the money so we they could go get the food.
I asked what we were going to eat, and they said chicken. I didn’t understand
how they were going to keep the chicken safe to eat without power. No. They
were buying live chickens. In the morning they were alive and by the time we
ate them, they were dead. I’ve always known that process but I’d never really
thought about eating something I just saw that day.
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| We all tried to stir it, and we were so impressed with how hot it was next to the fire and how hard it was to stir and how well she was doing. Well, that skirt thing isn’t actually a skirt. It’s a multi-layered thing that helps her not get burned from the fire. We were thinking she was superwoman. Well, she is. |
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| Cooking by candle-light and using her sleeve as a hot pad. |
Our last night in Sanyati they made us what they called a
four-course meal. One course consisted of Mopani worms. Yes, legit worms from
Mopani trees. We also ate chicken, carrots, Jim squash, and potatoes.
Our very last night we had a Bree, a cookout/barbecue where
they cooked for us, and it was great treat. Like little kids were played
sardines for almost two hours. We ran around Africa barefoot hiding in corn
fields, bushes, behind trees, in trees, everywhere. They made us steak, mashed
Jim squash, green beans, potatoes, carrots, mushroom sauce, and in the Jim
squash bowl they put corn covered in cheese. It was so good! For dessert there
were half-peaches with this cookie with chocolate in the middle, and they had a
special treat for us—ice cream!
They
stopped on the side of the road and got us sugar cane. You have to peel it with
your teeth because it’s so tough it could cut you—at least that’s what they
were saying, I don’t know—and they gave it to us. You can only chew it because
it would really give you the poops if you eat it.
After dinner every night we’d clean up, shower, and do a devotion/worship time. We just shared life. Sometimes that meant a dance party or photo shoot. Other times it was deep conversation. A lot of laughter, praising the Lord, and playing Uno.
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