August, in a Nutshell

A Wedding

Yolanda with one of our Tuesday group women, waiting for the wedding to start

This month has been crazy busy, filled with challenges and event planning in Zimbabwe. If you’ve followed global news, it’s been quite a month from a p01itica1 standpoint for the country too (typos on purpose) - not much more can safely be said here on that front. A google search will update you in that area. It goes without saying that we need to be more cautious with posting pictures concerning any struggles we may be facing here, in country.

The start of the month saw us attending the wedding of a son of one of our Tuesday group women. It was our first experience at a Shona wedding, although it was the white wedding. The “white wedding” is when the bride wears a white dress and has a vow ceremony and signing of a marriage license. Not all weddings in Zimbabwe are legally binding with a marriage license. Some only go through with a traditional ceremony, which do hold some rights locally, but none that protects a woman.

Even if Shona people have a “white wedding,” they always first have a “Roora Ceremony,” also called a traditional wedding. It entails paying the brideprice and wearing traditional Ankara fashions and fulfilling the many marriage rituals that are customary. We did not attend this ceremony, but were grateful to be invited to the “white wedding.” 

Of course in common Shona fashion, the “promptly be seated at 9:45am” wedding, only started at 11:20am. The couple was married in the bride’s parents’ house. The ceremony in the back yard and the reception in the front yard. The dress code called for white and gold for women and black and white for men. Wearing white for a wedding doesn’t feel right to American standards, but was the expectation at this wedding. 

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Both the groom’s parents - a lady in the Tuesday group and her husband, who is our “fix-it guy” for all things building related, were so excited that we attended. They made a special effort to come greet us and thank us profusely for our presence. As the only white guests in attendance, we created quite the staring affair among the rest of the guests. No matter how much one tries to blend in, it’s quite impossible. At one point during the ceremony, the bride and groom had a whole host of pastors surround them in prayer. Andrew was quickly called upon by the mother of the groom to join the pastors in this blessing (we didn’t know this would happen beforehand).

Andrew, with the other pastors, praying for the couple

After the ceremony, the bridal party and immediate family went to a park for photos, while the rest of the guests gathered at the reception site to start lunch. After Yolanda tended to the restroom, squatting over a questionable toilet with purse in mouth and scrambling for that last crumpled tissue in her handbag (you ladies all know the struggle), the groom’s parents invited us to attend the photoshoot. They insisted that their son called them and requested our presence. We hesitated, feeling a little uncomfortable, having only met the groom once and the bride not until today. As the parents and their daughter waiting on us, we realized we were also their ride to the photoshoot, so we agreed and off we went. We were ushered into family photos and even private photos with just the bride and groom. We smiled and made small talk with the bridal party as we patiently waited. While other pictures were being taken, Yolanda wanted to get a quick selfie with Mai Mukandi, the groom’s mother. Quickly, her daughter jumped in for the photo too and the next thing we knew, the groom paused his professional photoshoot with just his wife to jump into our selfie. The whole situation was rather comical.

After a few more pics, the groom’s parents informed us we could leave, so that we could go have lunch. We felt like we’d be taking them away from photos and insist that we’ll wait. Of course, they insisted that they were done and we could go. So off we went, back to the reception site. Upon arrival, the music was blaring and the number of guests tripled in number from the ceremony time. All the tables were full and chairs lined under any shady spot filled with people balancing a plate of food precariously on their laps. An attendant noticed the groom’s parents and directed them to a table up front, to which we stayed back and ready to sit on the dirt floor in our formal attire, as no other seats were vacant. Counsol and Mai Mukandi (the groom’s parents) insisted we are their special guests. We brushed off the title and made every attempt to scurry to the background, but they coaxed us toward their table of honor and seated us with them. We were promptly served drinks. Then we were directed to the front of the food line where at least 40 people were patiently lined up, awaiting their meals. We grimaced and insisted we would go to the back and wait like everyone else. “No, absolutely not,” came the reply from the groom’s father. “Our special and honored guests will be served with us, the immediate family.” Before we could cower away, plates were placed into our hands and we were pushed right in front of someone already literally being served food - embarrassing would be an understatement. We were offered sadza, spaghetti, rice, salads, roast vegetables, and then an array of meats - chicken, beef, pork, duck, and goat. Each server put meat on my plate (Yolanda). I tried my best to keep it to a minimum - there were still so many people who needed to eat. As we sat down, I realized, sitting near the father of the groom, who got one piece of meat, chicken - that I have a piece of every meat served. I’m so embarrassed attempting to cover it with vegetables and rice. I swallowed and chewed without looking at the servers whose hands looked like they needed to be washed, or the organs still attached to the ribcage of the chicken, or the long black hair I found curled up on my goat. Everything was tasty. This meal was certainly gourmet at Zim standards and, no doubt, cost the father a small fortune to be catered. 

It was hard to hear anything and to speak to each other, since the speaker for the live music was right next to us (maybe we’re just getting older, haha). The place was beautifully decorated and everyone was chatting and enjoying it. We took our wrapped gift to the gift table, where we were met by two ladies with a credit/debit card machine - we clearly missed the memo that gifts would be given via swiping one’s card. We already bought a gift and felt it would suffice.

In any case, we enjoyed the rest of our time there and left before dark, though the celebration clearly went much later. We could still hear the music from our house, about a mile away!

Below is a video of the bride's entrance at the ceremony. You'll see the grandmothers leading the procession. Then behind the bride, are all the aunties, trailed by the mothers of the bride and groom. Listen carefully to all the ululating of the women.

Women's Conference Prep

No matter how well we plan or how far in advance decisions and orders are made, somehow, chaos still seems to ensue. As each issue and problem arises, as soon as we brainstorm or actually solve it, another creeps up to take its place. Not every issue is an essential need and so we adapt, move to plan D, E, or F or simply scratch that idea or item altogether. We constantly remind ourselves what’s most important and how to prioritize. This unfortunately, is especially difficult for those of us who have a particular vision for an event, are detail oriented, and have a tendency of perfectionism and being a type A personality (obviously, I’m talking about Andrew, LOL - not really).

After the sixth order for tablecloths fell through from the third person we enquired from, we decided to go the route of renting them. Unfortunately, that turned into being 8 times more expensive or in the wrong colors that would not even be enough to cover all our tables anyway (insert eye roll). So days before the event, Yolanda reached out to a fabric factory and ordered a roll of white fabric from Harare. There was no time to cut and hem and actually make table cloths, but we simply rolled out the fabric across multiple long tables and made cuts and called it good (letting go of these little things is essential, otherwise we would drive ourselves nuts).

This picture is what we were sent, to show the quality of the fabric. There wasn't much we could tell seeing this :-)

The fabric, once it arrived

Andrew went to multiple stores to try to find just enough of one item we needed. Then once he had his entire order with trolleys in tow, he found out they don’t take card and there’s a major discount on cash and so he left all he’d been shopping for with the intent of returning. We have purchased items from South Africa, Harare, online through Facebook, and lots of local shops in our town and even small secondhand stalls on the roadside, for all the items we needed for the conference.

1,000 bottles of water and 6 gallons of milk for the 3 days

The week before the conference, almost half the ladies in our groups became ill with either a cold or the flu, which meant we had half the amount of helpers to get everything done. Of course those who came worked tirelessly to assist in any way possible; everything from decor to counting handouts, stacking gifts, packing hundreds of paper flowers, and painstakingly tying ribbons around notebooks, etc.

Yolanda also practiced some of her talks with the ladies, in order to go over translation and Scripture reading and to make sure that the translation is accurate and timing allocated would work well. Two of the ladies would be translating the talks, each one for a different talk each day. However, it quickly became apparent during practicing that the translating was a group effort. After each phrase was spoken, the translator would say what she thinks then look to the others who would all throw in their 2 cents and make their corrections or additions. Then it quickly became apparent that for purposes of speed, a third lady should handle reading out all the Scriptures during the talks - so now there was Yolanda, a lady to translate, and another to read the Scriptures from the Shona Bible. We spent all afternoon going through half of one talk, out of 7 that needed doing (oh no!). Our week was jam-packed with an unplanned, but necessary, trip to the capital, 4 meetings, and the rest of the preparations that went unfinished due to only half of the ladies present for both gatherings. When would we practice, would we ever get through it all, would I (Yolanda) need to slash my talks in half even though 45mins are allocated for each talk and if practiced alone I can get through it within 20mins easily (planning for the additional time needed for translating). As I practiced with the ladies, I found myself correcting their translations, noticing the words being used not carrying the same nuance as my message or their translation being too literal. Although I lack the proper ability to teach an entire message in Shona (as it’s never been needed), my language skills do hold a formidable number of vocabulary words.

My (Yolanda) Shona friend who hosted a women’s conference a few months ago, did their entire conference in English. And although English is a national language in Zimbabwe, we have found English skills to be much poorer than years gone by (before Andrew moved to Zimbabwe). We also heard feedback from several of the ladies who attended the conference that some words were lost and the speed of communication made it so that not everything was understood. Of course having said that, they could not stop talking about how wonderful it was and so this is by no means a criticism of the event, rather just an observation. With the great importance of the message of this conference - salvation - we decided it was essential that everything be understood! The added benefit of translating is that attendees hear the message first in English and again in Shona and repetition is always helpful in memory retention and fuller understanding of content.

Practicing one of the teaching sessions, with translation and Scripture reading

There are literally so many more stories I could share of things just not going according to plan, and yet at the same time, there are little glimpses of light and hope sprinkled throughout. We have an old little generator we use only for the kids’ programs, but each time, it needs so much work (since it’s not used much) and new parts that it’s often not worth using (as was the case back in April for our last kids’ program). We knew though that we’d need a backup source, due to how bad the electricity has been lately, so Andrew took it in for a service and changed parts, etc. The guy fixing it (literally some guy on the side of the road) said that it was running, but needed some other parts ($50 worth) and that it could just stop running in the middle of use - not something you want to happen in the middle of worship time. Then the guy says to Andrew, “Is this for church work?” Andrew says, yes for a women’s conference. Then the guy offered to loan Andrew a generator that he has for the 3 days. Andrew asks after we put in our own fuel, how much would he charge for its use, reminding him that it would be needed over 3 days. He says, “Nothing, it’s church work. You need it and I have it. It’s free, as long as you put in the fuel to run it.” And Andrew had just met him for the first time that day. Well thank you God! And yes, there are several stories like this too, where God reminds us that He is in control and this is His work, that we just have the privilege of joining in.

Immigration Interview

After almost 2 months since Andrew applied, once again (3rd time), for permanent residence in Zimbabwe we heard from the immigration office that we were scheduled to have an interview (we’ve done several of these through the years). We attempted to reschedule it for the week following the conference, but they insisted it needed to be the week before. So we made arrangements to make a trip to Harare in the midst of a crazy busy week, to attend the interview.

Now we’ll wait at least a month to hear back from immigration to know if Andrew finally got his residency after a decade and 3 attempts of applications. We would appreciate your prayers concerning this. 

Conference Week

Wow! God is good! What a fantastic week of conference! We have so much to report on, but that will have to wait for the next blog post. The conference will take up an entire blog post as it deserves. Thank you to the many of you who prayed for this week! Thank you for those who sponsored ladies to attend and gave to other needs pertaining to it! We know that without a doubt this will be a conference we will replicate again in the future - same material, just a different audience. After envisioning this event 2 years ago, it was exciting to see it come to life and transform into something much larger than we ever expected or anticipated. Thank you for your parts in it!

Below is a bit of a preview of the next blog. The first picture is at the very end, of everyone who attended!

We put a Shona Bible on each chair, for them to use during the conference. At the end, we announced that this Bible would be theirs to keep. The video below is their reaction to that news!