Even though it's taken several months, a week ago, we were able to finally have another gathering with the same group of women who I met with last year. Their church has changed locations so there were some new logistical issues we needed to sort through, such as additional costs for renting it on a Saturday, etc. (they rent a classroom for a few hours on a Sunday). 

We had about 15 ladies (including a few teen girls) attend. We know full well it's not about the numbers, but rather each individual. Some of the ladies had attended last year and some were new and all committed to bringing a friend to the next gathering. 

I spoke on the topic of "grace." I knew it was a needed topic, but I was really surprised how little was known and understood about it. I try to make the gatherings interactive and get feedback from the ladies, asking questions along the way. We delve into God's Word and I stress how important it is to get our answers from His Word because that's the ultimate truth. Of course no one had a Bible, except for one lady who had it on her phone and I had her read out each Scripture after I read it out in English and then I explained it further. At the beginning of the discussion I wrote down everything that the ladies know on the topic, how they perceive it, how they experience it, what they know about it and how it's understood within their culture (just as I did last year when I spoke about "a woman's worth"). Then at the end we had everything to the chart that we learned, especially as it is defined in God's Word. This helps the women see how contradictory the topics/issues may be to culture or perceived by themselves. At the end I asked questions about what they feel they have learned or what sounded strange or confusing to them. The responses are almost always positive, but I especially enjoy listening in on conversations at the end during the tea time and I find those moments to be most informing of what they truly think. I also hear back from my Shona teacher who does more probing once I'm gone and she gives me great feedback when we follow-up at our next lesson.

I had memorized my introduction in Shona and was rather nervous about butchering it, but thankfully I was able to get through it and hopefully it didn't sound too rehearsed. I did see immediately how appreciated my stumbling through Shona was to the women. As I greeted the ladies we had simple conversations in Shona, but I'm still lacking in confidence in this area. However, my Shona teacher was very encouraging and insisted I did very well and she was very impressed with me. 

Our next gathering is already set for this coming Saturday. I will be doing a follow-up talk on grace on "becoming a follower of Jesus." This will be a 6 or 7 week series on becoming a Christian and living like one. This will be a salvation delivery in hopes of informing the ladies of a Scriptural understanding of what it means to be a Christian and also explain what it does not mean. The health and wealth gospel is huge in Africa as a whole, but it's growing in Zimbabwe and unfortunately is doing much damage in the Church. I keep hearing how Christian events are not attended if there is no holy water for healing or annointing oil for miracles or other tangible items for sale that will bring good luck, good fortune and riches. The gospel has been so distorted and it's so easy for "religious" figures to take advantage of people's many needs starting from health concerns to poverty. 

I think the greatest disadvantage is not having God's Word in the hands of the people and therefore one "prophet," "teacher" or "preacher" can easily mislead the masses with their spoutings of false promises... and of course for a price.

Eight different churches meet in 4 different classrooms (at different times) at this one school where we gather. Ladies have mentioned the desire for invitations so we drew up some simple invitations for this coming weekend. Doing ministry in a high density area has been different to how it might be in a rural setting, but we are flexible and learning as we go along - but many of the needs are the same. Several ladies heard about our last gathering (news travels fast) and they were rather upset that my Shona teacher had not invited them. Of course she explained that it was open to any women and that she just never got around to inviting these ladies from her neighborhood. We printed 60 invites and Ednah (my Shona teacher) was concerned we would run out. Of course we know that we could hand out many invites, but that never means that even 30% will in fact attend - but we will see. Again, it's not about the numbers it's about the individual. It's being advertised (if you can call it that) as an interdenominational women's event because we've invited women from all walks of life and all backgrounds. Our only goal is to share truth from God's Word in hopes of discipling these women to become all that God has designed them to be. 

Please pray for this upcoming event. Pray that the Holy Spirit will speak truth through me and that hearts will be changed and minds opened to His truth. Please pray for me as I prepare my talk and that ultimately Jesus will be glorified.

We have not yet received the requested letter from my (Yolanda's) home church, which could allow us a tax break on bringing Bibles over the border into Zim. Even though we would love to get Bibles ASAP, we have every intention of being good stewards and making every penny go as far as possible. Every financial decision is made with this in mind, taking your sacrifice in account and knowing full well that all the money that JM2Z has is God's money. So we need to use it wisely. We did, however, receive word back that the newer Shona translations are not available at the Bible Society in South Africa, only the older ones.

Of course, over the last few months I've been doing more research and asking lots of questions as it relates to Shona women, their needs and how we can make the Word accessible in their mother-tongue. I quickly realized that people did not want a Shona Bible. What? So I asked more questions, listened lots and quickly realized that the version that most were accustomed to was written in "old Shona", the words were outdated, very long and simply not understandble by most. As I did more research I found out that this version was the original translation and that the KJV was used in making the translation (not Hebrew/Greek). My Shona teacher even said she struggles ot understand it and prefers the English. We were disappointed by this bit of news, but encouraged that we had not ignorantly gone ahead and purchased several hundred and then were not able to hand them out to people because they couldn't understand them. 

We are looking into other options, such as who else may be selling the newer version and also free online Shona Bibles that we can download on our phone and bluetooth to another person's phone. Most everyone has a phone here, even if it's just a cheap phone and most phones have bluetooth capability. Again, we do not understand all that this entails and how to go about doing this, but we are researching, learning and planning on how we can make it accessible to the women we work with. 

Please pray for us to connect with the necessary resources and people in order to purchase newer Shona Bibles so we can finally get the Word in the hands of the people.

We experienced quite a heat wave this past week. We believe that last Sunday it was 113 F and over 100 F each day last week. This week, we experienced three 18hr day power outtages and one day a 12hr power outtage. Our freezer has been fine, but some food spoiled in our fridge since the power has been out for longer than it has been on. We are still counting on our blessings that we have a freezer because we have so much food... so many people do not have this problem because they do not have food to fill up freezers and fridges - thank you Lord for that problem!

Although the electricty came on during the nighttime and we had a fan on a for a few hours, it would go out during the early morning again (4-5am) which made it unbearable to sleep. We finally ended up filling our bathtub with cold water to take a dip during our lunch hour and right before dinner just so we could cool down our core (this is in addition to our daily bath or shower). Andrew and I joke saying that we feel like leaking faucets because we are constantly dripping sweat... yes, I know that's gross, but true!

It started raining yesterday which was very welcome and helped cool down the air just a little. We had another windstorm which resulted in a large tree branch breaking and crashing on the ground right next to our office. We are so incredibly grateful that it never hit the roof or came crashing through the window. We are also grateful that Western was not outside working in that area. Thank you Lord for your protection.

In other news, my great aunt (Yolanda's) will be visiting us this next week. She flying from S.A. and will spend the next 2 weeks with us. She has every intention of making this a service trip, as she hopes to put her skills to work and assist us in any way she's able. In S.A. she worked for hospice for many years, working with terminally ill patients especially those in low-economic areas. She has a heart of compassion, loves Jesus and is excited to see what we are doing this side. On a personal note, I'm looking forward to seeing her after all these years (at least 7) and introducing her to Andrew. 

Thank you for your continued prayers and support. Can we also mention how much we enjoy getting mail ;-) There's something about opening our mailbox and seeing a familar American stamp with news from family and friends. We would love to see some of your family photos, hear news from you and even a comic strip from the newspaper. We love tearing open an envelope or flipping a postcard to read a few lines from YOU! Check out our contact page for our address details.

I started typing this blog yesterday and wanted to post it, but the electricity wasn't cooperating. Yesterday morning, it went out at 5:00am, stayed off all day until 1:00am last night (20 hours), only to go out again at 5:00am this morning until 4:30 this afternoon (11.5 hours). So, in that 36 hour span, there was only electricity for 4 hours. Plus, we just got a warning about excessive heat coming this next week. It has consistently been in the low 90's each day. So we pray for people to stay safe, especially children (who walk several kilometers to and from school each day) and elderly.

Lately, we have seen God at work in ministry and just life here in Zimbabwe. We have something negative, frustrating, or a setback take place, but there always seems to be a positive way to look at it or a blatant realization of God working in the situation. Below are a few examples.

Women's Gathering

Yolanda has an upcoming women’s gathering this Saturday in the high density area. We are so thankful for the contact of our Shona teacher and the ongoing relationship with this group. Please pray for Yolanda as she continues to prepare. She will give a devotional/talk, followed by tea and cookies, followed by facilitating a discussion amongst the ladies. Facilitating is the role she tries to play most often, per the part of JM2Z's mission regarding self-sustainability, as opposed to her being in front of the group the entire time looking as if she “has all the answers.” She will guide the discussion, posing the question of what is on the hearts of the women and what they perceive their needs, struggles, aspirations, and areas of desired learning to be. This will help Yolanda be able to better create future discussions, talks, devotionals, counseling, and other interactions with this group. Yolanda has an entire introduction prepared in Shona, although she will use a translator for the rest. Please pray also for the hearts of the women as God speaks to them and they hear certain things, perhaps for the first time.

South Africa

We are planning a trip to South Africa for some time during this month. We will drive down about an hour south of the border (9 hours from Chinhoyi). We will stay for about a week or less, depending on how long it takes to get done what we need to. The most important items of business are to purchase Shona Bibles (We are awaiting a message back from the Bible society in order to find out if they have the newer translation. There is an older Shona translation which is equivalent to the English KJV, in that it is more difficult to understand than the NIV, for example). If this newer translation is available now, we will use funds already donated by multiple sources and get as many as we can fit. We are also waiting for a letter back from Yolanda’s home church, which will allow for the ability to bring the Bibles back to Zim tax-free (if allowed). The other main item of business is to get a service for the truck, which is free under the warranty package, which we couldn’t do here. We will also purchase some other items which are needed, which will be of higher quality in South Africa than here, but will also be MUCH cheaper, as the exchange rate is currently 13 S.A. Rands to 1 U.S. Dollar (a year ago it was 11 to 1). We are thankful for this, as our dollars will obviously stretch a lot further than they do here. Please pray for wisdom in when we decide to go, as well as safety in travel.

More Electricity

(I wrote this section before the outages of the last couple days. Irony :-) Our electricity was much better last week. It was only off for 5 hours on three different mornings. You know it’s been bad, when 5 hours is “much better.” It continues to be a problem nationwide, though, even in Harare, which seems to be a daily problem. It has been off in Chinhoyi all day today as I type. The big positive is that we have not lost any food in the refrigerator or freezer so far. We keep the fridge so cold regularly (just for this purpose) that we found a couple eggs toward the back of the fridge were frozen :-)

We looked up the electricity company’s website to see if there is any kind of a schedule of hours it will be off. We had just heard about that for Harare, but wanted to check Chinhoyi. The most frustrating part is the surprise of it going out while something is in the oven or laundry in the washing machine or while trying to upload a blog or video for the blog or while doing online research for upcoming women's gatherings. On the website, we found that indeed there was a schedule. However, after looking a bit closer, the schedule was from 2012! Not exactly updated. We did see a very rough schedule in the newspaper that read, “The load shedding schedule is designed in such a way that electricity is only available between midnight and early hours of the morning when most users are asleep.” This is true sometimes, as we have stayed up all night before in order to do our laundry or write blogs or other ministry deadlines for meetings here or from supporting churches :-)

It probably sounds like we talk about electricity a lot. That's because it is a big part of how we (collective we) do life. It affects so many things, such as food storage (fridge/freezer), ministry work (Internet, laptops [batteries only last so long]), emergency communication (landline, cell phone [again battery]), emotions (ups and downs of electricity coming on or going off and whether or not we are sweaty while just sitting in a chair or trying to fall asleep at night), and cooking (electric oven/microwave). Due to the dire situation at the power plants, the problem is not going away soon. However, we are not so self-absorbed that we don't recognize that there are plenty of people here who live without electricity 100% of the time. That said, we just want to be able to do our best efforts in ministry work, as well as using our resources wisely.

Our plan is to raise money for solar panels. However, in the short-term, since we are going to a country where a dollar can go a long way, we are considering purchasing a small inverter system. This is a backup, that is run by batteries the size of car batteries. It would allow us to run our landline, wifi, several lights, and a fan, as well as the ability to charge laptops, cell phone, etc. In our estimate, this would run a few hundred dollars. It's hard to be more specific on price, but there are really so many options of inverters and batteries and sizes of each that we just need to see what is available when we get there. IF the Lord puts it on your heart to give toward this unplanned, yet extremely beneficial expense, feel free to go to the Donate page on our website and click the Donate button. Please also fill out the comment section at the bottom of the page and specify that your gift is for an inverter system.

We continue to thank the Lord for your support, prayer, letters, and cards of encouragement. We will be excited to report back after Saturday's gathering. As always, we covet your prayers!