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.
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.
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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.
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.
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!
(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!
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