Work Week with Friends

We spent an afternoon at the Chinhoyi Caves, inside which is a beautiful, blue pool of water

We had a great week last week, but it was also tiring. Two of our friends are visiting Zimbabwe and South Africa and spent a week of it with us. They told us that they not only wanted to visit us, but they also wanted to do some type of a work project while they were here.

We decided that we would redo the two bathrooms at the church where we host VBS. Our friends completely covered the cost of it and so we got all the supplies ahead of time in South Africa. We didn't change out toilets or sinks, but we completely made them over. We wanted it to be a blessing for the church congregations who meet there, but it would also benefit the children who attend VBS. Since we would only have a few days, we employed a few men to sand all of the doors in the church, as well as the door frames and window frames in the bathrooms (also covered by our friends). We spent most of the first day just cleaning them out. There was so much dust, dirt, grime, and bug residue! It had been ages since they had been deep-cleaned. Between the four of us, the bathrooms were scraped, painted, toilet and bathroom doors were varnished, and new fixtures were added (toilet door locks, toilet paper dispensers, purse and coat hooks, mirrors, trash cans, and some extras like artwork, towels, flowers etc to spruce them up).

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Below are a few before and after pictures from the bathrooms.

Before

After

Before

Before

After

After

At the end of each day, we had great dinners. One evening, we had local food that is the staple diet in Zimbabwe. Many of you have heard us talk about sadza and muriwo. Sadza is made from cornmeal and muriwo is just leafy, green vegetables. We also had nyama, which means meat. We had local lamb and goat in a stew. They wanted to eat it like Zimbabweans, so they ate with their hands, no silverware.

Instead of doing all the work ourselves, we were able to provide some local employment, again covered by our friends. The three men below did some sanding, varnishing, and painting. We were able to have all 18 exterior doors re-varnished. This small gift in maintenance blesses not only the church as a building but all the many individuals who use these premises. As always, these men were also provided with meals on the days they worked. We believe it is very important to provide local people with employment and at minimum a temporary income rather than have Americans do all the work. It is always considered selfish when foreigners come to Zimbabwe and do the manual labor when the needs are so great for capable men to do the work and be able to feed their families.

*We always ask permission to take photos, especially when people are not in their best attire.   

After several days of working, we spent the weekend at a local game reserve and they got to see lots of animals and amazing sunsets.

Our friends were also able to bring 2 bags of donations with them. We had already received the donations before and had dropped off the bags with them when we were stateside last year. Today we finally had an opportunity to open the bags and find places for all the items.

We were sad to see our friends go after the week was over, but are thankful for their hearts in wanting to explore a different part of the world and also give generously in doing a work project. We really enjoy having friends visit and our home is always open for friends to come. You don't need to do a work project, you could just come to visit and experience a new place. It really refreshes us to have familiar faces here, even if for only a short time. We were thankful to have our emotional tanks filled!