Life in Zimbabwe

Below is an email we received from the Director of Christ's Hope Zimbabwe. I must caution you that the stories are not for the faint of heart. This is what we are here for and what you have sent us here to help with. Names of people have been removed out of respect to those individuals.

If any of you are interested in helping Zimbabwe please go to www.christshopeusa.org/ and go to the donations page. in the notes section say that you are giving to Zimbabwe.

Dear Brethren,
I'm just sharing the following with you because these things are real and happening here. You will find an attached email I received from my brother-in-law who had visited some remote villages outside the city of Bulawayo, where I live.
I give you a couple of stories from D, a 30 year old mother of three boys, who lives in Nswazi, a village just outside Bulawayo.
D's sons are 13, 10 and 5. She had all the children before she gave her life to Christ and each one has a different father. The last two are orphans. D left the city of Bulawayo in 2007 because of the tough economic times in Zimbabwe. The two older boys are at school and she was having a difficult time with fees, school uniforms, food and other things for them, even though we had started helping. Rentals were an issue even though she was trying to sell vegetables. She is one of the better ones because she was asked by her sister-in-law to come to the rurals where she is now working on the family irrigation plant. So for her, at least vegetables are never in short supply, even though man cannot live by vegetables alone!
Life in the rurals is simple enough. However, with a salary of Z $ 5 trillion per month [ just over US $ 1, yes...ONE American dollar!], one can hardly do much. The basic staple food, maize meal, costs Z $ 10 trillion per 10kg bag. And this is the price at date of this report... 12 September, 2008. By the time you read this, it'll probably be twice the cost. That's how prices escalate here.
D reports that the shops in the Nswazi area have all closed down because there is nothing to sell. So even those villagers that have children or other relatives outside the country who send them money are not that much better off.
The nearest shops that are reasonably stocked are about 15 kilometers from the area. But that is hardly an issue because the villagers, most of whom are not employed, don't even have money to buy the maize meal. Some of them have never even handled ONE trillion Zimbabwe dollars, never mind the ten needed to buy the 10kg bag.
In the very few cases that some individuals have gathered enough money to buy mealie meal, they ask one villager to drive his donkey cart to the shops to buy the precious commodity. They cannot afford the bus [when it does come] fare at Z $ 3t per person.
One of the sad stories is about a family of about 13 [thirteen children and grandchildren] living with their grandmother. Hunger had set in so much that the family was eating fruit that had been ground and made into powder. The tree is not for human consumption really. Generally, cattle eat the fruit because of the salt in it. Unfortunately, the family had not sifted the powder properly and cooked it together with the bark and the stringy parts of the fruit. Three of the children died, many of the older ones had serious problems with their tummies.
A mother left two of her school-going children and went away to look for food for them. The same day, while the mother was away, the children started digging up some tubers as they had seen mom do so many times before. Unfortunately, the children had dug up the wrong tubers, inedible ones.
It was by the grace of God that the children did not die. At the time that Dorica related the story, the children had been hospitalised.
Many people in this village look ill, D says. And indeed a visitor would make that conclusion. But it is not illness, but hunger.
There were plenty rains last year. However, the rains were too excessive. There is enough water but the rains destroyed most crops. Very few areas in the country had good yields.
Most villagers lost what farm domestic animals they had...goats, sheep, cattle, etc. Some who had chickens also lost these to a terrible chicken disease that hit many areas of the country,again most likely because of too much rain.
These are just a few of the stories regards the terrible state in which our people find themselves. Some children go prowling at night, breaking into neighbours' kitchen huts in an effort to keep body and soul together. A generation of thieving children, whose only aim in life is to survive, are being turned loose in our society. They cannot go to school because they are too hungry to do so. Apart from that, the parents/guardians do not have enough money to pay school fees.
I just heard this morning that the two political heavyweights in Zimbabwe, President Mugabe's Zanu P.F. and Morgan Tswangirai's M.D.C., had an agreement yesterday and are signing some papers on Monday. I pray that this spells out the beginning of the restoration of an otherwise dying nation. I pray the children that society was now training to be professional thieves will now be able to go back to school. And I pray the Lord will open for us the doors to go into these communities and touch these young people with the Gospel. I pray that we will be able to teach Choose to Wait there and have youths committed to the ways of God in every area of their lives.
Pray for us and for them.

God bless you all.

Temba.

From Temba's Brother-in-law,

What I saw and heard really broke my heart. Since the barring of Donors in the rural ares there is no food relief reaching such remote areas and people are literally dying of hunger. A lady whose husband passed away had left 3 young toddlers at home and set out to look for food in the far neighbourhood, without a meal for 5 days. On return without any success she found her kids dead from hunger. She wrote a letter explaining her circumnstances and hung herself to the roof of the hut to commit suicide and was found dead by the villagers. Another woman similarly left kids hungry and went to hunt for food and on return she found the kids had skinned a puppy dog and boiled it and were in the middle of a meal eating .This is the situation that I want to bring to your organization to think and pray about. I gave M a couple of groceries from B and she was even scared that people will come at night and rob her or even bewitch her coz people are hungry.At Silobela the situation is the same. We had two bags of old clothing we were giving to my inlaws extended family only to find people almost fighting over the clothing.It was qiute a challenge for me and I think I should extend my giving more in the rural areas.This is just a bit of what happens there.

Being Human

I (Tony) am sitting here working on preparing a message to give to the congregation at New Manna church in Okahandja, Namibia. Some of you may be thinking, "I thought he went to do construction?" and you are asking the same question I asked myself.

God has revealed to me that my idea of construction is quite different from His definition. I often tell people if you want to make God laugh tell Him your plans. God is showing me that there is more important things than constructing buildings. He is showing me that building people is more important.

Since I have been here I have worked on only one physical building but since I have been here I have worked in more peoples lives than I can count. God has used me to: speak healing, speak words of encouragment, be a shoulder to cry on, teach, correct, just listen, manage, and more and I am awed that He is using me. I never believed that I was a people person but to hear the hearts of the people before and after ministering to them is revealing to me that God can do all things, even through me.

I am nervous and a little afraid to share in front of people but that is why God will get all the glory and it will be wonderful, because I am not able to do it but He is able to do it through me.

I am learning what trusting in the Lord really means. It was not so easy to do so at home because I had so much and thought that I really was in control. Now I see that I probably missed many opportunities to really serve God because I got in the way.

We are His children and if we get ourselves out of the way He can use us to make a difference in our families, friends, coworkers, neighbors, communities, and the world. Please pray with me that we will get out of the way and allow God, our Father, to mold us and use us for His glory.

Zambia visit

Zambia’s population is greater, the cost of living is higher and poverty is even more pronounced than in Namibia. Our hearts were broken as we traveled the roads from the border through Livingstone, Lusaka and arrived in Kitwe. Scores of villages peppered the countryside, homes made primarily of straw and some clay on the walls, rough wood fences and lean-tos displaying their handcrafted goods. At one stretch of road riddled with pot holes the size of Kansas, we had to slow down almost to a stop in some places just to maneuver the treacherous gravel pavement. The dusty roads were flanked by brittle brush, much of which was burning, smoldering, or charred.
At first we were puzzled by the people lining the sides of the road, but soon realized why they were standing in the hot sun waving to us. We watch as one by one, children, older women, mother’s with babies on their backs, older boys, scooped up a small bucket of sand and quickly threw it into a pothole as we approached. Their hands stretched toward us and eyes pleaded for payment. We passed out a few Kwacha bills, but there’s just no way we could contribute to all of them. There were too many. Maybe fifty or so throughout that 75 kilometer stretch of road. Imagine. That’s the work that they have found to scratch out a meager existence. Heartbreaking and yet astonishing to think that these dear ones are creative enough to do anything, everything they can to put food in their stomachs. I wonder what lengths I would go to if I were that desperate.

They gave us a custom tour of the Primary school building project, which is already being used even though it’s not completed yet. Serving several hundred children, attending classes in shifts, this school is located in the poorest section of the city and operates as a coop with the community. When we arrived, the children were playing on the dirt fields with a homemade soccer ball. Tony made bonus points with the boys by chasing them around the yard. They giggled and laughed as they watched others being chased, but they screamed with excitement when it was they’re turn. I wish I could have captured that on film!

On our way out of the country we couldn’t resist taking a side trip to a famous tourist site. Viewing the breathtaking Victoria Falls reminded us how huge our God is and how small we are. It’s a privilege to serve this powerful creator and to call Him Father. Just knowing that we are offering our hands, feet and resources to bring His love to His children in this beautiful country is truly humbling. Thank you for your prayers. The trip was successful and accomplished the objective intended. And now we have more friends to pray for. Looking forward to seeing some of you on our visit to the states this month!