Carry me with the Memories of the Beauty I Have Known

I’m not one for crying. It’s cool if you like to cry though. I may be slightly awkward about it, but I will offer words of encouragement and try my hardest at a sympathetic look. It will probably look a little bit pained, but don’t worry, I don’t think anything bad of criers. It’s just not my thing. That being said, I was bawling last Thursday. It’s pretty much a given that for me to be crying something awful must have happened. Or I’m in the middle of enjoying some soup with friends, one of the two. This was the case of an awful incident though. In hindsight however, the incident makes a pretty good story, so here goes. PS country and city names have been strategically left out, sorry if it makes it confusing, but you never know if the man is watching!

So anyways, I’m away from Canada for six months. But I only get 1 month approved to stay here at a time, so every thirty days or so I head over to immigration to get a stamp in my passport. On Thursday my thirty days was up, so my friend drove me to the immigration office.

            

             I went up to the office where there were three people “working”. One lady was helping customers while two men stared out a window. This is pretty typical here. So once the lady was finally done with the person in front of me, the men were still fascinated by a car or bird or something outside, I handed her my passport requesting one more month. “That will be twenty dollars” She said.

“Of course”, I replied, digging through my wallet. She flipped through my passport and saw that I have already been here for three months. “Why do you want to be in the country for so long?”

“Well,” I replied, “I’m working at a Church so I’m actually hoping to stay for a total of six months.” Shoot, I realized my mistake right away and quickly tried to correct it. “Well working’s not the right term, I’m just volunteering at a Church, you know helping out with youth and stuff while I’m here. It’s not really a job.”

“Ahh, well whether you are paid or not it is still work.” That didn’t sound too good, but I shrugged it off with a nervous laugh. Her attention was now turned to a man who had just walked in. He came straight to the counter where she was helping me and started telling her what he needed. So she helped him instead of me (again this is standard practice). Ten minutes later she was done helping him and her attention was back on me. “May I have my stamp please?” I asked, handing her my passport and $20.

“Ah see, that is what I was trying to tell you” (uh she was not trying to tell me anything, she was ignoring me to help someone else, but this was not time to be sassy) “I can’t give you the stamp” “Why not?” “You are working, to work here you had to get a $500 working visa, you don’t have the right visa.”

“No, I’m not working. I don’t have a job that I have to show up to, I just help out at my church. I let the embassy in Canada know exactly what I would be doing and this is the Visa they gave me so how can it be wrong?”

“Okay, I will give you three days to get out of the country.”

Get out of the country! I can’t do that, I have youth and kids club and friends. I am helping plan youth ablaze and am looking forward to attending. I still haven’t seen the whole country or bought everyone back in Canada souvenirs. This is home, I can’t leave!! This is when the tears started to flow. I tried very hard to hold them back and still be audible. “I can’t leave. The embassy gave me this visa, I told them I wanted to be here for six months.”

“You don’t understand. This Visa is for six months. That means you can enter the country anytime in those six months, it doesn’t mean you can stay here that long.”

Thank you lady for that completely irrelevant piece of information, I’m not trying to enter the country, I’m trying to stay in. “No I get that. I understand I come back for a stamp every thirty days, I’ve been doing that for the last three months. What I don’t get is why I can’t continue to stay here.”

“You could stay if you are on holiday, but because you are volunteering you have to leave.”

We continued to banter back and forth, me hardly understandable between sobs, and her with her mind made up that I was a threat to the country and had to be shipped back to Canada ASAP. I was praying that this lady would understand and be sympathetic. Eventually I realized that she was not about to change her mind, and Emmerson was not about to barge in to save the day like I was secretly hoping. So concluding that logic and pleading my case were futile, I grabbed my unstamped passport and my twenty dollars and informed the immigration officers that I was going to go downstairs to talk to my friend, and I would be right back up.

“You can’t leave,” they told me, “your visa expires today, you need to come back.”

“I will, I’ll be right back, I just have to talk to my friend.” As I walked down the stairs there was no more holding back my tears. They were flowing relentlessly. Em was not far from the bottom of the stairs, talking to another member of our Church. “Emm-er-son –they-told-me-I-have-to-leave” I said as quickly as possible through the sobbing. “What?” I don’t know if he asked because he wanted me to explain or because he couldn’t understand what I said. So I explained what had happened. Our friend made some helpful suggestions. Emmerson thought for a second then said “Right, I’ll take you to Kerry.” So we left. Yes I had told immigration I would be right back, but I was distraught and happy to not have to go back up there. As you will see this was not one of my most morally astute days. So he brought me to Kerry, whose home I am staying at while I’m here. After relating the story to her, we decided we would drive three hours to the capital city and try the immigration office there.

So we filled up the truck and were on our way. Three 35ºC air conditionerless hours later, we were at the other immigration office. We firmly established that we would not use the word “work” and entered. While waiting in line we saw another girl that we know from Scotland. We exchanged greetings and she asked why we didn’t just get it done in our hometown. “Uhhh, it’s Kendall’s birthday today and we wanted to see her.” Technically that was true, but you see what I meant about the lack of morality in my day. Within five minutes of entering I had my passport stamped and another thirty days in the country secured, no questions asked.  And another four hours later (we did spend some time with Kendall) we were back home.

   
So I learned to be careful of what I say. People are definitely paying attention. Unfortunately sometimes that means they are trying to find information they can use to execute their authority over you, try to get a bribe, or some other corrupt motive. It’s not just the intention of our words, or the concept behind them, every word we say matters. People can’t see into each others minds (thank goodness) to interpret what we mean when our words are unclear, and more often than not they don’t care to learn our intentions regardless. I like to think that I usually do consider my words carefully, but this showed me just how careless I really can be with my words. It also instilled that words can’t be taken back once they’re out there. One careless word and I almost got kicked out of a country. This time I was able to get a clean slate with someone I did not know, but if there were no other options I would be back in Canada by now. Our words are powerful, we must not be careless with them, and we especially must not be vindictive with them.

             Also it turns out I now think of here as home. It seems everywhere I go I gain a new place to miss when I’m gone. Also a new place to love and treasure and to have people I can call family. I think it is a pretty fair trade off, and I am really excited for my remaining three (God willing) months here to continue building those relationships and deepening my roots in this wonderful country.

             Also I may be thought to be a fugitive by some people. Oops.

    Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
        be acceptable in your sight,
        O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.-Psalm 19:14

We Make Plans for Big Times, Get Bogged Down, Distracted

     So it turns out writing a blog is way harder than I thought! Not that I don’t have any stories to share, it’s just that so much is happening I don’t know where to start! There are so many different areas to share about too, like what I am practically doing here, all of my adventure-fun-time stories, and the more philosophical aspects of what I’ve been thinking and how God has been moulding me and what he has been teaching me. And they are all connected so I can’t even just choose one area to talk about. If I have an exciting revelation from God, I can’t just talk about that without explaining the crazy story that led me there, but to tell the story you would have to understand what I’ve been up to, but to tell you what I’ve been up to I would have to talk about what God placed on my heart to be working in those ministries and on and on and on. So usually when I sit down to write I just get confused and sleepy and end up having a nap instead.  But today I had an epiphany, if I write in the morning I won’t be able to give up and sleep!

    I still don’t know where to start though, and now I have a month’s worth of stories. And I don’t want to leave any of them out and have them feel sad, so I will briefly tell you about everything! I went to a rural town, an extremely poor place with one room huts the size of my laundry room for a 5 person family. I played with the orphans of Children of Hope at an amazing Christmas party which featured water balloons and a slip and slide. I have spent time soaking up the sun and getting to know the girls I’m staying with. I went to a youth event where dancing is encouraged, so weird. I have seen demons, and they shudder when we praise Jesus. I have seen true desperation as a woman begged my friend to keep her one month old baby because she was not able to support him as well as her two toddlers. I’ve met people who have opened up their hearts and homes to orphans left by the AIDS pandemic. I have been a part of a church that is leading the community in ending racism by loving their neighbours as themselves, with no partiality, as blacks and whites sit together at church as friends, something unheard of, even in other churches in Mutare.  And I chased a lion. On foot.

      It’s been a busy month, and in it I have felt joy and sorrow, love and enmity, courage and cowardice, patience and anger, I have been in wonder and felt commonplace.  And let me tell you, all of those juxtaposing emotions can be quite overwhelming for someone whose usual bag of emotions contains only three items, happy, frustrated and hungry. But it has been good. I am learning and growing and stretching and it feels like each day God is finding a new way to reveal his goodness and his might and majesty to me.

     Along with a deeper knowledge of the immensity of God, has come a better understanding of my own seeming triviality and my dependency on Him for all things. (I say seeming because the creator of the universe knit me together, knew me before I was born, called me to him and died for me, I can’t be all that trivial right?) But anyways, I’ve come to realize that before coming here I had a sort of expectancy that once in Africa working with the church I would just automatically be closer to God and know exactly what he was saying all the time and I would just be more loving and knowledgeable and just instantly Super-Christian since I am a Missionary and all. Of course I never thought it out like that, if I had I would hopefully have realized how ridiculous that notion is, but these things have a way of creeping into our minds without us being fully aware. I have a tendency to feel like if I just do this one thing, if I take one step of obedience, if I am walking the right Christian walk, God will just be close. I will suddenly just be hearing from God all the time, and have crazy supernatural insight into what he wants for my life. But it’s not like that. Like any close relationship, I have to work at it, everyday. Every day I must ask God for strength and forgiveness and for an open heart. Constantly speaking to him and being in communion with him is the only way I will ever be able to see and respond to the things he puts in my path.  I must hear from him in order to walk in the good works which he has prepared for me beforehand. On days when I really take this to heart, I can move mountains.

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ... Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

It's Easy to Say, Harder to Feel

So this is just a boring update. Don't expect anything witty or insightful. I figured since most of my Canada peeps don't actually know what I'm up to in Zim, I should probably fill you all in. This way you all can know what the heck I'm talking about in the future (I have a tendency to talk about things as if they are common knowledge when they really aren't at all).

I arrived in Zimbabwe on Sunday, and spent my first night in the capital Harare, where I went to hear Nicky Gumbel speak. Kind of random, but his sermon really spoke into where my head has been at lately. That being evangelism and church unity. It was actually a brilliant message from Luke 5. I won't be able to do it justice in typing it here, but ask me about it on skype if you would like to hear about it. Particularly the part about the nets (our social constructions of the church) breaking to bring in the fish (new believers).

So now I'm in Mutare, staying with the Hundermarks, who are absolutely wonderful people. I work at Lighthouse Church from about 8-1ish every week day. Mostly doing office stuff and helping organize a Christmas party for Children of Hope, an organization that helps look after orphans. I haven't had much playing with kids yet, but I'm praying that God will see it fit to change that soon! My evenings are busy with a different activity each night, whether it be Bible study, small group, youth, Heart to Heart (gathering of the congregation to discuss what's going on in the Church and where it is headed) and, starting next week, young adults. There's also a soup kitchen sort of program once a week at the church, where the women help us out with yard work and such in exchange for meals. It's called TMJ (short for a Shona phrase that I don't remember how to spell). I spoke there last Thursday, so nerve wracking! There's one more ministry that I would like to try to get involved with, and that is working with deaf people. I figure I will wait until I'm a bit more settled here before trying to learn African sign language though.

Now for a brief lesson on what life in Zim is like. A few years ago Zimbabwe went through some crazy economic stuff, which lead to hyperinflation of their currency (they had to print a $100 trillion dollar bill). So now their currency doesn’t exist and it’s all US dollars. The economy is way better now, but it’s still recovering. There are frequent power cuts, in the area of Mutare I’m staying in it’s usually Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday without power. Driving laws are way more lax here, it’s only a ten dollar fine for driving without a licence! I haven’t had a run in with the law yet, but apparently bribes are widely accepted and looked for (not that I would ever partake in this obviously). There is also a definite class difference which is pretty hard to get used to.

I realize those mostly sounded negative, but I guess that’s just because those are situations that I am trying to learn how to live in. But I love it here so much, the people are amazing and friendly and so helpful! It is absolutely beautiful here, and I am in a wonderful church and I am just so excited to see how God will use my time in Mutare over the next several months!