The Last Few Weeks

This blog post was originally written before leaving Zimbabwe, but with the immense amount of packing and the lack of internet until now, I'm just now getting it posted.  Although the transition back to the US has been somewhat easy, the move has been rather tough.  We've now settled into a house (although still have some unpacking to do!) and we've started our homeschool program Stateside.  Thank you to all of our prayer warriors and financial supporters.  We could not have done this without all of you.  At times I am in awe of everything our "team" was able to accomplish and I will always be thankful for the experience.

After picking and eating Mulberries!

 After a hot sticky day at Gonarezhou National Park, we were headed back to our campsite when our brakes malfunctioned on a dirt road and we ended up flying off the road and into a group of trees.  Everyone was okay and the car was drive-able after Erik fixed a flat tire, but the kids were a little upset about the whole ordeal.  That night during our family devotional, we had a little time for everyone to share some thoughts about the accident.  Sweet Klaasen Burke sat quietly while he listened to other comments like, “I was really scared,” and, “I hated that!”  When it was his turn, he shared, “I was super scared when we started crashing into the trees, but then I thought if we died, we would all go to Heaven and be with God and that made me happy.”  In the midst of great fear, Klaasen possessed such peace and such faith.  If only we all as adults could truly grasp that “faith as a child.”

This experience in Gonarezhou was just one of the many crazy experiences we had on our week long break from Nhowe.  We spent the past five months immersing ourselves in the Zimbabwean culture and serving in all ways possible, now it was time to play tourist and see a bit more of the country!  We had big plans to hit up a few of the most recommended tourist locations and also take a quick trip across the border into Mozambique to see the Indian Ocean.  Despite all of Erik’s planning, not everything went exactly as expected.  As I sit here reflecting back on our time, apart from the beautiful scenery of Zimbabwe, the adventure of travelling on Zimbabwe roads, and all the unique animals we spotted in the wild – I could plainly see Jesus working in our lives and through us, which is honestly what I think I will remember and reflect back on for years to come.

We set off early on a Friday morning, with plans to make good use of the daylight.  We arrived at our cute mountain cottage in the Eastern Highlands around lunch time and our weekend of exploring in the mountains began!  After two days of hiking, chasing waterfalls, picnics, roasting marshmallows, and family game nights, we headed to Mutare, the home town of the Mutare Preaching School.  It was Sunday morning when we arrived in Mutare and after some gas station cookies for breakfast, we arrived at the Jubilee Street church of Christ, pulling in at 9:10, right on African time! We were welcomed for Bible class and worship by such beautiful, loving people.  We felt right at home and even got invited to stay for lunch!  Skogen got sick during worship and when I took him out to the car, I witnessed a few of the ladies hurry out to make the sadsa and kill a live chicken for lunch.  What an honor to be their guests!

 

After lunch we toured the preaching school and then headed for the Zimbabwe/Mozambique border.  Border crossings in Africa are not very often a pleasant experience.  They are usually hot, crowded, and take way longer than it seems they should.  As we approached the border, we prepared ourselves for the experience; however it never even occurred to us that we should bring the registration and title to the car so that it wasn’t thought to be a stolen vehicle.  Of course you can probably guess that we were not allowed to cross the border.  With only three hours until border closing for the night, and being over four hours away from Nhowe, we decided to go to the police station to see if they could help.  Being a Sunday evening, I wasn’t too hopeful, but at this point it seemed like a reasonable option.

To make a long story short, Erik had to drop the kids and me off downtown Martare, where we basically sat on the side of the road and waited.  He then took one of the police officers with him and went to pick up another police officer, who was home and off duty for the day. The fact that this guy was willing to come into work on his day off to help us is a great example of how giving and sacrificial Zimbabweans are.  Like most Zimbeans, too, this police officer didn’t own a car and didn’t have transportation to the station.  With promises that this guy could draft us an exception to get us across the border, it seemed reasonable to drive out to his house, pick him up, and bring him into Mutare to help us.

 

Sitting on the side of the road and waiting for Erik got very hot.   We also got approached by, what seemed like, every homeless person in Mutare asking for help.  I felt bad that I couldn’t help everyone and I kept hoping Erik would hurry and return back.  Little did I know, I should have been thankful for the time Erik was away because in the car while driving with the police officers, Erik was able to share Jesus with them.  We had received some Bibles from the church earlier that morning as a visitor gift and since we didn’t need them, Erik had them available to give to these guys!  God was obviously using our stinky situation for His good and Erik as an instrument to share his Word.

After a memorable and difficult border crossing, we made it to Mozambique later that evening.  Our three days there went by so quickly, but the kids really enjoyed the ocean and despite having rats in our beach cabin, I had a good time, too.  Erik spent his beach vacation withdrawing money from the local ATMs and exchanging the Mets for American dollars.  Zimbabwe uses the American dollars as their currency; however, it is impossible to take any more than about $10 out of the bank per day.  Even if you have millions of dollars in the bank, you are only allowed to withdraw a certain daily amount until the bank runs out of money and then no one can take any more out.  People literally camp out day after day in front of their bank, hoping to be able to get up to the front of the ATM line and withdraw even a few dollars.  Oh, and credit cards are not a thing in Zim, so most of the time our “swipe” would not work anywhere.  With several hospital projects that we were planning to pay for yet before we left, Erik put in a lot of effort in Mozambique to get these US dollars to bring back for the hospital projects.  I was in awe of his patience and persistence with this. I was also in awe of his determination and work, even when he could have just laid on the beach or been swimming with his kids, he choose to keep on working.  Most of his exchanging of money was done on the black market, too, which also meant that he was completely immersed in the Mozambique culture as he wheeled and dealed a good exchange rate.  I could have never done what he did and if you’ve read anything about Mozambique and how dangerous it is there, you would probably agree that you couldn’t have put yourself out there and done that, either.

Our travels back through Mozambique were rather interesting.  First of all, Mozambique is so desolate.  There is absolutely NOTHING for hundreds of miles.  Every so often, you’ll come across a small village of huts, but nothing more.  There are no tar roads and even the main roads aren’t marked and consist of one dirt lane.  Luckily Erik had also purchased a SIM card on the black market in Mozambique, so we were able to follow Google Maps, but with the roads in places not being so clear that they were indeed roads, we were confused about whether we were actually going the right way or not!  We only really went the wrong way once, but realized it within 10k and were able to turn around and find the correct route.  After getting on the right road, we traveled for a few hours with everything seeming to go nicely.  The kids, even after not getting breakfast or lunch, weren’t complaining and we were making good time.  Without gas stations anywhere around, we were carrying three extra jerry cans of fuel on top of the car, so we weren’t so worried about running out.  Just as everything seemed to be going well, we came around a corner on the narrow road through the woods and another car was coming from the other way.  He was going fast and apparently didn’t see us coming.  Erik swerved, but with the deep sand, we couldn’t get out of the way as quickly, and the guy smacked into our car.  We were all okay, just a little shook up, but our car was not.  Sadly, this car that we have spent so much time and money on to leave for the hospital, was completely smashed on one whole side. Although drivable, it was heartbreaking.  The other guy, who was travelling from South Africa, did not have a driver’s license or insurance and when Erik asked him how we go about reporting the accident or what we were supposed to do, the guy smiled, shrugged, and said, “Ahhhh, nothing!  This is Mozambique!”  Erik tried to at least gather his contact information, but the guy wasn’t so sure of his own phone number.  The damage to the guy's car wasn’t so bad and he had an easy fix – he got on the hood of his car barefoot and jumped on it until the dents in the hood flattened out.  Wow!

Carrying on with our journey, our car in pieces, we soon approached what looked like a bigger city on Google Maps and we had high hopes of topping off our gas tank (without using the tanks on top because we were saving those for camping in Gonarezhou).  Portuguese is the main language of Mozambique, so Erik, being able to speak Spanish, could get by for the most part.  As we approached this bigger city, we soon realized that it only consisted of a couple small buildings, none of them resembling a gas station of any sort.  After stopping and asking some guys on the road, they eventually directed us to someone who had some fuel for sale.  It wasn’t exactly what we were envisioning, but the guys were nice and it’s always a pleasure to support locals trying to make money and support their families.  After fueling up and a quick snack of some bananas we bought on the side of the road, we were just getting reading to leave when two guys asked for a ride to a city about two hours down the road.  Even though we don’t ever pick up hitchhikers, these guys took time to help us find gas and we decided it’d be okay to transport them.  Piling the boys in the back seat, Maida shared her middle seat with these strangers.  They spoke little English, but Erik was able to communicate with them using his Spanish and for most of the car ride, he preached almost an entire sermon to them!  He asked them if they knew God and if they went to church.  He told them about Heaven and hell.  They asked him for a Bible and unfortunately, we had none to give them, but before dropping them off, we got their contact info and we’re hoping to follow up with them.

 

With such a bad border experience going into Mozambique, I was hesitant to go back across.  Luckily, we got there at a good time and the place was so quiet.  The Mozambique border was all business, no smiles, but quick.  The Zimbabwean border was also quick, but such a great welcome “home.”  Zimbabweans are precious people, always so happy, and so happy to have us here.  After seeing the Nhowe Mission church of Christ logo on our car at the border, three different people, at three different times, asked Erik about the church.  Erik was able to share Jesus with all three of them and they, too, asked for Bibles.  At that point, Erik and I decided that the next time we travel anywhere, but especially in areas where it’s hard to afford food let alone a Bible, we’ll make sure we bring some Bibles to give away.

Our journey finished off with four days of camping in Gonarezhou.  I can’t even begin to tell you what an amazing experience we had there.  Besides the second car accident, everything else went perfectly.  Seeing animals on a safari is great, but seeing animals out in the wild is even better!  On the first day in Gonaerzhou, we met a husband and wife on one of the cliffs.  After talking with them for a while, we found out that they get Bibles sent to them from the US to hand out to people here in Zim and that they had a couple spare in their car.  They gave us a few, which we didn’t know would come in so handy, but three more times on our travels, people stopped us and talked to us about Jesus after reading our car logo.  It was such a great pleasure to give these people Bibles and we hope they go and share the good news with many more.

We are now all packed up and it’s almost time to board the airplane.  It’s so bitter-sweet to think about leaving this country.  Nhowe has truly become our home and we wish we could have some more time here.  We have big hopes and dreams of returning at least every year and we’re praying that God places the desire on many of your hearts to join us.  There is so much to be done for God’s Kingdom here, while also serving in many of the missions aspects.  After we return home, we’re looking forward to a blogpost, highlighting many of the projects we took on at Nhowe.  We appreciate all of you for sharing this journey with us and we especially appreciate all the financial support we received to go complete the great commission.  God is good.