No Need to Fear

One of the things I enjoy about being here in Zimbabwe is the quality time I get to spend with the kids.  It seems like almost every day, we are able to sit and genuinely talk together.  I love hearing what’s in their hearts.  Another thing I enjoy about being here with the kids is serving along side them.  It's been a gift to watch them blossom through serving and teaching others.

Last week, Maida came to me, wanting to talk.  She had just come in from talking with one of her good friends here at Nhowe and she wanted to share with me the conversation.  I was extremely touched by what she shared.  There is a lot I can learn from my kids and being able to share my faith openly and freely, without hesitation, is one of those things.  I asked Maida to share her conversation from that day here on the blog...

Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. -  1 Timothy 4:12

I was sitting with Bea on her veranda and then suddenly she said, “I’m afraid of everything.  Think of something… like this floor of the veranda, for example.  If someone slipped on this, they could actually die on it!”  Then she pointed and said, “Look at this brick pillar right here. If someone ran into it, they could get really bad hurt.  People could actually die on this, too.”

I noticed how upset she was getting while she talked.  I asked if she was afraid of water and she said, “YES, don’t even say water!  I’m scared to death of water.  People actually drown in water!”

Then I asked if she was afraid of fire and she said, “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?  You can get burned on fire.”  Then she held up a spoon that she was holding, “Look at this spoon!  If I gave this spoon to a one year old, she could think it was a toy or something, put it in her mouth, and choke and die!”

I asked if there was anything she wasn’t afraid of.  She said, “I’m afraid of every single little thing in this world.  Even pretty things, like flowers - they can be poisonous.  In the grass, there can be snakes hiding.”  She paused for a minute and then said, “Someone once told me that there isn’t anything you can’t be afraid of and I believe it.”

I thought back to a conversation I had had with a friend back home and I shared with Bea, “One of my friends once told me that the only thing to fear is fear itself.”

She was deep in thought as she was playing with a rubix cube.  After a while she asked, “Are you afraid of this rubix cube?  Like, what if someone came and took a square off, left it, and then a tiny kid came along and chocked on it and died?”

I shook my head and asked her if she knew the story of Joseph and the coat of many colors from the Bible.  I told her about how God can take bad things and turn them good. Like how Joseph got thrown in a pit by his brothers and sold, but eventually he turned into a leader in Egypt. She didn’t know the story, but I could tell that she was intently listening when I told it to her.  I explained to her that God is with us and we can ask for help through prayer, anytime we need to. I encouraged her to think about Heaven because everything in this world is temporary.  I told her that we won’t be here forever and we don’t need to fear when we have Jesus.  I hope I encouraged her, taught her more about Jesus, and showed her that we don't need to fear because God is always here.