November Changes

November has come and gone and we find the party month of December upon us. It’s summer and everything is shutting down as school lets out and workers take their vacations. Music starts bumping incredibly loud everyday instead of just the weekends. November saw many changes in our family party, our daily lives and in ourselves, as we learn about this new world we’re living in. The biggest event was on November 19th, when Katie Gurzi, our beloved Zulu teacher, mentor, missionary and friend boarded a plane to return to her family. We stood in the airport, hugged and cried, wondering how it was in two short months someone could come to be so rooted in our hearts and lives. We miss her presence everyday, but we know the Lord is guiding her life as he is ours.

We started typing classes, teaching the six full time staff members of ACM how to type and use a computer. It’s amazing how much joy can fill my heart when I watched Mama Mafu spell out the world f-a-l-l, then throw her hands in the air and scream with joy because it didn’t turn out looking like ffaaaaaaaaallaa (she has a tendency to hold the ‘a’ down). They are learning so fast, it’s fun to watch them sit and concentrate, laughing and joking. We’re really building relationships with them and others and have even started mentoring some young girls in the church. So far it’s more just spending time with them and trying to get them to talk to us and open up. It’s hard, just being these three weird Americans who always show up places and ask them a million questions, but God is faithful and we are praying He will use us in their lives to pull them closer to Him. They are impressive girls from various backgrounds and home lives, but all faithful in showing up in church on Sunday and all slowly finding their way into our hearts.

Our prayer meetings on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday have taken quite a turn this month, with at least one house visit each week. We’ve prayed in the home’s of the sick, and held one prayer meeting in the hospital ward. We held two meetings in homes in which two different people had accepted Christ as their savior, as a result of Baba Mafu going door to door to visit the neighborhood (which he did on foot, on a scorching hot day, due to 3 of our cars being in the shop after break-downs). Most of these evenings start with anywhere from 8 to 12 people climbing in the back of the old white truck with three more riding up front. It’s always a good way to get to know people, sitting all close together like that. What follows is a drive down hopeless dirt roads, some incredibly flooded, through fields or woods or whatever it takes to get us to a home, sometimes 5 minutes away, sometimes 45. We always leave at 6:00pm, which has resulted in beautiful drives while the sun sets, followed by incredible star gazing on the way home if you chanced a seat near the window. The meetings themselves consist of singing, prayer and testimonies as we crowd into people’s living rooms, overflowing onto the floor and out the door.

We feel like little sponges, some days feeling so empty as our old thoughts and views are squeezed out of us and other days absorbing so much new information as to overflow and simply find ourselves unable to take in anymore. It feels like a curtain has fallen away before our eyes and we are beginning to see the world as it really is instead of just hearing about it or reading about it in the news. We visit a hospital and see suffering patients, only to come home and hear stories about the nurses who don’t feed or care for their patients without any repercussions. There’s even stories of nurses making a profit by selling alcohol and dealing drugs to patients during the night shifts. We learn things, hear things, and see things that are opening our eyes to the hopelessness of the world. A world where a mother tells her daughters that there is no excuse to be hungry if you can go and sleep with a man for money. A world where funds desperately needed for communities is pocketed by government officials. A world where children drop out of school because they don’t think they’ll find a job anyways. A world where desperately needed AIDS medications are stolen to be made into cheap street drugs, creating a devastating cycle of evil. A world where a disease is wiping out a generation, and demoralizing the one that follows.

But there are also beautiful, dazzling, and good things to see in this world. After all, it’s a world with a Katie Gurzi, an 81 year old missionary who’s given her heart and life to these people. She’s a woman who taught us the power of prayer, and modeled so clearly for us what a lifetime of trust looks like. It’s a world where we see young girls rising above the pressure to get pregnant, and others receiving forgiveness from confused parents when they do have a child they can’t support. A world where a woman will raise children not her own, and where families live interdependently. A world where eight children sit in the room behind me, taking a class in order to be baptized next week to declare their faith publicly. A world where God has provided for us in amazing ways after three of our of four cars broke down. This is a world where God still reigns, hope is not lost, and we are seeing him at work everyday.

In being here, the curtain has fallen from our eyes to reveal evil as well as good in this world. We are also seeing ourselves more clearly than ever before. We see our helplessness, our failures, our ignorance and our pride with painful clarity. We cling to God’s promise in 2 Corinthians 12:9 when the Lord said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” And we have plenty of weakness. We are coming to see that whatever good comes is from His power, since we are only too aware of how little we have.