Upon arriving at the Harare airport, it did take a while to get through immigration and customs (mostly immigration). So, patience was key, and I just had to (and did) trust that my colleagues leading our group know how to get us along, and they did.
We boarded a coach bus...which, with a group as large as ours (26) is our standard mode of transport.
We arrived and settled at our hotel, which overlooks a park in downtown Harare, where, it seemed, to be some large outdoor worship service happening, judging from the sprinkling of English words we heard mixed in with the Shona. As the entire things had fairly dense trees, though, we couldn't see.
After a bit, we loaded back into the bus to go visit the nearly completed new conference office building the Zimbabwe East Annual Conference was building. We were pleased to hear (well, I was, others no doubt knew) that the BWC paid for the roof on the new structure. The building is located in an area akin to Embassy Row in DC, and has three wings and two floors. Of course I had never seen their current offices, but I am told by my BWC colleagues here that the new building is a big improvement.
Back at the hotel, we concluded our evening as we will each night this week, with devotion together (which includes time for reflection on the day) and dinner.
I was nervous and excited about the opportunity to preach at one of the UM churches in Harare the next day, and I had quite the time trying to go to sleep. But finally a did, for a bit at least.
Sunday morning came with a bustling about to be ready in time, have bags packed (we were to leave as soon as we all got back to the hotel), get breakfast and meet our pastors or hosts who were coming to the hotel to fetch us. We had actually learned what our assignments (churches) were when we were in Johannesburg, and I was pleased to find a website and Facebook page for the church I would preach at, Cranborne UMC. I was able to learn about the pastor, the church's history, and the sort of programs they had going on, It was pretty cool.
I was told Cranborne (the church is named after its neighborhood) is like Potomac (MD). That's probably the best way to explain it, as it relates relatively to Harare. Many professionals, peoples of all ages but certainly many young families. Several of their members are active in conference leadership.
When Sunday came, I was one of the last picked up, though since I'd seen the service wasn't till 9:30 am and the church was not far from the hotel, I figured it made sense. Some of my colleagues had early services (we'd been told to be ready and in the lobby by 7:30 am) and were at a much greater distance.
One of the lay leaders from Cranborne, Janet Chisipiti, was the one to come fetch me from the hotel. She arrived in the outfit of their version of the UMW, and explained it was communion Sunday and the women dressed as such (and the men wore sashes) on those Sundays. I learned (I may have seen this online before) that their service was actually at 10:30 a.m., since they had begun Sunday School several weeks earlier (owing to the leadership of their new pastor--appointments begin in January in Zimbabwe). This certainly made the instructions the Zimbabwe conference gave the hosts as they took us difficult--that we should get back to the hotel by noon, since we needed to leave by 12:30 p.m. for Mutare (by bus).
When we arrived, we seemed to be about the first, it was maybe 8:30 a.m. Janet showed me around the church, built in the 1990s. The church, like a number of buildings we've seen in Zimbabwe, doesn't have interior hallways--a practical feature we see pretty much anywhere what often has hot temperatures. Since they had just started Sunday School, most rooms were used as classrooms, and there was a pastor's office and secretary's office. As it happened, this still left several classes having to meet in the sanctuary (they now have a total of 9 classes, I think, up from the 1 adult class they'd previously had). The sanctuary is, I think, basically a round brick structure (maybe a mix between round and a wedge) and about two third of the way up the wall, open vents allow for good air flow. It is winter here, and it was a cool morning.
As we had rounded around the back of the church, we headed for the pastor's office, to find Rev. Dr. Gift Machinga had arrived. I had the chance to speak with him some, learn more about the church and his family. He has three daughters, young adults, and one was home of break from the University of Minnesota (I know, what are the chances?!) HIs wife is a psychologist and as he had just moved to Harare from Mutare with the new appointment, she remained in Mutare for her work, and usually came to Harare on the weekends (though not this one). Rev. Dr. Machinga had actually studied at Clairmont, so had spent time in the US. In addition to serving churches in Mutare previously, he had also been the Mutare District Superintendent. He was very kind, and it wasn't long before other church leaders began arriving, to get Sunday School started. They gathered in the pastor's office and prayed together before dispersing.
I wasn't sure whether to attend a class or not. I felt a bit self conscious since I would be preaching in English, and normally though nearly all there know English, everything is inn Shona. I didn't want them to have to change the language of their class or felt like they needed to translate for me. In retrospect, I probably should have just gone, but as it was, I looked over my sermon in the pastor's office and greeted people as they arrived. Everyone was so nice, and that also gave me an opportunity to look in on aall the Sunday School classes.
One of the children's classes had two little boys who kept wandering out. I was glad to see at least that happens to everyone...those two kids you just can't get to sit down and pay attention :-)
Sunday school's end was announced by one of the women ringing a bell and she walked through church. I did take many photos, not wanting to seem odd or rude, but again, I wish I had. Ah well! I saw a couple people taking photos during worship so perhaps I'll come across those.
I was very nervous, wanting to do my best and trying to be very conscious of not speaking to quickly. So yeah, if you know me you know how hard that was!
As Sunday School ended, Rev. Dr. Machinga, one of his student pastors and the choir readied and gathered to process in. Which we soon did, and I took my seat up front between Rev. Dr. Machinga and his student pastor (they actually have two, but it's school break). I was fortunate to have a bulletin for my time there, and Rev. Dr. Machinga was kind enough to wait to run the bulletins until Sunday morning so it has my name and sermon title. We'd been told it was a time of a special theme, "A Harvest of Thanksgiving." I'd written and practiced the sermon. Then learned the day before that it was actually a stewardship sermon...harvest and thanksgiving are used this way but the church in Zimbabwe. Needless to say, my sermon on Thankfulness underwent some last minute edits! Which is always a bit perilous.
So aside from the service being in Shona, you would have recognized the parts...hymns, choir singing, prayers, creed, scripture reading, announcements and sharing of concerns. As I'd mentioned before, it was a communion Sunday, but I wasn't able to stay for that because of the time.
When we'd first talked, Janet had told the pastor what time I needed to be back. He was surprised, and they talked and he said she'd probably need to leave the service and take me at like 11:30 am or so.
The service was very nice, though I must admit it was more similar to an American service than I'd expected. One difference was that at any prayer time, the pastors turned and kneeled before their chairs. I'm assuming others did the same, but I was praying, not watching :-)
By the time it was time for me to preach, it was, you guessed it...11:30!
Needless to say, I was now quite nervous. I'd practiced my sermon to be 40 minutes. Now I needed to cut it significantly. So I did it in 25 minutes. It felt like the cliff notes version of it. And all while trying to not speed up (which I usually fall into when short on time).
I opened by thanking everyone, and offering a gift to Rev. Dr. Machinga, which included the apple butter I'd bought from Butlers' the day before I left (and wrapped with lots of bubble wrap, placed in a ziplock bag and packed in the middle of my bag). To be honest, I was happy to pass it along, and to no longer have to worry about it breaking :-) I also gave him a number of Manidokan items.
I'd used Jesus' healing of the ten lepers (one one came back to offer thanks) and suggested that the opposite of thanksgiving was pride (focus on what others do as opposed to what we do). Add in some 1 John 4:20 about how to say we love God whom we haven't seen, we must love our brothers and sisters we do see, and round off with sin as focus on self, but God's desire for us to focus and God and others and finish it off with an attempt to tie that to giving...yeah, a lot (probably too much) to do in 25 minutes. But all, the pastor and Janet, were very gracious. I was able to stay through one more prayer, then Janet and I had to go. Sadly, I missed both communion and greeting people at the end of the service, which I would very much have liked to have done, but time is time.
Janet drove me back to the hotel. We had more good conversation and she graciously answered my questions about Zimbabwe.
Back at the hotel, I said goodbye to Janet, gave her a couple Manidokan items in thanks for her hospitality, and went to grab my bags. And then we waited for everyone else to arrive :-)
It was a little after 1:15 p.m. before we were able to leave for Mutare, And we drove. and drove. And drove. Much of the highway is just two lanes, so we spent a good bit of time stuck behind slow trucks.
I decided to stay awake, which became increasingly difficult. Of course I decided to try to sleep 5 minutes before our halfway stop.
All along the highway, at various places people would be selling things by the side of the road. These seemed to cluster in areas where people live or which are travel stops (or bus stops). They'd be selling packaged snacks, or fresh fruits and vegetables. The place we stopped had restrooms and snacks, as well as a gift shop and a cafe. It was aa quick stop though, then we were back on the road for two more hours.
The best views of the entire drive came as we finally crested Christmas pass and overlooked Mutare. Africa University is on the other side of Christmas pass, so we also get to do this every day this week, but seeing for the first time is pretty awesome. I posted a pic on Facebook.
Our hotel is on the other side of town, so we got to drive through Mutare before arriving. The hotel itself overlooks the valley some. It's quite pretty, but we have long days and rarely a chance to enjoy it :-)
As Chris teased me (he'd asked if we got free time, and I said, no not really), yeah, wouldn't it have been nice for the conference to just pay for me to go on vacation? :-) We're definitely very busy!
We settled in, did devotion, then dinner. I had not slept well the night before and so tried to go to bed early, but wasn't able to. Travel isn't for sissys!
I know this has been a terribly long post, but it still fails to capture everything. I had also hoped to write another blog about today, but I'll wait and try to do that tomorrow.
Today was awesome though. I do have to say that what I am so very very struck by so far are the similarities between here and home, not the differences. This evening I sat in and listened to a breakout group (I'll be in the same one all week) discuss the presentation on faith healing that one of the DSes gave, and I just couldn't stop smiling or laughing (I laughed too loud sometimes because some people looked at me funny). The thing was, they were saying precisely all the things I would expect to hear in such a circumstance as my US colleagues. If I got in the cool group. Yep...I came all the way to Zimbabwe to end up in the snarky group. It was awesome. My favorite line was when the spokesman for our group (we came back together and each group shared) talked, somewhat jokingly, about "a demon's right to privacy."
So this means nothing to you, but it is hilarious to me. I"ll try to explain it when I blog tomorrow :-)
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