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Today was a work day and I helped Rick and Irene wallpaper while others painted and did other activities. In the afternoon, Melissa got Martha to find someone to braid her hair African style by twisting in the fake hair she picked up in Botswana. Now that is a long process and there is more to go with it tomorrow.

I went with Aaron, Rick, and Fanny to Ascot church at 5 that afternoon while Claudio and some others went to Mkoba. I was glad to go earlier since there was still daylight by which to film the neighborhood as well as the pastor at Ascot. He was gracious enough to go on camera and speak about how proud he was of the congregation there that really caught fire in the last year, how they are made up of mostly young people…but they need Bibles…and he wants to expand the church building…adding to it and moving the indoor baptistery outside because that baptistery was just getting in the way of sitting space on Sundays. Very good growth to see there as well. The neighborhood was very poor with “temporary housing” being put up on what might have been government land by what amounted to squatters. What was interesting was that there were buildings for no less than 6 different denominations on that same block including Mormon, Apostolic, Dutch Reformed, and others. The pastor (Raphael Warisa) was confident that his church was the most vital and best attended now. Raphael had been at Mkoba the past Sunday for my talk on servant leadership, so it was good to see him again. He introduced us to a visiting pastor, Jairus, who was very articulate in English and also had nothing but praise for the Ascot congregation, claiming that although they were in the poorest neighborhood, their offerings were larger than all the other churches of Christ in Gweru put together.

The power was out there just like at Fanny’s, and Martha had instructed me to take a package of candles along and matches that we had brought from Botswana. I gave a package to Steve for Mkoba as well. We lit them and left the candles with Raphael. He also brought out a couple battery operated lights that lasted for a while. I taped some of the singing and Rick spoke. We also had a question and answer time at the end where the three of us Americans stood up and they asked us questions like, “Do you have any problems in the U.S. with the young people becoming disinterested in church activities and chasing after worldly things, and what is the church’s response to that?” We also got to ask them questions. My question for them was, “Is there anyone in Zimbabwe that doesn’t like to dance?” This brought some laughing and the translator smiled as he told me that liking to dance and being able to dance were two different things. That if I had asked whether everyone was able to dance, he would answer “no” – he was not :-)

And here are some pictures from Claudio of some of the team that went to Mkoba church...

Even though we returned to the house well after 8, they still had supper waiting for us – rice, chicken, gravy, vegeatable…and warm! The ladies in the kitchen (and outside) work pretty hard to make that happen without power or much light. So we dined by candlelight again. I think Steve commented on how romantic this tradition was becoming :-)

Windows Media Video clip(s):

Wednesday activities 1:17

Raphael Warira speaks 2:38