Wayfarer By Faith: Poverty

I finally got to meet my Compassion sponsor girl! Her name is Ntawangaheza and her French name is Bonitha. She is 17 years old now and lives in the rural mountain village of Nyakizu, south of Rwanda and near the border of Burundi. Two years ago, I began supporting her and her family of seven through Compassion International. As we exchanged letters and I sent her photos of myself, my family and my country Australia, I also asked God for the chance to meet her and her family one day soon. I remember when I got her first letter and photo in the mail, I framed it up and put it on my shelf – and then I looked at it and prayed.

I remember the moment lucidly even now. I just told God plainly, with the mustard seed of faith within my spirit, “Dear God, I know this sounds impossible. But the more impossible it is, the better. Could you please make it possible for me to visit Ntawangaheza and her family in Rwanda before I turn 25? If I could even be crazier to ask, could I go to Rwanda in maybe two years time? I know nothing is impossible for You. If this is a good thing, please open the doors for me to go.”

At the time, I had just started my first year at the University of Melbourne and I was 19, just out of highschool. Sponsoring a child through an organisation like Compassion was something I had always asked God for the opportunity to do. Once I was earning enough money from part-time teaching piano, and I was out of school, it was the first thing I wanted to do. And I knew from the start that I wanted to support a teenage girl from rural Rwanda. I found Ntawangaheza on the Compassion listing, and she was in need of a sponsor. I read about her situation and her family, and I knew she was the one I had to support.

In all my letters, I also always asked her to pray that I would be able to make it to Rwanda some day soon to meet her family. I can’t believe for the life of me that God has answered our prayers and made this possible. I am in Africa, and I have finally made it all the way to this exotic land of a thousand hills – Rwanda!

So on the 16^th of January 2015, I made the four-hour road trip south from Kigali – the capital city of Rwanda – past Butare or Huye, the oldest town in Rwanda, and onward to Nyakizu. The landscape of Rwanda is absolutely breath-taking. It is literally the land of a thousand hills. Every town and city, every house and shack, every school and building, seems to be situated somewhere on a hill or mountainous district. The roads wind up and down the hills and through the valleys, up the mountains, by the cliff-sides. It is simply amazing, and I have never been to a country quite like that.

I made the trip with a man named Jean, who is one of the Compassion Rwanda office staff members and translators. He has travelled all around Rwanda, to the farthest and most remote corners, and has been working with the organisation for the past eight years. It was wonderful to hear about his experiences as a social worker and as a young man who has studied law in Kigali. Over the years he has assisted countless families and children with his background in law. There are certainly many cases of abuse or exploitation of marginalized groups, and Jean’s work is invaluable as it serves to make a stand for the oppressed and the ones who defenceless in society. It is so inspiring to meet people like that because you can really see the passion exude through his words and his countenance. What is more, he truly believes that God has called him to this work and has opened the opportunity for him to be involved in such a dynamic ministry.

Presently in Rwanda, Compassion has 75,000 children who are supported by international sponsors. The children are often sponsored from a young age, and at the moment, 155 of them are successfully studying at university! It is truly a long-term ministry that spans decades. Compassion partners with local churches, pastors, schools, teachers and community leaders in each district to set up Compassion centres. There are more than 250 such centres all around Rwanda. Each centre supports between 250-350 local children who are in various stages of need. Each child has his or her own unique story. Many live with parents who are rural farmers, others have single mothers, some others are orphaned children. They may range from the ages of 4 to 18. The Compassion centre has social workers that look out for and continually assess and update the specific needs of the children. These workers operate in partnership with the children’s families, teachers, village leaders and church pastors. Every Saturday, the Compassion centre runs an all day Bible study and life skills program where the children come together for devotions, leadership training, life skills projects, assistance with school work, a fun time of fellowship and games, music and worship, and a scrumptious lunch. When I was at Nyakizu, I got to meet with four lovely Rwandan ladies who were the Compassion social workers at the centre, as well as the pastor, the project manager, and the program director of the Nyakizu district.

I just love the way that Compassion is running this ministry – to release children from poverty in Jesus’ name. They have such a holistic approach to outreach and sponsorship of the child. Its basic foundation is faith, and the empowering of children and young people to discover their God-given destiny and purpose. The way it is carried out is through the process of daily discipleship. The children are equipped mentally, empowered spiritually, nourished physically, supported emotionally, and taught in a way that covers all aspects of their lives. At the same time, the families or caregivers of each child is supported and given guidance in life skills, income-generation projects, family planning and the like. So while the focus is on the individual child, their approach also causes a ripple affect that touches whole families, schools, communities, churches and villages. It is amazing and so, so inspiring to see.

When we drove up the winding pass, over the dusty dirt trails, the village children would stare in astonishment at the unexpected and almost bizarre appearance of this foreign girl. Then they would recover from their surprise and wave smilingly. Others are shy and unsure of what to do, so they continue staring! It is always such a funny sight for me.

To be continued...

Mindblown. Again.

Today was another eventful day spent at the Hatcliffe township. We were going to visit a few families and pray together with them. I went along with Pastor Sean and Mr. Lovemore, a Zimbabwean who is currently living in Hatcliffe, pioneering the new church with Sean and serving the community by teaching orphaned children as well as using his skills as a physiotherapist to help those in the village who are elderly, crippled, bedridden and disabled. Now I have quite a few stories to write about, and I hope these incredible individuals and their God-inspired tenacity will challenge you out of your comfort zone too – wherever you are.

There’s Noma, who is a beautiful, ever-smiling young lady who runs a preschool for children living in Hatcliffe. She charges a minimal school fee and makes sure that the children have a hot meal each day, too. She and her friend Ellen was kind enough to cook us a simple lunch of rice, curried potatoes and carrots, with a chunk of meat – which is most certainly a treat in such places. We were honored to pray for their work and their amazing hearts and burden for what God is most concerned about – the orphans and widows.

Sean led us along the muddy fields to a brick-dwelling where we met Mama Maibana (I hope I got the spelling right!), who is one of the few midwives in the area. With the support of ONE Church, she has finally been able to construct a brick home and another extra room with two rickety beds and thin mattresses for the young women she will be helping. This month alone, she has already helped to deliver fifteen healthy babies! What a feat, especially in such difficult circumstances. Maibana also has a daughter named Progress (legit, that’s her name!) who recently started a pre-school in a makeshift hut they have constructed out of wood planks. There were ABC’s and some coloured drawings posted inside. At the moment, she has 15 children under her care, and the room is really much to tiny for that number – but she has a vision, and we prayed that God would enable her mission to raise and disciple young children for His glory and purpose. And that progress would come through this amazing initiative.

After that, we walked through a sort of market lane. There was a sadza stand, a paraffin-fill-up kind of hut, a furniture hut, a barber stand, a tuck shop selling air-time and other miscellaneous stuff, a rack selling tomatoes, a piece of cloth with a few pairs of slippers and crocs displayed for sale, and some others. But it was a strange sight indeed. Even in Harare, you would never see such a set up. It all looked very unofficial (obviously) and the uneven mud-path just made it hard to walk without having to look carefully where you’re stepping foot! Anyhow, we arrived at the hut of a girl named Evon. She was only fourteen years old, but she sat in a wheelchair and greeted us with a wave and handshake. Other children – her brothers, I presume – ran around, eyeing us and saying ‘howar yuuuuu’ incessantly. Lovemore explained that Evon was actually first bedridden in 2011, after an operation that remove a cancerous brain tumour. She wasn’t able to communicate, write or do anything, really. But one year ago, Lovemore started to help Evon with physiotherapy methods and eventually, she was able to walk very slowly with the help of a walker. Nowadays she gets around with a wheelchair (to be honest I don’t know how that is even possible on the muddy grounds). Lovemore, being a teacher, was also able to teach her English and mathematics. He found that Evon was a truly bright girl, and he wanted to invest more time with her. It was so inspiring to see how one person can make such a huge difference for a young girl who used to be bedridden and who had no hope of going to school.

We knelt down beside Evon while Sean prayed for her with a deep sincerity that struck me. He spoke words of life and encouragement to this beautiful girl. When he noticed that she was sad, he told her that Jesus loves her so much, and that she has people like us, Lovemore, her funny brothers, and her Gogo (grandma) who loves her and cares very much for her. Then he asked her what she wanted to become in the future. Evon had her chin rested on her arms, as they perched on the walker bar. She looked so doleful, it pained my heart. She didn’t want to say it. But then Lovemore asked her again, this time in Shona. Finally she replied him and Lovemore translated, ‘She wants to be a pilot.’

That broke my heart even more. Seeing her, unable to run, unable to go to school, unable to communicate freely with other children her age, her dream seemed an impossibility. But you know what, in that moment, Lovemore and Pastor Sean demonstrated a faith that I will never forget. Lovemore immediately said with the sincerest of smiles, ‘You know, Evon is a smart girl. She can become a pilot. She is clever, and she is so good at math!’

Sean picked up on that and said without skipping a beat, ‘How about we pray for you again, Evon? We will pray that one day you can become a pilot.’

At first I thought it was such a cruel thing to do – to give false hope. But then, when Sean started praying, I realized that it wasn’t false hope at all. It was faith-filled hope. I was mind-blown.

Sean prayed that God would enable Evon, fill her legs with new strength, give her the wisdom and resolve, the intelligence and the means, to achieve her dream. God knows she has it in her to be the first female pilot out of Hatcliffe. He prayed that every dark, doubtful thought would not bring Evon down; that depression and sadness and hopelessness would go in Jesus name. He prayed that light and inspiration would come to this place through a bright, hard-working young girl like Evon. It was a relentless kind of faith that I saw right before my eyes – in a place so dank and dark, where it can be so difficult to envision a future bright and beautiful. But that mustard seed of faith was there. I believe it infused a new spiritual strength into Evon. Sean told Evon, ‘Do you know, that you inspire and encourage me?’ Wow. It was true. This girl blessed us more than she could imagine by the life she has fought to live, by the pain she has fought to overcome.

I learnt something so important today. I learnt that I need to see as God sees. When I walk in these tough places, I need to see God’s light, and not be overwhelmed by the engulfing darkness. I needed to be encouraged by the constant reminder of God’s goodness and love through the redemptive work of Christ Jesus. I needed to fix my eyes on the hope that comes through him and not be discouraged by all the obstacles in the way.

The storm clouds were gathering and blowing over Hatcliffe. It started drizzling as we finished praying, so Lovemore told us we’d better hurry on to the last family we wanted to visit. Now as we were almost reaching the next place, only about 500 metres from it, heavy rain started pouring down cats and dogs. It was so heavy we didn’t risk running on the muddy path, so we ran into a shelter where a bunch of guys were already hanging out. It turned out that the guys had been drinking the local brew made out of sorghum alchohol. Anyway, they were actually quite friendly and jovial. We all introduced ourselves, and very soon Sean was joking and laughing along with them in colloquial Shona. Eventually, he actually asked them what they were doing, and when they admitted they’d just been lazing around and drinking, he told them point blank: ‘You know, there’s a verse in the Bible – in the book of Ephesians I think – that says, “Do not be drunk with wine, but be filled with God’s spirit.”’

The guys laughed him off and demanded to know, ‘Where in the Bible does it say huh?’ Sean without hesitation whipped out his iPhone Bible and found the passage – but before he read it out, he asked the guys if it’d be okay to pray with them and commit this time to God. Amazingly, they were cool with that. I just smiled in awe at the sight. Here we were, filthy with mud splotched on our legs, rainwater in our hair, standing under a rickety shelter with a bunch of half drunk Zimbabwean guys, and Sean proceeded to read in Ephesians where it says, ‘Redeem the time, because the days are evil. Do not be drunk with wine, which leads to debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, singing songs and psalms to each other at all times.’ He asked them, ‘Does what you’re doing look like making good use of your time?’ That obviously put them on the spot, but they got into a friendly (and rather funny) discussion about all that – through which Sean used every opportunity to share with them some business and entrepreneurship ideas based on Biblical principles (that he has been incorporating through his micro-finance initiative – NDEIPI – in Harare with unemployed or homeless youth).

Eventually though, the guys seemed pretty open to us. Sean asked if they knew who Jesus was and why he came. In the ensuing minutes, he shared the Gospel with them in such simple but truth-filled terms. He asked if anyone wanted to know Jesus more, not tomorrow, but today, right now. Amazingly, three of the guys – Herbert, Philip and Trust – put their hands up and nodded. So there we were, laying our hands on their shoulders, and we prayed together as Lovemore led these guys in a prayer to receive the gift of God’s love and salvation through Jesus in Shona. Wow. And guess what, just about then, the rain started to taper off and soon enough it was time for us to go since the storm had blown over. I truly believe it was by no small chance that we ran into that shelter just in the nick of time.

It was worth all the slipping and sliding in the mud, getting filthy and wet from the rivers of muddy rainwater. God knew where we were headed even when we thought we were just going to visit a few families on our agenda. I believe when we live a life surrendered to Jesus, there will be no coincidences. There might be accidents and troubles that come along our way, but as long as we fix our trust on Him, we can wade through these trials with our head above the mire – knowing that where we’re headed, God will refine us through the fire.

This is church, people. This is church. This is what a small gathering of believers and followers of Jesus looks like in the slum township of Hatcliffe. The people of Hatcliffe were mostly victims of Operation Murambatsvina (Operation Drive Out Rubbish, also known as Operation ‘Restore Order’). It was a large-scale initiative by the Zimbabwean government to forcibly clear out and literally flatten the slum sectors across Zimbabwe. According to the UN, the operation (since 2005) has adversely affected about 700,000 people directly either through the loss of their home or livelihood. Therefore, it could have indirectly affected around 2.4 million people (UN report on Zimbabwean government, 17 June 2005). The UN has described the operation as an effort to drive out and render homeless the majority of the urban and rural poor, who make up much of the internal opposition to the current administration.

As we drove out of Harare into the outskirts and closer to the Hatcliffe township, we passed a huge rubbish dumping ground. It encompassed probably two football-sized fields – and it stunk. The field was covered with mounds of waste and trash and unwanted materials. Sometimes they burn them, other times they leave it all there. I’d never seen anything like it. Anyhow, as we got closer to Hatcliffe you could see the landscape change a little – from the leafy green and potholed streets of the nicer suburbs in Harare, to the muddy grounds and even worse potholed mud-covered roads leading into the township. The typical ‘home’ in Hatcliffe was covered with corrugated iron, bare-brick walls and the poorer dwellings were often patched up with plastic sheets or tarp-like materials. The dimensions of the homes ranged from the size of a small room in a typical Western house to a lounge room-sized structure. There are no electricity wires, no tarred roads, no clinics and no shops here. Only the odd tuck-shop or two, which is set-up like a small road-side stand.

The children saw us walking through and followed us on the bounce of their bare feet. They kept asking about my ‘guitara’ – or my ukulele – since they didn’t know what it was. It helped that I could ask simple questions in Shona like ‘unon-zan?’ (what is your name? – I’m pretty sure my Zim friends would say that’s the wrong spelling and the wrong way to say it, but amazingly people have understood when I said it hahaha) or ‘une makore mangani?’ (how old are you?).

The reason we were in Hatcliffe this Sunday (my second Sunday in Zimbabwe!) was to join Pastor Sean Mullens and Douglas, as they were about to pioneer a new church in this area. It was such a blessing and a privilege to be with these guys as they embarked on this new adventure that God was calling them to. It will not be without challenges, but I believe that there is such a hunger for truth and love and hope in this place, that God will make the way as his people serve Him and those in this impoverished community whole-heartedly.

We were meeting in a small school structure that had three rooms. One of the ladies named Yolanda led us into praise and worship with clapping and full-hearted singing even though we didn’t have the luxury of instruments to accompany us. One of the pioneering leaders, Mr. Lovemore, led us in prayer and an ample repetition of call and response ‘Amen!’ and ‘Hallelujah!’ As we were sitting on benches of the classroom, children outside were poking us through the broken window. It was hilarious. I could hardly believe I was going to ‘church’ – right here. Douglas preached in both Shona and English on some of my favourite passages in the Bible – Psalm 1 and Psalm 86:11 (which is the basis of my other writing website, The Undivided Heart). I was so inspired by what these guys were doing. Their heart for those living in poverty and in dark places, their desire to others develop their God-given potential even in such difficult circumstances, and their love for Jesus and rock-solid faith in Him amidst such dire challenges, has made an indelible mark on my spirit.

At the end of the service, we had the privilege of praying together, and I was also asked to pray for the team of 5 leaders – Lovemore, Mike, Jacob, Theresa and Douglas – and for the future of this ministry. One of the things that I felt most strongly to ask God for is that His spirit would flood this place. That his power and love would fill their hearts. There’s that verse in Zechariah that goes, ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD.’ Truly, apart from God, we cannot accomplish anything that would affect people in a way that transforms not only their physical or mental condition, but their spiritual body and their inner identity. Yes, we can do many ‘charitable’ things, we can keep feeding the black hole of poverty and neediness, but it will not last, and it will not ultimately satisfy the void in our hearts and the hearts of those we are trying to help.

This is my conviction now. I believe as I have been traveling this year, experiencing different things, meeting new people, building friendships with those near and far, and seeking God for wisdom concerning the path I will take – God has been challenging me to take it all a step further.

Today I met the most incredibly inspiring young lady. She is 22 years old and she grew up in an impoverished township in the outskirts of Harare, Zimbabwe. After encountering Jesus and placing her trust in God at thirteen years of age, when her father passed away - leaving her mom widowed with six children, and homeless - she suddenly found a reason to live. In her desperation and darkest moment of dealing with her father's death, she found God reaching out to her with His unchanging love. And everything changed when she chose to put her trust in God and surrender her heart to Jesus.

She began to look around and see the poverty around her differently. She began to sympathize with those who had life-threatening illnesses or who also had relatives who were dying. God placed in her spirit a boldness to step out and do something she had never done before and seen anyone else do in her slum. She began to visit families - widows and orphans - who were sick, starving or in desperate need. And on her spontaneous visits, she would pray for these people with all the earnestness and love and faith that a thirteen year-old could muster. Since then, she has continued to do this faithfully. Even through the times she didn't know if she could continue school because there was simply no money for it. Even through the most tumultous of days in 2008 when the fragile Zimbabwean economy crashed completely and everything came to a halt. For the white and black Zimbabweans who were a bit more well off, things were bad, but not so bad. For those living in already impoverishes circumstances, like Mercy and her family, it meant certain death. There were no food in the shops, except oil and maybe flour if you were lucky. And even then, what little Zimbabwean dollars you had would prove useless. Because even a trillion dollar note was hardly enough to fill a grocery bag sufficiently. Much less for a family of 7, 10, or even 12 people in some makeshift homes. Mercy told me while shaking her head, "Man, I tell you, that was hard times. People were starving. We had to share what we had, flour, sugar, oil. But if you go hungry, you go hungry."

[To be continued…]