During the week I meet with professors, decided which classes I would be taking for sure, and then went to class. This weekend, thankfully I got to explore a bit and see some really amazing things. Thursday was defiantly the highlight of my week since I got to see one of my favorite musicians, Damien Rice, play in concert and then went to the same Pub that he was at! I know I have already shared this with some of you, but I was pretty excited about it and it was kind of by chance that I got to go.
On Friday night it was culture night in Dublin, so many historical sites and museums were open late, and were free. Natalie, Jorin, a French girl (I don’t remember her name, but she was very nice), and I went around and saw a bunch of stuff. We first went to the National Art Museum and saw many beautiful paintings and also got to see an Edvard Munch exhibit. He is a very famous artist that did prints and it was amazing getting to see the originals. Next we went to see The Book of Kells at Trinity College library. For those of you who don’t know what this is, it is the 4 gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) written in Latin and embellished with these beautiful symbolic drawings. It was all written/drawn on calfskin and was done in the 9th century. The Library at the college was amazing as well. It houses over 200,000 manuscripts and books, has really high arched ceilings, is all made out of really beautiful dark wood, and has the ladders that you would imagine in a really old library. Unfortunately I couldn’t take pictures there. After this we went to see St. Patrick’s cathedral, which is massive, very intricately designed and decorated, and very old. Saturday Natalie and I went to see Dublin Castle as well as Christ’s Church and a few other places. The castle was really neat, but is more like a palace than a castle. It had a lot of history behind it and was very lavish. Today parts of it are used for government offices and such things. We only got to see the outside of Christ’s Church, but it was still very neat.
This morning I went to church with Jorin. She goes to a Chinese church and I liked it a lot, but I kind of stood out because I was the only white person there and I was a bit taller that most people. I am used to standing out and being stared at after being in Zimbabwe though. I will probably go back, especially since it is nice to go to church with someone else rather than on your own. After church we wandered around the city center, which is a touristy area with lots of shops, people, and street musicians. I love being here for so many reasons. Of course I love the adventure of being in a new place and experiencing a different culture, but I also love how old everything is here and all the history behind things. I also love the diversity of the city, how you can walk, ride a bike, or take public transport everywhere, and how easy it is to travel to other countries. I look forward to traveling around Ireland in the near future, as well as meeting more new people and building friendships.
I am having some trouble posting pictures, but I will try to put some up in the near future.
First of all I want to thank all of you who prayed for me and supported me financially. Without all of you I wouldn’t have been able to go to Zimbabwe nor would everything have gone so smoothly while I was there. There is so much to tell I’m not sure where to start. I suppose I will begin by telling you a bit about what we went there to do, then go into what everyday life looked like and I will end with a note on what I learned and all that God taught me.
Meredith, Megan, and I went to Zimbabwe through Servlife, a Christian organization that works all around the world partnering with local churches. We were gone for the better part of June and all of July. None of us were quite sure what we were going to be doing once we were there, we all just knew we were supposed to go, so we went. Steven Nicholson (he is on staff with Servelife in South Africa/Zim.) picked us up from the airport and we began out journey. He filled us in on many of the cultural differences/expectations and also told us what we were to do during our time there. He then told us that the main thing he wanted us to while we were there was to set up a sustainable project for the children’s home that we would be working in. This project could be based around any great need that we would observe while we spent time at the
home.
The first few weeks that we were in Marondera (the town we lived in), we spent time getting to know the culture, the family we stayed with and also at Mush Wevana (it means home of the children in Shona, the language they speak there). The majority of our time was spent at Mush Wevana getting to know the mothers (that’s what they call the women who take care of the children), playing with and getting to know all 87 of the beautiful children, and
a general feel for everyday life and the needs at the home. Throughout this time we did a few small projects around the home. The first one was sorting through all of the different files that they had there and then putting all of the information into one excel spreadsheet. This meant that instead of looking through many different files to find info on one child, they could just open one document and have everything that they needed. We also did other organizational tasks including putting the very small library area back into order. Meredith, Megan and I were a bit overwhelmed by all of the needs that we saw, knowing that we wouldn’t be able to meet all of them with the money we had raised for our project, or with the amount of time that we had to be there. We decided that there were two important needs that would be practical for us to meet, and since we couldn’t decide between the two, we figured out a way for both of them to work. The two needs we saw were education and nutrition. For the remainder of our time in Zim., we mostly spent starting an after school program for the children as well as designing and pricing out materials to build chicken coups for the home. We met with people in the community and told them our vision for the after school program, put together a schedule for the volunteers, painted and fixed up a room to have it in, and so much more. Thankfully we also were spending good time with the children throughout all this as well.
I could go on and on about what we did day to day and all that we accomplished while we were there, but honestly none of that really matters. All that matters is that the Kingdom of God is growing and evolving in Marondera and that the children there, who we could hardly communicate to through words, experienced the love of Jesus through some of their physical needs being met, by hugging them and playing with them, by acting goofy and letting them touch our hair, by serving them. I pray that by loving these children and serving the people in Zim., that God would get all the glory that comes along with that. I couldn’t have done any of
things on my own, but I can do anything through Christ. God taught me so much about serving and loving people, and how I can’t do either of these things well through my own efforts, but only when I rely on the Holy Spirit to help guild me. I also learned so much about money and positions and how worthless and unsatisfying they are when you use them for yourself, but how useful they can be when you give them away and use them for the Kingdom of God. I saw that I think I need so many things, but really it is just a false sense of security that I give myself; all I need is Jesus. One of the most impacting things that I took away from my trip is that many times in the past I have looked at children similar to the ones I spent time with in Zim. and saw them as orphans, I don’t think that way at all any more. They are just children. Children who worry about making friends, who have to do homework, who play games, and get into arguments with one another. We separate them from ourselves so much, because maybe it helps us to justify or not feel so guilty about ignoring them. If any of your children or siblings or friends children didn’t have food to eat you would be horrified, what makes children around the world any different?
One of my favorite verses that I read while I was in Zim., was Isaiah 1:17, and it says this:
learn to do good;
seek justice,
correct oppression,
bring justice to the fatherless,
plead the widow’s cause.
I know this is really long, but believe it or not it has just scratched the surface of all that I did, experienced, and learned while in Zimbabwe. Being in Zimbabwe was the best experience of my life and I would encourage any one to do something similar. However you don’t have to go overseas to serve the needy or witness poverty, there unfortunately is plenty of it in the U.S., most likely very close to where you live. Don’t ignore it, but take responsibility to help and serve those that are your neighbors. There is so much more I could tell you about the family I stayed with in Zim., and all I learned from them and I could tell you about each of the children that were at the home and how much potential they have, but that would take pages. I hope to go back to Zimbabwe and stay there for longer term, but if that isn’t where God wants me I know that in heaven some day I will get to see my Zim. family again, as well as so many of the amazing children I built relationships with. It will be wonderful.
Hey everyone!
I arrived in Dublin on Monday morning at 8:30am (in Indianapolis it would have been 3:30am). Thankfully I got through passport control just fine, all of my bags arrived and my taxi driver was waiting for me with a little sign that said my name (I felt very important and was really excited about the sign with my name).
I am going to try to write on this blog about once a week or so, sometimes more sometimes less, just to update you all about what is going on in my life here. However, before I start writing about Dublin I am going to post a story about my summer in Zimbabwe. Unfortunately since I was in The States for such a short time in between my trips, I haven’t had the chance to tell many of you about Zimbabwe. I am a bit tired and still trying to get over jet lag, so I will try to post that sometime tomorrow. Hope everyone at home is doing well!
