Dad Travels To Zimbabwe

A few weeks ago,st week, Dad came back from a two-week trip to Zimbabwe. He found it very interesting and was challenged by some amazing examples of selflessness shown by locals there. Originally, he decided to go over to see first hand how things were going, to support the Christians in Zim, and to attend a “Growing Farms God’s Way” conference held in Harare (the capital of Zimbabwe).

One of biggest lessons Dad got out of his trip was that Africa was going to be reached by Africans. It’s their continent, their people and their culture, and it’s going to be Africans who are going to make the biggest impact for God in Africa (although foreigners have important parts to play as supporters).

Zimbabwe is in a really big mess right now- Mugabe’s financial management has meant that the Zimbabwean dollar is not even used anymore it’s so worthless. Dad came home with the second biggest note in the Zimbabwean currency in his pocket- a 50 Trillion dollar note! The highest is the 100 Trillion dollar note, but even that is worthless. Instead people are using the US dollar, but there isn’t enough of hard currency in the country to do business.

Cholera is epidemic, the hospital system is up the creek and nearly all the Zimbabweans are poverty-stricken. Only twenty years ago, Zimbabwe was the prosperous food-bowl of Africa. Now it is very dependent on foreign aid.

Which brings up something else Dad learnt about- Africa’s dependency on aid. Literally trillions of dollars have been poured into Africa as foreign aid and there have been absolutely no results. In order to break the dependency cycle Africans need to be taught how to provide for themselves. That was what the farming conference he attended was addressing- showing farmers how to actually be self-sufficient and make a profit, so that they can look after their families and help put the country back on track again.

Three of the major points of the farming conference was to work on time, to be resourceful with the materials they had on hand and to be diligent. The three main produce in Zimbabwean farms are tobacco (very lucrative), maize (kinda like corn) and soybeans. In Zimbabwe the best time to plant is 25^th of November, but nearly everybody just waits until Christmas to plant. This leads to a lot of lost yields. Normally the farmers just let the weeds grow, and they burn off the stubble before it’s time to plant. Instead, this conference recommends letting the stubble stay there and act as a mulch to persevere all the water in the soil.

They also instruct farmers to use fertilizer, but if they can’t afford proper fertilizer then they should use compost, and then if there isn’t any compost use manure or anthill, which has fertiliser properties. Another thing they taught was to be very specific about the amount of seeds they planted, and to be exact about where they dug the holes. There needs to be a balance between each plant having enough space and not wasting any farmland. Thus there are the Biblical principles of Punctuality, Resourcefulness and Diligence.

Dad came away with a lot of souvenirs from that trip, including shirts, toys and an African, hand-made metal-pieces chessboard for me. He also came away with a lot of photos, a few of which I wanted to share on here, but HSB doesn’t seem to want to allow photos, so I’ll put them up when I can. (This is the reason this post is so delayed, I wanted to post the photos, but couldn’t.)

I think Dad came away with a lot more from this trip than just souvenirs. He came away challenged by the selfless, self-sacrificing Christ-like living of the Christians there, who are risking their comfort, their money and even their health to help others in need, stirred on by their faith in Christ. It’s a challenge for all of us today.

9:45 AM - Apr. 6, 2009 - post comment

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