Carolyn arrived and Natonal Conference of the Churches of Christ in Zimbabwe

- August 20, 2018

We were happy to hear that Carolyn Mereki arrived in the USA safe and sound on Monday the 13th. She had a 5 hour lay over in Chicago which turned into a 9 ½ hour layover as the plane was delayed—but she arrived in Indianapolis in the waiting arms of Ben and Karen Pennington and slept all the 2 hours to their home in Southern Indiana. They took her shopping and out to eat and she was so excited! On Wednesday the 15^th they drove her to Grayson, KY where she spent a night with Al and Patty Serhal before moving to the dorm the next day and beginning orientation. She got her room all set up and we talked to her on What’s App several times. She is eating in the cafeteria and enjoying the food. Thank you for all who made it possible for her to go to University in the USA. It took her awhile to get used to sleeping through the night—but we enjoyed it when she was writing us emails at 2 or 3 am her time as we were just starting work here!

This week began our National Conference on Tuesday the 14^th, when we started a pre-Conference minister’s conference for all our minister’s in Church of Christ in Zimbabwe. Over 100 ministers came and participated. We housed them and fed them in the hospital dining room. They had lessons and preaching for 2 days before the Conference officially started. It was amazing to hear all those men singing!

On Thursday, August 16^th our Annual Church Conference for all Churches of Christ in Zimbabwe began with dinner. People started to arrive that morning and continued throughout the 4-day conference. We were expecting 3,000 people and we hit just over that. We ran out of classrooms for people to sleep in the first night and so we used both the Primary School and Secondary classrooms, our hospital chapel and the church as well as all our guests houses. Major had 15 more at his house and people even slept on the stage and in cars!

We fed all the ministers and Heads of or Institutions at the hospital which turned into 210 people and then the rest were fed at the church. We killed 5 large cows, ate 2000 loaves of bread, cooked 1 ton of mealie meal, 50 kg of sugar, 60 liters of oil, 10 buckets of tomatoes, 100 cabbages, 60 kg onions and tea and milk. We cooked, and they ate. We had over 20 cooks and it went so well with feeding people on time! Amazing! All our prayers for the Conference helped to make it the success it was!

We had sermons and lessons from morning until night and ended about 11 pm Saturday with a special Communion service as most of our visitors left early the next morning to return home. We did feed about 400 people for breakfast and then had a short Church service for our local churches who still had to walk up to 20 kms or more home. We all felt very satisfied with the food, the lessons, the sermons and the great fellowship of singing and dancing. It was so fun!

Everyone complimented us about how well organized it was and why don’t we do it again! Major and I looked at each other and said maybe in 9 years!! The last one we did here was in 2009 and it took us 9 years to volunteer again!! We did enjoy all the fellowship and seeing many old friends, but it was a lot of work—thanks to many helpers!

No time to rest as 9 new visitors arrive tonight from the GROW program at the University of Washington Physical Therapy department who join us for 3 weeks. I sent in 3 vehicles to pick them all up. Two of their teachers have been here before so we are happy to see them.