Easter blessings,A new doctor, Church gatherings and Harvest at Batanai!

It has been a busy Easter week and we hope you had a great Easter holiday!

On Tuesday, we were joined by our new doctor.  We recently were granted a third position by the government and were so happy since our workload has been so much each month.  We hired Dr. Tafadzwa Mazuruse.  He is 26 years old, single and from Nyika area originally and has been in Harare for several years during medical school.  He just finished his internship (2 years after medical school) at Parirenyatwa Hospital in Harare.  He got to work a couple of days before we started holiday schedule at the hospital on Friday.

Easter is a time for many church meetings and we had a meeting here at Chidamoyo with 8 other churches in our area invited.  Over 250 registered and many more came starting on Friday night and going through church on Sunday morning.  They had lessons and sermons and many of the churches sang special music.  Lots of singing and dancing! 

Thursday before we went for holidays we celebrated Dr. Isala's 30th birthday and Dr. Munodawafa's  belated birthday (his was in February) also 30th.  We had a big cake and sang Happy Birthday and they got some US cash for a birthday present--they were happy!!

Friday, we went on holiday schedule at the hospital—so I worked from 9 am to 1:30 pm and then got the rest of the afternoon off to catch up on some housework at my house.  I got 2 loads of wash out before our electricity went out on Saturday morning 4 a.m.!

On Saturday morning after working a short time at the hospital, I left with Major his wife and daughter and we went to another church meeting on a farm near Karoi.  I had been asked to do a lesson on health issues and Major had been asked to preach.  We enjoyed the afternoon with this large group of churches from Karoi area that joined for the weekend of worship there.  They were very enthusiastic in their dancing and singing!

We had rain all day Saturday and it continued through Monday.  We got back Saturday night and church started at 630 a.m. Sunday morning.  We finished by 9:30 a.m. and they fed everyone tea and bread to send them on their way home.  Some of the church people walked 20 or more kms to come.  It was a great time of fellowship and worship.  We got home and the electricity came back and by Monday morning it went off again!  Too much rain!

Sunday afternoon I drove to Batanai, my rural village to spend a night.  We had many people come to visit and the good thing in the village is when it gets dark it’s time for bed!  We were all tired from the busy weekend and getting up early that morning.

Monday morning, we woke up to rain at Batanai.  We had the youth group coming to harvest my field of maize and pull up my peanuts.  We had to work hard to put Major’s Maize in his storage area to keep the rain off it so as the youth started showing up one by one we worked on that first.  Then we fed them tea and as the rain stopped they went off to work in the field.

They worked hard until 4 p.m. and they got all the maize picked and put in the trailer of the tractor which then proceeded on to Chidamoyo to unload it.  We will let it dry a bit and then take it off the cobs and store it in bags for the hospital to use to feed the patients.

We fed the kids some sadza before they headed from home.  They worked hard to help us and they are coming back Thursday to pick the peanuts (2 ½ acres).  Should have a lot of yummy peanut butter this year.  I drove back to Chidamoyo Monday evening and got home at 6:30 p.m. to no electricity—so had cereal for dinner and off to bed—like the village, no lights it is time to go to bed and get up with the sun in the morning

Today is Independence Day in Zimbabwe—number 37!  So, it added another day onto the 4 day Easter holiday so we got 5 days of holiday schedule at the hospital!  How nice for us but tomorrow will be extra busy since we have had 5 days off and no out-patient clinic!

We hope this is the last of the rain as we don’t want the maize to begin germinating from the rain.  This is unusual for it to continue so long into April so we hope this is the end.  It is already getting cooler at night—down to mid-60’s but still up to 90’s during the day when not raining.

 

 Dr. Tafadzwa Mazuruse

 



Dr. Isala and Dr. Munodawafa blowing out their candles!

 



Chidamoyo Youth Group singing Friday night church service



 Nyamambizi Farm singing with Karoi churches Saturday

 
 

Major preaching on Saturday afternoon at the Farm

 Church on Easter morning at Chidamoyo

 12 baptisms on Easter morning

 Serving tea and bread after Easter service

 Enjoying tea time before walking home

Youth at Batanai having tea before going to harvest my field of Maize on Monday

 Picking up maize from ground to storage

 

Major's maize from 2 fields and still has another field to pick--bumper harvest year!

 Major driving kids with my harvest

Tractor trailer full and plenty of pumpkins!