“The Lord shall guide you continually and shall satisfy your soul in dry places; your strength shall be renewed, and you shall be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never disappoint. Your sons shall rebuild the ruins of former years and shall revive the foundations of old, and you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets in which to dwell.”
Dear friends,
In just over two weeks I shall be winging my way to England for a month’s break, visiting with family and friends, (and electricity & bread…Yeah!) so I thought I should just update you on things before I go.
We continue to face the daily challenge of virtually no mains electricity supply except for a few hours during the night. It makes administrative tasks much more difficult than usual and to be honest generally makes one feel rather ‘flat’ a lot of the time. I was commenting to someone the other day that after months of this, with no prospect of a solution probably before the middle of next year, it seems to be having an effect like Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), and their comment was, ‘Maybe we should call it ZAD (Zimbabwe Affective Disorder)’!
It’s quite sobering how spiritually ‘bi-polar’ one can become in it all. One day I am genuinely rejoicing in the fact that the Lord has counted us worthy and trusted us with living through these times of challenge where increasingly we have to depend upon Him for provision when all human sources fail, and I am excited about the miraculous provision we are seeing. Then the next morning when the electricity supply goes off at 4.00am instead of the usual 5.00am (before I have had a chance to make my coffee!), I find myself very grumpily groaning ‘Oh no, not already; how much more of this do we have to go through?’ And yet, compared to thousands in Zimbabwe who are struggling terribly with lack of even the basic necessities of life, I have so much; my life is so easy. Believe me, the situation in the country is teaching us all a lot about ourselves!
A few weeks ago our police-man son, Emmanuel, and his wife Mabel were blessed with a son, whom they named after his father. They brought him home for a weekend at the end of July so that we could dedicate him to the Lord in our church service. It was such a joy to bless little Emmanuel (God with us). Daddy Emmanuel came to us as a confused, broken spirited, angry little 8 year old, but now 22 years later he is building his own family with love and gentleness. A wonderful testimony of God’s healing, restoring power.
Two weeks before we met baby Emmanuel we introduced another little person to our church family. An eleven day old baby boy was placed into our care on 11th July. He came to us without a Christian name and we very much wanted to give him a name that spoke something significant over his life as well as prophetically over this troubled nation so we have called him Tinevimbo, which means ‘We have hope’.
And indeed we do! Despite the occasional moments of slipping into ‘ZAD’, we have hope because God is with us, and because of that certainty we continue, with your prayers and support urging us on, to press on through the difficulties in order to raise a generation of young people, healed and whole, who will make a difference in this nation in the future.
I will be away from Montgomery from 23rd August to 25th September. Please would you pray for the rest of the leadership team who will be ‘holding the fort’ while I am away. Pray that together they will have stamina to push through ZAD, and wisdom to know how to deal with any unforeseen challenges that arise. One thing for sure whether it’s Fiona, Danniel and Bridget in Zimbabwe or me in England,
“The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. ”
Lesley