A man who was working as the grounds manager at the college has recently been fired.  Apparently several things had been going missing: blankets and sheets, cooking pots and pans, etc.  It didn't take long to figure out that someone inside the college who holds the keys to storage rooms and to individual housing units was the one who would have done this.  This man was SUCH a nice guy--really cheerful, jovial, pleasant, kind.  It was such a disappointment to see that this Christian man gave in to the temptation to steal from the college.  At times like this, we can't help but get discouraged at the state of the church here and we can only hope that by playing our part in the building up of the body, that the church will deepen and mature.  We've been reminded through this incident that the Zimbabwean church is under a lot of pressure for survival, but that God still desires his people to be obedient to him ... Read More »

   Our church had a "School of the Spirit" weekend where they invited another speaker from within their denomination to come speak about the Holy Spirit.  This guy and his wife have a huge multi-racial church in Capetown and this guy was advertised as an expert in the field.  Mat and I had a teacher's conference all weekend at the college and so we couldn't go to the church event.  But we heard disturbing reports of what was being taught: saying things like he doesn't care how the spirit manifests itself in you, as long as you walk away from church being filled with the spirit, he said Jesus sees us as people who are without sin since he's forgiven us (which is true), but kept having the crowd chant, "We are sinless!" which started to become quite misleading, he said if you don't believe in the baptism of the spirit (a very Pentecostal belief) then you must be "so daft (or stupid) to even breathe",and he mostly preached his op ... Read More »

    This weekend we had Dr. Perry Shaw come to us to teach a workshop on how to be better teachers.  Perry teaches at a theological college in Beirut, Lebanon and has studied the field of education.  He challenged us as teachers to try taking a more wholistic approach in our teaching, appealing to the mind, emotions and behavior in our classes.  Perhaps we can ask questions or have creative assignments that do this.  But we want to help students make the leap from what they are mentally learning to how this can change their lives.  Another challenge he gave was to be careful about the "hidden curriculum" that we are teaching.  The hidden curriculum is what you are saying through your actions that may undermine what you are teaching with your words.  For example, you may be teaching on the ills of the abuse of power by those in leadership.  At the same time you may demand to be called "Mrs ... Read More »

    Today we had the American summer team and the faculty of TCZ over to our house for an impala roast.  As with anytime you host about 30 people, you can expect chaos, but here in Zimbabwe it always seems a bit more chaotic than back home!  We had a warthog roast last year at our house with the American summer team that came out so I had learned how to do things better this time around.  One thing I did differently is that I asked people to bring their own plates, cups and chairs, along with a dish to share.  I also prepared my dishes (a soup appetizer, coleslaw and cookies) the day before so that I wouldn't be going crazy the day of the event.  Last year we made coffee and tea for everyone with dessert, but this year we decided this was too much hassle and didn't do it! 
    Well, the night started off with a bang--I mean, a literal bang!  One of our lecturers, Golden, ... Read More »

   Mat took the American summer team out camping to the Matopos, which is a beautiful national park about 30 minutes from here.  Two other faculty/staff members from the college joined them with their children.  They cooked dinner over the fire, played games, sang some songs around the fire and then snuggled into their tents and sleeping bags for the evening. 
     Around 2am, Mat is woken by the echoing sounds of someone vomitting.  Unfortunately, Michael (one of the Americans) ate at a local restaurant and got food poisoning.  It's 2am and he's throwing up about every 30 minutes along with diarrhea as well!  In fact, one of the lecturers took Michael back to town at 7am to get a shot to stop him from throwing up and to get him some liquids to help rehydrate him.  As the group got up for the morning, they saw a dead rat a few meters away from them and tossed it over the r ... Read More »

   Today Calvin turned 6 months and officially started solids!  I've been preparing for these days by making my own baby food.  I've pureed carrots, sweet potatos, butternut squash, avacados, mushrooms, bananas, pears, mangos, apples, peas, corn, green beans, cauliflower, broccoli, etc!  And this took much preparation as certain fruits are seasonal and others can only be purchased in South Africa.  But fortunately, I was able to get all the needed basics of baby foods! 
    We started him on rice cereal today.  He first tasted it, then on his 2nd or 3rd bite he furrowed his eyebrows as if not too sure about what was in his mouth, and then finally had a look of indifference as he ate the rest of his cereal! 
  Since then he's had some pears and carrots--so far so good.  We'll see how he continues to do with some other foods!