Chapter 19
Lake Kariba
Shortly after noon I again boarded a flight on my way to Kariba. I was
pleasantly surprised that Bro. Peter Mataka met me at the airport, on time. When I had
first met Bro. Peter in Harare I was very impressed with him. He is a quiet, humble man
but he has a wonderful gift from the Lord. When I arrived, we gathered my bags
and he took me to my hotel, the Kariba Breezes. This hotel is on the shore of the
largest lake in Africa, Lake Kariba, and I had time to relax before the service.
I again had the opportunity to give my testimony and then Bro. Peter began his sermon. The title was Kadish Barnea, a Time of Decision. This was the same topic that Bro. Ron had been preaching on in Phoenix! It was a wonderful vindication that this Message of the Hour is going around the world and the Bride of Christ is being taught the same types of things regardless of where they live. I know that only God could have put this same message on the hearts of pastors 8 or 9000 miles apart. I know they haven’t been in touch with each other, so there is no other explanation. Amazing!
After the service, I had the opportunity to again meet many of the people. That is
probably one of the most vivid memories that I have, how sweet and humble most of these
people are. Apparently shy, yet always excited to talk about the Lord. One thing I did
notice about many of the churches was the difference in the greeting of the women
versus that of the men. The women were very shy and usually I had to go up to them to
shake their hands, where as the men usually crowded around after the service.
Different cultures, I guess.
The next day, Bro. Peter allowed me to rent a boat and driver and the three of us went out on the lake to visit some of the many islands. Although I am not a fisherman, I did see some of the abundant fish that is in the lake, including the fearsome Tiger fish. As we approached the islands there were herds of water buffalo and various other animals. Because this is a man-made lake, there are large numbers of partially submerged trees which makes for abundant fishing.
As we drifted among some of these trees, they were fishing while I just kind of lazied around and observed the spectacular scenery. As we drifted close to this tiny island, I noticed a hippo partially submerged next to the island. I asked Bro. Peter and he said it looked dead. We drifted to within 20 feet and a noise awoke the hippo and he (she) snorted and submerged. I was really nervous about this because I could visualize this irritated animal tipping over the boat and me becoming some critter's lunch. Neither Bro. Peter nor the boatman seemed worried, so I settled down.
Later on that afternoon, Bro. Peter and I boarded one of the cruise boats which ply the 50+ mile long lake and we took a sunset cruise. I can’t convey the beauty of watching the sun set over the mountains - the huge orange disk settling beside the majestic purple mountains. The animal sounds in the background and flights of birds settling on the partially submerged trees created a magnificent picture!
We had dinner together that night at one of the many restaurants that cater to the many tourists. I had the best steak that I have ever had at this restaurant in the Kariba Breezes Hotel. We chatted about many things and I felt myself liking, and admiring, Bro. Peter more and more. Thus far, this has been the real highlight of my trip, a trip filled with many firsts and wonderful memories.
Other Voices - Simplicio Shamba
After the first week John flew to Victoria Falls where he met Pastor Paul Tafirenyika. They had a wonderful time together. From there he flew to Kariba where he met Pastor Peter Mataka. These brothers touched the heart of Bro. John due to their sacrifices for the Word of God. Bro. Peter Mataka was given money to buy a car to use to preach. All this was God's Love amongst us.
I called Linda Thursday night, like I had been doing about every 2-3 days, but this time there was something different. By this time we had been married for 24 years and I can tell when something is wrong. She told me everything was okay, but I knew that something was wrong. I called Bro. Ron that night and talked over this situation about Bro. Jeremiah wanting me to run the sound system for the All-Africa Conference. I told him that I felt like I should be home with Linda and yet, I felt a pulling to stay for Bro. Jeremiah. He said pray about it and an answer would come from God.
Other Voices - Linda Low
Shortly after John left for Zimbabwe about 14 of us, including all of my kids, headed to Idaho to share in the wedding of two very dear friends. On our way to the rehearsal dinner, we were waiting with traffic at a stop-sign. Suddenly the van in front of me threw his vehicle into reverse and slammed into the front of my van. It was so unexpected I didn't even get to honk the horn. It took two hours to get a police officer on the scene. We had already exchanged insurance information so the officer looked at the vehicles, announced there wasn't enough damage to file a report and left! Ben had to get down and pry the bumpers away from my front tire so we could drive! I was really angry by now. We had all received injuries and the guy had damaged my brand new van - and it wasn't enough for a report!
I flew back to Harare the next day and had a quiet evening by myself. Saturday morning Bro. Shamba, his wife, family and I all went to a wild game preserve, the Lion and Cheetah park. It was a wonderful trip and I got to see many of the animals much closer than I had in all of the other explorations. They had a large drive-through area and you could see prides of lions and cheetahs with adults all the way down to newborns. A real impressive sight.
That evening I had the opportunity to visit another church in Harare, Bro. Godwin
Chitsindi’s. The church is a little bigger that Bro. Jeremiah’s, but it is
constructed in the shape of a cross and is only a single level. He has about 1300 members,
which makes this the biggest of the three churches in Harare, and boy do they love to
sing! One of the things I loved about our Zimbabwean churches was their total involvement
in the services. There were no stuffed shirts in these church services.
My prayers were answered in these services. At the end of the service Bro. Godwin elected all of his deacons and trustees to act as ushers at the All-Africa conference. He made a statement that answered my prayers for me. He said, "We should always be ready to do God’s work." That was my answer, and after the service we went back to Bro. Jeremiah's church and told him the news. They were having a trustees meeting after their service which they asked me to attend so we could start making plans for the conference.
I was really shocked to hear that they were expecting about 4000 people to come from around Africa, in addition to the 2000-3000 people they expected from Zimbabwe. Many of the people would not have any place to stay except on the grounds of the three churches. Many of the people would also not have enough money to buy food, so the churches were planning on cooking meals for these people. The logistics of this were really quite astounding!
We made plans the next day to visit the auditorium where this conference was going to be held. I knew that for this type of crowd the placement of the speakers and lighting for the video taping would be extremely important. I was amazed at the beautiful building where we were going to have the conference, but that quickly turned to dismay when I saw the electrical and lighting that was installed in this edifice. The huge cavernous building could seat the thousands we were expecting but it was one huge echo chamber. The acoustics were terrible and virtually no stage or spot lighting had been provided for the speakers. Maybe I was expecting too much for Africa, but the outside of the building sure promised a whole lot more than the reality of the inside.
Monday, the 5th of September, was incredibly hectic for us. Since the arrangements were already made, we had to make this building work. Bro. Shamba had so much work to do for the convention that Bro. Patrick Mabanga kindly started taking me around, feverishly trying to get the equipment we needed to make these meetings a success. One of the members of Bro. Godwin’s congregation worked for a company that had available sound equipment so we went to him for help. The sound equipment that we eventually settled upon was the same equipment that the Pope utilized a couple of years previously. Our next problem, the lighting, was not as easy to fix. We found a place that rented lighting but when we went to place the lighting, every time we turned the lights on, the circuit breakers tripped. Apparently, in this wonderful building, they had only the most rudimentary electrical system, totally inadequate for what we were trying to accomplish. Fortunately, with some looooooooooong extension cords, we were able to get a bare minimum of lighting. Everything appeared to be ready.
The Care Package that Linda had sent also arrived on Monday and it took us better than two hours to get the stuff through customs. It had some of the last minute items I needed for Bro. Jeremiah's sound system and arrived just in time. There was also a note from Linda and it appeared that she was having a time of it at home. This was pretty troubling to me.
I had found out during the weekend that all of the visiting ministers were staying at a Christian retreat, north of Harare, called Rest Haven. Apparently the decision had been made to hold some minister seminars at the retreat, and they asked me to provide sound and recording equipment for these sessions. So, we had to disconnect much of the sound system from Bro. Jeremiah's church that we had just finished installing and testing.
Other Voices - Simplicio Shamba
We went to clear the parcel from Sis. Linda at customs. This we did and by God's grace we did not have to pay any duty. This was the week when John was supposed to fly back to Phoenix. He was persuaded to stay another week so that he could assist us on the public address system for the All Africa Convention which was due. We started making preparations together. We visited the place where the ministers were going to stay and the main auditorium to assess what would be needed. We later agreed to hire a system for the main auditorium and use the church PA system for the Rest Haven Camp.
Delegates started flowing into the country and this made me very busy. I delegated Bro. Patrick Mabanga to carry Bro. John to Rest Haven to make the final preparations, whilest I was attending to other pressing issues of food, accommodations for non-ministers etc.
Tuesday was not a good day. The company that was renting us the sound equipment was owned by an East Indian. He was insisting on some speaker placements that were not correct, and placement of the mixing board which would make it very hard to properly control the sound levels and made quality video recording virtually impossible. The clincher was he now insisted that only his people would run the sound system and I was furious. It was plainly obvious to me that they did not know what they were doing, refused to acknowledge that someone might know better than they the correct way to do it, and they had us over a barrel, so to speak. It was too late to do anything else! As I said I was furious!
We left the auditorium, met Bro. Shamba out at Rest Haven and spent an hour unloading cabbages from his pickup for food for the ministers. (that was a good way to work off some of my irritation) There were a number of sisters there cooking for the ministers and we joked around a little bit while they took tea. Bro. Patrick and I started installing the sound system for the minister's portion of the sessions and found we needed some additional parts.
We had made the decision a couple of days prior that I would start staying at Rest Haven during the conference. Rest Haven is set up around a series of small houses scattered around a small chapel/dining hall/auditorium complex. Each of the houses has a number of bedrooms, a small kitchen and a bathroom. I was fortunate because I was staying with Bro. Peter Mataka, from Kariba, and two other brothers from Mozambique. When I met those two brothers from Mozambique I had the strangest feeling, you know déjà vu? Anyway, Bro. Peter and I talked together (the other brothers spoke only French) and then retired for the night.
The plan was for me to
meet Bro. Patrick the next day to get the last minute items for the minister's conference
and I would be finished. I had talked to Linda and I could tell she was really having a
time of it back home so I prayed about it, asking the Lord whether or not I should come
home, and went to sleep.
