Helensvale Rurals

Starting this last September Avondale received a new territory out in the country that needs help with the harvesting of men. Its roughly a 45 minute drive, and includes most farms and little villages where there are still chiefs that have the main say. The language here is dominantly Shona, very little English. I am putting the new MP3’s to good use almost every night so I can catch the way the words are said so that I can be clearly understood. I guess we’re not allowed to take photos, but I only learned that after I snuck a few.. so shhh. J  The chief doesn’t want them used unless he gets paid for them.

The children in this area don’t see white people very often so when they do there is a lot of laughing, yelling and poking. They love to hold your hand, just to see if it’s the same as their or their parents. I will have to have a scrapbook of just the little faces I see here, which are almost smiling. We did a 9 ½ hour day yesterday in the extreme heat, eish it took everything out of us but towards the end of the day it rained a bit so it cooled it down. All of Africa is going through a drought and has been hotter than normal.   We still had a great group our normal which is about 6 plus two Canadian brothers who have been here a month and sister visiting her boyfriend from California.

 One older women we showed the, “why study the bible” video wanted us to show her where it tells us in the bible that the wicked one rules the world, after we read 1 john 5:19  she asked where the kingdom hall was because she wants to start going. She told the brother, “You don’t come enough

during the week, so we need to go there to get the deeper things of God.” And that was after just one scripture and short presentation!

Over the weekend we had our assembly here where we welcomed 8 new ones to our ever growing family! They also spoke about how there is a need for preachers in the whole of Zimbabwe, in English, shona, Ndebele and Chinese especially. The English circuit is growing so fast that they are making a new one this year, some shifting will be done a few taken out of each one to make up the new one about 6 new congregations will be in it, sad to say goodbye to friends I know but nice to widen out and see more people.

Photos:I was able to go out with both the youngest ones in our congregation and one of the oldest on the same day.  Bunny Miles is 83 and goes out faithful every Friday with us. She still drives and walks with us in the house to house work. One day I hope I have time to tell her life story, she has been so active in Jehovah’s service it’s so encouraging all the things she and he husband went through during the hard times here in Zimbabwe dealing with the truth. 

I was able to get another 30 days!! So stay turned for more stories. :)