August 11th, 2023
As usual, Friday was busy. All of us prepared for the Sabbath in different ways. Mabasa headed back to town to take care of a few errands. Chisomo prepared things around the house after coming back from town herself (she’s been on holiday from work this week and the children are visiting family in Zambia so this is the least busy I’ve seen her). Nick and I wrote letters, emails, blogs, and went over sermon notes. About midday we headed to town with Mabasa with two tasks in mind: visit Mabasa’s mine, and spend some time at the new Feast of Tabernacles site which is owned by UCG.
The mining operation is actually not far past the church property in the greater Kadoma area. To get there you have to drive past the baobab tree that marks the road to the property and then drive until you reach a dusty turnoff somewhere (that’s as detailed as I can get with the directions). There’s no building to speak of at the mine except for a small storage shed. The small area is fenced off and a lockable gate stands at the entrance. When it comes to anything valuable that’s left unattended in the bush, especially when people know it’s there, things can go missing, so precautions need to be taken to avoid that. Even the seemingly useless piles of rock brought up from the deep mine shafts below are valuable. After all, that’s where the gold is. It’s rare to find a nugget of gold on its own. The reality of the situation is, gold must be extracted through an extensive process. Thankfully for miners like Mabasa, the gold itself is still worth more than the machinery, the materials, the time, and the labor involved in the process.
I glanced down one mine shaft just to acknowledge what I already knew to be true. I couldn’t see the bottom even in the middle of the day. Men are lowered down these shafts almost daily to crush the rock and bring back the valuable ore. It’s hard work and not for the faint of heart. After leaving the mine we briefly stopped by the mill where the ore from Mabasa’s mine is taken for processing. Sometimes there is a lot of gold and other times barely any.
For a more detailed explanation of what a small-scale mining operation in Zimbabwe looks like, you can read Nick’s post here: Out of Vermont
After leaving the mill we headed back the way we came towards the new Feast of Tabernacles site in the up-and-coming Clonmoran neighborhood of Kadoma. I was last on the property in January of this year to look at it just after the purchase. In the time since then a fence has been installed, a borehole well has been dug, and now construction has begun on several structures including a basic meeting hall, kitchen, toilets, showers, gatehouse, eating area, and water tower. It is exciting to see progress happening. Judging by the progress we saw, it’s very possible for the work to be completed before the opening night of the Feast of Tabernacles on September 29th. The Feast itself runs from September 30th to October 7th.
In April of 2022 I traveled to Zim and had the chance to visit Chemba, a village where we have brethren who live and meet regularly on the Sabbath and feast days. In fact we have a second Feast of Tabernacles site there and a yet mostly undeveloped piece of property which we hope to begin developing soon. The decision was made to drill a borehole well in the village which might benefit the brethren as well as the other villagers, providing water for human consumption, for cattle, and for irrigation of gardens. In that area where the soil is very sandy and rain is scarce, it is a wonderful blessing to have cattle to produce fertilizer and water to sustain them and the vegetables which benefit from the fertilized soil. After two attempts to get the drilling rig to the remote village along difficult roads, the hole was dug and we prayed for water. God blessed that well abundantly! What a relief! What a joy! I still remember receiving the video from Mabasa of the water spraying out from around the borehole casings as drilling continued steadily.
When we planned to drill the borehole on the property in Clonmoran, we prayed and hoped for a similar result. Professional tests were done to determine the best place to drill. The same as before, Mabasa had prepared to pay the drilling company extra to go deeper than anticipated as that is usually necessary. The rig drilled deeper and deeper, but no water rushed out. We prayed that God would bring water in abundance as He had before. It seemed to be a day of disappointment. Mabasa wondered if we would have to start the whole process over again and drill in a different location. But where would that end? One of the neighbors who owns a chicken farm just up the road had drilled five holes and still hadn’t found water on her own property. She has water trucked in from somewhere else. Would we be stuck without water?
I had sent a prayer request out to the brethren in the greater NYC area and included a few others on my email list as well. We prayed along with our brethren here in Zim. Mabasa consulted with some experts. They recommended testing the well we had dug to see if water was there and how much it could be relied on to produce. The test involved pumping water out of the well. There was water! God had blessed our well! It just wasn’t the geysers that we had seen in Chemba. There was plenty of water but it would need to be pumped into a large holding tank so people could access it. What a blessing! God does provide for His people, but it doesn’t always look the way we think it should.
We later heard that the plot of land between ours and the chicken farm will be a hospital. While the farm didn’t find water, the hospital land had water at a very shallow level. While we didn’t have a shallow well spewing out an abundance of water, I can’t help but think that God had set up the situation so we might dig deeper to find water so we might have access to it even during times of drought.
I came away excited and hopeful, knowing that what God has allowed us to begin here in Zimbabwe with the Feast site is being blessed by Him. I’m very thankful to the brethren for their prayers, for those who donated to the Good Works program, for the entire Good Works team, to Mabasa for his efforts, and to God for all of His mercy, blessings, guidance, and love for His people.
As we headed back home, Nick and I dropped Mabasa off in town. We had driven Chisomo’s car while the truck received some needed servicing. Finally I had the chance to drive on the roads in Zimbabwe. I chauffeured Nick home since he was already comfortably seated in the back. No problem. Switching to the left side of the road and the right side of the car is like riding a bicycle. It just came right back.
In the evening we ate yet another delicious meal prepared by Chisomo. She had garnished the plates with a piece of some kind of herb which I couldn’t quite recognize. It tasted a little bit like basil. After dinner I went outside to see the bush it grew on. I didn’t recognize it. Perhaps some of you might be able to identify this plant.
– Lewis VanAusdle
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