Dear family and friends,

We greet you once more from the campus of United Theological College in Harare, Zimbabwe, where we are nearing the end of our first semester as teachers. May may not be Wedding Month universally, but we attended two weddings on May first. Both were conducted entirely in Shona.

Dale went to the wedding of a faculty colleague about an hour north of the campus with nine other people crammed into a Toyota Venture owned by the College. [A Venture looks like an SUV, has a fold-down back seat like a station wagon and less than comfortable fold-down benches running front to back over the rear wheels. They are everywhere in Africa, very useful vehicles.] The wedding was at 9 AM. They left at 9, arrived at 10 and still had an hour to tour the countryside before the wedding started. Dale bought some ugly green oranges that peeled easily as tangerines and tasted wonderful.

The wedding was conducted by the Salvation Army, all in uniform (though not the uniforms we know) and with a band (though not the brass band we know). The bride wore white, documents were signed in the ceremony and lunch was served to all in attendance. The driver had to make a speech to a church group that evening so they left as early as possible. Dale was home by 4 PM.

Mary had been told to be ready by 4:45 AM. She was, but the vehicle didn’t leave campus till 5:30 for a10 AM wedding in Masvingo, 300 km away. She rode in the 4-door pickup belonging to the college with the college drive, the Chaplain who was to preach the wedding sermon (“Build your house on a solid rock” [Mt. 4:24-7]) and two students. We passed through abandoned agricultural land draped in fog with a dairy here and there, then past the largest gold mine in Zimbabwe, set up with another car from campus to caravan the rest of the way and arrived at the bride’s house at 9 AM to meet her parents.

The bride was Marry, a first year student, the groom was Gracious, a second-year student. [Some Zimbabwean names are unusual--not just Marry and Gracious, but Decent, Innocent, Action, Blessing, Precious, Memory, Maybe, Little Bit--others are polysyllabic--Chomu and Tee are abbreviations or nicknames--many others seem quite normal (like Simon and Frances) to us].

The procession to the church was done in a 4-door pickup and the bride and her attendant in the back seat and the bed full of cheering, ululating bridesmaids. The photography team, 2 of our students, followed standing in a vehicle with a sunroof. Pews had been set lengthwise in the church to permit a long decorated table across the front and room in the center for dancing.

The bride was given away by her brother on behalf of the family, a normal procedure, vows and rings were exchanged, documents were signed and given to the bride’s aunt for safe-keeping. When the groom went to request the permission of the bride’s father to kiss her, all the college men rushed with him; when he returned with his father-in-law’s permission, all the college stundents rushed up with their cell phones to photograph the moment. The wedding cake at the end of the table was cut ceremonially so the bride could serve her new in-laws on her knees. Because this a democratic era, the groom also served cake to his new in-laws.

Lunch was served in the pews with the entire wedding party at the head table facing their guests. Mary ate at the parsonage with the dignitaries and got explanations and interpretation from a faculty spouse. As usual, the menu was sadza (white corn meal mush), rice, cooked vegetable (cabbage, this time), gravy, and meat (both beef and chicken because a wedding is a big occasion). The dignitaries also got tripe, which Mary could have done without.

The caravan from the college left between 2:30 and 3, while gifts were being presented and speeches made. The lead car stopped when the radiator boiled over, so both of the others stopped to commiserate (20 people at lest 10 in clergy shirts). A passing trucker handed down 3 2 liter bottles of water, which solved the immediate problem, and we followed the ailing car to the nearest mechanic, half an hour up the road. Mary, whose night-blindness gets worse every decade, napped off and on after 5:30 and arrived home shortly after 8 PM. The ailing car limped in, after a second breakdown, about midnight.

We have done a few other things, besides watching the flowers bloom and observing the neighbor ladies shell their maize by hand and store it for grinding later, a very sociable proceeding. Mary presided when a colleague gave a lecture on the church’s accommodation to its environment for the entire campus community. He is calling for a prophetic church that opposes tyranny and oppression. Mary also had her turn to preach at the Wednesday morning chapel service (“no longer male and female,” Gal. 3:28). Classes are over now. Final exams, which take less than a week most places i the USl take most of a month here, and constitute 75% of the course grade. It is a different system, more British or Continental than American. As soon as we finish, we will head for Des Moines, arriving in the afternoon of Saturday, June 5, for 6 or 7 weeks of holiday. We hope to see some of you during that time.

Peace,

Mary and Dale Patrick

The following letter has been received from Dale and Mary Patrick, members of Glen Echo Christian Church in Des Moines, who are experiencing a two-year ministry in Zimbabwe.  Please read and enjoy!!!

23 April 2010
Dear family and friends,

We send you greetings again from United Theological College in Harare, Zimbabwe where the sun is shining and the poinsettias are in bloom, whole trees of them.  We don’t think Christmas is coming any time soon and we were under the impression poinsettias grew in Mexico.  Bu they definitely are poinsettias and we are easily confused these days.
Easter passed very quietly.  We succeeded in locating a Good Friday and an Easter Sunday service in English for which we could manage transportation, but we missed Maundy Thursday and the Vigil of Easter.  On Palm Sunday, however,we processed with palm branches 3 feet long, lost bigger than any we’ve ever used.

The week after Easter we went to a Pastors’ Conference at Mt. Selinda, 7 hours away in the SW part of Zimbabwe, our first trip out of Harare.  Mt. Selinda was the original mission station in Zimbabwe for what is now the UCC.  It has a hospital, nursing school and boarding high school.  The hospital administrator and her husband are UCC lay people from Minnesota, the only other people in Zimbabwe associated with Global Ministries.  They have a 3 bedroom house and were able to accommodate us fairly easily.  The cell phone tower is out of range so both phone calls and emails are done from the car parked in a village a mile away.

The Pastor’s Conference consisted of short presentations in English followed by long discussions in Shona.  They all wore suits and sat in a classroom with backless benches all day every day.  We dressed informally (hope they weren’t offended) and attended about half their sessions.

Socializing with our missionary colleagues was more fun.  They took us on several walks and a trip over impossible roads to an outpost at Chikore.  Another day they took us to a tea farm where they grow and process tea; the plant gave us a lot of very good tea.  We exchanged our novels for some of theirs.  They gave us an extra fly swatter went them from home.

On the way back to Harare with the UCCZ president, we bought 40 bananas for $1.00.  Unfortunately, they were pretty well cooked by the time we got home (we salvaged about two-thirds, we think).

A young colleague named Nyoni, who just received his MA from the University of Zimbabwe, threw a graduation party for which he insisted his colleagues wear full academic regalia and sit with him on the stage.  Dale did the devotional and Mary one of the prayers.  There was a guest speaker; friends and family toasted and roasted (just a little).

Dale has preached 4 times in 4 months, a record for him.  Evenings and early mornings are cooler now and corn, dried in the field, is being hand harvested and the kernals shelled by hand and stored for milling as needed.

Peace,

Mary and Dale Patrick