Update from Zimbabwe

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We have some long-time friends who have been missionaries to Zimbabwe for several years now. Following is a portion of their Christmas/New Year update. It’s truly amazing how much things have deteriorated there…

  • I realise that some of you may have wondered if with all the bad news from Zimbabwe we were still here. It has been a real mission just to keep in touch with our family because of the system here…
  • The really good news – Hallelujah, we have just been reconnected to a telephone land-line, after almost 9 months without! Back in March the phone company gave us someone else’s number when connecting us to the digital network, so they disconnected us again, but failed to give us a different number or give us back our original line. [The husband] has visited their offices at least 50 times and written numerous letters to no avail, until the engineers turned up 2 days ago and 5 minutes later we were connected!
  • We are still awaiting connection of the other line which was cut off for no good reason at least 4 years ago, but we are so relieved to have a working phone again that we think we can do without a second one for a while. It means that [the husband] will not have to keep going to his…office to get e-mail and internet services. The mobile phone network is heavily congested and like everything, has become very expensive, especially the pay-as-you-go service.
  • We have had no gardener for about 2 months after the last guy left without warning (the previous one had stolen from us and was dismissed). We thought we had found a replacement this week, but he has failed to turn up, so we are both doing what we can to keep things under control for the time being. [The husband] spent many hours over last weekend mowing lawns and trimming trees and hedges…
  • There was also a blocked sewer that had to be sorted out yesterday – [The husband] is presently investigating the sewers from the original drawings and with trial holes to find where the rest of the manholes are hidden – and two of our vehicles have also been repaired this week, so there is plenty to keep us occupied.
  • [The husband] is now planning a trip in January with his team to establish two new churches in Mozambique and Malawi.
  • You will be aware of the dire situation with regard to the cholera epidemic. Our church is very involved with running clinics dealing with the illness, and paying for nurses and doctors to staff them. At home we, and the whole area, have had no mains water for 5 months, and every day we thank God for our borehole. Our water became increasingly hard the lower the level went, but it has done us no harm, and the borehole is now filling up rapidly with the huge rains we are having. Power cuts have not been as bad as this time last year, but again we are so thankful for the generator that keeps the lights on and the borehole pumping when the power fails. Many folk around here are selling their water to companies that transport and sell it elsewhere, but of course it would be wonderful if the authorities could mend the leaks and purify the municipal supply! There has been no refuse collection either for several months, so we are forced to burn, bury or transport rubbish to the only dump in town. And still we are expected to pay rates!
  • There are a lot more goods in the shops now that foreign currency is widely accepted in payment, but things have become very expensive as most of the produce has to be imported. Almost every worker outside of the civil service is paid in forex, or petrol vouchers or goods, as the local currency is virtually worthless, and very hard to come by. From being almost the cheapest country in the world to live in when we first came, it is now on a par with the UK. So we have to reign in our spending here, and do almost all our shopping apart from meat and vegetables in South Africa. The journey can be done in six hours, though the border crossing can take several more hours to navigate. But it is worth the effort, and gives us a few days break…The cost of the journey is easily covered by the savings on the prices of the same goods imported here by traders.
  • Two things can show what people here are faced with financially. First the exchange rate for the US dollar was Z$32 after the ten zeroes were removed at the beginning of August. We even had new coins for the first time for years. Follow the progress: Aug16 – 100. Sep03 – 220. Sep08 – 390. Sep17 – 500. Sep28 – 950. Oct21 – 32,000. Nov02 – 130,000. Nov13 – 300,000. Dec03 – 19,000,000. Dec11 – 50M. I don’t know what it is today but probably well over 200M. No one keeps money for more than a few hours.
  • Second the prices. E.g of saw sharpening – needed for all my recent work. Three weeks ago it was 7.5M. Last week I took another one in and looked on the price board and it was 100M. That was how much could be drawn from a bank a/c each day. I gave them 100M and they asked for another 50M. When I asked why they said that the 100M was yesterday’s price. The real price was US$3.
  • A month ago a loaf of bread was 2.5M. Each time a higher denomination note arrives – a weekly occurrence – the price increases. From 2.5M to 16M then 25M and then to 300M this week. We don’t often buy bread any more but I did get a small currant loaf for 110M last week.

SEXUAL IMPURITY/IMMORALITY/SENSUALITY

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Hi everybody, Gregg Caruso here, in the light of recent events, the leadership team here at MPVCC thought it would be appropriate to take a look at issues related to sexuality…

Check this out:

  • Average age of first Internet exposure to pornography: 11 years old
  • Largest consumer of Internet pornography: 12-17 age group
  • 15-17 year olds having multiple hard-core exposures: 80%
  • 8-16 year olds having viewed porn online: 90% (most while doing homework)
  • Christians who said pornography is a major problem in the home: 47%

I’d like to take a look at some sources over the next several days that will help all of us be aware of what the Bible says as well a host of additional resources. First, let’s take a look at 2 Corinthians 12:21…

“I am afraid that when I come again my God may humiliate me before you, and I may mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past and not repented of the impurity, immorality, and sensuality which they have practiced.” 2 Corinthians 12:21 (NAS)

NIV – impurity, sexual sin, debauchery
NKJ – uncleanness, fornication, lewdness

1. Impurity – Greek word: AKATHARSIA (ak-ath-ar’-see-ah) meaning uncleanness. Used 29 times in the NT. In the Gospels this word is directly related to demonization in every instance (see Mat. 12:43; Mark 1:26; 3:30; 5:8; etc.). In Acts and Corinthians the word is used in reference to Jewish ceremonial uncleanness. In Eph. 5:5 it is used to describe a person who will not have an inheritance in the kingdom of God. In Rev.17:4 the word is used in the context of sexual impurity. Sexual impurity is generally described as: masturbation, premarital petting, sexual fantasy, crude jesting, foul jokes, pornography, some DVD’s, some videos – any impure communication.

2. Immorality – Greek word: PORNEIA (por-ni’-ah) literally means to act as the harlot. Indulge unlawful lust (in a religious sense). Any sexual intercourse outside of God’s plan for marriage. Sexual immorality is: fornication, adultery, sodomy, incest, promiscuity, premarital intercourse, prostitution, bestiality, ?

3. Sensuality – Greek word: ASELGEIA (as-elg’-i-a) meaning characterized by expressing lust; or other vices and disregarding accepted moral standards; morally unrestrained.

CONVICTION VS. CONDEMNATION

  1. Conviction will focus our attention on the adequacy of Jesus. “The Holy Spirit will convict the world concerning sin.” (John 16:8)
  2. Condemnation will focus our attention on our own hopelessness. “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1)

Peter Drucker On Leadership

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There is a great article “Peter Drucker On Leadership” discussing the leadership principles of the late Peter Drucker, some of his ideas from the article that stood out to me are below:

  • What Needs to Be Done: “Successful leaders don’t start out asking, ‘What do I want to do?’ They ask, ‘What needs to be done?’ Then they ask, ‘Of those things that would make a difference, which are right for me?’ They don’t tackle things they aren’t good at…..”
  • Check Your Performance: “Effective leaders check their performance. They write down, ‘What do I hope to achieve if I take on this assignment?’ They put away their goals for six months and then come back and check their performance against goals. This way, they find out what they do well and what they do poorly. They also find out whether they picked the truly important things to do. I’ve seen a great many people who are exceedingly good at execution, but exceedingly poor at picking the important things….”
  • Mission Driven: “Leaders communicate in the sense that people around them know what they are trying to do. They are purpose driven–yes, mission driven. They know how to establish a mission. And another thing, they know how to say no. The pressure on leaders to do 984 different things is unbearable, so the effective ones learn how to say no and stick with it…”
  • Creative Abandonment: “A critical question for leaders is, ‘When do you stop pouring resources into things that have achieved their purpose?’ The most dangerous traps for a leader are those near-successes where everybody says that if you just give it another big push it will go over the top. One tries it once. One tries it twice. One tries it a third time. But, by then it should be obvious this will be very hard to do. So, I always advise my friend Rick Warren, ‘Don’t tell me what you’re doing, Rick. Tell me what you stopped doing.’”
  • How Organizations Fall Down: “Make sure the people with whom you work understand your priorities. Where organizations fall down is when they have to guess at what the boss is working at, and they invariably guess wrong. So the CEO needs to say, ‘This is what I am focusing on.’ Then the CEO needs to ask of his associates, ‘What are you focusing on?’ Ask your associates, ‘You put this on top of your priority list–why?’ The reason may be the right one, but it may also be that this associate of yours is a salesman who persuades you that his priorities are correct when they are not. So, make sure that you understand your associates’ priorities and make sure that after you have that conversation, you sit down and drop them a two-page note–’This is what I think we discussed. This is what I think we decided. This is what I think you committed yourself to within what time frame.’ Finally, ask them, ‘What do you expect from me as you seek to achieve your goals?’”

As always Peter Drucker provides some great insights into leadership effectiveness.

Inside Private Lives – The Play

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Last night Linda and I attended an excellent interactive set of one-act plays in S. Pasadena. It was a benefit performance for Wellness Works, a non-profit community resource (in Glendale, CA) that provides holistic health education and treatments for healing in an atmosphere of compassion and joy – where my mother is a board member.

One reviewer proclaimed Inside Private Lives, “Great theater, fun improv, and a history lesson rolled into one.” I wholeheartedly agree…

Inside Private Lives was performed at the Freemont Centre Theater, a 75-seat intimate theater with a comfortable courtyard to gather beforehand, at intermission, as well as afterwards to converse with the actors. The play, also performed in NYC and Edinburgh, is a look back in time to imaginary moments to engage the controversy that enveloped in real life 20th century figures. Last night’s line-up included six separate characters and scenes:

  1. Christine Jorgensen who was the first widely known American to transform from male to female. The setting was the Playboy Mansion in Chicago were we, the audience, became the editorial panel that would determine if her nude pictorial should run in the magazine.
  2. Jane Roberts who was an American author, poet, and medium whose many books reflect her channeling an entity named “Seth.” The audience became, if I’m remembering correctly, a grand jury assembled to determine if Jane Roberts had any legal complicity in the apparent suicide of a teenage “client.” Seth spoke in Jane’s defense.
  3. John Dillinger, a notorious bank robber who became a “celebrity” criminal who was idolized by many as a present-day Robin Hood. The audience became inadvertent captives and Dillinger attempted to talk us into a mass exit of the building (with police armed and waiting) so he could escape as one of us.
  4. Ann Landers, syndicated advice columnist, who was attempting to talk a local newspaper into continuing to run her advice column instead of switching to her sister’s — Dear Abby.
  5. Elia Kazan, a multiple Tony and Academy Award-winning director, was defending his sell-out of former communist sympathizers during the McCarthy Era in order to preserve his career.
  6. Aimee Semple McPherson, a highly influential charismatic evangelist/pastor (and founder the Foursquare Denomination) of the 1920’s was defending her claim that she was kidnapped at Venice Beach, held hostage in a shack in Mexico, escaped, and walked several miles into New Mexico. It was initially thought that she had drowned at Venice Beach and a huge “manhunt” ensued. Two of the searchers died looking for Aimee and she was reportedly seen shacking up with a married lover at a resort in Carmel-by-the-Sea. The audience became a group of Los Angeles political dignitaries that Aimee attempted to persuade into appearing at a news conference with her in an attempt to pressure the city into dropping the legal inquiry.

If you go, and I hope you do, look online to see which historical figures will be portrayed and then read-up on them so that you can interact constructively at the play.