Worship from the Soul

Today I got to experience a Zimbabwe church. It was a powerful experience. The joy filled the faces of the church members as they sang and danced to praise music. It was impactful because the worship seemed to come from the soul. We were given topics to pray about and I liked how everyone in the church prays for that topic, but out loud simultaneously. We prayed and worshipped for about half and hour. In psalms, king David mentions dancing for the Lord and I was amazed to see it in action in a real life setting. It was different from churches I’ve experienced throughout my life in the States. The worship seemed to come alive and from the heart.

Africa Day was this past Friday, so at church we celebrated Africa Day today. We all got dressed up in traditional Africa attire and after church we all gathered and ate traditional African food. We had “road runner” (which is free range chicken), organic brown sadza (corn meal grits), ground nuts (or boiled and salted peanuts), kovo (kale greens and peanut butter), maheu (malt, sugar and water which was surprisingly very good), munhuchu (maize and peanut butter). A lot of the dishes are made with maize, or corn, because maize is the most common staple food in Zimbabwe.

This afternoon we got to visit the Avondale market, which is a large outdoor market. Vendors sell products they make and we barter for them. I can tell you my wife and I are not great at bartering, but at least we supported local business (#supportlocal). We then headed over the Nandos for dinner which has really good spicy chicken. After dinner we got ice cream from the Creamy Inn, which I have heard about non stop the whole trip. The ice cream was really good and less expensive than in the states. Our team spent the day with Denford and Shingi and their family. We had an enjoyable and eventful day. We’re headed to bed early tonight since we will be heading to Mondoro early tomorrow morning.

– Matt Mock