How Did Moses Cross the Red Sea?

Originally Written: February 29, 2008

This past Tuesday is a day that I will never forget. I was in our back yard hanging up clothes to dry, and for some reason I walked around to the front of the house. To my surprise I saw a police van pull up outside our wall. I couldn’t imagine why the police would be coming to see us. “They must be seeking shade from our thorn tree,” I thought, and I went on into our house. Then the gate bell rang. When I answered it, I heard the familiar voice of Moses, one of our Zimbabwean friends who was baptized the week before last. “Hello, Mmago Kg!” he said. “This is Moses.” “Hi, Moses,” I said, “come on in.” I pushed the button to open the gate and then walked outside to meet him halfway.

I still feel the same shock now that I felt at that moment when I saw Moses standing in our driveway with his feet chained together. Two policemen stood behind him. “What is your relationship to him?” one of the officers asked me. “I’m his friend,” I said, “and we go to the same church.” “What church do you go to?” they asked, and I answered. Then they told me to help Moses get his things. (He had been storing some things here — cooking oil, salt, etc. — until he could arrange to send them home to Zimbabwe.) Still in shock, I led Moses into our house. I was surprised that the policemen waited outside. As we passed Kg on the porch, Moses scooped her up in his arms and gave her a big hug.

I couldn’t think clearly, so I led Moses around our house, trying to remember where I had put his things. Meanwhile he told me what happened. He was arrested a week before and had been in jail ever since. He was going to be deported that day. I didn’t have the sense to ask for his address in Zimbabwe, but I did think to give him the photo album that I had put together of his baptism. I also gave him all the money I had. I almost cried when I saw how little it was, but Mark told me later that any money I gave him was surely taken away.

Kg and I walked with Moses back out to the police van where the officers were waiting. When I looked in the back, I saw several others who shared Moses’s fate. I greeted them, and they gave me weak smiles. Turning back to the officers I asked, “Please, may I pray for Moses before he goes?” “Nyaa, mma,” one of them said. “Nako e chaile.” (No, the time is up.) After Moses climbed into the van, I leaned in and told him that we would be praying for him. Then the officers got into the front and drove the van away.

What was Moses’s crime? Trying to survive. With the inflation rate in Zimbabwe now over 100,000%, with unemployment over 80%, with basic necessities (maize, cooking oil, salt, bath soap, laundry detergent) being either not affordable or unobtainable (the store shelves are empty), thousands and thousands of Zimbabweans have been forced to go into neighboring countries, where, if they’re lucky, they find menial jobs that pay next-to-nothing. But next-to-nothing in Botswana is way more than nothing in Zimbabwe, and by living sacrificially here, they are able to send money and basic necessities back home. The only problem is that they cannot legally work in these countries. Many of them are caught and arrested.

You cannot imagine the impact of seeing someone you love in chains, especially someone as sweet and precious as Moses. It broke my heart. I went back into our house and cried and cried. I also sent a text message to Mark and our pastor, telling them what happened. Then I went to a friend and asked her to pray with me. I had just arrived back home when Mark called. “Guess who I just saw!” he said. “Moses!” Mark just happened to go to the airport police station to get some paperwork stamped for a new pilot. To his surprise, he saw Moses looking at him through the window of the holding cell. Mark was able to talk with him and pray with him. He said that Moses was upbeat about his “free ride home.” Mark doubted, though, that he would be allowed to take any of his things with him.

Our pastor went to the police station later that day to take Moses a plate of food. He was told that Moses had been released. “I can’t imagine why,” he said, “out of a room full of people being processed for deportation, that Moses would be singled out and released.” Did God part the waters for Moses? I hope so. But we haven’t heard from him since.

Today another Zimbabwean friend came to visit. She arrived back in Botswana just yesterday. She sat at our table and choked up with tears over and over again as she told stories of the atrocities in Zimbabwe and how the people are suffering. I told her about Moses, but she was not optimistic. “When they deport us,” she said, “they take us across the border and dump us. But then we have no money to get home, and no food, nothing. If we get caught trying to cross back over, they beat us.” Moses lives hundreds of miles from the border. I can’t imagine what happened if he was dumped there without the wherewithal to get home. So we continue praying for him and longing to hear that he is all right. I also pray for his 80-year-old father and his mother and other relatives who were counting on Moses to provide for them.

After we finished eating lunch today, my friend insisted on washing the dishes. She put water in the sink and then started washing. I could tell that it never even entered her mind to use soap. Why would it? Dish soap is a luxury that she probably hasn’t enjoyed for ages. This particular friend has a university education. Now she is reduced to walking from sunup to sundown, begging for menial labor. There have been times when she has walked for two weeks straight without earning anything at all. Other times she has worked the whole day and then been paid less than $4 for her labor. “That’s better than what happens to others,” she said. “Some work the whole day and then are paid nothing, because the person who hired them knows that there’s nothing they can do.”

Our friend “Lanny” is blessed with a good skill and fairly regular work, but he, too, lives sacrificially so that he can send money and food home to his mother. When he last returned from Zimbabwe, he was full of tales of suffering. “Everyone I know is eating only one meal a day,” he said. “They eat it at night so that they’ll be able to sleep.”

I am reminded of another Moses and another people who endured terrible suffering and hardship. The Zimbabweans, who are struggling to survive without the means to do it, remind me of the Israelites who were ordered to make bricks without straw. The Lord saw the oppression of the Israelites. “I have heard their cries of distress,” he said, “and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them.” The Lord also sees the oppression of the Zimbabweans. Surely He is concerned about their suffering, too. Please join with us in praying that He will come down to rescue them. The same God who parted the Red Sea can make a way for Moses and the people of Zimbabwe to cross through the waters of suffering that are flooding over them.

Note: Elections will be held in Zimbabwe on the 29th of March.

How Did Moses Cross the Red Sea - Part II

Originally posted: March 10th, 2008

I wish that I had some news to share about Moses, but we haven’t heard a word from him or about him since Tuesday two weeks ago. I want to keep the situation in Zimbabwe alive in your prayers, though, so I’m going to tell you about my friend “Marty.” She is the girl who came to visit me two weeks ago when she first arrived back in Botswana. She was upset that day, because the Immigration official at the border had given her only two weeks to stay. She knew that she couldn’t earn even her bus fare home in two weeks, much less enough to take anything back to her family.

Last Friday Marty went to the Immigration office here in town to request an extension of the two weeks. She and 300 other Zimbabweans apparently all had the same idea. She said that she was number 200-something in line and that there were over 300 there altogether. According to her they all got the same response to their request: “No. Go home and vote and change your country.” That’s a pretty calloused comment, considering that elections in Zimbabwe have been a farce for the past many years. You can’t blame Zimbabweans for being cynical. Everyone I’ve spoken to firmly believes that the votes for the upcoming election have already been counted.

Marty came by here after she left the Immigration office. She looked exhausted and broken. She told me that her 14 days would be up on Monday and that she had no choice but to leave by then. “If I overstay my days, they will take away my passport, and it could take me two years to get another.” She said that she’d found only two “piece jobs” since she’d seen me last. One paid $3 and another paid $6. I knew that she didn’t begin to have enough money for her bus fare home, and with only two days left before she had to leave, she had no hope of earning it. I addressed her fatigue first. “Have you had lunch?” I asked. “No,” she said. “Let me fix you something to eat,” I said, and while I worked, I prayed. I just happened to have enough money in my purse to pay for her bus ticket home, plus extra for buying some soap, oil, and other necessities to take with her. I wrestled, though, over whether I should just give it to her. She would likely think that I’m made of money, and that could lead to all kinds of problems for me.

I tried to stall for time by asking her where she was staying. I thought that if I knew where she was staying, I could run by there before she left town, after I’d had time to talk it over with Mark and decide what to do. “Over there,” she said, and she pointed past our front gate. “What’s the plot number?” I asked. “I don’t know,” she said. “You don’t know the plot number?” I asked. “Well, can you tell me how to get there?” Her face crumpled when I persisted. “You don’t want to know where I’m staying,” she said. “I do!” I said. “I promise you, you don’t. It’s really bad,” she said. “Go ahead and tell me,” I said, “I want to know.” “Well, there are about 40 of us staying in an unfinished house. It has a roof, but it doesn’t have windows or doors, and it doesn’t have a toilet.” Oh, my goodness. I’d heard stories about Zimbabweans camping in unfinished houses, but the reality of it didn’t hit me until then. Forty people sleeping on bare cement floors. Forty people without a toilet. “Does the owner know you’re staying there?” I asked. “No,” she said. Forty people living in fear of being caught.

How desperate does an educated lady in her mid-20’s have to be to leave her home and her family, and travel to an inhospitable country and live like this? Well, like I said before, next-to-nothing in Botswana is better than nothing in Zimbabwe.

I went to my purse and got the money. As I took it out to Marty, I summoned up the courage to ask her something else. “Marty, would you like to take a shower?” I knew that if there wasn’t a toilet, there also wasn’t a shower or a tub. I suspected that M hadn’t been able to wash since she left Zimbabwe nearly two weeks before. To my relief, she didn’t take offense. “Yes!” she exclaimed, “I would love it!” I got out a towel and washcloth for her and a change of clothes. Marty was a new person when she came out of our bathroom. She looked fresh; she felt better. A full stomach and a clean body helped a lot. Money in her pocket did, too.

That night I lay in my comfortable bed and thought about Marty and 39 others sleeping on a hard, cement floor. For awhile I wished that I had asked Marty if I could spend one night there with them. It would be an unforgettable experience — an experience that I perhaps need. I knew that I wouldn’t sleep a wink, but I could tolerate that for one night. For one night I could tolerate the hard floor, the unwashed bodies around me, the mosquitoes. But then I realized that there was one thing that I could not tolerate — the fear. What if the owner came that night? What if the police made a raid? I am not brave enough to take that chance. Or desperate enough.

On her way out of town today, Marty came to say goodbye. Before she left, we knelt on the floor and prayed. And I assured her that people around the world are praying. Please don’t forget Zimbabwe and the elections on the 29th of March!

How Did Moses Cross the Red Sea - Part III

Originally posted: March 14th, 2008

Today Mark got a firsthand look at what Zimbabweans go through at the Immigration office here in Gaborone. Our good friend Lanny’s allotted time in Botswana was due to expire tomorrow, so he went to Immigration today to ask for an extension. The plan was that Lanny would go at 3:00 this morning and hopefully be first in line. Then, when the office opened at 7:30, Mark would join Lanny for moral support and to speak on his behalf if it seemed that would help.

Lanny got up even earlier than planned and went at 2:00 this morning only to find about 100 people already there ahead of him. Many of them had been turned down yesterday and spent the night there in hopes of getting a different answer today. When I called Mark at 8:30 for news, he said that Lanny was number 60 in line outside the gate, and that there were probably 50 more people already inside the gate. Apparently it was hard to make forward progress, because so-called “consultants” were moving people to the front of the line for a fee.

Mark stayed a couple of hours, but finally he had to leave. He was on his way back at lunchtime when he heard from Lanny – after waiting ten hours in line, he was granted a 15-day extension! Lanny is so thankful for this extra time. He is in the middle of some jobs, and he will not get paid until he finishes them. He said that most of the people who spent the night are in that same boat. They have no money to go home, and they won’t get paid for their piece jobs unless they complete them.

Lanny gave Mark 300,000 Zimbabwean dollars today. He said that they are worth about 10 thebe (less than two cents). I read recently that the Zimbabwean dollar is the weakest currency in the world, maybe the weakest currency in the history of the world.

Please keep Zimbabwe in your prayers!

How Did Moses Cross the Red Sea - Part IV

Originally posted: March 27th, 2008

Simon is another one of our Zimbabwean friends. He, too, was in Mark’s discipleship class and spent many Sunday afternoons in our home. He is the quietest of all the guys. He never speaks unless you ask him something, and then he always answers with diffidence. He did tell us recently that he heard through the grapevine that Moses made it safely home. He knew that we were very concerned about Moses. We told him that we were concerned about him, too, and he assured us that if anything ever happened to him, he would try to get word to us.

On Sunday morning, Simon got up at 4:30 and walked ten kilometres through the dark to catch a ride to our church’s Easter sunrise service. The next morning he was arrested. Yesterday he was deported. He was allowed to make a call from the back of the police truck before they left town. He called Mark and asked for money so that he could get from the border to his home, more than a thousand kilometres away. Unfortunately, by the time Mark made it to the police station, the truck had already left.

We are hopeful that Simon will make it home safely. Apparently Moses made it home all right, and my friend Marty sent word that she did, too. “Home safely” would be the end of the story for us. For our Zimbabweans friends, however, it’s the start of another harrowing chapter, and this next chapter could be the climax of the whole book.

Mark and I haven’t had Internet service for the past ten days, so I haven’t been able to keep up with news from Zimbabwe. The last time I looked, however, President Mugabe and the top army and police officials had said that they would not recognize any victor in this presidential election except for Mugabe Furthermore, they had ordered their subordinates to vote for Mugabe. Worst of all, Mugabe has authorized the use of guns if there are any election irregularities (election irregularities would presumably mean outcomes not favorable to him). Our friends have told us that there is a great spirit of fear in Zimbabwe. People are afraid to even say the wrong thing much less vote the wrong thing.

The whole situation looks hopeless and bleak. But, it’s not. I don’t know whether God will work through this election or whether He will choose another time and another means. But I know that he is close to the brokenhearted, I know that he has compassion on the oppressed, and I know that righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.

As far as the elections go, I’m praying specifically against the spirit of fear and that every voter will vote with courage and hope. I’m also praying specifically that violence will not be turned loose on these people who have already suffered so much.

Please pray for Zimbabwe and the elections on the 29th of March.

How Did Moses Cross the Red Sea - Part V

Originally posted: April 8th, 2008

You haven’t heard from me since the Zimbabwe elections, because I figure that most of you are able to follow the news as well or better than I. (Since we now pay for Internet by the minute, I don’t spend much time surfing.) I’ve been waiting for some firsthand news from Zimbabwe, and yesterday I got it.

My friend Marty is back in Botswana. She was given 14 days in the country, so she is once again pounding the pavement looking for work. Yesterday she came for a visit and brought her cousin, Chance, with her. This is his first trip to Botswana. I wanted to cry when I saw him. He looks like a scarecrow — a bony figure with clothes draped on it. Chance is 27 years old and has a degree in accounting from a polytechnic college. He was offered a job in Zimbabwe, but it paid only 290 million Zim dollars (less than five U.S. dollars) a month. Transportation to get to the job and back would cost him 600 million Zim dollars a month. There was no way he could afford to take the job, so now he, too, is in Botswana, walking the streets, looking desperately for any kind of work he can get. It used to puzzle me why Zimbabweans come here and do hard labor for such low pay. Surely the money they spend going back and forth isn’t worth it? The 290 million Zim dollars that Chance was offered for one month’s pay, however, is the equivalent of, if he’s lucky, what he can earn in less than one day here in Botswana.

Chance has never owned a bed. “A bed costs 18 billion dollars,” he said. “Can you imagine how many years I’d have to work to buy a bed?” Marty and Chance said that eating meat is unheard of. “Fruit is available,” they said, “but you wouldn’t think of spending your money on it. One banana costs 20 million dollars. It’s a luxury, not a necessity. You save your money for soap and cooking oil and salt.” They also talked about the collapse of the medical system. “Pregnant women who need C-sections have to go out of the country, because of the shortage of anesthesia. Other patients are told to provide their own sutures, IV’s, and surgical gloves.”

I sat for nearly three hours and listened to them talk about life in Zimbabwe. As horrible and desperate as the situation sounds, Marty seemed much more optimistic than before. She and Chance both feel that the end of Mugabe’s regime is near. They don’t think that he’ll go quietly, but they feel that the tide has turned. The Zimbabwean people are tired and hungry, and they can’t take five more years of the Zanu-PF in power.

According to the news, a run-off between the Zanu-PF and the MDC is inevitable. My fear is that Mugabe and the Zanu-PF will use the time between now and the run-off to bribe, threaten, intimidate, beat, and even kill the electoral commission, the opposition, and the voters. (I just checked the news, and apparently they’ve already begun doing just this.) It has always been their means in the past. Marty said that the elderly voters are the ones who are still gripped by fear. They believe that their pictures are being taken in the voting booth, so they don’t dare vote for the opposition. And, they believe that Mugabe will go to war if he loses. They’ve lived through one war, and they don’t want to go through another. And apparently a large chunk of the voters are elderly. According to Marty and Chance, more than half the population has fled Zimbabwe, and most of them are young and middle-aged adults. The elderly and the children are the ones left behind. I asked why the millions who have left don’t come back to vote. “Because,” said Marty, “the constitution says that you’re not eligible to vote unless you’ve been resident in the country for the past six months.”

Marty and Chance are both lovely Christians. Before they left, Marty asked Chance to pray and then said that she would pray, too. To my surprise, they didn’t pray for Zimbabwe. They prayed for Kg and for Mark and for me. They asked God to continue blessing us, and they asked God to continue healing Kg and performing miracles in her life. Do you know how humbling it is to sit in your beautiful, comfortable living room and listen to two desperately poor people ask God to bless you? Twenty-four hours later, and it still brings tears to my eyes.

I have never been good at math. When Marty and Chance started talking in millions and billions of dollars, my brain threatened to quit. I think, though, that 20 U.S. dollars is worth more than a billion Zim dollars. Marty and Chance laughed at the thought of 20 U.S. dollars. “If it was changed into Zim dollars, we’d have to carry it in a duffel bag!” I’m sure that if I filled a suitcase for them, I could still afford to eat meat and fruit every single day.

WHY Did Moses Cross the Red Sea?

Originally posted: April 20th, 2008

The big story coming out of my “Moses” letters is about the people of Zimbabwe as a whole, and their struggle to “make bricks without straw,” to survive without the means to do it. But the little story that triggered the big story was about our friend Moses, who was deported to Zimbabwe a little less than two months ago. The last time I saw Moses, he was in chains, guilty of living in Botswana illegally while trying to earn enough money to survive and to support his elderly parents back home.

This past Thursday night, Moses sent Mark a message saying that he had returned to Botswana. This morning he was at church. What a joy to see him again! And it was just like old times having him here for lunch along with the regulars. It was very windy and cool today, so Kg and I sat inside and ate, while the guys ate out on the veranda. When Moses came in for seconds, Kg asked him to sit with us, and he did. It was then that I heard why he “crossed the Red Sea.”

I opened the conversation by asking Moses how his parents are doing. “My father is better now, but he almost died,” he said. “You’re kidding!” I exclaimed. “What happened?” “He was bitten by a snake,” said Moses. “He didn’t see the snake, but it was very poisonous, and when I arrived home, he was almost dead. The clinic in our village could do nothing for him, so I had them take him to the big hospital in Harare. The flesh around the bite was rotting away. Every day they would cut away the rotten flesh, until now it was down to the bone. They said he would die without the right medicine, but there was none in the hospital. The doctors wrote me a prescription and told me to go to all the pharmacies around, but none of them had it. Finally I contacted my sister in Capetown (South Africa), and she was able to get the medicine and send it to Harare. He was in the hospital for three more weeks after that, and then I took him home and took him to the clinic every day to get the dressing changed. But now he is much better!”

“Moses!” I exclaimed. “God sent you home just in time! Your dad would have died if you had not gotten deported! You got home just in time to save his life!” “Yes,” said Moses. “When my father saw me, he said ‘Who sent for you to come home?’” “No one,” said Moses. “I was arrested and deported.” “There is a reason why that happened,” said his father.

I cried when I saw Moses in chains, but the end of that sad story is this: And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28) God, help me believe that this will be the end of the big story, too.

How Did Moses Cross the Red Sea - Part VI

Originally posted: May 25th, 2008

It’s been too long since I’ve written about the crisis in Zimbabwe. The situation becomes ever more painful to think about and difficult to write about, so I keep putting it off. It seems unreal that just five hours to the north of us, people are being beaten, tortured, and murdered for their political vote, and just five hours to the south of us (in South Africa), some of their countrymen are being beaten, tortured, and murdered for seeking refuge from what’s happening at home.

A few days ago I bought a Zimbabwean newspaper. Inside was a very graphic photo of the backside of a woman who had been beaten for 30 minutes by Mugabe supporters, while her children screamed “Mamma! Mamma! Mamma!” The picture shows that the wounds on her backside are deep and open and terrible. After the beating she was ordered to sit for two hours on her wounds and told that if she moved a muscle, she would be beaten again.

Today we had Lanny, Simon, and Moses, all Zimbabweans, and Sam, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, over for lunch after church. We were talking about the life of Zimbabweans, both in Zimbabwe and here in Gaborone, but at that point the conversation was still lighthearted with some joking.

Then Mark told about the photo in the paper and asked the guys if they wanted to see it. I said, “No, Mark, don’t bring it out. Please don’t show it to them!” But they wanted to see it, so Mark got the paper and brought it back to the table. The change in the atmosphere was instant and palpable. I looked at the guys and started crying. Every single one of them was staring at his plate with a look so full of grief that I can’t describe it. I said, “Mark, as hard as it is for us to look at that picture, just imagine what it’s like for someone who lives with the fear of it happening to him or his family.”

How does one cope with grief and terror like this? Yesterday I was listening to one of Kg’s CD’s of Bible verses put to music. I caught myself singing along, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” That is my answer. One copes by overcoming evil with good.

I know that technically this verse is instructing us to return good for evil, to do good to those who are doing evil to us. Let me tell you, though, that it helps these guys cope to know that they are doing good to their families in Zimbabwe who are suffering so much. We are so thankful for the gifts from friends and family in America that are allowing our Zimbabwean friends here to help their families at home. So far we have been able to send Marty and Chance back to Zimbabwe with much help for their families, we’ve been able to provide shoes, a jacket, and a blanket for Simon, we’ve been able to fund a residence permit for another Zimbabwean, and we’ve funded a business registration for Lanny, which is a step toward getting him a work/residence permit.

We still have plenty of funds available. We’ve been careful about spending, knowing that if the situation in Zimbabwe continues to deteriorate, we will have a flood of refugees pouring into Gaborone in the dead of winter without warm clothes, blankets, food, or shelter. However, tomorrow I’m going to do some spending. I am doing a big shopping trip for basic necessities to send home to the families of Lanny, Moses, and Simon. When I asked for their shopping lists, the mood around our table changed once again. Grief was gone and hope was restored. Evil was overcome by good.

Please continue to pray for the people of Zimbabwe.