My dad once asked me whether I thought me moving to Gweru was a divine appointment of sorts, and my response was yes it could be so. And the more of life I experience here the more I believe this to be the case. This past week I got the opportunity of meeting with the provincial and regional managers of Higher Life Foundation, where I will be volunteering as a mentor. According to them I am an answered prayer, and according to me the same is true from my end. Imagine the excitement!
If you know me well already, you'll understand my excitement before I even get to the explanation. The meeting went a little like this
PM - "So we really want to tackle the issue of child marriages amongst our learners who keep dropping out of school" (At this point my little heart leaped, child marriage is an area of interest for me. That's a given seeing as I have a whole PhD Thesis on it!)
PM - "We're also expanding our programmes to include tertiary institutions, particularly MSU where we want to have a programme with an SRHR (sexual and reproductive health and rights) component because we can't look at leadership issues without addressing this" (I almost jumped out my chair here. I have been toying around with the idea of implementing a human sexuality module at second year level - still work in progress because procrastination has me sitting with a half constructed module outline. Secondly I wasn't convinced I could adequately address the issues I wanted to in a formal lecture room type set up)
RM - "I strongly believe that we need to focus on the family structure as well because most of our problems lie there." (Now here is where I was ready to dance on the table. This point right here, this is the concluding line of my thesis, the point that I said could be a starting point for future research, the point that I wanted to explore further in a post-doc).
Yes, we spoke about a few more areas but the three above confirmed to me that I was in the right place and couldn't have arrived at a better time. I actually don't even know why I'm so surprised by how this has turned out. When you allow God to order your steps and step out to do what he has placed on your heart things fall into place.
Some people ask why I came back to Zim when I could have stayed in SA or even gone elsewhere given the deteriorating state of the country. The answer - I believe I'm needed here for now. The work I am meant to do is here. The grass isn't always greener on the other side. Sometimes we run from one place to another expecting life to be better but we end up trapping ourselves in some form of miserable existence instead of being obedient where we've been planted. As my wise, big little brother said to me the other day "It's all or nothing.. And ain’t nothing cool happening if you run away from Nineveh, you Might just get grazed [eaten]". Some of you will recognise this reference from the story of Jonah in the bible, if you don't you might wanna look it up and see how that all played out.
So the point of this post, besides tracking my progress and marveling at what God is doing in my life is to encourage those of you who are still sitting. We're already halfway through January (scary), what are you waiting for? How long have you been running from your "Nineveh". How's that been going for you? A little obedience goes a long way!
That's all from me today.
*If you are interested in working with young people as a volunteer, have a look at https://www.higherlifefoundation.com/ and some of the work they do.
*If you're interested in having a look at my Thesis, give me a shout!
コメント