Youth Congress

We got back from Gweru last night. We were there for 4 days attending the Salvation Army Territorial Youth Congress. They were expecting 3,000 youth, but almost 7,000 ended up coming. Everywhere you looked there were masses of young people in uniform (although some were rebellious and wore “normal” clothes for the sports afternoon!) They arrived jam-packed like sardines on the back of big lorries – singing loudly and very excited.

The event often reminded me of a refugee camp. It was held at a teachers’ college, but because so many thousands of teenagers came, the facilities were quite inadequate. People were everywhere – sleeping in every classroom, every hallway, ever bit of lawn space. Everywhere you looked there were people cooking on campfires and others lining up in the smoke with their cup and spoon. There were some tents, but a lot of people just slept under the stars with the sweet smell of sewage… oh yeah, the toilets. There was a severe lack of water, and so the few toilets that were on site were DISGUSTING. It took every bit of grace in me not to throw up whenever I used one. I had prayed before we left that there would be toilets. I forgot to pray that there would be toilets WITH water! Yuck. I started feeling very nervous when people started mentioning dysentery, cholera, malaria and estimating how many deaths were going to have from disease. On the first day, all of the delegates were asked to pray that the city health inspectors wouldn’t visit us because they would cancel the event due to overcrowding. Is it bad that I was praying that they WOULD come?

In spite of all of this, I was really blessed on the weekend. I was blessed at seeing so many young people singing, jumping and dancing for Jesus. I was blessed that they sang through all the powercuts. I was blessed that they stayed attentive to long sermons even when the sound system wouldn’t allow the words to be carried to the back of the crowds. I was proud of the ZSYL students’ performing and being examples of leaders. I was blessed that in these tough economic times, so many youth sacrificed and fund-raised and did whatever they could in order to come together and pray and praise – no matter what the conditions. I was also blessed by the whole Zimbabwean tradition of two breakfasts. See, when you wake up you have tea and bread. Then later you have more tea, bread, and beans or an egg. I like it.

The choir that I sing in performed on the Saturday. The keyboard player was called into work and so didn’t make it to the Congress. They asked me to step in. We sang this one song that modulates up 3 keys. Kiwanis festivals and piano recitals flashed to my mind as I fumbled to get the last key (I’ve always had trouble playing by ear!) I eventually stopped playing and tried to hide my embarrassment by singing and clapping along to the singers. I had the joy of being humbled in front of 7,000 people! I tried to blame it on the keyboard, but the leader saw right through that one…. J Ah well, God is good.