Zimbabwebound

Hi! My name is Andrew, many people know me as Harry, and so if you do see the name Harry pop up in this website, there is no need to be alarmed … it is just me.  I was born and bread in Brisbane, Australia.  I have two loving Christian parents who have helped me grow and create my own relationship with our heavenly father as well as two older sisters (Lynette & Cheryl), and an older bother (Darren).  To be honest, nothing really spectacular or “out of the ordinary” happened to me as a child, it wasn’t until I hit the teen years that things started to change.Within my home church there was an upheaval within the youth leadership, leaders were leaving, all sorts of allegations were being made and a whole lot of confusion was being created.  All I wanted was a way out … I didn’t need anyone else, not even God.  After leaving school and starting uni, I soon realized that I wasn’t really coping to well.  Things in Brisbane just seemed too hard to deal with, so at the age of 20, Jodi and I had a REALLY quiet wedding (both sets of parents and a brother each) and moved straight out to Ayres Rock.

The year spent out at Ayres Rock was a good relationship builder for Jodi and me.  We were in a committed relationship and we had to sort through our problems and deal with things as they arose.  Jodi longed to go back home, where as I longed to travel and see more places.  Looking back, the strength that was built from out there definitely got us through many difficult times that lay ahead.

After returning to Brisbane, we tried to get involved in our local church again, but things just weren’t the same as they used to be; Jodi and I felt like we didn’t fit in or belong in the church circle anymore.  So once again we tried to do things on our own.  In looking back, there were times in which I went through bouts of depression, feeling alone and despondent.  I didn’t think that anyone needed me nor did I need anyone else.  To this day I am still amazed as well as relieved that Jodi stuck by and made this marriage work.

It was in 2002 when Jodi and I tried the “church” thing again and went along to an ALPHA course.  It took a while to get used to this British guy and his weird jokes, but the time of discussion really made us nut things our and helped us to reform our foundations with God.  The weekend away was the cruncher for me; it was then that I realized that all these years I had tried to fix everything myself, when all I needed to do was to hand it all over to God and trust that He had everything under control.

It wasn’t long until God started to give us a glimpse into His plans for our lives.  On a Sunday morning in June 2003, Jodi and I were watching a documentary on Zimbabwe.  My heart broke to see the pain and agony that the people were going through.  After the program finished I asked God “what can we do?”  It was almost instantaneous that “mission” came into my head.  “I can’t do mission … look at my past, besides God couldn’t use me, I don’t really know that much and there would be loads of other people that would do a much better job than me.”  Later that night, before church began, thoughts of that documentary flooded my mind.  I had this insatiable urge to tell Jodi about these thoughts of mission.  “I will tell her after church … there is plenty of time to talk about all of this, besides she will probably hate the idea anyway”.  I started making deals with God, “if, when I return from talking to some friends and Jodi is still standing at the back of the church when the service begins, I will tell her.” (Jodi normally sits down and I will find where she is seated)  Lo and behold she was still standing at the back of the church when it began.  “No, I don’t want to freak her out, I will tell her after the service.”  I remember the service so vividly; Stan Soloman hopped up onto stage to speak, “God can use anyone you just need to remain open to Him.  Let me give you an example” he then proceeded to pull out and read a letter from a missionary from Zimbabwe.  I got the hint and realized that maybe God was behind this, so I plucked up the courage to speak with Jodi on the car ride home.  Much to my surprise, Jodi was open to the idea.

The next day during my quiet time I thought I would test God again.  “Look, if you want us to investigate this mission thing, direct me to a passage in the bible that has the word mission in it”.  I couldn’t find a single passage with the word mission, I looked in the index and even pulled out a concordance, but nothing, “maybe all last night was a coincidence”.   Later that day I was catching up with my good friend Steve, who is also the youth pastor at our church, we got chatting about mission and without any prompting or nudging Steve said that the word mission doesn’t actually appear in the bible, there are plenty of examples though.  “Maybe the previous night and today weren’t by chance at all, maybe God was trying to say something.”

The confirming was just about complete.  So far God had given the passion for Zimbabwe, He had give the message to stay focused on Him and that He could still use me, He had made it quite obvious to talk to Jodi, Jodi was open to the idea and He had squashed my “way out” with the word “mission” in the bible.  The knock out blow was the following week when we rocked up to the evening church service and we had a guest speaker … he was a missionary … he ministered in Zimbabwe.

Over the next 2.5 years we met with a mentor who helped us establish a “pathway” to get to the mission field.  Jodi and I completed the Perspectives course (intro to mission) run through WEC as well as a TESOL course (Teaching English as a Secondary or Other Language) and we have both investigated what things God wants us to get involved in over in Zimbabwe.  I gave up full time employment in 2004 to start studying a Bachelor of Ministries, majoring in Cross Cultural studies at the Malyon College (Bible College) to increase my knowledge and understanding of the bible as well as help me form a deeper understanding of theology and different beliefs.

It was finally in March 2006 when we got our first taste of Zimbabwe.  We had an awesome time exploring God’s calling in our lives; the time (1 calendar month) however was too short.  It is through our experiences and with many more encounters with God and His obvious leadings that we are heading back over to Zim in 2007.  We look forward to sharing our adventures with you.