Mission trip to rural Zimbabwe
Though maybe appearing ‘old and doddery’ in other’s eyes, ‘in the spirit it is not so’ Terry Beadon tells audience
erry and Jen Beadon have been making mission trips to Zimbabwe for the past 14 years, and returned from their most recent trip with testimonies that inspired and encouraged the audience at the latest Christian Men’s Association breakfast.
Terry Beadon did the speaking, but said Jen had been his faithful partner in missions all these years.
“I’m 71 years old, my knees and hips click when I walk, I’m very seldom without pain, I get absent-minded and am sometimes in a dwaal,” Beadon said. “Jen is 70 next birthday.
“In the natural world we are two very ordinary old people.
“I look around and see many of you have grey hair, some of us have very few resources, but we have the living word and promises of God.”
He quoted from the book of Hebrews, chapter 12: “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels.”
Beadon said: “However old and doddery we might seem in other people’s eyes, in the spirit it is not so.”
He said he and Jen had been visiting Zimbabwe since 2006.
“We believe the Lord engineered it. “We didn’t know where we were going or what we were going to do. “Zimbabwe means ‘house of stone’. “The Lord has told us to go and put the living stones together again.
“The church in Zimbabwe is very
Tdivided, they have forgotten they have a common enemy.” Beadon said they hd spent time in deep rural areas where most pastors did not want to go because there was no money and no gain.
“In the 90 days we were there, we didn’t see another person of our culture and language.
“For some people, it was the first time in 30 years they had seen a white person, and some people had never seen a white woman, but at no time did we ever feel alien because we were in God’s family and purposes.”
Beadon said they experienced great hospitality from the rural people.
Some even gave up their own beds for them to sleep in.
“At no time did we lack anything. There are pastors who are faithful, who work without pay, without reward, who suffer along with their congregations.”
He said one such pastoral couple were John and Sarah Chirenje.
He said they had spent time with 14 Zionist Christian Church pastors.
“The ZCC’s roots are Pentecostal, in the Apostolic Faith Mission. They’ve just become less and less Biblical and more and more cultural over time.”
He said the ZCC’s encounters with Christians were mostly negative, as Christians condemned them rather than reaching out in love.
“They welcomed us as one of them and we were allowed to bring whatever message we had,” Beadon said.
“Our message was: if you have forgotten God loves you, we are that reminder, and that you are important in His scheme of things.”
Beadon said life in rural Zimbabwe was very difficult. “When you are poor, isolated and abandoned, you start believing you are despised and God has forgotten you. “But God chooses the despised nobodies who have nothing to offer.
“It is time to stop playing church, doing the church system, the routines and habits of church.
“It is time to come out of our church laagers and follow Jesus.”
He said churches in Zimbabwe tended to be laagers, with ministers saying “my people”.
“My response to them is, ‘When did you steal Jesus’s people? They are not there to be abused, shepherded to your doctrine; they are there to be trained to follow Jesus’,” Beadon said.
The ones who were most welcoming of this message were not the mainline protestant denominations, but the ZCC.
“Our message was purely the kingdom of God.” People told him they had never heard this message before.
“There was repentance, and it was loud. They said, ‘Your words are cutting our hearts’.
“One war veteran said to me, ‘You are a difficult old white man, but you are no longer my enemy’,” Beadon said.
“No politician, no foreign investment is going to fix Zimbabwe.
“Only the people of God – and only they have entrance to the throne room of God – can change Zimbabwe.”