The Website of Miah and Michelle Collins

Mozambique and Zimbabwe

Over the past month or so Michelle and I have visited two of South Africa’s neighboring countries, Mozambique, a previously Portuguese colony, and Zimbabwe.

Mozambique was a holiday trip. We had two friends from Durban and a college friend of mine from the States join us in a road trip out to the east coast of Africa. We stayed on some beautiful beach campsites and ate lots of wonderful, cheap, fresh fish every night.

A highlight for me was connecting with an old friend of mine, Arnaldo, in the capital city of Maputo. He became a follower of Christ when I was there on a mission trip in 2003. This was the first time I was able to see him since then and its amazing to see what an incredible man he has become. He gave us such an awesome tour of the city that by the end we were encouraging him to become a tour guide. He also has a fiancée (they cannot be officially married until he comes up with about $1000 for the “Labola” or dowry) and a one year old son named baby Jesus! Yes, gotta love Portuguese culture!

After about a week back at home Michelle and I went out to visit a team we are overseeing in Tzaneen. Check out the picture of us with them at the giant Baobab tree.

From there we joined some other J-Life staff for the long trek out to Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. We met with the J-Life national director, Tarisayi, who is doing some really great work there. In Harare, we helped him train 40 youth leaders in a course called Strategy, which looks at the process of making disciples based on Jesus’ life. We spent the next week checking out the country, meeting with pastors, and interviewing possible team members for next year. Due the economic crisis in Zimbabwe, none of the Zimbabwean interns will be able to raise the support they need and J-Life will have to find the funds for them. Finally, we drove to another city called Bulawayo for another weekend seminar with youth leaders.

I’m sure many of you have heard at least a bit about the political and economic turmoil in Zimbabwe. In the midst of such hardships the people are so calm and hopeful. In a way they seem almost passive and have resigned to riding out this wave of tyranny. Optimists would say this is because they are just great people. But another reason is that they have no choice. There is no freedom of speech in Zimbabwe. You could be detained for treason just for talking politics on the street and being heard by a supporter of the ruling party. Spies are sent to churches to make sure pastors also ignore the pressing issues facing Zimbabweans. There is an eerie calm in Zimbabwe which is hard to describe.

Everything is difficult in Zimbabwe. There is a cash crisis so that you are only able to draw about $3 a day from your bank account. To get this money you could wait as long as 6 hours at the bank. Despite it being illegal, trade is done primarily in foreign currency and you would not want to hold on to local currency because you could wake up the next morning with the price of groceries having doubled overnight. There are constant power cuts and water cuts, not due to a lack of water, but because they cannot buy the water treatments to make sure it is safe for drinking.

The grocery and department stores are nearly empty. And the stock they do have most people cannot afford (in one store they were selling cans of 7up for $15 each!). We met with a pastor at a restaurant but of course we had no intention of ordering a piece of chicken for $22. It was very depressing when the manager walked around greeting the people sitting at the tables, handing them the photocopied menu with the prices for the day, and not one person in the restaurant ordering anything the entire time we were there.

I could tell many more stories about the struggles in Zimbabwe but in reality it was a really great trip for us because of the great people we were able to meet and just how appreciative and excited they were about the training we did there. It was encouraging to see this movement really starting to take root in other countries. We are continuing to beg God to intervene on behalf of the Zimbabwean people and we ask you also to pray earnestly for the Church and the crisis in Zimbabwe.

Hello again from South Africa!

We hope you all are doing well and that you haven’t completely forgotten us over here in South Africa. We have had a great couple of weeks with J-life and we are excited about what God is doing.

Right now our main job is overseeing three teams that are out doing ministry in different churches in South Africa. We have a team in Durban working on setting up a youth ministry in a Baptist church, a team in Richard’s Bay working with another Baptist church, and a team in Tzaneen working with the Methodist, Anglican, and Baptist churches there. So, we keep in contact with them and make sure they are keeping themselves healthy while also focusing on the right strategic goals. I (Michelle) am now working to set up resources for our new website and I am also dealing with an issue of discipline for one of our teams, in which God has moved in my life in huge ways, teaching me how to rebuke in love and wisdom.  But speaking of the website, if anyone has any youth ministry resources that we could put up on our website for all our African youth ministers, I would greatly appreciate it.

Miah has just finished the second of the Intern weeks, where he facilitates and plans all the activities, exams and lecturers. Miah and Jann have also created a policy now for the interns and for the future of this program. They are making many improvements on keeping each student accountable and helping these African guys and girls to get seminary degrees while doing ministry part time (and some are working as well) which is a very difficult process. It was a good week and they got many things accomplished with the interns and have also created more unity among the group which is an incredible thing because they are all working in very different places racially, economically, and spiritually.

We are about to take our week of vacation for the year and go with some friends camping in Mozambique. Please pray that God will use this time for us to renew our joy, hope and passion for the people of Africa.

Michelle and I have just finished STeM (Short term equipping missions) which has kept us out of touch with the wider world for the past two and a half weeks. About 100 young people came to the farm in two groups to be trained in short term missions. They were trained in areas such as cultural taboos, how to plan a mission, finding contacts, gaining trust and building relationships in a community, and how to share their own story and the hope they have in Jesus Christ. Michelle taught a seminar about Spiritual gifts which she really enjoyed.
After about 4 days with us they were sent in groups to 7 different communities where they could put these things into practice. I’ve always enjoyed short term missions, especially how it forms young people to think outside of themselves and their world and to consider others first. Michelle and I also led a team into Hillbrow, an area in central Johannesburg known for being a melting pot of the entire African continent. The church we worked with there had only about 40 members from 11 different countries! Michelle got many opportunities to speak French and we both got the chance to invest into peoples’ lives.
We were in an area known for alcohol and drug abuse amongst so many other social challenges facing the young people. Our team of 19 guys and girls grew tremendously as they shared the hope within them to youth in the parks and homes in the area. Our theme for the week was Romans 15:13 which says “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
There were so many great testimonies from the 2 weeks, but also great challenges. One group did the bulk of their ministry in a refugee camp where they encountered embittered people who had fled oppression in their own countries only to find more violence against them here. The team was challenged to follow God’s way by caring for the sojourner. They also spent time washing and clothing Aids sufferers who were too sick to do this themselves.
When the teams returned to the farm for their final dinner together and recap a guy named Nini had a powerful reminder: “This was not just an experience. These were real people we have been spending time with and real lives who will face the same challenges tomorrow as they did when we were with them. Don’t let your heart stop hurting with them even though you are gone. Let God grow that passion in you.” And that is my prayer for every person that was here.
A big encouragement for me was having my little brother, Jordan, here for STeM. If you know Jordan you won’t be surprised when I tell you that everybody here loved him. He generally leaves quite an impression wherever he goes. He was really challenged and enjoyed his time here (even though he had to sacrifice most of his winter holiday!) Maybe I can get him to write a short message on here about his experience sometime.
On a more personal note, Michelle is struggling quite a bit with culture shock. We knew this was something that would come up and that it was going to be a struggle for her more than for myself. Please pray for her, that God would continue to sustain her passion for people and for Africa as she adjusts to the new lifestyle and cultural values. Also pray that we would be humble, seeking to understand other than to be understood, and to be open to new things before we try to change others.
We are no longer the only Americans with J-Life! The Evans’ have just arrived from McKinney, Texas. I met Dave, the father, earlier this year, but we will be meeting the rest of the family for the first time tomorrow, showing them around Heidelberg, and helping them with their transition. God is really expanding our team here.
Its hard to try to describe what we do here from day to day. Sometimes you may struggle to figure out how everything fits together, and for that I apologize. But instead of being discouraged, let it rather inspire you to start saving up to come and visit us!
You are all a gift and encouragement to us. Thanks again for your prayers and support.