Tales of a Child on the Zambezi River

Nyasha, from Zimbabwe, living in Marromeu.


My first problem is saying where I'm from. When people ask me, I generally come out with this: "Well, my father's Zimbabwean and my mother's British, I have British and Zimbabwean passports but we live in Mozambique." To be precise, we live in Marromeu, which, as my mother says, used to be a 'one horse town' and now could perhaps be termed a 'two horse town.' I suppose my history with Marromeu began when my parents spent a couple of weeks of their honeymoon sharing a room with another couple in a flea-ridden, rat-infested house in the centre of town. And yes, they are still happily married. I was born two years later in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. And two years after that, my first sister came along, in England, just before my family moved back to Zimbabwe in preparation for moving way out to Mozambique. My earliest memories are of living in a little flat in Glen Norah, Harare, where, as I distinctly remember, my mother used to complain about the red and white flowered curtains in the kitchen. I didn't understand why, at age two and a half. I also distinctly remember our first attempt at a move out to Marromeu in the old land rover, with the Heathcotes. We got stuck in the mud of one of the worst dirt roads in Africa a little on the way to Marromeu. I wanted to get out and help dig the land rover out, and I couldn't understand why my father didn't let me, till I remembered my baby sister: "If I got out, Kudzai would want to get out too, and of course she's far too little. That's why".


We eventually moved to Marromeu in September 1999, and we have lived here ever since. And on the whole, I have loved it. It's always been home. We learned Sena, played with our local friends, did so many fun things- like paddling in plastic tubs in the huge puddle that formed at the bottom of the garden when it rained, or crossing the River Zambezi in a giant canoe for ministry on the opposite bank. Because we live in such an isolated place, for a long time my only experience of YWAM being YWAM was weekly prayer meetings with the one other missionary family, the Santoses, but in 2004 we went to Windhoek, Namibia so my parents could do the LTS and I loved meeting the YWAMers from all over the world. I have loved being part of YWAM in Africa- all the conferences we have been to - the crazy one where the whole of YWAM Marromeu plus the DTS running at the time packed into a tiny truck and travelled all day and a goodly portion of the night to some tiny Catholic mission high in the mountains where the conference was being held, or when my family made the journey from Marromeu to Cape town, I can't remember how many thousand kilometres, in just three days for the IFMLT. That was when I was thirteen, the same year as when our whole family moved to Luawe, a remote location in the Zambezi delta, for six weeks. That was just amazing. We were completely cut off. Our only contact with the outside world was through Satellite phone, in emergencies, or occasionally through letter sent by canoe to Marromeu. Once our friends in Marromeu sent us a package by canoe, with a little piece of chocolate for each of us, and it tasted like heaven. Not that we missed things like that (although one sunny day I had a sudden inexplicable craving for a peanut butter and jam sandwich.) The break from the stresses of ordinary life, even ordinary life in remote Marromeu, was truly amazing and refreshing. None of us wanted to leave at the end of our six weeks. But our time was so much more than a break in the jungle- the people were the most precious part of it. We helped teach in the tiny school. I gave art lessons, one of the most fulfilling things I have ever done in my life.


We had such a great time, and yet now, I am fifteen, and I wonder: would I go back? Just two years have made a huge difference to the way I look at my life in Marromeu. As my mother puts it, I 'want to spread my wings, and I can't.' I will always love Marromeu, but now as I grow up there are so many things which I want to do and cannot. Besides this, the older I grow the more sharply aware I become of the culture differences between me and my Sena friends. And this brings in one of the toughest problems we MKs can face: who am I? I long to be Sena, to be totally accepted by the Sena, but I am not and never will be, any more than I am totally English or Zimbabwean.


Mind you, I have left out the most important part in my story. You could say that my troubles started when I turned fourteen and started to become discontented with Marromeu. But on the whole, these last couple of years have been a time when I have learned more and more to turn to God. It's amazing to look back and see how God has been there for me, and I have discovered that the most important thing is not what I would like to do or who I am, but who God is and who I am to Him.

Reyna, living in Madison, USA.

I am Reyna and I live in Madison, Wisconsin. I am thirteen.

I have three brothers and four sisters. Youth With A Mission has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. We worked at a base in Adams, Tennessee until God called my dad to do a Bible school here in Wisconsin, and so we moved. Our family really began to connect with our neighbors in Madison. The kids congregated to our house to play and talk about life (and eat dinner with us). Our Yellow House is a kid hang-out. During the divorce of their parents, we were able to be a place of comfort for two sisters and reach out to them with God's love. A teenage boy and his sister often come over to play and swap recipes with Mom and talk about politics. God has definitely called us here to make a difference in the lives of these individuals using His influence.

In 2005 we were a (smaller) family of seven, and we went on a missions trip with a church group to Mexico. We stayed at a hotel in Cancun. That was when we heard that Hurricane Emily was heading toward that area, at a Category 4. The team began to get ready: I have a snatch of memory like a photo of my dad walking around carrying big containers of water in both arms; after boards were put up over the windows, the children ran about coloring on them with big markers; the entire group gathered in one place (in the shade) for prayer. We prayed that God would weaken the hurricane's strength, or send Emily back to the water she had come from, and that he would protect the people in the hurricane's range.

On the night the storm was expected to hit our area, we went to bed full of prayers. The kids - and that included me at the time - fell asleep expectant, but unsure exactly what we were expecting. In the middle of the night, I opened my eyes to solid darkness and the sound of what I imagined to be a giant train passing right by our window. Mom told me it was the hurricane, and I went back to sleep. The next day we found out what God had done: the hurricane had gone down to a category 3 (which meant it was no longer technically a hurricane but a tropical storm), and its path had also swerved away from Cancun, instead of directly hitting us as had been expected. It had instead hit about an hour and a half south of us, and because of our earlier preparations, we able to - as a group of a hundred and forty people - go out there and give rice, beans, oil, and drinking water to the people in that area.

The question "what does it mean to you to be on mission with your family" made me think. I believe that it is to be a Godly influence on those around me while continuing to learn with my family about God and how to live for Him. Indeed, "To know God and make Him known!"

Anywhere But Home

Katie, from the USA, living in Zambia.

You know that feeling? The ‘anywhere but here’ feeling? The ‘I don’t belong here’ feeling? It’s the feeling I seem to get every time I go back to Zambia, my current country of residence, from anywhere “civilized”. I always feel, well, glum – like I don’t belong there, like I want to go back to where I was. It normally passes after about a week, but for that week all I can think of is how slow moving Zambia is. How few opportunities there are. How hot and crowded and dirty it is. How the people don’t understand my sense of humor, and my view of the world. And how could they? They haven’t been where I’ve been, they haven’t seen what I’ve seen. I spend a week cringing at every outing and conversation. I am conscious of this yet I can’t shake it. I’m also conscious of the fact that if you had asked me four years ago to go overseas for a week I would have spent it cringing and dying for Zambia. I know I love the country and the people. I know I love my life there. I love my routines and the diversity; I love the innocence of the people and the willingness to learn. I love Zambia. But for a week I’d rather be anywhere else. I don’t understand it, I’ve talked to other MKs and they say they’ve had the same feelings. I don’t know if it’s just a part of growing up and finding out who we are and where we belong or if it’s just some kind of spiritual warfare. Whatever it is I’m currently sitting on a plane praying that I get over it quickly this time.

Judah, from Madsion, USA

Hi my name is Judah. My birthday is in July and I'm happy to be a YWAM kid.
I live in Madison in America. My favorite place is Namibia. I have a horse there named Amelia.

Keziah, from the UK and living in South Africa

Me at the YWAM base in Jinja, Uganda

My name is Keziah and I live near Cape Town in South Africa. I am 9 years old. I get to be the first to post here because my Mum helped make the blog happen!

My Mum and Dad come from England. They both work with YWAM-AfriCom, which looks after the communication for YWAM in all of Africa, so we've traveled around Africa quite a bit and to other countries when Dad has been teaching on missions.

My most interesting memory was when my family went to Uganda. We went there in 2009 for 2 months because my Mum and Dad were running a workshop and doing some other stuff, helping to start a communication team for YWAM in East Africa. The coolest thing about being in Uganda (apart from riding on motorbike taxis) was that we went to the Hairy-Lemon. It’s an island in the Nile River and named after a pub in Ireland! We got there in a wooden canoe, which was really fun. This is a fact: Ugandans eat cooked ants! I ate some and they are DELICIOUS!

I think it is really cool being a YWAM kid because you get to travel everywhere!