We send our greetings from Harare where spring rains are overdue.  In fact, we are in a heat wave.  Someone told us it was 40 degrees C. on Tuesday.  That’s 100 degrees F., isn’t it?  Felt like it anyway.  Thank goodness the humidity is low because we have no fan, much less air-conditioning.

On a temperate Sunday in early October we attended an Oktoberfest at a rural Roman Catholic mission.  The church, a Jesuit building dating to 1902, looks like a bit of Germany in the bush.  Not many lay German Catholics attended but we met some German nuns and several Jesuits, including one who teaches Greek.  He and Mary talked shop briefly.  We had an ecumenical service in the old church, then a braai and German-style beer from Namibia on the lawn in front, and finished the day with German coffee and cakes, though the coffee never appeared. 

The very next Saturday was a UTC faculty outing to a colleague’s farm.  It took an hour and a half to drive there, the final 26 km. in caravan on unmarked roads, fording a small stream.  We were glad to let someone else do the driving.  The story is that a Methodist mission had a 3,000 acre (or was it hectare?) farm they no longer used.  So they decided to give small parcels to long-term employees and retirees, whose pensions subsequently evaporated in the currency collapse.  Our colleague, then a bishop, had chaired the committee and, having served two three-year terms as chaplain at the mission high school, eventually received 30 acres (or is it 30 hectares?).  He has a well; his neighbor runs his cattle in exchange for use of pasture, to make a very long story short.  The main building is a traditional kitchen, round and roofed in thatch with a fireplace in the center and built-in benches around the perimeter.  Another building has several bedrooms.  There is an outhouse across the yard.  We had a braai under the trees, toured the farm, met the neighbors, including the retired principal of the mission high school.  The silence in the bush was palpable and our colleagues drank it in, regarding it as a spiritual experience in sacred space. 

The following Saturday was “UTC Day,” our annual fund-raiser.  We listen to speeches under a tent, bought T-shirts and lunch.  An excellent a cappella choir from the prison entertained.  We were told the inmate singers are all nearing the end of their sentences and, for that reason, are not inclined to run.  Our bus provided transport and the prison sent one apparently unarmed employee in civilian clothes to supervise.  They stayed for lunch.  The guest speaker—former governor, successful farmer and businessman, Methodist layman—spoke entertainingly but mostly in Shona.  There was enough English to tell us his mother had taught him to give.  Near the end, he revealed he had brought a (very visible) pick-up load of metal door and window frames and other construction supplies worth $2800.  Then, “spontaneously,” he produced $600 in cash to buy a laptop computer for the principal.  It looked effective to us.  He needs to inspire a group of equally generous givers.  Our 50 year old buildings suffer from deferred maintenance.  In addition, we have three times the number of students we can accommodate properly.  And you know about our intermittent water supply.  This year we built a new room on the library but ran out of money before we could purchase furniture!

This semester, Dale is teaching the adult Bible Study every other Sunday at the only Lutheran church in Harare with weekly services in English.  He is doing a series on Isaiah.

We wish you a Happy Halloween from the midst of corn fields not yet planted, much less harvested.  No pumpkins here at this time of the year!