God's Calling is not emotionally secure

The end of the war brought peace, but also new challenges. Many whites fled the country. Integration of the schools began, and it was rocky. The first Prime Minister's term of service was short-lived and unsuccessful. And then Robert Mugabe, the notorious Socialist-Marxist leader who still controls the country, came into power.

My one and only fist fight occured during that time. I hit this guy Clive in the nose (and bloodied it) for calling my African friend Heather a derogotory name. (Heather was the first black student to be integrated into our school.)

But in a lot of ways, those early teen years were some of my happiest memories. We had a strong group of youth in the mission, and great community in my local church. Then there was Indira, my best friend, who had moved to Zimbabwe from Tasmania. The two of us were inseparable.

I was finally getting to experience life as a real kid, without the fear of being "hunted."

Our family also spent quality time together. We have always enjoyed being outdoors, and were finally able to have some freedom. Every Friday night was our family game time. We had constant visitors--my parents have always had a "come one, come all" policy. I think my Mom's real calling was to be an army cook, because she was always feeding someone, and we never knew who might be spending the night.

But then came three events that totally rocked my world.

One of our fellow MKs, Chip Corley, was hit by a car and killed while riding his bike. Our whole mission family was devastated.

Then another tragedy struck. Aunt Jeannie Elliff and the four kids were on their way to our house, with plans for all of us to go to a youth retreat together. But they had an accident on the way.

The van rolled, and Beth was trapped under it. She suffered severe burns because the engine was on top of her. The rest of the family only had minor cuts and scratches.

I will never forget seeing Beth laying on that gurney in the hallway of the hospital. She was in such agony, and parched with thirst. I actually remember her saying, "If you love me, you'll give me a drink of water." That broke my heart. She was not allowed to have anything because of the severity of her burns.

I thought my friend might die that night. It terrified me, and made me angry when I saw the doctor ignoring her, even flirting with some of the nurses. He was totally cold and indifferent.

Aunt Jeannie was finally able to get a plane to fly her to a better hospital in the capital. (I don't remember where Uncle Tom was that weekend--maybe out of town.) Thankfully, Beth survived. But she needed better treatment, so the Elliffs ended up leaving Zimbabwe and returning to the States. That was a tough loss for me. Beth and Amy were like my sisters.

To make matters worse, we later learned the accident was deliberate. When Aunt Jeannie had stopped to get gas, some men had inserted a matchstick into the valve of her tire to cause a slow leak. It was the loss of pressure in the tire that caused the van to flip.

But even in that, we saw God's providence. The men had followed Aunt Jeannie from the gas station, probably intending to rob her(or worse.) But when the van rolled, a train happened to be passing and the engineer saw the accident. He stopped the train and helped lift the vehicle off of Beth.

His presence probably deterred those men from hurting the Elliff family. I know that God preserved their lives that day.

Then we began to have issues in school. Because so many teachers had left the country, the educational system was in crisis. So the government came up with a plan to educate "ex-combatants" (aka "terrorists") in a 6-month teaching program and plug them in as teachers.

That brought a whole new set of issues, and was the first time that my brother and I had been on the receiving end of such racism. We both had teachers who hated us--just for being white (we were now minorities in our school.) Mark even had a teacher throw a chair at him.

Then came the final straw. The government decided to create "labor forces" for the youth of the nation. They were patterned after Hitler's nazi youth gangs, even having political rallies on Sundays. If we stayed in the public schools, we would have to serve in the labor force.

So the decision was made to send us to boarding school in South Africa. At the tender age of 14, I had to leave home and go live in a different country from my parents.

That was tough. The security I had always found in both my biological family and my mission family was now gone. Thankfully, my brother was with me in South Africa for a year. He has always been my anchor--especially through high school and college when our parents were so far away.

Those events were hard, but they also made me stronger. And through it all I can say, "For the LORD will not abandon His people, Nor will He forsake His inheritance."--Psalm 94:14.