By Christopher Hingley (Zimbabwe)
(These stories are true, but names and identities have been disguised)
Sarah is a Petra pupil in Form 2. One evening last month she was in the kitchen alone, since her mother had gone out for a few minutes to collect her brothers from a karate lesson. Suddenly, there were three men in the kitchen, one of them holding a gun to her head.
Just then, her mother and brothers returned, and all of them were tied up and threatened while the robbers searched the house for valuables. No one was hurt, but the trauma of the incident is still affecting them. On Monday Sarah will go to the Police Station to identify a suspect who has been picked up, a man who is wanted by Interpol. Sarah’s father was not there, since he is working in South Africa in order to pay school fees and provide for his family.
Craig is the captain of the Under 14 Rugby team. I noticed he was looking very subdued after a match last term, and he told me that he had just heard that his father had been seriously injured in an accident. His father is a professional hunter, and works in Tanzania, since the tourist industry has virtually died in Zimbabwe. He was with a client who had shot and wounded a buffalo. Following the buffalo up, he was charged and seriously injured both internally and with a broken leg. After emergency surgery in Nairobi, Craig’s father is now back home in Bulawayo, and convalescing.
Linda is a girl in Form 3; she is bright and an outstanding hockey player. Her mother came to see me last term, and angrily poured out complaints about the school. After half an hour of this, she suddenly stopped and burst into tears. She admitted that her real problem is that her husband is way, her two sons (not at Petra) are getting into a crowd that abuses alcohol and drugs, and she wants to know that Linda’s education at Petra is the one area of her life that she does not need to worry about. We drew up a plan, and she left reassured.
James tells us: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” We have widows and orphans in a new way in Zimbabwe, because almost all our pupils depend on help from outside the country for the payment of school fees. Many of them live here while one or even both parents work outside the country. You can imagine the potential damage that is done to teenagers growing up in such an environment, and the social and moral dangers that they face.
During the holiday I was able to take some of our teenagers camping at a game park not far away. Several of them face the kind of situation that I describe above. For five days, they canoed, played volleyball, swam, handled lion cubs, viewed game on foot, and simply relaxed. All of them were sponsored for this trip by support from overseas. I realized two things. The first is that it is so important to give our teenagers, growing up in a situation of unimaginable stress, this kind of experience as a break from the grim reality of life in Zimbabwe. The second is how special are our Petra pupils! They never gave me a moment’s anxiety, but showed consideration and maturity way beyond their years. But they combine this with a teenage sense of fun, so they got up to lots of innocent mischief, made sure that I never took myself too seriously, and laughed a great deal.
We thank God for good moments like these.
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