Road to Zimbabwe
Tiffany Stewart, 18, traveled to Zimbabwe this summer as part of a church youth trip.
The Butler High School graduate is the daughter of Karen and Basil Stewart of Fenelton. She is a freshman studying business management at Butler County Community College.
Stewart left for the South African nation on Aug. 5 and returned Aug. 21.
“It was through Fenelton United Methodist Church, and it was for all the Methodist church youth,” said Stewart. “In Pennsylvania, they were picking 15 youths.”
“I had to fill out paperwork, get letters of recommendation and write an essay on why I wanted to go, and then I had interviews with the Methodist Conference,” said Stewart.
“Our church is very small. There are about 20 people that go to it, so it was a big deal,” she added.
“They said what was really funny in the Skype interview is that they were asking me if it was all right if I saw a chicken being killed for dinner, and I was in the basement with all these mounted deer heads because my family hunts,” Stewart said,
“We (the United Methodist Church) have a partnership with Zimbabwe, helping them. One of the conference leaders is from Zimbabwe and they wanted to take for the first time a group of youths.”
Stewart and the rest of the 15-member party flew from Pittsburgh to Washington, D.C., and from there to Johannesburg, South Africa.
“It was eight hours from D.C. to Johannesburg and then another eight hours from South Africa to Zimbabwe. It was pretty long,” said Stewart of the flight.
The group arrived in the capital city of Harare around 10 p.m.
“The group was split up and we stayed with host families,” said Stewart, adding she and two others, Natalia Berkey of Kittanning and Regan Check of Pittsburgh, went to one host home with its owner as a chaperone.
“It was in the suburbs. It was a ranch-style house,” she said. “There was just Margaret (the homeowner) in the house, and we split up into bedrooms.”Of the group's purpose, Stewart said, “We were there to do pretty much everything.”“We helped to build churches, went to the Ebenezer Conference, (a United Methodist gathering held every five years) and we toured Victoria Falls and the Great Zimbabwe ruins,” she said.“We went into rural areas and helped them. We helped lay brick and helped them build their churches. Helped them cook meals. We did a lot in two weeks,” Stewart said, adding there was a large Methodist population in Zimbabwe.“What I liked most was how humbling it was,” she said. “They are very grateful, and they wanted to thank God for what they did have and not think about what they didn't have compared to the rest of the world.”Communication wasn't difficult. “They speak their traditional Shona language, but they're very fluent in English. That's want the kids learn in their schools. They were very focused on praising God, which was very moving,” she said.On a less spiritual plane, Zimbabwe took some getting used to.“The traffic at rush hour was awful. People were driving on the sidewalks,” Stewart said.And there was a gap between the image of Africa and reality.“I thought Africa would be like 'The Lion King,'” said Stewart. “The people were grateful and welcoming. The country as a whole exceeded my expectations.”Certainly Victoria Falls did. Not the highest nor widest waterfall in the world, it is classified as the largest, based on its width of 5,604 feet and height of 354 feet, resulting in the world's largest sheet of falling water. Victoria Falls is roughly twice the height of Niagara Falls.
“We went and saw the falls first, and the falls went on and on and on. They were phenomenal, that's the best word,” Stewart said.“They were so beautiful. Africa is very dry but with the falls, there is vegetation and life was thriving there,” she added.Near the falls were the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, built and occupied between the 12th and 15th centuries. At the peak of its power and prosperity in the 13th and 14th centuries, the town was the largest settlement in southern Africa.“We walked all the way up to the top, the view was amazing. You could see everything, the mountains. It was just so beautiful,” Stewart said.“We had to take a flight to Victoria Falls, and the flight was a half-hour, like the distance from Pittsburgh to D.C.,” said Stewart.“We then drove from Victoria Falls to the ruins. That took a couple of hours,” she added.“The weather was in the 60s and it was very dry because it was the winter,” Stewart said. She described the Zimbabwean countryside as very mountainous with lots of valleys.“We went to a game preserve at Victoria Falls and got to see elephants, hippos, giraffes, zebras and warthogs,” she said.Stewart also sampled the wildlife on her plate.“The food was delicious. I had crocodile, warthog, which was really good,” she said. “I had oxtail. I had wild buffalo. I had sudza, it was a cornmeal-mashed potatoes type of thing. The greens were very good. I had a variety.”Stewart credits the fact that she is a deer hunter for making it easy to try game meats.“I've been to Aruba, but nothing like this, traveling across the world. It was the first time,” she said.“I would go back right now, I loved it,” she said.
“People ask me what I learned from this trip. I tell them we take everything for granted,” she said. “It's the little things, that's what they (the Zimbabweans) feel. They are still so passionate for God and Jesus Christ,” she added. “Sometimes I think the things we have get in the way of what God has done in our lives.”Stewart keeps in touch with her travel companions.“The whole group just met last weekend (Nov. 15). We met at the conference center in Cranberry and the bishop of the United Methodist Conference, Thomas J. Bickerton, hosted us at his house for dinner.”
