Dinner With Friends

   Recently, Heidi and I had the great privilege to host one of the Shona couples in our community who have become good friends. We had a really good time enjoying pizza together and chatting about life and culture. After the meal, we retired to the living room and had a really enlightening conversation about Shona marriages and that conversation inspired this post!
  This dear family is a very strong family. They are fully Shona while also fully Christian and are much more open about realities in the culture that many will not speak about. We were astonished to find out that Shona women and girls are trained, from a very young age, that they should expect to be beaten by their husbands. The assumption, and the preparation for marriage, is that the husband will cheat on his wife with whomever he pleases, but she must stay faithful to him and whenever he doesn't like something that she's done, he will beat her to get her "back in line." The Shona women, according to our Shona friends, are trained to expect this kind of treatment and see it as "normal" and good. If a man does not cheat on his wife and beat her, he is assumed to be cursed, "bewitched" by our friends comments, by his wife and under her sway spiritually. So, if a man is truly trying to "love his wife as Christ loves the church," his wife will face intense social pressure, in the rural areas, because she is seen as practicing witchcraft to control her husband. There are tasks which are expected to be the woman's duty and should the husband perform any of those tasks, it will also be assumed he is under spiritual control of some kind. For instance, our friends had several months that they were apart while the wife finished a diploma in education and her husband performed all the menial tasks of running a home. These include washing cloths, cooking, doing dishes, etc. Since our friend performed all of these duties, and remained faithful to his wife in spite of the months of separation, he is now assumed, by some in the community, to be controlled by his wife through witchraft.
  Incase you are thinking, "Well, those people just need Jesus!" it is vital that you understand many, if not most of the people, making these assertions are in fact confessing "believers" in Jesus Christ! The discipleship element of ministry here in the rural areas is absolutely vital and sorely lacking! There is little, if any, difference between confessing Christian homes and pagan homes in terms of fidelity and spousal abuse. In our community, our friends were telling us, they know of two couples who have really begun to put aside the old ways and seek to follow Christ's instructions through the Biblical writers about marriage. In both cases, our friends have begun to meet with these couples in one on one settings to encourage spiritual growth in their personal lives and marriages!
  We were so encouraged to hear the "truth" about what is going on in the marriages around us! As the "missionaries" we are often kept at arms length for whatever reason (I think most people insulate in similar ways, even across cultures) and don't learn the reality of the situations we are trying to minister to until years into the ministry. The ministry of Eden Children's Village has been in Doma for 14 years now, and NO ONE has ever told us about these facts. We knew about the sleeping around being permissible for husbands, but we never knew that young women are TRAINED to accept beating and that young men are TRAINED that it's okay, or even necessary, to beat a wife. This invigorates my heart! A fire burns to see healthy, Biblical marriages in the Shona cultural context! I am sure there a great many around and about, but here, in our context and location, there are very few! God help us to make a difference in these young people's lives so that they can expect and hope for a better marriage than the one traditionally afforded. Please pray for Heidi and I as we begin to look for opportunity to disciple an even younger (we are 25 and have only been married 4 1/2 years) couple to mentor as they walk with God together! Lord willing, we'll be sharing about that new opportunity soon!

Thank you for your prayers and support! We are glad to be here and glad to have the privilege to try and walk together with some young believers as they get learn to follow Jesus as his disciples! That wouldn't be possible without all of you and we don't take that for granted!

Blessings,

Ian Fry