When I was a kid I always wanted to ride a motorbike into my school assembly. I don't know why, I just used to daydream about it. Today I got to live the dream. I was asked to speak to the 600 pupils of Petra High School this morning and as they met under an open canopy, I rode across the playing field and into the assembly on the bike, making sure to give it a throaty roar as I dismounted. Never felt so cool in my life, though I was half expecting the bike to fall over or something as it was way too good to be true. Thankfully it didn’t and we had a wonderful and funny time, taking about adventure with God and how to withstand peer pressure.

Peer pressure is a huge issue here in Zimbabwe where there is so little for the nations youth to do, something we found out about yesterday as we took part in a facilitated discussion about youth ministry with some youth leaders from across Bulawayo. There are huge pressures here and we heard about some terrible things going on that are profoundly affecting the youth they are working with. Andrew got to share about the Youth Hub and The Wordspace App which is a great resource to help them figure out God in a digital age and we also talked about giving youth a cause to believe in and the fight for justice. Just as in North America and the UK, doing the same old things won’t work anymore and we have to move beyond entertainment in asking young people to follow God.

It’s been a great time here engaging in youth work again, but it’s time to move on, so today we hit the road, travelling 450 km to the capital Harare. We’ll rest up there a day then take the longest ride of the trip, up to the border, across Mozambique and on to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. Our aim to do the two borders and 760 or so Kilometres in one day, but we don't know if we’ll end up camping on the way.

Live is never dull. Now I wonder if I can live my other day dream, riding the bike into the middle of a church service that needs livening up….