Thank you so much for all the prayers for our team in Zimbabwe over the last two weeks. We have successfully completed our mission in Gweru and now the second-largest city in the country, Bulawayo. We value your continued prayer as the churches follow up. What a journey it has been—and what a joy to serve God’s mission together, equipping the Church and reaching cities with the Good News. Praise God: excluding digital ministry and the last two components of the GNE 2025 plan, our in-person impact—to date— this year has already surpassed what we saw in Zambia in 2024. Hallelujah!

Where we’ve been (2025):

Here is a short recap of our ministry in Zimbabwe this year:

• Chinhoyi (April) — campaign launch in Zimbabwe

• Simuka Youth (May–Aug) — youth activation across 30+ towns

• Kadoma (April) — 816 leaders equipped from 622 churches in a town where we didn’t do a festival but they asked for help in training.

• Gweru — training + citywide outreach & festival

• Bulawayo — just completed.

Bulawayo— Headwinds and Holy Momentum

Bulawayo stretched us. In the final run-up we faced visible tribal dynamics and external pressures that forced a last-minute venue change. Permissions secured months in advance were suddenly withdrawn; student ministry was cancelled the day before, and prison access for our foreign teammates was rescinded. By God’s grace—and through the persistence of our Zimbabwe colleagues—we still gained entry to two prisons (one with four sub-divisions). At the same time, a wave of flu rolled through the team between Gweru and Bulawayo. By God’s grace, we kept a steady presence in the field. 

One Message, Many Expressions

We love seeing the creativity and innovation that various evangelist bring to the table. We had a diverse team in Bulawayo that were eager to serve and reach out. Here’s a short list of some of the affinity events we held throughout the week:

• Youth Super Hangouts (pilot): 40–120 per session; churches brought friends to targeted youth experiences during school holiday time.

• Daily secular radio spots: rotating evangelists shared the Gospel live on air. One lady heard Bob Lenz on the radio and when one of the mobile rally trucks stopped nearby, she ran to accept Christ and shared how she heard it first on the radio!

• Door-to-door & business evangelism: volunteers from Zimbabwe & Zambia served daily with local hosting among the churches. Thank you African Enterprise Zimbabwe for leading this!

• Two mobile rally trucks: typically, 3–4 stops each morning, reaching 80–700+ per stop, where we do a mini-festival experience and where the Gospel is preached.

• Three Children’s Festivals, which, although smaller than we had planned, made an impact!

• Women’s Summit reached hundreds of precious ladies with the Good News and encouraged them in their walk with God.

• Business & Executive Luncheon: Minister of State present; 52 decisions for Christ

• Sunday Services: Our team was able to split and serve 26 churches on Sunday. Through their ministry, we saw 244 salvations and 193 recommitments

CAMPAIGN REACH AND IMPACT

Bulawayo results (training + outreach phase)

• In-person reach: 67,928

• First-time salvations: 7,406

• Recommitments: 1,809

• Volunteers mobilized (incl. GNE team): 1,100+

• Believers trained: 4,562

• Churches served: 964

• Advance Groups started: 1,038.

Nationwide roll-up (to date)

• In-person reach: 336,152

• Digital reach: 149,549 (last two cities still being collated)

• First-time salvations: 44,270

• Recommitments: 3,415

• Partner churches: 4,515

• Volunteers (excluding GNE festival teams): 4,788

• Advance Groups started: 5,563 across cities (Bulawayo 1,038; Gweru 1,342; Kwekwe 762; Kadoma 603; Chinhoyi 616; Masvingo 524; Norton 461; Chegutu 217)

Multiplying Impact

A big thank you to some of our collaborators: Alpha reported a 400% increase in Alpha Course signups since April, according to their national leader, Brandon. OneHope provided thousands of children’s follow-up pieces which we were able to distribute throughout the week. Bibles to the World (John Pudite) supplied tens of thousands of beautiful, custom-made Love Zimbabwe Gospels of John. These are wonderful to gift to each believer and those we encountered wherever we served.

A fresh word of thanks

We could not do this without a phenomenal team. Every airport run, MOU draft, graphic tweak, finance check, lens change, stage setup, and late-night pivot—God used it. To our field leads and city operators, storytellers and communicators, administrators and data stewards, finance and compliance teams, creatives and media crews, producers, and our Zimbabwe ground team—thank you. And we see in you what Paul commended: “…your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 1:2–3). 

Our thanks to Bryce for steering the festival end to end; Ed for your leadership and city liaison work; Karen for clear communications and storytelling; Jessica and Denver for capturing the story on photo and video; Heather for your support in multiple ways, MOUs, and data/tracking; Walter and the business team for faithful financial stewardship; the Creative Department for web, design, and promo tools; Lindsey for steady administrative support throughout; and our Zimbabwe ground crew—TJ and Saliya—for precise on-the-ground execution. A special word of gratitude to Daniel Simon, who volunteered to design and build the BMX ramps and assist with production in each city.