Every first Saturday of September of each year we celebrate and remember our departed parents. The Tariro family holds a retreat a week before (the last Saturday of August) and come up with the year’s theme. This year’s memorial was celebrated by Canon Reverend Mutasa, and we went through our previous themes as we normally do. However, we decided to share them with you and the themes are as follows.
2010: Let go and let God
This was an emotional and spiritual healing journey as we were trying to make peace with our past. We wept and wept. It was a time when we were letting go, forgiving ourselves and beginning not to blame ourselves for what happened in our lives. It was a time to let go and forgive our relatives who had rejected and abandoned us at a time we needed them the most. It was a year to allow God to heal us within and asking for his inner peace within our hearts. It wasn’t an easy or short journey for the youth but rather a length process. It wasn’t even easy for the TYP Trustees to gather the broken pieces and give us a reason to look forward to a brighter future. Letting go and letting God gave us a reason to focus on the bigger picture ahead, we thank God for their support and commitment. Through their love, care and intense counseling (individual and group) we were able to get on our feet. We learnt that with God nothing is impossible. Today, we are here walking tall with our heads held up and with a clear vision, goals and plans for a brighter and clearer future. Here we learnt that the true meaning of success is the ability to uplift the next person and make a difference in his or her life. Tariro House was built on prayer and here is our daily prayer: –
Almighty and heavenly Father, thank you for this beautiful day – a day marking the beginning of our healing process, Bless all the families and friends that continue to and pray and provide for us.
Guide them as they walk hand in hand and work side by side, open our minds to renew our thoughts and emotions, open our eyes to see and follow your footsteps, open our ears to hear when any of us cries out, open our hands to give and receive, open our arms to embrace each other
And open our hearts to love unconditionally, Grant us the patience, courage, strength and the wisdom to serve you, today and each day, Thank you for the hope, faith and abundant love
I pray this in Jesus’ name
Amen
2011: Death is not the greatest loss we face in life, the greatest loss we face in life is when something within us dies that is Hope, Faith and Love
After letting go of our past, we realized that even after losing everything one can rise up like the phoenix from the ashes. It was time we knew that our parents passed us the button stick of life to finish this race for them. It was for us to take that button stick and run a successful race for us and for them and to achieve the dreams they had had for us. It was for us now to let go of the painful past and take full responsibility and accountability to change our future.
2012 Ebenezer
This was a year we were celebrating a milestone, commemorating the battles that God fought for us and the victories he has given us. Looking back from where the Lord took us to the point we were in life; it was a time to thank God as we were seeing his blessings. O level students passed their examinations, tertiary students were graduating from vocational colleges and universities and securing Jobs. It was a blessed year and we thanked God for all those achievements as individuals as well as Tariro family.
2013: Moving forward Fearlessly
This was a year to move forward fearlessly claiming our goals, vision and dreams without doubt or second guessing ourselves. It was a year we were clear of who and whose we were, what we wanted to achieve as individuals and collectively as a family. We now knew that with God we are more than conquerors in everything we do and no dream was too big or too high for us to reach.
2014: From Glory to Glory
2014 was such a glorious and blessed year. It was a theme we came up with after realizing that a lot of positive things were happening in our lives. We felt that God was pouring out glory after glory in our lives. We were getting support from our trustees, individual various co-operates from far and wide as well as a number of churches. Constant Contributions be it cash or kind kept pouring into Tariro House making it easy for us to achieve our dreams and be living testimonies to others so that they know with God everything is possible.
2015: Walk the talk: Hope, Faith and Love
This theme wasn’t an easy one. It wasn’t easy to walk in our talk or putting it into action/practice. Thanks be to God we managed to share our life experience with other Youth at Rev Philip Mutasa’s parish in Glenview, Harare .We were letting them know that even after losing their parents, blaming and feeling sorry of themselves, one can come back, rise up, walk with his/her head held up high and looking forward to a brighter future and fulfill one’s dreams with God’s help and support from the right people. We were living examples.
2016: Walk the talk Hope Faith and Love
We repeated this theme as we were feeling in our hearts that we had not done enough in 2015. So we decided as youth to embark on a project of writing an inspirational book with our stories. A book that would be filled with encouraging personal life stories of each and every member at TYP. A book that will change or help someone still stuck in the past, full of blame, bitter and forgiving someone failing to move forward.
2017: We are one, we are many, we are synergistic
After we had put our words into actions, in 2017 and we decided to work towards the same goals as a family because it is easier to produce fruit as a team than as individuals.
2018: Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is a progress and working together is a success
Coming together is a beginning:
Common phase; each member had to feel a sense of belonging. When everyone was included and made to feel a part of the process or purpose, they found common ground. In that event our purpose was to build a strong family. As TYP we came together as a family, everybody knew his or her position so we had to take our focus off ourselves (as individuals) and learn to appreciate and value each other. That is team work.
Keeping together is a progress:
This was a mutual commitment phase; we had to come together and now we needed to keep together for progress sake. Team spirit was needed through learning, loyalty, love, laughter and leadership.
Working together is a success:
Share contribution phase; there was a win-win outcome. In this phase our common goal, family success, it was like a clothing factory where specialization is the law. In making a shirt, the one who makes buttonholes isn’t the one who inserts a collar; one does a sleeve, another does a pocket and so on but they all rejoice over a completed shirt. So we all needed to take part/be part of the family success story.
2019: Standing out, in step with God, out of with step the world
As we were working towards success as a family by keeping the progresses together, we discovered that we needed to stand out of the world such as social media and focus on God’s work. Our generation is being destroyed because the world itself has taken over our lives yet we need to overcome such things that make us forget the goodness of the Lord God by keeping in step with Him.
2020: Trusting the process, enduring change, strengthening our hope and soaring like an eagle
Now that we were in step with God and out of step with the world”, our trust lies sorely in the Lord. 2020, we as TYP were drawing our inspiration and strength from Isaiah 40 vs 31 which says they that wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not be weary, they will walk and not be faint.
With everything that have been happening in Zimbabwe and the world at large (Covid-19, climate change, civil and international wars, socioeconomic meltdown etc.). It was the young man or woman of God who were prepared to admit their weakness and capacities that they may be enabled by Him to draw from the bottomless well of his everlasting supply, and drink deeply from the living waters of Gods super abundant provision.
It was then that the spiritual battery was regenerated and renewed by Christ’s limitless power, enabling us to run the straight race and in His strength to run in such a way as with the prize for the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
2021: Attitude of gratitude
This simply means we must express thankfulness and appreciation at all times for the big and small things in our lives. It also means being grateful as a family for TYP which is a place of abundance not of scarcity.
We have been taught to be grateful and thankful for everything we have, so our theme was based on 1Thessalonians 5 vs 16-18 which says always be joyful, never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
2022 Attitude of Gratitude: 1Thess 5:16-18
We would like this theme to be our lifestyle hence a repeat this year (2022 / 2023).
Please have a glance at the photos we took on our Memorial Day. We would also like to appreciate Father Nicholas Stebin for celebrating this beautiful day with us, we are truly grateful.
Nyasha was presenting on the previous themes.
Family photoThank you.