Neil and Rachelle
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A Trip into the Village

2/26/2018

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​We left for the village last Tuesday. It was a gorgeous morning, with beautiful blue skies and puffy white cumulus clouds lining the horizon. The birds were jumping from branch to branch in the trees, singing their hearts out. A warm breeze brushed past my hair and lifted a few strands as I stood on our front porch, looking out at the view of Mbeya town which was nested at the foot of the green hills. I wanted to remain standing there all day and wasn’t sure I wanted to spend such a gorgeous day riding in a bus. But by 10:30 we were packed and ready to go, so we headed out. We climbed on a bus at the terminal and settled into our seats. Micah tried to get comfortable on his dad’s lap. We headed out on a bumpy dirt road. Mud huts and coffee fields lined the narrow road as we began to leave the town behind. Clouds of dust rose up as we bounced along, the dust coming in through the opened windows and coming to a rest on our hair and clothes. Something in a rucksack that lay resting on a rack above my head, at every bump and jolt, came showering down on us in a fine powder. I began to regret my decision earlier that morning not to wear a bandanna and I made a mental note, that on future bus rides to always wear one. Within five hours we had made it to our first stop.
As we stepped off the bus a man pushed his way through the crowd and with a broad grin welcomed us warmly. Neil introduced me to him as Mwenyekiti, who had been such a great help to Neil on his survey trips in that area. He led us to two motorcycles and we climbed on, Neil and Micah on one and me on the second. Before long we were cruising along the road towards Mwenyekiti’s house with Neil’s motorcycle leading the way. Once we arrived we were welcomed by Mwenyekiti’s wife, who we called Shem. She was tall and well built. I noticed how strong her arms were. Her dark eyes were kind and her shy smile pleasant. She took our bags from us as is the custom and led us up a path that was shaded with trees and that opened into a small clearing. A simple brick house covered with a corrugated tin roof sat to the left of the clearing. Corn stood tall in rows adjacent to the house and pumpkin leaves grew tangled up beneath the corn, their round green leaves standing stiffly upright as if to compete for stature with the corn. A table was sitting outside in the shade of the house and three plastic chairs were set around it. We were invited to sit and make ourselves feel at home. Soon after Shem brought out some water, glasses and a big silver platter piled with dishes and a pot full of Ugali, beans, and cooked pumpkin leaves. Mwenyekiti sat and visited with us as we ate but Shem sat on a stool further away playing with her children and watching us. Chickens were running around the table, which reminded me of the time I tried to butcher our rooster. As I recounted the story to them Shem heard me and chuckled, shaking her head and showing off her beautiful smile. Micah, at first quite apprehensive about these new surroundings, sat on his dad’s lap. But after a short time, he got down and began to explore. To our relief he found a few pieces from some old radios and entertained himself with those for the remainder of our time there. That night we walked to a guest house only a short distance away and began for the first time to feel the fatigue from a day spent traveling. My mind was feeling the strain from speaking Swahili all afternoon and I was thankful for a place to rest. As we walked in our room I noticed what looked like a broken fan standing in the corner. It was missing a few parts, such as a guard for the blades and a plug for the cord. As I looked at it puzzled, Neil, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to do, stooped down and inserted each wire into the wall outlet. Instantly the fan sputtered to life. I laughed then and shaking my head said the same thing I always say in situations like this, “Only in Africa.” We warned Micah to stay away from the whirring blades which provided us with a cool breeze in the otherwise hot room. I felt my hair then and noticed it was stiff with dust, so I went out to investigate the washroom. It was located close to our room but was shared by all the guests at the establishment. Armed with resolve to get the dust off and my trusty shower shoes I went to go wash up. I was proud of myself for braving a washroom such as that one and amazed at how far I had come since we had arrived in Tanzania from the States three years before. Finally, we arranged the blue mosquito net around the bed and turned off the light.
 
 In the morning we emerged from our dark room to find the hot sun already climbing high in the sky. A heap of our dusty clothes from the day before lay in a pile and so I decided to do a bit of handwashing since each of us had packed minimally for this trip, only bringing a few pairs of clothes. Mwenyekiti came to greet us at the guest house and walked us back to his place where we saw Shem had moved the table and chairs to a pleasant shady place below their house. She brought us a thermos full of steaming hot chai and a platter heaped with bananas and mandazi. We sat there relaxed and happy eating our chai. After Micah finished his chai he ran off to play in a sand pile that was situated by the house door.  It was a wonderful day. We sat around visiting, enjoying the relaxed environment. I held their youngest daughter who was about a year old and who was all smiles and Micah ran around with the older children. I took many mental notes about Shem’s hospitality, still having so much more to learn on this matter. Around 3pm we shouldered our bags once more and got on a bus toward the village. We waved goodbye to our wonderful hosts and I knew we would miss them.
 
On the side of the bus was printed in large letters the name Safina, which translated into English means, Ark. A faded picture of Noah’s ark was plastered on the back window. It was an ancient bus, being battered and dented but its engine still sounded strong and confident, no doubt a result of many hours of work beside the road while restless passengers stood by watching. We climbed up the steep steps towards the driver seat and looked down the long row of seats that were already filled with passengers. Relieved we found only three seats remaining and as the bus lurched forward we fell backwards into our seats, Neil in his in the back of the bus and Micah and I in the front of the bus, Micah sitting next to me. The road became more rutted and bumpy and narrowed as we traveled further away from the main towns. We followed the contour of the hilly land up and down, up and down until Micah exclaimed looking up at me with a smile, “It’s like we are on a rollercoaster!” On each descent the bus slowed, and we could hear the air from the breaks being compressed as we crossed bridge after bridge that had been placed over the creeks. We peered out the windows and saw mamas bent over in the shallow water washing their clothes while their children bathed. As we rushed over the dirt road I had a strange feeling come inside of me and I realized suddenly that what was waiting for us on this trip I had no control over. Although Neil had been there before and knew a few people and a place to stay, not one a single detail was known to me: what sort of a place we would be staying at, who we would visit with, what we would do, or even what we would encounter. Strangely this thought didn’t send me into a downward spiral anxiety attack, but I felt at total peace about it. I felt a curious mixture of excitement and freedom. As our bus rushed ever onward, I too felt as if we were rushing forward into something totally foreign and unknown, yet God already knew our ending destination. He knew what would take place during this trip. Nothing would take him by surprise and in that realization, came a great freedom. Looking back now I believe I had this presence of mind because of the many folks back home that were praying for us. As our trip progressed and as we passed through the villages the bus became more and more crowded. The people that began to fill the bus were fun to watch. Some of the men wore dark green rubber boots with plastic white and black rings encircling their calves, ankles and wrists. They wore what looked like Masai shukas although they were plain in color. I later learned these people were cow herders from the Sukuma tribe. A panga or machete hung sheathed at their wastes. The ladies climbed on with babies tied to their backs and red, white and yellow beaded necklaces encircled their necks, standing out beautifully against their dark skin. There was lots of Swahili being spoken on the bus but there were also some tribal languages that I was not familiar with. I heard two men from the village discussing me, whether I was married or not. I supposed because they couldn’t see Neil in the back since the bus was so full. I slumped down in my seat trying to look invisible, although not being successful, with me standing out like a sore thumb with my obviously white face. A kind older gentleman who I had been visiting with saw my discomfort and kindly informed the two men that I was already married. The bus was so packed that a man wrapped in a green checkered shuka stood pressed up against the side of our seat.  I could smell the scent of cow fat that many in the villagers use to massage onto their skin. Eventually there was no standing room left. If people wanted to enter the bus they would have to do so by entering in through the windows. I was thanking the Lord for our seats.

Finally, around 7 pm we made it into the village. As the bus rumbled in children caught sight of Micah through the window and began running alongside us. I peered out, surveying the area where we would spend the next few days. Corn stalks as high as a house lined the roads and paths on both sides and filled the yards in front of the houses. So that all that we could see was the bright blue sky, the green of corn stalks, and the brown of the mud brick houses and dusty roads. The bus came to a lurching halt in the “downtown” part of the village. A dozen or so simple structures with open store fronts made up dukas or shops with everything a person living in this village would need. Clothing and shoes dangled from strings hung from the eaves of these shops and plastic basins were piled up in front, brooms and mops leaning against them. A small road side place to eat was directly across the street. We grabbed our bags and climbed off the bus. My heart beat wildly in my chest as I saw the villagers watching us with suspicious stares and I could only imagine what they were thinking. Children who acted as if they’d never seen a white women or child before followed us closely behind. Micah looked uneasily about him and took my hand, squeezing it reassuringly in his. It was an unreal experience. We left the main road and walked down a smaller path that lead us to our guest house. Our room was basic. At one time the walls had been painted a pretty blue, but now over time had faded. A twin-size bed lay pushed up against the wall and a blue mosquito net was stretched over it. Except for the bed there was nothing else in the room. The washroom was situated outside the guest house, in the back courtyard. Inside, next to our room was a bar, with shelves lined with various brands of African beer bottles and a flat screen TV hung suspended from the ceiling. We went into our room which was growing dim due to the fading light outside. I searched for the light switch and where it had been there were two short wires jutting out from the wall. The metal ends were bent indicating that to turn the light on one was to grip the two live wires where the plastic was and hook the metal end together. I refused to touch them, so like an old pro Neil walked over and in a split second the wires were hooked together, and the light was on. He explained that he had already stayed in that room on one of his previous trips. Only in Africa I thought. Neil went out then to inform his friend that we had made it to the village. There was no cell reception in the village, so they had no idea we were there. By dark Neil had returned with Mwenyeji, his friend and we were introduced. As we closed our room door to leave I realized that we didn’t have a padlock for the door, so we just stuffed our valuables in a backpack and took it with us. Then we left the guest house and followed him through the village to his house. As we walked along the entire village was dark because electricity had not arrived at the village yet. Our guest house had electricity only through solar panels that were fixed to the roof. Except the sound of our footsteps scuffing along the path and a chorus of barking dogs all was silent. I looked above me at the night sky of the southern hemisphere and gazed upward in awe at the stunning spectacle of the stars shining with intense beauty, like diamonds strung along on a beautiful necklace. Finally, we arrived at Mwenyeji’s house where his wife shyly greeted us. Three wooden stools were hastily gathered and arranged in a circle in their yard. Neil and I sat, Neil visiting with Mwenyeji and me sitting quietly surveying the dark scene around me. Mwenyeji’s wife was in a broken down lean-to type structure with a grass roof, her outdoor kitchen I assumed. She was stooping over a pot cooking something over the fire. A flashlight was set on a wooden rack used for drying dishes and it cast a dull glow into the darkness. Mosquitoes began to attack my feet fiercely and I realized again that I had left the mosquito repellent in my bag back in the room. Thankfully they were not bothering Micah or Neil. Eventually we were brought into their one room house and invited to sit. A dim flashlight was set on the table which illuminated a pot of ugali in the center of the table along with a bowel filled with korokoro which Neil explained to me was a type of small fish which resembled a catfish in appearance and which was cooked whole. We set ourselves down, the mama of the house poured a pitcher of water for us to wash our hands as is the custom and then she backed out of the door leaving us alone in the room. I picked up one of the fish by its tail. Its eyes looked back at me with vacant stare. It fell to my plate with a wet, slimy plop. I refused to talk bad about the food for Micah’s sake and with a determined gulp mustered my bravery and began to eat. Surprisingly, it was very tasty. Eventually we were full and went outside, thanking the Mama of the house for the delicious meal. Her daughter brought us hand lotion then to get the smell of the fish off our hands, a very considerate and thoughtful thing to do I thought. The lotion smelled like coconut and felt good on my hands. Shortly after that we saw that Micah was very tired, so we left then and headed back to the guest house and were greeted by a room full of rowdy guys watching a soccer game on the tv. We walked into our room and began to discuss the dilemma of the size of the bed. I could not imagine sleeping in such a cramped environment and with it being so hot there even at night, but, we made due. We turned off the light and fell exhausted into bed. Noise filled our tiny room until 1:00 am. Noise of men hooting, hollering and shouting excitedly in several languages. I was sick with exhaustion by the time the they all left, and they closed the joint.

The next morning, we got up and walked to the road side mgahawa or restaurant where we could get some food and drink our morning chai. We sat outside on the porch at a plastic table. A man brought us steaming hot mugs of chai and plates heaped with oily chapatis, freshly fried. Micah was overjoyed at the sight of the chapatis, those being one of his favorite snacks here and I was thankful that not everything was foreign here in this strange new place. A group of about ten youth sat on a cement wall next to us having a lively discussion about something or another in their native language with a few Swahili words inserted here and there. The sun was already climbing high in the sky and it cast its hot glow down upon the dusty street which was mostly empty, most of the villagers having already gone out to their fields to work. We walked to a Bibi’s house and greeted her. She had met Neil before but had not yet seen Micah or I.  After we left Neil told me that while we had been visiting there he had suddenly felt very nauseous. Thankfully the nauseous feeling soon left him, but then he began to feel sick, as if he had a fever. Feeling slightly better, he decided to visit a neighboring village, about a 30-minute walk away. Halfway there was a shallow river with tall pointy grass growing up from the river bottom. People told us that at times crocodiles live in that river but at this time of year they were very few. We climbed in a boat and were rowed across to the other side. In this village the children reacted in a very similar manner when they saw us. They stared at us as if they had seen a ghost. They swarmed around Micah and he responded by jumping at them and running around them in circles. They jumped away from him and ran screaming and laughing hysterically. We had to watch Micah carefully because he didn’t quite know how to handle all the attention. We walked through the village towards some people Neil had met on his previous trip there. As we sat visiting with these acquaintances we began to hear distant singing grow louder and louder and it drew closer to where we were, I went outside to investigate and saw a crowd of young people and children singing a song as they walked together. Leading the procession were two tall strong looking men, one much older than the other. The older man’s eyes were blood shot and in his fingers was a smoldering cigarette. Both men were dressed in a skirt decorated with red and black satin. From all the Tanzanian shows I have watched I immediately recognized them as witchdoctors, the younger one probably being the apprentice. I leaned over to the mama next to me and asked her what was going on. She explained to me that in their village they had many problems with witches and were tired of them. A famous witchdoctor had recently come into their region who boasted he knew how to remove the curses and charms left by the witches. He claimed he could clean the witchcraft from a whole village by walking around, removing these things and burning them. The people that were walking behind him appeared excited and happy and they skipped down the road singing loudly in perfect rhythm. I stood there absorbing what she had just told me. What a different reality these villages were from the place where I had been raised, where there is no such thing as witches except in fiction and during Halloween when people dress up as them. In the West, only the tangible and the material make up the world in which we live in yet here the unseen spirit world was impacting these villagers in a powerful way and we were witnessing it. During this time, we went to go visit the elderly Chief of the village and his wife. We met the chief standing in front of his house. Despite his great age he stood tall and proud in an old white suit which had been decorated with yellow and green tie dye. His wife came out from the house and they both greeted us with wide smiles. I could tell as a young woman she had been very tall and beautiful. We took their hand and bowed low and greeted them respectfully. They spread out a mat and invited us to sit on their front porch. She patted her lap and invited Micah to sit there, which he did to our great relief. She was quite pleased that he had accepted her invitation. As we visited we heard the singing grow closer and we saw the procession of singers come down the path and stop only feet from us. The chief got up from his chair and his wife got up and went to greet them. The crowd parted and the Witchdoctor along with his apprentice stepped onto the porch and began talking in low tones to the Chief and his wife. I couldn’t understand much but I was so close to him I could have touched his red and black skirt. The crowd continued to sing in a strange rhythm that filled the air. In their hands they grasped chickens and ducks by their feet and they hung upside down squawking unhappily.  The witchdoctors apprentice held in his palm a small black gourd which was polished till it shone. In his other hand he held what appeared to be the tail of a cow which had been fastened onto a wooden handle. I knew from my culture study that these were the things he used in his divination of the spirit world. The crowd chanted in unison about going to make sacrifices to prevent various misfortunes from occurring. large smiles on their faces. No doubt these birds would later would be sacrificed, their blood spilled to please the ancestors.  I could not believe I was witnessing these events and I wondered at how it all had become possible. Eventually, the Chief’s house having been pronounced clean, the crowd and witchdoctors went on their way again through the path shrouded from view by the corn, no doubt on their way to the nearby neighbor’s house. After this we followed the winding path through the corn to greet another of Neil’s acquaintances. We heard a deep rumbling sound overhead and saw the clouds were hanging heavy and low over the village and had turned an eerie dark purplish grey. Bright flashes of lighting cut through the clouds and the air felt oppressively heavy. In the background we could still here the singing. The odd weather along with strange events we had witnessed made me feel as if we had descended into another world. After we reached the house we sat in the shade of a beautiful low hanging tree. Micah played with the children who were starting to realize that he was a normal kid just like them, although we still had to watch him closely. The villagers watched Micah playing with the children. They seemed happy that he was playing with their children and was already able to speak some Swahili. After only a short time we began to once more hear the approaching procession of singers. By now more people had joined the singers and about 50 people circled around us under the tree, blocking out the sun and the fresh air. The witchdoctor reappeared, walked through the opening in the fence and went into the yard of the mama we had been visiting with. She touched my shoulder and said in a kind and urgent voice, “don’t go!” and went into her yard which was hidden by view with a fence that was made from narrow bamboo stems tied together. What they were doing in there I was not sure, because I was looking around at all the black faces that were staring back at me and singing their eerie song. After the witchdoctor was done, the lady of the house gave him a chicken and they all moved on. Although a great number of children stayed behind to watch Micah. Seeing that Micah was a bit intimidated by all this attention, one mama scared them away with a stick. After these events we were all very tired and had many thoughts tumbling around in our minds. Micah as well had many questions for us. We decided to head back to the guest house and rest.  When we returned Neil lay down on the bed and I felt his forehead. He had a low-grade fever and felt achy. Thankfully before we had left the house in Mbeya I had last minute grabbed a bottle of Ibuprofen. After taking the medicine he began to improve. That night we ate rice and beans and chicken at the restaurant and it was a welcome change from the usual ugali. As we went to bed that night the blasting pulsating music from the bar echoed off our walls and I wondered how we would sleep. Thankfully like the night before Micah fell into a deep sleep. I tossed and turned till 1:00 am when they finally shut the music off.

 Once the morning light finally stole into our room I was very hesitant to get out of bed. But I gathered my wits about me and started yet another day. We went back to the restaurant to eat chicken soup and chapatis for breakfast and then returned to our room to ready ourselves for another day out visiting with people and walking in the hot sun. While we were in our room a young woman from the bar who also worked at the guest house came into our room. She did not appear drunk. She began telling us that she didn’t like Micah because he was too loud. She was saying all these terrible things to us about him, and I was shocked. This was not normal behavior for Tanzanians, in fact it had never happened the entire time we had lived in Tanzania. Eventually she left, and Neil went out front with Micah. I stayed behind in the room feeling crushed and discouraged. I could hear her yelling outside. Around this time, I also began to get sick, my stomach began paining me terribly. Journaling has become a refuge for me here, often when my thoughts are a jumbled-up mess in my mind, they seem to make more sense on paper. So, I decided to turn to my journaling during this discouraging time.  While I was journaling, my door opened, and I looked up from my writing to see the same woman come in. She had obviously had two or three beers and was staggering about, crying and in a terrible state. Her words were barely understandable. She was very upset and told me her boss had yelled at her and said mean things to her. She also apologized profusely for her words towards Micah. I gave her a hug and tried to reassure her that we cared about her and we forgave her. But she was not enough in her right mind to understand. We decided it would be a good time to get out of there and walk to visit some family members of Mwenyekiti who lived there in the village.

We walked to their house, but they were still out working in the fields, so we continued on. We came to the house of a women named Agnes, whose husband was a mechanic who worked on motorcycles and bikes. A tree stood next to their house and behind it a tiny shop full of spare parts. Under the tree, in its shade, men visited on a bench and watched the mechanic fixing a bike. We sat down on the bench and greeted everyone. A small child was standing by her father and at the sight of us she burst into tears, terrified by our different appearance. She buried her face in her father’s lap, sobbing. He laughed then and reassured us she would eventually get used to us. They invited us into their home where we sat in their living room and visited with Agnes’ husband. He told us he had learned how to be a mechanic from watching other mechanics in the village. He seemed like a very kind friendly man and we enjoyed visiting with him. He also proudly shared with us that he and his wife had been married for 19 years. While we were visiting Agnes brought out a silver tray with Ugali, dagaa  (tiny little fish cooked together in a tomato-based sauce) and pumpkin leaves cooked in fresh cow’s milk. I had never had Pumpkin leaves cooked like that, so I was glad for the new experience and they tasted delicious. Micah ate hurriedly and then dashed outside to play with the children. I was encouraged to see the kids playing nicely with Micah and that they had accepted Micah in as one of the kids. After this we went back to Mwenyeji’s house and we rested in the shade as the sun was at its peak and quite hot. They gave us roasted corn from their field and it tasted delicious. We noticed the people here were very proud of their corn, and told us how they grew it without using artificial fertilizer or chemicals.

After visiting for a while Micah and I went back to the guest house to rest. After a few hours, we could feel a fresh breeze blow in through our window and Neil came in and told us a man was there to see us. Apparently, we had stopped by his house that day to visit with him, but he had been out in his fields. I went outside with Micah and noticed the thunder clouds had passed, and it had rained somewhere because it was no longer so oppressively hot. The man took my hand and greeted me and then gave me a rucksack with a duck inside. “This is a gift for your family,” he said, grinning happily. I thanked him for the wonderful gift and satisfied, he left. I looked down at the rucksack, mentally trying to remember how to cook a duck. We put the duck in our room and went back out to say goodbye to the Bibi we have visited with the day before, since we’d be leaving the following morning. Once there I told Micah to go play over by some trees at a place where we could see him. But after a few minutes he was gone. Bibi got up, a concerned look on her face and began calling for him. His head poked out from behind the enormous trunk of a Boabob tree that was in her yard. Her expression turned from concern to fear as she yelled out for Micah to come away from the dangerous bugs and snakes in the tree. Micah, oblivious to what was going on, listened and went to find a new place to play, in the courtyard with Bibi’s grandchildren. Relieved, she explained to us that it was dangerous underneath that tree, and that there were snakes there. We were sitting there with Mwenyeji and he explained that baobab trees can live for thousands of years. He motioned towards the one in the yard and said that there was a good chance that it was about a thousand years old, and that their ancestors used those same trees. Suddenly I remembered from my culture study how baobab trees are tied in with ancestral beliefs and the spirit realm. All the details from our culture study began to come to life in a way I had not expected them to. In the courtyard around back, Micah went on to discover some ducks, chickens and pigs. Unknowingly, he told Bibi’s grandchildren that we had just been given a duck as a gift. One of her grandchildren ran out towards us to tell her Grandmother what Micah had just said. The Bibi or the Grandma got up and went in the back, soon we heard squawking and she came out with one of her chickens. I felt terrible because Micah, without knowing it had forced her into giving us a chicken. At that moment I was not so happy that Micah had learned Swahili. I mentally vowed that we would be having a long talk with him once we got back to the guest house. We turned down her gift, telling her that we had lots of bags to bring on the bus and she seemed hurt by our refusal. She tried again and asked if we would take some corn flour used to make ugali, and this time, realizing our cultural mistake of refusing someone’s generosity, we hastily agreed, hoping that this would make her feel better again. Looking back, we should have received her chicken, even if it was just because of what Micah had said. Even after living in Africa for three years it’s still hard to get out of our Western mindset. After this we went to Mwenyeji’s house for another meal of korokoro and ugali in the dark and then headed back to pack our bags for the journey the next morning. As we walked back in the silent night, I once again looked up at the night sky in awe of the beautiful stars and I remembered the One who had created them, that same God who set each brilliant star in its place was walking with us hand in hand in this foreign place, and that was a huge comfort to me. That night the guest house was blessedly quiet, which I found ironic since it was Friday night. There was no sight the girl who had been so drunk earlier that morning. We crammed onto the bed knowing that it would be just a short rest till we woke up again at 4 am to get on the bus. We fell asleep to the sound of silence and the smell of duck.

At 4 am our whole family was up, dressed and walking down the path towards the main road. We heard the engine of the Safina bus idling heavily. Neil bought our tickets and we boarded, this time both getting seats near the front. The duck was laying in the rucksack under Neil’s seat and let us know of his disapproval by occasionally squawking unhappily. People began to fill the bus again as usual. At one stop a beautiful young woman climbed on the bus with her baby tied to her back. She was carrying a large tote, and after discovering there were no seats left on the bus she put her tote on the ground next to my seat and sat down happily on it. We greeted each other. I noticed she was very friendly. At the next stop it seemed like 20 people crowded onto a bus, many of them older women who were headed to a funeral. The young mother had no chance but to stand with her baby crowded in so that it was even hard to breathe. She complained to the man collecting bus tickets, “we are going to die, stop filling up the bus!” I offered to take her baby and she happy complied, taking her out of the sling and setting her down on my lap. The little girl was beautiful like her mommy and very healthy. She wore a pretty white dress. After the crowd had reached their stop and had gotten off I was able to visit more with this new mama. She showed me a picture album that she carried with her. She showed me a picture of her in a wedding dress, holding her new husband’s hand. They looked very happy. I learned they had just gotten married this year. She showed me another picture of her standing sideways, proudly showing off her baby bump, like so many women like to do in my own culture. I looked at her then and realized perhaps we weren’t so different after all. The trip continued uneventfully except for a one instance where we stopped to fix a punctured tire. We were grateful for a chance to stretch our legs and dig medicine, which is the polite Tanzanian way of saying “use the bathroom on the side of the road.” While we were waiting for them to change the tire, Neil called Mwenyekiti, and as he wasn’t far he came to greet us. He gave me a bag full of fresh pumpkin leaves and peanuts from their garden. In exchange I gave him the duck, certain that it would be happier at their house then at ours. The tire fixed, we continued on our safari. As we neared Mbeya the police stopped the bus and told us there was a person of interest on the bus and they needed to see him. They called out his name and a man with rings around his wrists and ankles and holes bore into the lobes of his ears walked down the aisle. A young girl with a small baby tied to her back followed him. Once they were off and the bus was going again everyone in the bus became animatedly discussing what had just taken place. Some thought he had stolen someone’s wife and whoever had been stolen from had called the police to pull over this bus. Since there were so few buses that passed that way it hadn’t been hard for the police to know which bus to stop. Neil and I looked at each other with eye brows raised and shook our heads. Wife stealing, who had ever heard of such a thing.
 
After we finally got back to Mbeya and walked through the door of our house I looked around me, never having been so thankful to be home. The light filtered in through our lace curtains, reflecting off the yellow walls. I put down my bags and flopped onto the couch and emmediatly fell asleep. That night we had pumpkin leaves cooked with ground peanuts. The aroma and taste were wonderful, and it brought me back emotionally to the world in the village we had just left behind. I thought back to all the ways God had blessed us on this trip and all the answered prayers. I thought about the events that had taken place during our short trip and realized that God knew our time was going to be short, so he allowed us to catch a small picture into what being in a village is like and what reality is like for the people living there. For me, personally I was amazed that even though I had gotten so few hours of sleep, I had had so much physical and mental energy as I interacted in Swahili and in such a different culture all the while walking around in the hot sun. Our friends in the village had made us feel very welcome, blessing us with gifts of duck, corn flour, pumpkin leaves and peanuts. I thought on a passage I had recently read In Isaiah which seemed to confirm that we had not been walking alone,
 
“Then your salvation will come like dawn, and your wounds will quickly heal. Your godliness will lead you forward, and the glory of the LORD will protect you from behind. Then when you call, the LORD will answer. ‘Yes, I am here,’ he will quickly reply. ‘Remove the heavy yoke of oppression. Stop pointing your fingers and spreading vicious rumors! Feed the hungry and help those in trouble. Then your light will shine out of the darkness, and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon. The LORD will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring”  (Isaiah 58:8-11). ​
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I might not know but I'm okay

1/4/2018

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The sun was just peeking out over the African horizon. A large black mountain, shaped like the letter m, sat to the right in stark contrast to the now blazing orange sky. The distinct shapes of African umbrella trees along with palm trees stretched out over the landscape, creating more black outlines against the early morning sky. A pair of cows moved slowly across the orange backdrop, methodically pulling a plow, with a farmer plodding them along from behind. The air was fresh and clean and carried the smell of growing plants, the ground still moist from the rain the previous night. The morning sounds were drowned out by the sound of the motorcycle as we cruised along over the rough dirt road. We bounced along, me holding my backpack in one hand and a chicken in the other, the driver telling me to balance my weight so we could go faster, and the big lady on the back holding a bag full of chickens. I started wondering how I got to be here, crammed on the back of this motorcycle watching such a beautiful sunrise, and decided it was better than waiting back at the bus stop for the chance to hitch a ride with a semi-truck that might pass by, being that I’d already missed the only bus for the day.
 
Just the day before, I’d been wondering how I got to another place, that being sitting up in front of a small village church. I had sat there alternatively looking out through the windows at the freshly planted corn fields and then looking back at the congregation, who I sat facing. I’d come to this village to visit a friend I’d met at a literacy workshop while hoping to learn more about the languages spoken in the area, but not really knowing what to expect. Sure enough, I hadn’t expected to be seated up on the stage in that small brick church building, and as I sat there I had another surprise when I heard him telling the congregation that I was going to teach.
 
These are just two of many experiences where God’s taken me places where I never thought I’d be. No matter how many times I've felt like I'm in over my head, not knowing what to expect doesn't seem to get any easier. Even so, God is using these places to teach me to rely on the people around me as I rely on Him. Over and over I’ve found him to be trustworthy, and when it's all said and done I wouldn’t trade away any of these experiences.
 
Not long ago, I heard someone say that the offspring of a lion aren’t too concerned about possible predators. They roll around, run and play knowing that if any predator is going to get to them, they’d have to go through their parents first. These little lion cubs might not know a whole lot about the world around them, but they know who their parents are. It’s kind of nice going through life knowing you’re the child of a Lion. 
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The Captain

11/1/2017

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The grey skies blend with the horizon, illuminated by the spray coming up off the waves. Up and down, up and down, the boat pitches back and forth over the sea. Minutes roll into hours, hours into days, and days into weeks, and time, unstopping, unreturnable, rolls on in its deceptive sameness. Each day carries me forward, closer to something unseen yet not unknown. Though at times my confidence wavers, it is set, I know where I'm going, and I know who is taking me. Yet the two of us are not alone, there are other voices in the boat. In fact, it is quite loud.

We are all talking together with the captain, and it's a pleasant conversation. The minutes ticking by, and the waves rocking the boat. Suddenly, I'm aware I don't hear the captain's voice anymore. I guess I must have fallen asleep again, lulled by the voices of the waves into a comforting dream. Now I'm wide awake, someone is yelling at me, screaming for my attention. I look toward this little voice, and he's soaked and clinging to the edge of the boat. "How long was I out?" I ask the captain. "Nevermind that, just help the little voice," replies the captain. I move over and find another voice already drying him off with her towel. "Thanks," I say, "I'll try not to sleep like that." "The captain keeps waking me up too," she says, "I dreamt we forgot where we were going." "Thanks," the little voice says, "I was getting kind of cold, but I feel warm now." "I'm just glad we're all in this boat together," I say. Deep down I know that if we weren't all together with the captain we'd each be underwater. 

The captain; I feel reassured ever time I talk with him. Long ago, I decided to get in his boat. It took a while for me to trust him with his own boat, and looking back I feel a little foolish about that now, but not in an ashamed or guilty kind of way, the captain has a way of taking those thoughts away. What sold me on the boat in the first place was the destination; I wanted to get someplace, and the captain said he was the way to get there. Since I've been in the boat, I've learned a lot about myself and about how to navigate, mostly from watching the captain. I've often been surprised by the route he's taken, it's definitely not the way I would have chosen, but that's because when you go against the current the progress is often slow. The captain is always guiding the boat against the current, and he doesn't seem to be afraid of a little wind, some waves, and a good storm either. The progress is slow and steady, and despite my daydreaming from time to time I'm carried along.

I've actually never been to where we're going. In fact, no one has, except the captain. I've heard a lot of voices say they want to go to this place, but for some reason most of them never get in the boat. I know a little bit about where we're going along the way, but I have to admit I'd be pretty lost without the captain. He keeps welcoming in new voices into the boat too, some of them I don't understand too well yet, but they all seem to love him. I think this might be why it's taking a while to get to our destination, the boat keeps going into these crazy places searching out these other voices, but I don't really mind, as long as I'm with the captain. Come to think of it, it's actually pretty exciting when new voices come into the boat, and I think I'd like for the captain to teach me how to search for them better. So I guess it doesn't really matter how long it takes to get to the destination, sometimes I feel like I've already reached it anyway, like the captain is the destination. Still, I'm excited about what the captain has told me about it, he said his Dad lives there, and that once I get there I'll never daydream again. There's a whole bunch more he told me about it but a lot of it borders on to awesome for me to imagine, more beautiful than a sunset over some majestic snow covered mountain, anyway I'm just looking forward to not daydreaming again and meeting the captains's Dad. 

We start visiting with the captain again, asking all sorts of questions about the days ahead. He answers with just what we need to know, nothing more, nothing less, explains what he wants from us, and then reassures us that he'll be with us. I have to be honest, sometimes this annoys me. I wish he would just tell me everything, but then I remember that I probably wouldn't understand anymore anyway, the way he guides the boat. I decide I'm along for the ride, and I go about doing what he told me to do the best I can. As I'm doing this, the continuous ups and downs of the sea impose themselves upon me, alternatively soothing me to sleep and accusing me of sleeping. For what seems the millionth time, I snap out of it, and feeling the breeze on my face, I ask the captain to remind me what he had me doing. 

The sea is tricky in that it appears to go on forever, making it easy to forget where one is, yet someone with experience knows just what to look for. It takes focus and concentration, a constant awareness of one's surroundings. The waves can be disorienting, especially when one starts listening to them. The sea is full of voices, and they all seem to be talking at the same time. Which ever one you listen to starts to get stronger, and it's almost like they're all competing with each other for followers. The best way to not get pulled in is to learn the voice of the captain real well. Thankfully, I got in his boat, so he's never very far away from me. It's also nice having the other voices in the boat with me, we might have our disagreements sometimes, but they're usually pretty good at waking me up and getting me to refocus on what's going on around me. Someday, when we've crossed this sea together and reached our destination, I'm sure we'll all have plenty of stories to tell, and I bet they'll all be about the captain!
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Don't stop now

11/1/2017

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A few more days God,
Don't stop now. 
You've been with me this far,
Now don't let me fall.
I don't want it easy,
I want to grow.
​I give you my life,
It's you I want to know.
Show me what that means today,
and bring me back to you
whenever I go astray.
God I know what I'm not,
and it seems like a lot.
Teach me what I am,
and on that I choose to stand.
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Ships passing in the Night

8/31/2017

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​While visiting the fair looking for chickens to buy, I struck up a conversation with a guy doing business there. He was standing next to his mother at a small table, and they were both excited to visit with me. We greeted each other and talked a little bit about where we each were from, than he told me, "you know what, you and I share the same Baba, both of our peoples where created by God.” "That’s right," I agreed, "God is the creator of all of us." He agreed, and said, “that’s the reason why our people get along so well with yours.” That comment caught my attention a little more, so I prodded a little deeper, “what about all the other peoples?" I asked. “Oh, I don’t know about them, they certainly weren’t created by God like we were." He said. This short exchange reminded me how easy it is to assume that everyone sees the world the same way I do, while in actuality without questioning further, we’re likely to leave the conversation each thinking something completely different from what the other was thinking, like ships passing in the night.  

Bubbles

​Like bubbles bouncing back and forth on a screensaver, we are constantly coming in contact with other people, other ideas, and new information. What we do with these encounters, how we interpret them and how we process them, is directly dependent on the encounters we’ve already had, the things we already “know” starting from way back when we were infants.
 
These things we already know comprise a fluid structure inside of our brains, and we miraculously access this information when we need it. We are continually adding to this structure, tacking on new meanings, ideas, and concepts to the words we already know. An example of how this works is the word rainbow. In our culture, this word can bring up many different things in our minds. On a basic level, a rainbow is a group of colors appearing in the sky, often after a rain. But the word rainbow can convey a whole lot more meaning than just some colors in the sky. Depending on the context, it can remind us of the story of Noah and the promise of God to never again judge the earth with water, or it can remind us of parades and a huge movement going on in many western countries. Our encounters with this word shape the images which come into our minds when we hear it. For someone new to western culture, they might think they understand when they hear the word, but chances are there is a whole lot of information that they’re still missing, or that they’re filling in from their own culture. The same thing happens to us when we try to learn another culture. Our past experiences shape how we understand words and how we view the world in the future.
 
Due to the sheer amount of information we come in contact with every day, there is no way we can hold on to all of it, so our brains sort it out for us by connecting what we can understand to what we already know, and what we don’t understand either gets set aside and discarded, gets loosely placed in a sort of “holding area”, or gets improperly connected to something we already know. The latter of these is what often leads to misunderstanding and frustration, especially in a cross-cultural setting.
 
For many of us who come from the West, we have access to an unlimited number of books in our language, and we have a vast knowledge of the world around us. We’ve been educated, we see possibility, and we want to make the world a better place for everyone. However, there is a danger that all of this knowledge will make us arrogant, that at the best we’ll be well intentioned but at the least we’ll be lazy, and we’ll unknowingly fall into the trap of making assumptions about others who are different than us. Two assumptions we can make are assuming that the same ideas come into a person’s mind for a word we use, and assuming that the same ideas come into our mind for a word that others use. In reality however, while there will be commonalities, the structures we’ve built in our minds will also have significant differences, due to different experiences, especially when speaking to those raised in a different culture than our own. If we want to really get to know those who are different than us, we have to work at it, learn how to ask good questions, and not rely on assumptions. This is especially true when discussing more abstract ideas, such as God, sin, and salvation. 

Mortal

​Finite, limited, Pour on the humility.
Life is complex, much too big for me.
Add another culture, when I don’t understand my own,
I used to think I could, till I was all grown.
I’m seeing a correlation,
Between knowledge and the unknown,
It’s an interesting relation,
And no, it’s not my own.
 
Think of your understanding like a bubble,
And as it starts to grow,
It will meet a larger area of things it doesn’t know.
Based on this projection,
The ones who truly know the most,
Should be among the humblest and most gracious of all folks.

Immortal

​Infinite, Unlimited, awesome Sovereignty,
Life is complex, but it’s all designed by you.
You created all the cultures, you know everything about me,
There never was a time, when you didn’t have a clue.
For you there’s no equation
You’ve nothing left to know
God in your position,
High upon your throne.
 
If you’re understanding were a bubble,
It wouldn’t have any edges,
And nothing could exist,
Where your bubble didn’t persist.
Yet despite your high exalted place,
You came into our human race,
You showed us humility
and brought us truth and grace.
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From Beaten Paths to New Ones

6/15/2017

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Picture
​ We walked through the tiny airport and out the doors, pushing past men in suits holding pieces of paper with names scrawled across them. We were greeted by a vast open grassland made up of rough tufts of dead brown grass and dotted here and there with acacia trees. This was Songwe, just outside of Mbeya. Suddenly, the prairie rose up and turned into dark green hills, rising up above the plains. It was a far cry from the hot, steamy, muddy city we had just been in an hour and a half before, which was in the middle of its heavy rains. We paused to take in the scene, and then hurried across the small parking lot to climb into the waiting bus that would take us into town.
 
Before we had climbed aboard the plane in Dar es Salaam I was filled with excitement over this new adventure that lay ahead of us, although now as I sat looking out at the passing landscape, I began to feel lonesome for all the things familiar we had left back in the city. Field after field of brown, dried, bent over corn stalks followed my gaze and was only occasionally broken up by strings of small houses built with red clay bricks and covered with corrugated tin. Once in awhile we passed by workers piling light yellow freshly husked corn into large piles, ready for the trucks to haul them away. The vehicles in front of us kicked up huge dust clouds that settled over the already rain parched ground. I began to miss the greenery of the Coast and started feeling a bit uncertain. Life in Dar had been coming at me so fast I hadn’t had time to process all the changes hovering over the horizon for our family. Now instead of sky scrapers and palm trees jutting up against the backdrop of the Indian Ocean there were large brown hills dotted here and there with a smudge of green forest. It stood out in contrast to the beautiful blue sky. The bus ascended and descended as it climbed hills and followed them down. I began to feel the sun cast its hot glow over our seats in the bus, and I became acutely aware that I was wearing a sweater, and peeled it off. I thought about Micah’s winter hat that lay in his bag and all of our friends that had told us it would be cold here, and now I couldn’t help but feel as if the hat in Micah’s bag, and my sweater, were mocking my ignorance.
 
After our driver pulled the bus to a stop, we got out, paid him, and walked to our room. Once the sun had passed below the horizon we began to feel the air change and we felt a strange sensation which we hadn’t felt in a very long time. My toes became cold and I wished for shoes, which I had none. Out came the sweaters, hats and stockings. For dinner, we asked the night guard, and he directed us to a small tucked away restaurant. Once we were seated we were served plates heaped with steaming hot rice, beans and meat cooked in mchuzi sauce. We drank hot chai in plastic red mugs which brought warmth to our shivering limbs. I decided that perhaps Mbeya wouldn’t be so bad after all, if all the food was as good as this. That night as I crawled under the thick blanket and settled into sleep my last thought was how strange it was that I couldn’t hear the distant call to prayer from the mosque that I had become so accustomed to hearing as it danced upon the night air and in through our windows. Now only a thick blanket of silence surrounded me and I fell asleep.
 
In the Morning we woke up and were surprised by how cold it was, probably made worse by the fact that the rising sun couldn’t reach into our little room. We dressed hurriedly under the blankets and once we were all ready, Neil in his coat, Rachelle in her wrap, and Micah in his hoodie and stocking cap, we all walked to breakfast. After some hot milk and coffee, eggs and toast, we headed out for church.
 
The service was held in a simple small rectangular structure that was covered with wooden boards, painted white but weathered with age. Once we entered and sat down I could see the bright morning sun casting its rays through the spaces between each worn board, its effect quite pleasant as it cast shafts of light across the front of the church where the leader was standing. The service encouraged me greatly. The speaker spoke carefully and with great conviction so that not only could I understand everything he was saying, I could also see his heart for his congregation and how he valued the truth being taught from the Word of God. He was teaching from Jeremiah about false prophets and how their words were nothing more than foolish lies, or stubble that would be blown away by the wind. But the words of the Lord are strong and true, unable to be broken or removed. In Jeremiah 23:29 God asks the question, “’Does not my word burn like fire?’ ‘is it not like a mighty hammer that smashes a rock to pieces?’” As my eyes read and re-read the verse my thoughts strayed to a rock wall so tall and unmoving it didn’t seem that anything could break it down. It was the wall so many people, dear to my heart both here and back home, had unconsciously built inside their hearts against the truth of the gospel. So many times I had felt so inadequate to break down the wall. Even taking a chip out of it has seemed impossible. The pastor admonished his congregation to stand firm during these end times full or false prophets and their prophecies. He gave another example of David when as a young shepherd boy, he went to Saul to tell him that he would slay the giant Goliath. Saul wanted David to wear his heavy amour, the helmet, breast plate, shield and sword. But David refused. Instead he went out armed with his faith in God. Before he slew the giant I imagine the watching army thought he was crazy to go against a foe as fearsome as Goliath so poorly equipped. Yet if they had known David’s leader, the one whose honor David went out to preserve, they would have understood. He was the God who had delivered David from the paw of the bear and from the teeth of the lion. Now, he would also deliver David from the giant Goliath. And so David went out against incredible odds, believing that his God would be enough, and he was. The pastor ended his sermon, urging us all to Simama imara katika imani, to stand firm in your faith!
 
As the pastor sat down and an elder stood up to give the morning announcements my thoughts strayed to the Sunday before and the events that had happened on that day. Our church and our organization here had partnered together to put on an early going away service for us. Although we knew the event was being planned they had kept many details a secret from us. On the day of the event we went to church as usual and found many of the mamas had come together to help prepare a meal after the service for everyone. After the morning class was over more and more people began showing up for the service to say goodbye to us as our time in Dar was winding down. After a short time, our family was asked to stand up and go outside of the church while everyone inside stayed seated and continued on with the service. We walked outside and were ushered into the church office, where these African clothes were lying on a desk. We put them on, and then walked back outside and around the front of the church. We walked down the middle of the aisle, awkwardly dancing to the beat of the music as we moved to the front of the church. Once we walked up to the front we were told to turn around, face the congregation and sit in three chairs which were there waiting there for us. We sat down and the service continued. From where I was sitting I could easily see all those who had come. The church was packed full of people. I began to pick out the faces of our neighbors. I was expecting some of our co-workers to be there along with the folks from our church, but I wasn’t expecting to see so many of our neighbors there. As I looked outside I saw others making there way in. Later, I learned that they had all been invited them to the service. I saw the beautiful face of Mama Elena. The woman I had spent many a lazy afternoon with, sitting on her colorfully woven mkeka talking about life here and enjoying how honest and frank she always was with me. I saw another face, a teenage girl who was always smiling. One day she was sitting at a shop by our house and she had a jump rope. I joined her and we laughed and laughed as we tried to jump rope in skirts. And another, Bibi, who had tried her best to explain the meaning of Swahili proverbs to me and share her natural plant cures. So many others were there. I knew that even though they had been invited, they by no means had felt obligated. I knew they were there because they were my friends. During the service the leadership from our organization came up and thanked the church for helping our family through the crazy transitions of getting accustomed to a new language and culture. Our co-workers gave us gifts and later we were surrounded as our brothers and sisters in Christ laid their hands on us and prayed for us, entrusting us into the hands of God. Later, a few of the church leaders stood up and gave us advice for moving forward. After, we were given a chance to stand and give words of appreciation to everyone present. Then, the service was over and everyone got up and began to mingle together in morning greetings and conversation. I walked over and began greeting my neighbors, still amazed they had come. They wore their rosaries plainly visible; others wore their head coverings and brightly colored gowns. They were all full of smiles, hugs, hand shakes and greetings. They gave us gifts, and we took a lot of pictures. My heart was bursting because I felt God had shown me a miracle of his faithfulness.
 
When we made the move to that community it had been a hard decision. The house wasn’t anything like what we had envisioned, tucked away in between several other houses, with no grass or trees or open space. I made the decision to move there based on some verses from 2 Chronicles. I saw the community that we were preparing to move into as an impenetrable wall, as a dark valley full of challenges. But a few days before we were to give the landlord our answer as to whether or not we would take the house God gave me 2 Chronicles 20. Through that passage he told me a few things. First that he would fight for us. Second he acknowledged that there would be a valley, but in the end the valley would end up to be a valley of blessing. Third he promised that he rewards faith. And so we went and we jumped in. On the really hot miserable days when our Swahili was terrible and our energy at its lowest God pulled us up off the tile floor and pushed us out the door to sit with whoever was nice enough to listen to our broken speech. But they listened, or at least pretended too, and they accepted us in to their community.
 
​After church, as I got into the car and waved goodbye to our neighbors, co-workers, and friends a flood of emotion washed over me and I wondered, had our church family and community seen how much we loved them? Had they seen the love of Christ? As we passed through the church gates and headed out onto the narrow street the rain began to fall. At the same time the road became flooded with people coming from a different kind of celebration, a wedding. The bride and groom were coming our way and everyone was fighting for a chance to catch a glimpse of them. We sat comfortably in the car with the rain drops accumulating on the windshield, waiting for a way to clear through the heavy crowd. The brightly colored madiras, or gowns, which the women wore, the walls of the houses worn dark with age and the tall silhouettes of palm trees against the steel grey sky made for a vivid memory I won’t soon forget. As I sat and watched the excitement of the crowd I realized I had been in a crowd just like this one, at this exact location only two months before. I had been there peeling onions, pounding garlic, and slicing tomatoes. Later, after the bride had arrived I had swayed to the music of the drums as the bride and groom were given gifts. I watched my son, Micah sit on the mat with the rest of the little boys eating rice pilau with his hand. I spotted my husband, Neil, across the yard talking to some of the men. In that moment I caught a glimpse of the valley of blessing God had brought us through. We came to Tanzania 2 ½ years ago with no Swahili or understanding of life in this context. He put us in a location where I would have never dreamt of living. But God, in all his inconceivably infinite knowledge must have known it was what we needed. We mourned with our neighbors and friends as we experienced grief over lives taken too early. During many funerals I saw a quiet strength in the women who surrounded me, something within their beautiful dark eyes that seemed all too familiar with the pain of loss, yet still so resilient, unwilling to be taken down by pain of loss. Many times we rejoiced too with them during wedding celebrations and when babies were born. I loved watching the women dance at weddings. Their hair either braided in intricate fashion, or covered, wrapped beautifully with a scarf which matched their gowns exactly, their faces alight with joy and their skin glowing with the fragrant oil. Our brightly colored gowns swayed back and forth, back and forth as we danced to the rhythm of the music. Although I was always watching them, trying to figure out just how to dance.  Now I know what it is like to have my heart be two places at once. My heart will always be with my family and friends on American soil where I was raised and became the person I am today. But now, my heart is also there in that little community tucked in behind the Azania bus stop. That tiny little dirt trek in a vast maze of twisted alleyways that make up Dar-es-Salaam. It is my valley of blessing.
 
Now as I found myself sitting in the simple little church building on the other side of Tanzania, hours away from that little community in Dar-es-Salaam, I thought about the challenges ahead. We are beginning to gain a better knowledge of the people group we might end up working with and the second language we possibly could end up learning. The challenges that loomed as dark silhouettes hovering in the distance are now beginning to take on form as we move closer to reality; challenges such as isolation, loneliness, and frustrations over our own inadequacy.  Are we ready for the huge job ahead of us?
Will the things we have learned be enough to bring us through the fire when we use up all of our physical and mental resources? Or will they be blown away like chaff in the wind leaving us with nothing but exhaustion and frustration?
 
Once the service was over we greeted the pastor and made some new acquaintances. Our time in Mbeya stretched into days. We spent hours walking around the city, exploring different neighborhoods and learning the layout of the streets. We met with some dalalis (in English the closest thing might be a realtor) and were shown many houses ranging from huge sprawling structures to three simple rooms with the toilet and kitchen outside. I began to wonder if what we wanted actually existed, and if it did, how in the world would we find it being new to the area. Micah began to miss all things familiar and the cold weather was causing sore throats and sniffles. We actually started to miss the warm, humid air of Dar es Salaam. One night, while Micah was feeling homesick and Neil and I were both very tired, I closed my eyes trying to find refuge from my doubts but I found no reprieve when my thoughts sent darts of fear into my heart. Then, with strength not my own I reached out and took my Bible and it fell open to Isaiah 49:4 where Isaiah wrote, “but my work seems so useless! I have spent my strength for nothing and to no purpose, yet I leave it all in the Lord’s hand; I will trust God for my reward.” Then I continued reading and came across Isaiah 50: 10 where God says, “If you are walking in darkness without a ray of light, trust in the Lord and rely on your God.” When my eyes fell upon that verse my heart skipped a beat. That verse encapsulated the very feeling within me. It was as if God was shaking me by my shoulders shouting, “Don’t forget all that I have accomplished for your family! How easily you forget everything I have done for you over the last couple years. How I love it when my children rely upon me.” In that moment I experienced how the word of God is truly like a strong hammer that breaks down fear, guilt, and shame. Everything the enemy wants us to build up against God. That night the question I asked myself at church earlier that week was answered. Only time will tell if we’re ready for the task ahead, but one thing I know. It is the same thing David knew as he entered into King Saul’s royal tent to announce he was willing to fight the giant Goliath. Our enabler is God. We are the vessels through which he chooses to show His glory and strength and when we feel weak, he remains strong. His Word is like an all consuming fire, like a strong hammer that brings to nothing that which it hits. He will be glorified. So even when nothing makes sense and the future is so unknown we walk step by step, hand in hand with our Leader as he guides us along the path he has stretched out for us.

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Normal

6/9/2017

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We have been blessed. We have many people praying for us and encouraging us. Sometimes we wonder why us? We are just trying to live like anyone else should live, looking around to learn appropriate ways to act in society, trying to serve the local body of believers, trying to live honorably with our neighbors, trying to respect those around us as people created and loved by God as they are. We're not great evangelists, we still stumble over our words a lot and at times fail to express ourselves, sometimes we feel brave, sometimes we feel like fools, and most times we just feel normal. 

Even though we feel normal, we do need people praying for us, and we do need encouragement to keep going, yet I can't help but admire those who are running this same race without any recognition, those who are faithful to their Leader day in and day out, those who invest in the lives of others, not living for themselves, without anyone ever noticing. 

The good works of some are clearly evident, preceding them to judgment, but those that are otherwise cannot be hidden. -1 Timothy 5.25

And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. -Galatians 6.9
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Life Sharing

4/8/2017

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​Thoughts, so many thoughts, where do I start? Where do I go to clear my head? Habits are hard to start and hard to break, at least the good ones. The bad ones start easily enough but if the good ones gain momentum, they’ll soon come to crowd out the bad ones. So I try to clear my head with truth, yes, that is a good habit. Sometimes, the truth is hard to find, but I’ve found that that’s usually because I’m asking the wrong question. It’s similar to building a house. If I make a mistake following the blueprints, I might not catch it right away, but sooner or later, I’ll start to notice that things aren’t lining up in other areas of the project. Then I have to trace the error back to its source.
 
I have to get back to the source of things. There are some basic things in life that I have counted as true, and I am trying to grab onto those things like a drowning man tries to grab onto a life preserver. That I’m selfish and consistently judging myself against others, this I’m aware of. That God knows my every thought, yet poured out his grace on me, its as if I were standing beneath a bursting dam, the power of miles of pent up water unleashed over my selfishness, bringing my every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, this I’m also aware of. Yes, these are the basic things in life I’ve latched onto, my weakness and his grace. And this directly affects how I see now and eternity, an earthly country and a heavenly one, along with the love of a beautiful Savior and people and things and holding on and letting go, these are the things I have to have an idea about if I want to have a clear mind.
 
I’m sitting on the cold tiles on the porch in front of our house. I see six pairs of muddy little feet stomping in the water flowing down the dirt path weaving its way between the houses, so many houses. I hear the kids playing and I know that some of them come from good families who love them and teach them about life and how it should be lived in this place, and I know that some of them don’t, and I know that one of them is mine. Their feet are all muddy and I can’t see the rest of them because the gate is in the way but I see their feet through the criss-crossed welds underneath the large rust colored piece of iron attached to the gate. I think of how precious these kids are to God and how tough they are and how some of them don’t like getting cold baths at night to get all the dirt off and of how all of them love to be listened to and talked to and told stories to and watched while they do headstands and kungfu. I know that these kids are much more precious to God than a new car or a new boat and that what these kids need most isn’t new toys but someone to listen to them and to pay attention to them and to be there for them and for them to know it. I know that God is this way and as I sit here on the cold tiles I think I am very blessed to be sitting here and that at this moment I would rather be solving their disputes and comforting someone hit by a rock than be just about anywhere else in the world. The thinking of this thought comes from one of those basic things that says people are more important than things, and the thought is clear now but not always.
 
I get up from sitting there on the porch and walk to my neighbor’s house. I hear the wedding music but I know that the bride and the groom haven’t arrived yet. I know that  but I hadn’t always known that and just that morning as I was sitting next to a wooden desk in the office visiting with a co-worker about some of the things God is teaching us my phone rang and it was Rachelle and she told me that the wedding was starting. I walked to the bus stop and got on the bus and as I was standing in the bus my phone rang again. Again it was Rachelle and she said she was at the wedding peeling onions but the bride and the groom were at the mosque or someplace and they wouldn’t be back until after 2. It is almost 2 now as I’m walking to my neighbors house and I walk past the house where the wedding is. I see some people sitting on a mat near the road and they greet me and I greet them and they ask if I’m coming to the wedding and I say I’m coming. Then I get to my neighbor’s house and I walk down inside and sit on their couch. I greet him and his wife and ask how their family is doing and they greet me and ask how my family is doing and then we talk some more. Then I ask him if he’ll help me fix the water line and he says okay. He gets up and goes and rummages around behind his couch and finds some straps of rubber cut from an inner tube. After he finds the rubber he grabs his machete and we go outside the house and he climbs a tree and his two little kids are really excited to see how he climbs the tree. Then he chops off a branch near the top and throws it down and hands me the machete and I trim the branch and his daughter brings the steel from a well worn shovel. We shove the branch into the steel of the shovel to use as a handle and we take it along with the strips of rubber to the place in front of our house where the water line leaks. We know the water line goes to our house because the Grandma next door says it does and she has lived here for a long time. We start to dig and then we find the leak and then we wrap it with the rubber but the pressure is very high and it springs another leak. We decide to try something else and he goes back to his house to search for a one inch diameter plastic pipe and I go to my house for some cardboard and matches. Soon we’re heating up the plastic pipe over a cardboard fire and we try to enlarge the ends but the plastic is too hard. Then I remember where some pipe is buried behind the house and we get the shovel and dig it out and then we heat it up and enlarge the ends and it works. Then we go back to the place of the leak and we cut the water line and water sprays everywhere before we kink the pipe to stop the flow. Now there is no water in our house and I know that the Grandma was right and that this water line does go to our house. Then we patch the water line with the pipe we expanded and the time is close to 4 and the kids are still muddy and they say that the bride and the groom haven’t come yet.
 
My neighbor and I walk back to our porch and sit down and wait for Rachelle to come and bring us a soda. She comes and we drink our sodas and talk about hunting. Then I get the guitar and he jams and the kids come and bang on buckets and I’d show you how good it sounds but the charge in my phone dies and the video disappears. Then we hear the drums and we know the bride and the groom are coming and we quickly get a basin of water and wash our feet. We send one of the kids behind the house to the place where we dug up the old pipe and she gets two broken plastic chairs to bring to my neighbor. He saw the chairs when we were digging up the pipe and I gave them to him and the two chairs together make one good chair. He takes the chair with him and I lock up the house.
 
I start heading towards the wedding wearing nice jeans and a colored shirt. I know it’s okay to wear to the wedding because when I was on the bus and Rachelle called to tell me the wedding would start after 2 it was 11 and I decided to go to greet some old neighbors. After we greeted each other and talked about the economy I walked back toward home and met some more friends on the way. We greeted each other they asked where I was going and I said to a wedding and they said okay. I then asked them what I should wear and they said its fine to wear jeans and a colored shirt.
 
Now I’m at the house where the wedding is and I’m standing with some of the guys that I know from the times we’ve sat telling stories under the tree. We’re standing there watching the bus which brought the wedding party trying to turn around on a narrow dirt street in between the cement houses. After what must have been a 15 point turn the bus is turned around and the car carrying the bride and the groom arrives. The wedding party is now singing and dancing and escorting the car as it pulls up to the house. The groom gets out of the car wearing a tan colored kanzu and brown barkeshare. The bride follows him wearing a blue lace dress with her hair all done up, and the wedding party escorts them into the house. I follow them towards the house, passing by an unfinished block building. Leaning up against the building is a wooden ladder supporting a wire running above our heads to a loud speaker attached to the trunk of a palm tree with strips of rubber inner tube. The speaker blares music, prayers, and announcements as the festivities go in, mixing in Swahili and Arabic. Just past the unfinished building lies a courtyard, and across from it sits the house. The ground in the courtyard is covered with worn blue tarps, and a newer tarp is stretched out overhead, fastened at the corners with rope and supported in the center by a tall wooden pole. I walk up to the corner of the house and lean against the wall encircling this side of the courtyard.
 
I’m standing there with a group of young guys and I look over and see Rachelle sitting with the ladies on the other side of the courtyard. In between us the children are gathering under the tarp, and everyone knows the food is coming. I’m happy that the food is coming because I haven’t eaten anything since I ate a bowl of beans along with a chapati at a small tin roofed café in the early morning. Someone comes out of the house with a pitcher of water and a 5 gallon bucket and people start to gather to wash their hands. I wash my hands and lean back up against the wall. Next someone else comes out with a tray full of plates of pilau. The guys gather around and everyone takes a plate. I watch as the others begin eating and I’m soon rolling the rice with my right hand and squeezing it into a ball in my fist. I eat the meat along with the rice and I see Micah sitting under the tarp with his friends, sharing a plate and hungrily shoveling his food down. I finish off my plate and look for the bucket of water to wash my hands in. Now that the food is eaten, most of the guys leave, and I’m still standing there.
 
Now my host for the day arrives. I know he’s my host because Rachelle told me he would be there and that he could help explain to me the proceedings. I’ve often sat with him next to the vegetable stand close to our house and he is a respected man on our street. Now I’m standing next to him along the wall and we’re waiting for the bride and the groom to come out of the house. I’m surprised I’m not tired because I sweated a lot when I dug up the water line in the African sun and I’ve been awake now since 5 when I went to the office to pray and drink coffee with my co-workers. The bride and the groom finally come out of the house and sit on the couch on the porch and the music resumes. The youth beat the drums again and the sound reverberates under the tarp and mixes with the voices of the singers. The music loosens and people sway, madiras and kanzus swooshing back and forth, hands clapping then arms waving in the air, a splash of colors as the brightly colored madiras stand out against the blue backdrop of the tarp in contrast to the cement walls and the sand in the courtyard. Everyone is having a good time and I see Rachelle and she sees me and I remember last week when the little old guy who is the father of the groom came to our house and invited us to the wedding. I wasn’t home that day but Rachelle was and she told me about it and the next day I remember sitting in an opening of the unfinished building visiting with the groom to be about different odd jobs he or I had done. I also remember the first time I had visited with him, we were sitting next to each other at a funeral at the house of the man I’m now standing next to against the wall at the wedding. Everyone continues to sing and to dance and to have a nice time and people come and wave their gifts around in front of the bride and the groom. The man I’m standing next to who is my host goes up and gives his gift, then comes back and I ask him how to give something and he explains how its done and I go and stick something in the groom’s hand. Now my host is free to go and he says goodbye and I’m left standing there as the sun fades and I’m thinking of back home and of different cultures and beautiful they are. I think of everything I’ve given up and everything I’ve gained and how everything I want to do is holding fast to Truth because he’s worth it all.
 
The bride and the groom get in the car, the music stops, and I walk home, making habits in my mind, praying for those I’ve shared life with. That truth would prevail, that the beautiful things in a culture be set free, that God get glory. 
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It takes Determination

2/14/2017

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It seemed like a good plan at the time. I would grab the towel off of the nail on the door, I would then proceed to the bathroom to take a nice cold shower, and then I would use the towel to dry myself off before crawling into my nice soft bed for the night. Looking back now, I am amazed just how foolish I was in forgetting all of the finer elements of culture I’ve learned so far.

The first thing I forgot was how the spider bite on my foot (that’s what I was hoping it was) would try to distract me. Now I should have know that it would try, as just earlier that day as I was sitting on the front porch, the neighbor kids noticed it and started telling me in great detail of all the things that it could be. “Ah, I had something that looked just like that between my toes”, said an 8 year old girl, “and it was a worm, or a snail or something, and then it had millions of tiny babies, and then they started crawling all the way up my leg!” “How did you get rid of them?” I hesitantly replied. “My Gramma used a knife, some fire, and some limes.” The girl said, and at this her younger brother joined in, “And we were screaming!” “Hmm…” I thought to myself, weighing the options in my mind, “I’m sure it’s just a spider bite," I said. Sure enough, as I was attempting to carry out my plan later that night, it distracted me just enough to cause me to step on the edge of a basin filled with bathwater, spilling the water all over the floor and out into the hallway. Just like that, my plan had gone from taking a shower, drying off, and then getting in bed to taking a shower, drying off, mopping up the hallway, and then going to bed.

Yet by this time, after all the hours I had put into studying culture, I knew I was no rookie anymore. I am now resilient, unphased when things don’t go exactly according to plan. So I calmly completed showering, before grabbing the towel and drying myself off. Now this is where I made my second mistake, and this mistake was compounded by the first mistake, as mistakes often tend to do. Once again, I forgot a basic cultural tenet. I failed to check the towel for ants. Now for those of you who live someplace cold, you may have noticed two or three varieties of ants crawling around outside on sidewalks before. But if you came to my house, I could show you two or three thousand varieties biting through food containers in my pantry, decorating the walls with their long moving lines, shorting out light switches, and yes, hiding in damp towels. I quickly dried myself off, wrapping the towel around me, and started wiping up the water on the floor. Suddenly, I was made aware of my oversight in inspecting the towel. I jumped around in wild excitement upon realizing that these ants were of the stinging variety, and then ran into the bedroom to begin the process of detaching them from myself. My wife, in an attempt to sympathize with my plight, said, “Oh honey, you didn’t check the towel for ants did you? I always do that.” That didn’t make me feel much better, but dumping out ant poison all over the house did.

As I crawled into my nice soft bed a little later than expected that night, I was thinking about all those cultural things that I’ve learned. I thought of the many things that had once been so new and uncertain to me and how now they have become routine. I thought of how much I enjoy sitting out and visiting with people here, and how I’m able to participate more and more in what’s going on. I was just starting to doze off into that first fitful sleep, dreaming about some pleasant cultural experience in a hot and crowded bus and having completely forgotten about any thing bug related, when my wife suddenly sat up in bed and called out, “Do you feel something biting you? I think there are ants in the bed…”

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Tooth Story

12/23/2016

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At dinner we sat down to have Kunde beans mixed with coconut milk. I poured Micah a glass of pineapple juice. Excited at such a treat he downed it at once, and then a few seconds later he began to cry out in agony. My tooth! My tooth! He ran around the room in circles clutching his jaw. Shortly after we discovered Micah had a huge cavity between his back molars that looked as if it had appeared overnight. I realized then, that if my child had a cavity this big at the age of five, what next? Constant visits to the dentist over the next twelve years and dollar signs marched nearly visibly before my eyes.  Being the ardent essential oil enthusiast that I am I headed straight for my box of oils and picked out clove oil which “they say” is supposed to numb the gums around the area where the paining tooth is. Micah, upon my command, obediently held his mouth open as I applied the oil. Then his screaming changed from “my tooth, my tooth!” to “it burns, oh it burns!” Well, at least we alleviated the pain coming from the tooth, I cynically told myself. I then resorted to my natural mom instincts and thanks to children’s Tylenol, a warm bath, and a short cartoon, three hours later he was ready for bed.
The next day, in the morning, a group of Micah’s friends came over to play. Micah quickly told them the saga from the night before and how, that very morning he was headed to the dentist for the very first time. At that all the children began fighting for a chance to share their dramatic first time visits to the dentist. The thought of having ones tooth pulled was not foreign in the least to them. This could be in part because here, in Dar es Salaam, there are small stores called dukas on every street corner. Amongst the many useful things they sell there are also gum balls, lollipops, juices and soda pop. Some are quite affordable, and parents will give there children a few shillings to buy treats at the store down the road in an attempt to appease their children’s tummies between meals. As Micah and I shut our gate, locked it and headed down our dirt path towards the main road all of his friends followed us. One little girl who was Micah’s age began telling me in her animated way about her experience at the hospital, how they pulled her tooth because it had been rotted through from cavities. She began in excitement, recalling how she got into the big chair and how as they pulled her tooth they had to keep wiping away the blood. For such a small little girl she didn’t shy away from any detail. My little entourage made me feel quite important as we walked accompanied, to the road.  Indeed, I began to feel that this was no ordinary trip to the dentist.
When we reached the place where the cars and trucks passed by in great speed the children all stood in a row behind us and solemnly waved goodbye. I felt as if I were headed on some grave undertaking in which I may never again return. I took Micah’s hand, ran across the road to the nearby bus stop and climbed aboard. As I was sitting, watching the familiar landscape pass by, my thoughts shifted to the approaching dentist visit and our solemn little entourage wishing us farewell.  For real, I was about to meet one of my biggest mommy fears head on. The first visit to the dentist. What would it mean? Would I be holding Micah down as he got the necessary anesthetic? Would his screams be heard from miles around as the doctor turned on the drill? As we walked into the office, the sweet receptionist gave Micah a big smile and directed us to fill out a form. Micah was able to sign his own name at the bottom. Then he looked up to me from his chair and asked in a shaky sort of way “have you been here before mom?” “Yes.” I answered. “And it was just fine. In fact, I remember it seemed like a space ship. Everything was very modern and automatic. Even the chair is controlled with buttons.” At that Micah’s eyes twinkled and I could see him relax. “Put that down as a gold star” I told myself. Then the receptionist called him in and the friendly doctor met us. We all got acquainted, then Micah slid onto the reclined automatic chair. He gazed in wonder at all the gleaming instruments arranged on the trays and above at the bright lights and suspended computer screen.  The assistant slid sun glasses onto his face and to Micah’s delight the dentist asked Micah to push the button to raise his chair up. Then the dentist asked Micah how many teeth he thought he had. “Ten.” Micah answered confidently. “Well, let’s find out.” The dentist counted Micah’s teeth and informed him that he had twenty, not just ten. Then he spotted the giant cavity, and warned Micah about eating too much sugar. This was music to my ears, especially after finding grains of sugar all over Micah’s cheeks the previous day, evidence he had been snitching from the sugar jar. Micah groaned but nodded his head in submission. A short time later, we were headed out the door. “Have a Merry Christmas!”, the dentist yelled. After we arrived back home Micah told his inquisitive friends all about his trip to the dentist, which was really more like a space ship than anything else. I felt a sigh of relief. Thank goodness for children’s Tylenol, little friends, and modern technology in Tanzania. 
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     We are Neil and Rachelle, learning Swahili in South East Africa with Ethnos 360

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