Something New

Ya know… after a year in Africa, what used to seem strange is no longer strange. It all starts to become normal. Not much catches you off guard. It’s just a part of everyday life in Africa.

And then there are those rare occasions when it hits you again. Something fresh… something new… something never before seen. Well tonight my roommate and I went to the lovely movie theatre. Yes we have a great movie theatre in Africa… and it’s just across the street! So we settle into our seats and prepare for the movie as usual. We enjoy the first half of the movie. Nothing too odd. And then a lovely couple enters the theatre and settles in to enjoy the second half of the movie. I know you’re probably thinking… wait, did they just get here? Don’t they know they missed most of the movie? Did they pay full price to watch the end of a movie? But see, this is all a part of normal life here. Time is of no importance. You get there when you get there. You leave when you leave. Hakuna matata! No worries.

So the couple settles in for the last half of the movie…nothing surprising. And then it happens. Out of the corner of my eye, I see something scurry down the wall. I quickly alert Marissa and pick my feet up off the ground. Well she’s kind of thinking I’m crazy at this point and just seeing things.

She says, “What was it?”

“Ummm… I don’t know!”

“Was it big?”

“YES!!”

Well we have lots of lizards in and out of our buildings. Maybe a lizard just caught my eye. Maybe I was seeing things. Maybe I was going crazy. But the rest of the movie I kept one eye on the wall…just in case. Just as the movie was ending, there it goes again, back up the wall! Well this time I wasn’t the only crazy one. Marissa saw it too! And it was huge! No doubt about it. Definitely not a lizard! It was fuzzy! Did I mention huge?! We let out a little squeal and a burst of laughter. But we maintained our composure until the credits started to roll. Then we raced out of the theatre making sure nothing was following us.

After living in Africa for a year, strange things may become normal. But I will never be okay with huge, furry things crawling up and down my walls!

Summer Fun

Even though it’s technically winter here and the temperatures are dropping into the 70s, we can still call it summer! It has been quite a fun summer. The students have been away on vacation, but we have found lots to do in their absence. Here are a few highlights to the summer.

The arrival of our summer volunteer, crazy Katelyn Saylor!

A farewell party to all of our students as they headed back home for vacation

A trip to Dodoma to visit my friend Neema

A trip to Morogoro to visit my friend Asha

Of course a few trips to the beach

A visit at my friend Tina’s house with her family

A visit with my friend Dominica and her new baby, Mauree

A great two weeks with my wonderful college roommate, Denise, including a safari and trip to the beautiful island of Zanzibar

4th of July party at the American Embassy on the 6th of July… we’re still in Africa

Working at an orphanage with a volunteer team

Team Retreat… to the beach of course (We have to take advantage of the opportunities God has given us!)

A wild and crazy trip to Uganda to visit my friend Eleanor

And to top it all off, Marissa and I leave tomorrow for vacation in Italy. A wonderful end to a wonderful summer. Then it’s back to work… I promise Mom!

License, Registration, and Marriage License Please

Traffic police in Tanzania are an interesting thing. Their job description rarely includes enforcing the law. They do however set up random checkpoints along the road to check people’s official information. It doesn’t make much sense… but then again I’m in Africa, does anything make much sense?

So one day I was driving to visit a friend. As I was driving, I encountered a check point. Lucky me, I got pulled over. He asked for my license and I willingly gave it. He responded with, “Is this real?” Well of course it’s real! And if it’s fake, I’m surely not going to tell you that. He continues to check the blinkers on my car, which is the first time they have ever done this to me. Sadly, one of my blinkers was broken. He wasn’t too happy about that. I also had a broken side view mirror because some thieves tried to take it one night. He didn’t approve of that either. (Which I find funny considering every car I see driving around Dar looks like it’s about to fall apart. At least mine is all in one piece!) So we weren’t off to a very good start here.

He asked if I had a police report to prove that the thieves broke the mirror. Well, yes I have a police report, but it’s not with me. Well where is it? It’s at my office. And he says… where do you work? Now this can either be a good thing or a bad thing. If he likes Baptist people, I’m home free. If not, I could be in seriously trouble. But I proceeded to tell him, I work for the Baptist Mission of Tanzania. He responded with, Oh, do you know Jesus? And I said, Yes. Do you? He said, Tell me about him! So I then shared the gospel with the man. And he responded with, “You’re lying!” Uh oh! This situation is getting worse by the minute. So I tried to convince him I wasn’t lying and that all of it was in the Bible, which he said he believed in.

So after all of this, he finally looks at me and says, “Are you married?” Ha! Here it comes! This is what he was working towards the whole time. I chuckled and said No, not yet. I’m too young to marry. He said, No! You should be married and have two kids by now! I laughed and said I was waiting for God to bring me the right husband. He said, God has brought me to you. I want to marry you! I laughed even more and said, You don’t want to marry me! I’m a lazy mzungu. He said, But I like mzungu. I said, No you need to marry a nice Tanzanian woman who will work very hard. I won’t work very hard. I am too lazy. He says, It’s okay. I don’t like to work either. Haha. Surprise surprise!

At this point, I am getting more and more worried that he’s not going to return my license to me. But I politely turned down his nice marriage proposal. He asked for my number. I said no again and asked if I could leave. He smiled and said, It was nice to meet you. And praise the Lord, I drove off! Another fun-filled day in Africa.

The learning never ends...

A few weeks ago, my friend Lulu came over to visit. I taught her how to play Scrabble. That was an interesting experience. I only won by a few points (kinda sad considering I’m a native English speaker). But after Scrabble, she taught me how to play a Tanzanian card game very similar to Uno. This was quite the cultural experience. I had no idea that cards are played different in every country. Let me educate you. The order of the cards is very different here. For instance, the face cards are not the highest point value. On the contrary, they are the lowest. A king is worth 4 points, a jack is worth 3 points, a queen is worth 2 points, and an Ace is worth 1 point. They also call them wazungu (Swahili word for white people) instead of face cards. Or they refer to them by their letters only, K, J, Q, A. She didn’t realize the reason for the letter until I explained they were a King, Jack, Queen, and Ace. Does it show you much about the culture when they put the two male cards as more important than the female card? In the game we were playing, you wanted to discard your cards with a high point value first. Well it was quite an adjustment to realize that a 7 is much higher than an Ace.

My favorite part of playing the game was learning the Swahili words for the suits.

Spades – Jembe (English meaning - Hoe)
Diamonds – Kisu (English meaning - Knife)
Hearts – Kopa (English meaning – Love)

And my favorite!! Clubs – Mavi ya mbuzi which in English means goat poop. She had to tell me several times before I would believe her. And she proceeded to explain that the clubs looked like the poop of a goat. Have you ever been that close to a goat? She asked. J

Every day holds its own Tanzanian treasure. This day was goat poop.

Flat Tires, Baby Goats, and a little Parks and Rec

We roadtripped across Africa to get to our meetings in Kenya. It was quite the trip. The scenery was beautiful, changing nearly every minute. You could look out the right side and see mountains and on the left a desert plain. It was absolutely gorgeous and a tribute to the glory of God.

I was really excited that they let me drive part of the stretch. We were in a HUGE car and I was the only girl to drive. Don’t tell my Daddy though. I think he gave instructions about me not driving… but I must have missed those. While we were driving, I experienced my first flat tire. I had no idea what was going on. But with a seasoned male driver in the car he calmly told me to pull over. We pulled over in the most beautiful place. With mountains all around, the girls took pictures while the guys worked on the car. I tried to be helpful every now and then, but I think I was just in the way mostly.

While the guys worked, lots of little people came out of the woods to watch the action. They just sat and stared at the Wazungu caravan. Some little goat and cow herders made their way with their herds and just hung out. We made friends with the little guys and even got to pet the goat. Here’s a few pictures of our flat tire experience.

Marissa and I hard at work on the flat tire! Or taking pictures to document my first ever flat tire.

The men actually hard at work on the flat tire!

The perfect location for a flat tire! In the middle of God's beautiful creation.

Just a few of our newest friends.

And the cute little boy holding the cute baby goat.

I told you we made lots of new little friends!

And just in case you were curious, we arrived to Kenya safely. No more flat tires and nothing too dangerous! Karibu Kenya! (That's another new friend. I'm really good at making friends here!)

We drove past Mt. Kilimanjaro on the way, the tallest mountain in Africa. But with the clouds we couldn’t see all of it. But on the way home from Kenya, we flew over it. It was amazing. Here is the snow-topped mountain peeking through the clouds.

We had a great time in Kenya. We snuck away from our meetings a few times and had some fun in Nairobi. We even got to visit a park one day!

Fountain Fun! I think Africa makes me a little crazier every day. Or maybe I started out that way.

And the best part of all was getting to hang out with my Mom. If you don’t know her, you’re really missing out! She’s about the most fun anyone could be!

SURPRISE

This post is a little late. But I thought it was still necessary to share – my first African birthday. If you’re going to have a birthday, I suggest having it in Africa. It started in March and didn’t end until May. That’s the way to celebrate! While I was visiting my parents in March, we started the party off right with a few gifts and a day at a Lodge. With the African postal system, most people didn’t know when exactly to send the gifts. And like normal, they all arrived at various times. So I just continued to celebrate throughout the whole month of April and even in to May. But the highlight of my birthday this year was done by my wonderful roommate and dear friend, Marissa.

One Friday night I had plans with Eleanor. We were going to study the Bible at her room and then come back to my house for dinner. She had wanted to cook for us for a long time. So we planned to do it that night. Everything went smoothly, me totally unaware of what was about to happen. When we arrived back at our house, I noticed a friend’s car in the drive. My mind raced a million places to why they might be there, but it never hit the right reason. I went in the house, still totally unaware, and noticed a lot of food out on our dining room table. I looked at my three white friends sitting on the couch and said, “I’m so confused.” At that moment, about 30 people jumped out from everywhere yelling, “SURPRISE!” I was stunned. So stunned I almost started to cry. I have had many attempted surprise parties in my four years in college, and I think nearly everyone failed. And to think that my roommate was able to invite all my friends and fix every detail without me knowing was remarkable. We are together nearly 24 hours a day. I have no idea how she pulled it off.

But we had a great time at the party. We laughed, talked, ate, and even played some of my favorite games. Here are a few pictures of my precious surprise party!

This is just after I first arrived. I'm still in shock. And running around the room like crazy trying to remember everyone who was there. They all hugged me when I came. But I wasn't paying enough attention to actually look at them. These are some of my sweet girls!

Me and lots of girls. They're all great! You should come meet them.

Louie kept sneaking in to our girl pictures! Shame on him!

This is my wonderful friend Lulu. She is studying to be a doctor.

This is Eleanor, the girl who was in on the surprise the whole time, and her roommate Lydia. Lydia got ready for the party while I was in the room studying with Eleanor. I was totally clueless as to why she was dressing up so cute.

Me and the boys!

This is me and my cake. If you can't tell, the cake is actually a big bowl of muffins. They knew there would be a lot of people. So they made lots of muffins instead of a really big cake. So they stuck all the candles in different muffins. The Tanzanians didn't know any different and loved the muffins. They are always asking for more!




But after the surprise party, the strangest thing happened. Reality hit. And it hit hard. I was so honored that my friends came to celebrate with me. I was blessed that they loved me enough to come. I realized that God had brought me here and was using me in people’s lives. What a blessing! But I also realized that I had friends and family back home who really wished they could celebrate my birthday with me. I saw the blessings of two amazing families. A family in Africa and a family in America. But I also saw the curse of it. Those two worlds will never collide. They will always be two worlds. My friends in Africa will never know my friends in America. My friends in America will never know my friends in Africa. And this may sound crazy to you, but that hurts deep inside. There are two families in this world that I love dearly. They are both a gift from God. But my heart aches wishing you could meet each other. So I will continue to tell stories. I will continue to show pictures. And I will pray that each family will understand a little bit about life on the other side of the world.

Game Night

This semester we decided to have a fellowship each month with the students involved in Bible studies. The first month we watched a movie together. They always love watching movies. Well in March, we decided to try something a little crazy and plan a game night. At Christmas time, Marissa and I tried a few games with our friends at our Christmas party. They didn’t go quite as planned. Apparently, there are lots of cultural differences when playing games. So we just prayed that this game night would be a success despite those differences. And praise God who is faithful! It was amazing!

As usual, the students rolled in late. We were a little worried no one was going to even show. But they did. And for the first few hours, it was only girls at the party. We were expecting our guy leaders to come, but most of them couldn’t make it. So we had a great time playing silly games with the girls. And they had a great time as well. It was definitely the talk of the weekend!

So here are a few pictures from our crazy game night!

A crazy game of Gorilla - Man - Gun! Gorilla beats the man. Man beats the gun. Gun beats the gorilla. You tie, you die! 1 - 2 - 3. Looks like the gorilla beat the man in this game.

Hmm... who knows what this is? Maybe a gorilla and a man. Or maybe that's a gun. That's a tough call. Whatever it is... they're having fun!

Janet and Neema, two roommates taking a break from all the games.

Marissa and Angela - silly girls. Angela's boyfriend was on his way. So we were being extra silly for her. :)

Here is a picture of our intense game of spoons. We are all very focused! The girls loved this game. I think we will be playing it a lot more!

Championship spoons! Very intense. And as the reigning champion, there was lots of pressure on me. So I thought it was only appropriate that I bow out and let Angela win one time. Haha.

This is a picture of the craziest and most fun game we played. Each person has a partner. One partner gets in the inner circle and the other gets in the outer. Then the two cirlces walk in opposite directions. The caller calls out two different body parts. Then the two partners have to find each other and touch those two things - such as Elbow to Elbow. The students loved this game. This picture is them walking around in their crazy circles!

Crazy Fun Times!

All the girls we love so much!!

God Stories

Our God is faithful. Always faithful to give me a swift kick in the behind. Two times in the same week He reminded me that He was there and that I should start listening. So I thought you might enjoy these stories. (If you read my latest update, these names may sound familiar. But it’s the background to the stories.)

Story #1 - So I have been meeting with a dear friend Janet to study Women of the Bible. When we first met she told me that she believed in many different things. Her faith was a mix of Islam and Christianity. Since that point, she has been faithfully studying the Bible and the Spirit has been showing her that Jesus is the only way. So recently, she informed me that she didn’t consider herself a Muslim. I wasn’t sure if that meant she had actually received Christ as her Savior or what. But I realized that I’m not the ultimate judge. So I just kept trusting in the Lord and praying that He would bring her unto Himself. While I was attending a meeting with other missionaries one weekend, God clearly told me to talk to Janet about baptism. This would be a clear sign of her obedience to Christ. So on the way home I was praying and thinking about how to introduce the topic of baptism. We have been studying women of the Bible and we had just finished Ruth. So I tried to think of a woman in the Bible who was baptized. The best example I could come up with was Lydia. But Ruth to Lydia seemed like quite a jump. Well Tuesday rolled around quickly which was the day of our Bible study. That morning I had little time to prepare so I decided to stick with the originally planned study on Hannah and that we would talk about Lydia next week when I had more time to prepare. When I arrived in Janet’s room we spent the first hour just talking about life. About the time we were going to start the study she says, “So I was reading this Christian newspaper the other day about Lydia. I didn’t read much of it. But do you know the story of Lydia?” I couldn’t help but laugh and say a little prayer of forgiveness all at the same time. So God’s plan prevailed and we talked about Lydia that day. We continued to talk about baptism during our next few studies and she is praying for clarity on this subject. Pray that she will choose to follow the Lord in obedience no matter what the cost is. Pray that she will be able to stand firm under the persecution from her family and friends.

Story #2 – We have a sweet young house worker named Selina. She comes three days a week to help around the house. She is amazing and we have developed quite a friendship. Back in November I was journaling and I felt in my heart that I needed to share my faith with Selina. She knew that we were here doing Bible studies with students, so I thought it strange that I didn’t share any truth with her. But like the sinner that I am, I didn’t obey God’s calling. I was very nervous about trying to talk in Swahili with her about my faith. So I kept it on my to-do list, but conveniently ignored it every day. Around February, I felt the same call on my heart. This time I prayed even more about it. I was paralyzed by fear because of my lack of Swahili. I knew it would flop if I tried to study with her in a foreign language. “I’m just not good enough,” I kept saying to God. One day in March, I was standing in the kitchen talking to her. We started to talk about church and I asked her what she had learned that Sunday. She told me that at her church they talk about the Word of God, but not the Bible. I was a little confused by this statement, because the Bible is the Word of God. But I soon learned that she hears about God at church, but never really connects it to Scripture in the Bible. Immediately, I turned to God and said, “Okay… I see what you’re doing here.” Well if she hadn’t already opened the door up enough, she just kept opening it even wider. She started to ask about my studies at the University. She asked how I do them. And eventually, if I do them in Swahili. I laughed and told her that she knows my Swahili is not good enough for that. Then I turned back to God and said, “Okay, Lord, I will follow wherever You lead.” So I told Selina I would be happy to try and study in Swahili. Since then, we have had two wonderful Bible studies in Swahili. And she has been faithful to tell these stories to her friends and family. I am so excited to see what God does through Selina’s faithfulness. Please pray for both of us as we continue to try and communicate with one another.

Praise God that He is faithful, even when we are not. I also thank God that these reminders of His calling were rather gentle ones. He carefully and gently guided me back onto His path when I tried to stray. I pray that I will continue to walk each step in His will.