Where did we leave off...?

Too long, I know…there were legitimate and illegitimate reasons. Hopefully, that is behind us now, just water under the bridge.

I won’t attempt a full catch-up but instead just start from today. Today, we welcome our pastors/bosses to the east coast of Africa. They plan to stay with us for 1 week, doing extensive psyche evaluations and to ensure none of us have totally flipped out. Truth be told, studies show half of all missionaries develop a clinically diagnosable neurosis whilst on the field (so that’s where my constant desire to drive on the wrong side of the road comes from)…thankfully, we haven’t noticed anything serious, but it’s good to have a 3^rd party perspective. Also, we’re excited to do some long term planning and set some goals for the next 6-12 months. We’re pretty much settled and have extensive language under our belts (though I wish we were much further along towards fluency).

Something that was very exciting we got to do today was work with our Kiswahili instructor who was hired by John Hopkins University to translate back into English various HIV/AIDS skits and adverts that have been playing all around Tanzania as part of Tz’s National Campaign for AIDS Prevention (JHU wants to review the content of the programs they’ve supported). Anyway, we sat down today and worked to translate a whole bunch of radio advertisements. It was exciting to understand enough to do the work and participate in something which we like. Another cool piece of the story was that our instructor had thought we’d like to help her and she asked her husband (who also works as a language instructor – they co-own the school we’re in) and he said “…missionaries don’t want to do that kind of work, they don’t really care about that kind of thing [meaning the hiv/aids prevention adverts]”. As she told us later, she countered him and said “…yes, but these are a different kind of missionary, I think they’d like it”. She is Muslim by the way. Needless to say, I appreciated that she approached us and that she thinks of us differently than others with whom she has worked with in the past. We just bought her a New Testament, both in Kiswahili and in English. She was thrilled and said she’d start reading on her own. We’ll see what happens. She is probably our closest Tanzanian friend, and we see her 4x a week for 3 hour chunks. We're hoping to finally meet her family on Saturday b/c they’re all invited to Jude’s 5^th B-day party. Very cool!

The REAL big 5

Most visitors to Africa, especially to a country with acclaimed wildlife parks (actually referred to as “game parks” by our animal-loving British brethren), will certainly hear the term “the big 5”. Traditionally the big 5 refer to the 5 most important, now perhaps rare, animal sightings one could endeavor to see if one were to visit a game park in Sub-Sahara Africa. These are the lion, leopard, black rhino, water buffalo, and elephant. I have seen all but the timorous and furtive leopard. I hope one day to say I’ve seen all 5. On the other hand, I want to propose a tweak to the big 5. After living here for almost 5 months, there are other important, if not in the least rare, sightings one could wait a long time to see. By this I mean; electricity, water, working cars, general health, and the newest member internet. Of course, It’s not that I’ve never seen these things independently – but to see all five at once, working properly – that my friend is a glorious day. Even if I had just one day where I could see the big 5, I would be so happy. But alas, something is always out of whack. If it’s not your car, it’s a health issue; if it’s not a health issue, the electricity is out – and there goes the cycle, round and round until you literally go insane – or develop some other serious neurosis, or as challenging as it might be for a previously full-functioning American, one can instead embrace the dark irony and uncontrollability of this cycle and laugh. That’s it. There is no one to call, no one to blame it one. No company that will send a service man out immediately. No bill adjustment, or free coupons for an inconvenience. Just laugh.

rice, beans and not so simple things...

Never in my life have I been so keenly aware of the old adage, “the more you know, the more aware you become of how little you know”. Honestly, I often feel like my life is one large demonstration of paradoxes. This of course, can be tremendously frustrating as we have an incredibly hard time not feeling completely useless living within this state of constant blurred lines and tension. In so many ways we realize that our world and the world of our children has been widened and expanded beyond belief (even just in these short 4 months) and yet we often feel so acutely aware of the fact that also our world has been shrunk as we are living separate from our large, familiar and vibrant community. My hope, though I must admit I have not felt a huge realization of this yet, is that living in this state will season and mature each of us to become more accurate representations of Jesus. And that ultimately we will begin to know in some of our deepest places the truths of Jesus, “the first shall be last, and the last first; small is the gate and narrow is the path that leads to life; you must lose your life in order to gain it…”

Living as an alien in a foreign land requires loads of flexibility, not just in lifestyle but in thought, and paradigm. I have found this to be particularly true when you are hoping to honor, serve and achieve some semblance of assimilation. We often find ourselves laying in bed at the end of the day or sitting with our comrade Grace in a muggy, candlelit room (our water and electricity have been spotty at best the past couple of weeks) scratching our heads, completely baffled by any number of interactions throughout the day. This would of course be a source of frustration if we were comfortable living a carved out life separate from the majority of people here, but as individuals that care deeply about being servants to those around us, it can also lead to discouragement, because of our lame state of being unilingual Americans, or complete wonderment at the greatness of a God who created and loves such an incredibly diverse human race. We land on both sides of the fence, often finding ourselves in the position of reminding each other that Jesus’ power is perfected in our weakness…

We have been tremendously thankful for our relationship with our language instructor. She is an incredible bridge for us, and acts as a cultural compass on so many levels. Additionally, she is a practicing Muslim and has been very open and eager to exchange experiences and beliefs together. This has been a fruitful relationship and a source of encouragement to us.

Still here!

Posting a blog is a little like when you need to to respond to a friends email, but then you're unable to for a variety of reasons and it just sits there in the inbox - if not responded to quickly, over time, it becomes the battle of the tyranny of the urgent - respond to new things or tackle this undone issue...glad to say we've conquered it...we are back to posting.

First off, thank you for all the prayers surrounding our health - the kids are doing much better after ridiculously high fevers and weird fungal rashes and other bodily issues. Melissa and I have remained surprisingly healthy and we attribute that soley to God's grace.

We also now have a regular access to the internet which will allow us better communication and hopefully news access. for those that know us, we are somewhat news junkies and newspapers in Dar function a lot like your local high school or small college paper. Needless to say, the BBC, NyTimes, WP, NPR, etc have been receiving some hits from a Dar based server recently!

We resumed our Friday night bible study where we do Swahili/English and each week it seems someone new is always coming. Something we need to consider shortly is a place to meet that can accomodate all the kids and a large room for adults. There is this awesome Bollywood Cinema just south of us and we're going to see if there is any time throughout the week we can meet in their theatres - it's always empty. We're encouraged by those attending, it's just frustrating that our language is still quite limited. By no means could we teach or be taught scripture in Swahili, so we end up singing swahili/english worship and then teaching mostly in English. This obviously limits those that will come first, but we hope by the end of 6 months there could be two groups and by then our swahili should be much improved.

Recently we connected with this organization called Son Int'l. They are manufacturing and distributing the bio-sand water filters in rural areas around Dar. The couple that founded the organization have been in Dar 4 years and they have the whole operation down and have trained installers and employ like 8-10 people. It's very cool. We've been visiting them and "shadowing" the operation since the New Year and they've been completely open to our presence. We've actually arranged for us to visit any afternoon of the week, so we can continue to learn about the operation and practice our swahili with the workers. We're really excited b/c all the logistics and planning for a clean water project has been ironed-out by this organization. It also seems providential b/c they're based in Dar (10 miniutes from our house), but their focus is on rural areas - they don't know of anyone targeting the urban clean water needs through filter distribution. As we continue to learn and assess the needs here in Dar, we are so thankful that we can witness a successful project with clear ministry aims and we have complete access to learn and critique what we experience. There is another source of information, an organization called Wateraid (UK gov't based n-p) and the director of their Dar office has agreed to meet with us and explain all the local projects they're connected to. It will be really helpful to speak with her b/c she is a Tanzanian and WaterAid has been in Dar for almost 25 years. So as we move forward, we really want to have a good understanding of the needs in Dar, which communities are most vulnerable, do those communities line up with our efforts to plant a church and do outreach, what other needs exist in those communities and who is addressing them.

Life marches on and we take it a day at a time - TIA baby.