Village visits

I didn't doubt God's existence before I came here, but in a place like this Gods existence is so evident! I feel like in New Zealand life can be so comfortable and easy at times that I forget how powerful and amazing God truly is. Here people are getting healed in front of my eyes… you cannot deny that God has healed someone, when prior to being healed they don’t even believe in God or better yet believe in a different God and then start professing that the pains gone or they are able to do things that they weren’t able to do before. Or people who are influenced by evil spirits are set free in front of your eyes and their whole countenance changes. Or in a place where there is a lot of darkness you see the love and light of God in people’s eyes. 

Pastor Francis and his family with Jan and Rod

We went and visited a local Magugu pastor (Pastor Francis) and his family that Rod, Jan and the prayer team know. Pastor Francis was taking a service at a neighbour’s house. When we arrived we were greeted so warmly and there was so much love and light in their eyes. I felt like I had known them forever even though I only just met them. As Pastor Francis preached he spoke about how several years ago he had a dream that three mazungu (white) missionaries came to visit him. He told his church at the time and the leaders laughed at him. He later had another dream that 7 missionaries came to visit him, again when he shared this dream he was laughed at. On one of Jan and Rods visits to the village they came across pastor Francis daughter Rachel (such a great name!) and ended up going to their house this is when they first met Pastor Francis and his family. Then on their next trip to Magugu they were with Becky and Adam (Emmas friends) and Mel and Dave (7 in total). Both his dreams were fulfilled which again shows how God works things out and brings people together to fulfil his purpose. Now Jan and Rod and the team can connect the people they pray for up with Pastor Francis to be taught and cared for. They were such a beautiful family that I wanted to bless them with some money. At this point they expressed their fears of having us visit. While they were extremely happy to see us they also worried because people in the village assume we will bring them money or gifts and then they try to get them to give them money or worse try to steal from them. I don’t think their house had a door so it wouldn’t be difficult for people to rob them. It shows how poor this village is and how desperate they get. We prayed for Gods protection over them.

The children who followed us in the village

On our way to pastor Francis we collected a lot of children who walked with us the whole way. Every two seconds I would feel a child jump up and touch my hair, as they got braver they then held my hand they followed us all the way to the church service. I feel most content surrounded by children and I loved that all the village children were filling Pastor Francis neighbour living room and hearing teaching about Jesus. The people who owned the house were not quite as thrilled to have them there and told the children to leave a few times. It really bothered me because I didn’t understand why they wouldn’t want to invite children in especially to a church service.  Respect is a big thing in this culture and Rod pointed out to me that the father of the house didn’t want the children there so maybe he was feeling disrespected or felt that they were disrupting. The children were not put off by being sent away they just waited outside for us to come out and again bid for our attention. They continued to follow us almost all the way out of their village. As we walked along more and more children seemed to come out of houses until there was a flash mob of children around me all trying to stroke my hair, my arms, hold my hands one even licked my hand! It was pretty full on but very amusing.  I personally didn’t mind their attention. I figured if we were the first white people they met then I wanted them to feel loved, and special rather than to think we were scary, mean or standoffish.  If that meant getting covered in the dirt that they had all over their clothes and hands and having their not so clean hands through my clean hair so be it. After a while we had to ignore them so they would go back to their own homes and stop following us. By this stage they had learnt my name so as we walked off all I could hear was “Byeeee Rachel”

Earlier in the day we had visited a different part of the village where the team had already made some connections and lots of people came forward for prayer some gave their hearts to God, some were healed others were encouraged. It’s amazing how open people are. Once again we were also surrounded by children. This particular group of children were much calmer. They obviously had seen white people before. A young girl Rachel and I connected over the fact that we had the same name and she came and sat on my knee. She chatted to me in broken English and I chatted to her in broken Swahili. I took a photo of her and soon all the children there were crowding around wanting to have their photos taken.

I had gone to Magugu a day earlier than the prayer team with Wendy and Lynda. They had a different purpose for being there, they were there too mentor and prepare the teachers in the school in Magugu for the coming school year. On Monday they taught about the participatory method (involving students as opposed to just lecturing at them) As I listened to Lynda teach, I soon realised that although this approach is something I was taught and experienced through my own schooling and teacher training, for the teachers in Magugu it was a foreign concept. They had not been taught to question or to think outside the box. Lynda’s questions that seemed so obvious to me challenged the teachers a lot. It made me realise how much I have taken for granted the quality education I have received and I feel inspired to teach and to use what I have been taught, because if I don’t use what I have then it loses its value. I want to use my training to empower people. Lynda talked about how research shows if we are lectured to we only remember about 5% of what we are taught but if we have opportunities to teach others we remember 90%. I found this really fascinating. Sometimes it takes seeing the opposite of your own experience to really appreciate what you have. A week of eating Rice, beans, and soggy chips, and egg omelette makes you appreciate fresh fruit and veges. I had a chicken wrap last night and I swear a chicken wraps never tasted so good! And Squat toilets make you appreciate normal toilets!

Joshua school here in Arusha, starts back  Monday. That is where I will be spending the majority of my days, with some visits to other schools and to Magugu again as well… I am looking forward to it.

My schedule is going to be a lot busier now so these blog post will probably slow down a bit too.

 

Settling into Tanzanian life

I’ve now been here a week and a half. Even though each day seems to go by fairly quickly it feels like I’ve been here a lot longer. I felt at home here from day one and because I’ve been here before there wasn’t the same culture shock and awe of my surroundings that I felt last time. It’s all very familiar and comfortable. Even going into town I feel less on edge than I did last time. It definitely helps being with Emma all the time. Emma’s been here for two years and speaks fluent Swahili. I am always in awe of her as she converses so easily with Tanzanians and has such heart connections with people. Which only really comes through communicating. I am keen to learn the basics of Swahili so that I can begin to form connections with the locals too. The best part of Emma knowing Swahili was her telling a guy off at the markets who tried to rip me off when I was buying a basket, he very quickly dropped his price after that! 

Sometimes I could almost forget that I am in Africa while on base surrounded by Kiwis and other Wazungu (white people). Christmas wasn’t too different from home. But it seemed to involve a LOT  of food! We started with Christmas Eve dinner, followed by banana pancakes on Christmas morning, a buffet lunch at a local hotel, then boxing day brunch. We even had bacon! As you can see I am doing it really hard here. To make up for the overeating, I convinced Emma to do boot camp with me. So Monday morning we got up at 6:30am and headed down to the school field for half an hour of bodyweight and cardio exercises. We felt so good about it after that we have decided to do workouts every second day. So even here I can still do what I enjoy. The altitude sure makes me feel like I am not that fit though!

Last night I was reminded that I am in fact in Africa, while we were out for dinner in town. After we had finished eating, I looked over and saw a street kid, a young boy probably no older than 12 standing watching us eat. He put his hand up to his mouth indicating he was hungry. I offered him a plate of salad that we had leftover and he took it gratefully. If that wasn’t heart breaking enough he then asked the waiter for our chicken bones and sat there eating every last piece of chicken off the bone. I then passed him some money and he looked me in the eye and said very sincerely, “Asante Mzungu” (thank you, white person).
Beggars are so common here and sometimes kids are used by corrupt people, to pull on tourist’s heartstrings to get them money. Because of this it would almost be easy to ignore them, or question their motives. But regardless this is a kid, who was so hungry that he ate our chicken bones! Our scraps, that we were planning to throw out. A kid who is out at dinner time begging for food. Yeah he may spend the money I gave him on alcohol and yeah it would be wiser to just buy him a meal (which in hindsight I would do next time) but I think the important thing is to never stop caring. I never want my heart to become so hardened that I ignore a hungry street kid. I think of people like Heidi Baker who intentionally feeds 1000’s of street kids even though they all bombard her and beg her for food. She throws all caution to the wind in order to love the ones in front of her.

Last Wednesday we had the opportunity to go out to Maasai land with Tammy and Peter (Justine Owens parents in law…small world!). I didn’t really know what to expect as I haven’t read, seen or heard many good things about the Maasai people. All I really knew is that they live as nomads in mud huts, wear blankets as clothes, tyres as shoes and lots of beaded jewellery especially in their ears; that their wealth and worth is based on how many cows and wives they have. Each wife is worth 10 cows and has her own mud hut. They are fierce warriors who kill lions to prove their manhood and they follow traditional practices of circumcising the boys  and sometimes the girls too. (Female circumcision is illegal in Tanzania though). So as you could imagine I was both excited and nervous about heading out to Maasai land. However, when we arrived we were greeted as their friends, they were so warm, and welcoming and they reserved seats for us in the incredibly packed church. They were so joyful and enthusiastic as they sang. Even though I didn’t understand anything they were singing, or saying it was still very special to be a part of. If I came to Africa just as a tourist I would only know my stereotypes of the Maasai people that I learnt from visiting the Maasai tourist museum and reading the book “The White Massai” about an American tourist who marries a good looking Maasai man (Good read btw). I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to really experience this beautiful culture. What really struck me about these people is that they have so little, and their world is so opposite to my own yet they have such joy and hope because they know Jesus. Its shows how much of an impact Tammy and Peter have had in this tribes lives, as they have dedicated their lives to serving the Maasai people both practically and spiritually.

  Some other highlights of this week have been going out into the village with Emma to visit a couple of Mamas and their babies. Anyone who knows me, knows I love kids and am particularly clucky over babies. So I was pretty stoked to sit down and instantly be passed a cute African baby to cuddle. I didn’t mind that I wasn’t in on the conversation, which was all in Swahili. I was just content having cuddles. The second house we visited was Mama Hosiana’s house. She has two adorable 6 month old twins. These twins are particularly special as they were born following three miscarriages over several years. Emma has been visiting Mama Hosiana regularly throughout her pregnancy. She has often prayed with her and even raised money for her medical costs. The girl twin was even named after Emma. It was nice to have cuddles with these babies that I have heard so much about on Facebook and through Emma’s blogs. Other than that I’ve just enjoyed being in a place where it’s all about God and everything flows out of a relationship with Him. I’ve loved catching up with Rod and Jan and living with and getting to know Emma through D&Ms, our shared love of coffee, chocolate, village visits, cheese and wine nights, trips to the market, our makeshift boot camps and trips to all the best cafes in town.

Because school hasn’t started yet, I’ve been able to go out into the village a few times with Emma, Jan and Rod to pray for people. We prayed for a boy who had been completely deaf in one ear since about the age of five and his hearing was restored. He was able to hear his mum call him while blocking his good ear. Yesterday we went out into the village again to pray for people. Before we went we prayed and asked for words of knowledge about who to pray for. This was out of my comfort zone but I really want to increase my faith in the area of praying for healings. We walked for 45minutes and didn’t see anyone who fitted our words of knowledge at first, but we got talking to a lady who was on her way to the doctor’s clinic she said she had a lot of pain in her body including a head cold. We prayed for her and the pain was completely gone. I had a word of knowledge about an older man with a limp and a walking stick. Emma then bumped into a mama she knew and was reminded that the mamas husband fitted this description. We went into his shop and he was more than happy to have us pray for him. He had had polio since he was three and one leg was shorter than the other. Because I had a word of knowledge, I really believed that he would be healed. I even kept my eyes open ready to see his leg grow, but unfortunately he wasn’t healed. This was quite discouraging, but we talked about it afterwards and Rod made the point that the person receiving prayer also must have faith to believe they can be healed and although God is more than capable of healing him, it would be hard for him to believe that he could be healed of a condition he has lived with all his life. Rod, Jan and Emma have seen heaps of healings since they have been here but it’s always a bit discouraging when they don’t happen.

On Monday I am off to Magugu for a week with Lynda and Wendy. Magugu is a village about two hours away where there is another Joshua Foundation school. It’s quite a different environment to here as there is a huge Muslim population and it’s a lot poorer. They will be doing some Professional development with the teachers, and planning and preparing for the new school year. I am looking forward to being a part of this and contributing where I can. I am also just looking forward to learning from Lynda and Wendy as they are very knowledgeable and are great leaders and mentors. I will also get a feel for how the schools are run etc. We will be staying in the guest house, which use to have no running water, we just showered out of a bucket, but apparently it now has proper showers and flush toilets which I am grateful for.  (It’s the small things in life)

Prayer requests:

If you are the praying type … Could you please pray that I’ll be able to really help, encourage and support the teachers here. One of the teachers is changing year groups this year so I’ll mostly be working alongside her in a mentor role. I will be helping with planning, one on one teaching and just making sure that things are at a high standard with literacy and numeracy and that the learning is engaging. This is a new role for me and I am not exactly sure what it will look like in this context.  So please pray for Gods wisdom, confidence and good connections with the teachers.

There is quite low risk of malaria here so I have decided not to take the 4 months of antibiotics the doctor gave me, as they made me feel nauseous and I don’t want my body to become immune to them. Four months is a long time to take antibiotics. Please pray that I won’t get malaria and for good health while I am here.

Asante Sana (thanks heaps)