“Under the shadow of your throne, your saints have dwelt secure; sufficient is your arm alone and our defense is sure….. Our God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come: O be our guard while troubles last, and our eternal home.”

August 5, 2017

We often tell of all our joys of living in this wonderful land called Tanzania in this blog, but seldom do we share some of the hardships. Like all of our lives while we journey on this earth, there are trials and times of deep troubles. I must say quickly that our troubles are minimal here, but yes; we do have some troubles.

The weather here now is close to perfect in my estimation with cool mornings and evening and warm… but not too warm days. The mountain is mostly hidden from view but does come out for a peek from time to time. The clouds that usually cover the mountain, now cover most of the sky. When the sky clears and the mountain becomes visible, the temperature climbs quickly, so you learn to love the gray days too. Our mornings are often in the high 50’s and the days rarely climb above 80. The green is quickly turning to brown as the major rains are past until November or December. Yes Tanzania does have seasons…. Wet and dry….

What causes stress on our Village?? Well, it is easy to say that many things cause us to run to the Lord for shelter and these are always good reminders. Things are fast changing here and you seldom know what will happen next. Mostly that is great for a person who loves adventure and change; however some things are a bit hard to deal with. A couple of weeks ago, I got a call from one of my “former mothers”,  “Mrs. Martin, my little baby is in the hospital at KCMC”. KCMC is the larger referral hospital in town where Kent and I worked 25 years ago. Well that was stress!! This mother had left over a year ago and married and had a baby who was now about 3 months old. I finished up my morning tasks and headed over to the hospital, not having any idea what was happening. I found the mother in the pediatric ward with her little one. The baby had been born with spina bifida and it was a bad case. The baby was very sick with pneumonia but I was able to hold the little one and talk with the mama for over an hour. The mama has deep faith and was actually encouraging me at times. There is not a lot 

ICU at Machame hospital

we can do for this in the States, but here it is nearly hopeless. We prayed together for God’s grace and I left to hopefully return on Wednesday for another visit. In the meantime…. LIFE HAPPENED at the Village.

ON Tuesday, the day after I visited the mother and baby, one of our children who had been complaining of a stomach ache for a day or so, came … now complaining of lower right side pain! I quickly took him to Kent who said “this child needs to go to Machame for possible appendix”. Well that sure changes your day. I packed up him and his mama and up we went to 5000 ft where it is always rainy and COLD and begin our wait to see a doctor. After a few hours, it was decided that he indeed had appendicitis with possible rupture and he was “rushed” into surgery. He did have a very infected appendix and he was taken out of surgery to ICU. Well of course that was a bit of a concern for me, but as God would provide, the ICU was not full and he mostly got really good nursing care for 3 days there. It was a bit hard on the mama who had to stay with him and only had a hard stool to sit on by the bed. I spent the next 5 days with at least 2 trips up the mountain each day which consumes about 2 hours each trip. Good ole “Sherman” (our car), made the trips like a champ! The total hospital stay was 7 days, but the child is now back and in school and looking forward to having the stitches out this week.

Muddy footprints by the bathroom window

Obviously with the extra work of a child in the hospital and 3 children on the village with mumps, I was not able to make the trip back to KCMC but did check in by phone a bit with the mother and the little baby. While driving down the mountain from Machame on Saturday, my phone got a text and it was the mother saying her little baby had died. What a shock but yet what a picture of life in Tanzania. MANY baby die as infants. This of course set off another chain of events of trying to help this poor mother. The funeral for the baby was on Wednesday and I took 6 of our current “mamas” with me to the funeral for the baby held about an hour up the mountain at Sanya Juu. This was of course the mother’s first baby and an unexpected death. My thoughts kept me thinking “no mother should have to bury their child”… yet Mary certainly buried Jesus. There are no guarantees in this life and life is hard. I think that the mother’s faith is strong enough for her to get through this but I continue to pray for her and her husband.

During all this confusion of circumstances, someone broke into our house and stole my computer and my ipad. It was during the day so no one was harmed but it does cause some stress and a sense of insecurity. The mwezi (thief in Swahili) climbed in through the bars in our bathroom window leaving many muddy footprints on the wall and inside the bathroom. The bars provide an opening of about 10 by 12 INCHES.  In a poor country theft is a part of life. We do what we can to protect the “stuff” we have, but truly we hold what we do have lightly. The loss of the computer was hard because I used it mostly to store all the pictures of the children before printing them to their child books. Unfortunately I had not backed it up in quite some time. Stupid on my part, but gone none the less! Because of the theft, we did invest in a larger safe that bolts into the wall and allows us to store our electronics when we are not in the house.

Now on to the GOOD parts of life here which indeed far outweighs the stressful times. The school is going well and RICE with the teacher’s training has it largest class of 30 students. Kent it busy but was able to hire an assistant to help with grading and one on one with the students. He hired a man who has been in the program for more than 2 years and has done very well. Pascal is a wonderful help to Kent as now Elisabeth has enough work to keep her busy with just the art and music teaching.

The children of Rafiki are continuing to grow well and except for some cases of mumps are really healthy. They are learning well in school and can be heard any morning and evening having fun with each other. We continue to pray for their growth as young Christian men and women.

Pat, Elisabeth and I have decided to finally take some Swahili lessons. Actually I decided and drug them along for company. We have hired a tutor who comes to the Village each Saturday afternoon. Last Sunday as we were ready to leave church I heard a mother say to another mother “anatoka kuchase pale” a simple sentence but I instantly knew what it meant!!!!! “She wants to play there”. I was beaming all day from my new knowledge. It is interesting because as I am studying, I realize that much of the Kiswahili I learned more than 25 years ago is coming up from the bottom of my brain. I don’t think I will ever have a really good grasp of the language, but I do think I will be able to communicate like a two or three year old which is great for me.

Birthday party

We at the Rafiki Village Tanzania love to have an excuse for a party. That being said, the parties most likely take place on our lovely porch and with only 5 of us here right now (Sara is in the states getting Lydia into college) it is easy to swing a party. My birthday provided the setting for our most recent party. Sara and I are the only ladies here out of our 4 who really enjoy cooking. So we decided to “cater” our party by picking up Tandoori chicken in town. It was a hit and we ate….too much…. Phil actually baked the cake… and then played triominoes. It was indeed a fun evening.

Then for more cultural entertainment, we were all invited to the “Send-off” for the Lutheran Bishop of Tanzania’s daughter on Saturday. What is a send-off…. It is nearly like a wedding but something really special in the culture of Tanzania. First the ladies, Pat, Liz and I attended the church send-off at the home of the bishop. I would say there were 200-300 people gathered on their lawn for the ceremony. There were decorated tables for the guests and the event was to start at 10:00 AM. We arrived mostly on time and the event began around 11AM with morning chai… tea. There was then a full worship service with a band and singing and a sermon on Isaac taking Rachel as his wife. Of course it was all in Kiswahili but one of the Bishop’s daughter sat next to me and translated the service. The sendoff is when the family of the bride “gives her” to the groom and his family. This one was really special as it was the first of 4 daughters and she is marrying a German man and will leave to live in Germany. That and also much ceremony because of the being the daughter of the Bishop of Tanzania. We have become friends of this family as the Lutherans are our sponsors for Rafiki in Tanzania. Also the Bishop’s wife, Janet makes beautiful batik fabric and we often go to her shop with visitor to buy things. The first part of the send-off lasted until around 2 pm, complete with a nice Chagga lunch; and when you get there on time…. Your car is quickly buried in the maze of cars and a quick getaway is not possible. You learn to enjoy the process and not be concerned about time!... this is quite an adjustment for most of us Americans. The next part of the send-off was another party at a Lutheran hostel in town beginning at 4 pm. We didn’t RUSH into town but did arrive around 4:30, still early for the event!

Send-off celebration

Pair of Silver Cheeked Hornbills

There were over 1000 people in attendance and we were determined to hang in until we could at least deliver our gift to the bride. The dancing to the gift table finally arrived around 8:30pm so we simply danced to deliver the gifts and danced to our car!!!! Now in the 4 hours that we were there, we did meet many new people and enjoy a nice Chagga dinner and plenty of soda! I also have learned not to go these events without being armed with a knitting project! As we do not drive at night unless we really have to, the trip home was stressful but we arrived safely.

We are including some pictures of the nice new orchids I received for my birthday and also some nice ones now blooming. We are so blessed to have an orchid farm nearly at our back door. There are also so new and returning birds around our house. The pair of silver cheeked hornbills are somewhat seasonal and have recently returned. They are really big birds so you don’t usually miss their presence.

I will also say that our Village is now beginning a bit of a transition in missionary staff. Pat, our Headmistress of the school will be leaving at the end of the year as will Kent’s help, Elisabeth in the RICE program. At this time we have no idea who their replacements will be. There are many Rafiki Villages in need of both of their positions so ask yourself and your friends if perhaps God is calling you to step for a year or more to serve in Africa with Rafiki. If you have education training and background you would make a wonderful headmaster or headmistress for our schools and if you have talents at all in art and/or music you are needed in RICE. What an opportunity to serve God through the people of Tanzania or another African country.

Random sign from in town!