Where is God in all this?

I really struggled with how to express my experience of our mission trip.  I think the most revealing for me was me!   Why do people have to live in cow manure mixed with clay huts and suffer from HIV?

It is not fair that a daughter is basically sold for cows to be a second wife to a man that has HIV, more over infecting her and two children born through that arrangement. 

I had the sober experience to visit her with social worker and other members of the Hospice team.  We walked from the road overlooking the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen and walked to this Lady’s hut.  She was most welcoming and was provided her supply of medicine.  Through her interpreter she indicated that her Husband had died of AIDS and her youngest child had died and begged for the Hospice worker to help her tell her 12 year old daughter she was also infected.  I had all I could do to not break.  When we got back to the vehicle I blurted out “Where’s God in all this!”  Silence!  Then last Sunday when I was reading the bulletin for the Youth there it was “Where is God in all this”.  I finally realized that I should be asking “Where am I for God in all This”.  We are so blessed and we take so much for granted.  What can I do to make a difference in any circumstance for God’s purpose?

 Howard Kemnitz

Home again.

Between Saturday morning, East Africa time and Sunday afternoon Eastern time, our group of thirteen hearty travelers slowly drifted apart.  On the Serengeti, Jack and Jane, Payton and Elena, and Shane and Tammy took a small plain east for some R&R on the Indian Ocean.  Back in Monduli, we dropped of Diane; as always, she has more to do before she can rest.  In Arusha, Sarah left the group to travel to South Africa with her husband.  In Amsterdam we said good bye to Carrie when she caught flight a home to Minnesota.  I said my goodbyes to Earlene, Howard and Arlene in Dulles airport, where Steph, Hannah and Connor greeted me warmly, and took me home and fed me pizza. 

It’s good to be home, even if it will take a few days to adjust.  The floors have carpets, and all the windows have glass and screens.  Clean, fresh water comes out of the taps.  As much as I want. I don’t have to brush my teeth with bottled water, or make sure I know where my daily water bottle is at all times.  The electricity is always on. I can sleep in the same bed for more than two nights in a row. The internet is always available, and it’s so fast I can hardly believe it.  My family is here. It seems like riches beyond imagination.

So the trip is over, but the mission continues.  The journey home was marked by many conversations about what happens now.  We saw so much need.  The schools in Arusha need books, and repair.  The girls school needs teachers, funding for college for graduations and better computers.  Selian needs nurses, new equipment, and renovation.  Arusha Lutheran Medical Center needs funds for care and equipment.  The villages far from the cities still need schools.  Everyone needs clean water and reliable electricity.  We all have moments of feeling overwhelmed; times of despair from not knowing where to start. 

Asked how he deals with that sense of scale of the work to be done, Dr. Mark Jacobson quoted Teddy Roosevelt:  “Do what you can with what you have, where you are.”  That is our mission now: To do what we can to support Operation Bootstrap, and our mission partners in Tanzania with the resources our congregation has, from our home in the valley.  In the long run, the Masai and the other people of the Tanzanian highlands are going to have to find their own way forward, and their own solutions to their problems.  What we can do is to answer their calls for help, especially in education, medicine, and public health, so that people their will have resources to chart their own future.  We can support their faith so that future is built on strong foundations.  And we can draw inspiration from their faith and their strength to help us though the tasks at hand, and to grow together, as brothers and sisters in Christ with our neighbors around the globe.

Even though we’re home now, don’t give up on this blog just yet.  A few more stories may come to mind in the next few days as we process all that we have seen and experienced. 

Thanks to you all for following our stories, and for your thoughts and prayers. 

-Bruce

(I just used google to check the TR quote! What a country!)    

Something…

As our trip nears its conclusion, I feel like I’ve used the word Something… (Just like that, in italics, followed by an ellipsis)  a hundred times a day.  “That poverty is something…, the ingenuity of the people is something…, the Tarengari Basin at sunrise s is something…, the animals are something… the special people like Eunice Simonson, Mark Jacobson, and Mama Paulina are something…. (I could go on in this vein all day.)

 I need a better word or phrase.  Amazing, awesome, or astounding don’t cover it.  Maybe “witness to the Holy Spirit”, or “Evidence of God’s Grace” are moving in the right direction.  I mean all these things and more when I say “Isn’t that something….  I’m sure much of our amazement comes from seeing a dramatically new environment.  The amazing, awesome, astounding witness to the Holy Spirit and Evidence of God’s Grace surround us all day, every day in places that seem mundane to us.  But when everything we’re used to has changed we can no longer avoid seeing these things that are just… Something…

 

Jack named the Animals.

  silver backed jackal

 

Female Lion

 

Leopard Tortise

Zebra and Wildebeest Stampeding

27-Jan-2012 (even if it gets posted later)

Today I was blessed to go on a safari ride with (among others) Jack McAllister, Payton Taylor, and a Tanzania guide name Urio.   Jack and Payton know the names of nearly all the birds and animals on the Serengeti, and Urio knows the ones that Jack and Payton don’t.  You don’t just see the well know animals, the lions, the cheetahs, the elephants and giraffe, but they point out the bat eared foxes, the striped hyenas, the leopard tortoises, the steppe eagles, and the violet crested rollers.  The experience reminded me of Genesis 19: 

     “So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.”

            Jack, Payton, and Urio would name each animal, an tell us a little about it.  Knowing the animals names is the beginning of understanding the difference between the animals, and understanding their natures and their needs.  Learning the names of the animals is the beginning of meaningful stewardship of the natural world.  Likewise, meeting our human neighbors in need in Tanzania (or anywhere else in the world) is the beginning of understanding their natures and needs.  Meeting our neighbors is the first step in becoming better be stronger brothers and sisters in Christ.

Blessings,

See you all soon,

Bruce

Today we traveled to Karatu in a different region of Tanzania.  Karatu is outside the Masai lands, and is largely inhabited by other tribes.  They wear bright colors, but different than the red and blue favored by the Masai.  The traditional dress is different.  Open pastures have given way to orderly fields, cultivated in the rich soil of the rift valley.  The farmers live in square brick houses with tin roofs, rather that the round, thatched mud huts that we have become used to.  We see few tall, lean Masai herdsmen. 

We’ve come to Karatu to visit the Ngora Ngora Crater.  The crater is a vast, steep sided bowl formed millions of years ago in a volcanic catastrophe.  The plain at the floor of the crater is home to a staggering array of species.  We counted 18 large mammal species and several more large birds (see below). 

All this serves to remind us that diversity in all things pleases God, and witnesses to his boundless creativity. 

Tomorrow we travel to the Serengeti, along a very long, very unpaved road, so keep us in your prayers.

-Bruce

Mammals species:

            Cape buffalo, zebra, Grant’s gazelle, Thompson’s gazelle, serval cat, wart hog, wildebeest, lion, black rhino, eland, hyena, hippos, elephant, hartebeest, cheetah, waterbuck, and baboons.

The larger birds we saw include the ostrich, Kori Bustard, and  huge flocks or crowned crane.

           

black rhinos, zebra, and wildebeest graze together in the crater.



A visit to a boma

This post is a little out of order, but yesterday (Monday) we visited a Masai boma on our way to Tarengeri.  A friend of Diane, and MGLSS graduate named Scholer needed a ride from Arusha to her home village.  Diane also brought food and a solar flashlight/cellphone charger that were needed in the village. As always, the visit ended with the hosts sharing Coca-cola and other drinks with our group.  I'm not sure how the villagers always have something to serve to guests, but they do.

The village men welcome our group

Some women watch from the sidelines

Some of the village women head out to the fields 

Peyton never misses a chance to practice his Swahili, and learn more about the Masai culture

 The young men of the village pose for a photo

Wherever Diane Jacoby  goes, some one needs to talk to her

Coming home from market

This guy picked up some fast food at the local drive through.  Note the live chicken on his handlebars.

Wake up tme

This morning I witnessed the most incredible/amazing sunrise!  Sitting on the rim of the Tangeri valley, in my pjs, with a cup of coffee, masses and masses of birds singing, and the hues of pink, orange, yellow and blue slowing fading as the sun rises to reveal the beautiful and lush terrain below.  This morning we’re greeted with Dik-diks’ scurrying between our tents, elephants slowly moving across the plains, and a lone male giraffe in profile.  God is good, Always!

-Arlene 

The view from Tarengeri Lodge, but not at dawn.