My Sister Church

My Lincoln church (Southwood Lutheran) began a partnership with our Uswaa, our sister church in Tanzania in 1994. Each year we can feel the bond growing stronger and stronger. I want to share with you a little about Uswaa and some of the people.

It is tradition that those who go to Tanzania teach Sunday School at Uswaa. We can expect anywhere from 250-400 students. We went this time not really certain with what lesson we were going to do. We decided to make fish necklaces and had a song, I WILL MAKE YOU FISHERS OF MEN. When Mama heard us talking about that song she knew it and taught us the song in Kiswahili. I'll include a video of the students singing the song with Mama and one with them singing it with my interpreter. Mama also helped us figure out how to make the string look nicer by twisting it on our legs. I've included a picture of Scott and Mama twisting the string. Every walk we took we came across kids who would hold up their fish necklaces. A simple lesson turned out to be a wonderful message.

The reason I went in August this year instead of July is because our sister church was having their 100 year celebration on August 12. It was so much fun to be able to go and be a part of this jubilee. They anticipated 5,000 people attending. It was a wonderful honor when they finally didn't see us as guests anymore and saw us as family. We knew that day happened when they let us help prepare the food for the jubilee. Some of us peeled bananas, some peeled garlic, and some cleaned rice. I got to clean the rice. We were taken to this group of women with rice in these bamboo basket lids. They were shaking and tossing the rice. They didn't speak English so they couldn't tell us how to do it. We just copied them and eventually we think we got the hang of it. Well, maybe we didn't get the hang of it. The next day during the jubilee all of us admitted that we had little stones in our rice. Oops. All of the food was donated. It was amazing how much food there was.

Click here to listen/watch the video of Mama singing with my students.

Click here to watch the dance which was the same as the one Heidi and I participated in, during the jubilee celebration. This video shows the dance where the lady came over and gave me the plant top... as seen in the picture above. I couldn't understand them when we were dancing with them, but I'm fairly certain they were making fun of the tall Mazungo (white person).

Faraja Primary School

I'm back in the states now, but now that I have easy access to the internet I'll be posting at least 3 or 4 times so people can find out about my experiences and see some of the pictures.

Today I'll tell you about Faraja! Heidi, Gail, Jo and I took a 2 hour ride to one of the only schools for handicapped children in Tanzania (I think there are 3 total). My teaching background is special education so I was really looking forward to seeing these children.

We had a tour of the school, peeked into a few classrooms, saw the dorms the children stay in, and had tea. We got the sense that they didn't really want us to be in the classrooms... which was the reason I came. I didn't just want to be an observer, I wanted to teach the students. I'd forgotten that God had a greater plan for us and that I needed to forget my own agenda. Finally the pastor asked if we wanted to play with the children on the playground after school was out. Sure, fine. It wasn't teaching, but at least I'd get to socialize with the children. We took adaptive toys like frisbees, velcro balls, bubbles, wands with strings, and music to the playground with us.

It was the most amazing experience ever! ! I immediately noticed that despite having a physical handicap these children were so extremely happy. They didn't let their disabilities or hardships get in the way of their enjoying life. They were so capable of doing things I would never have imagined them being able to do. One boy (I will attach his picture) wanted to teeter totter. No big deal except he had no legs. I tried to help push the teeter totter for him but he kept shooing me away. He would bounce to get it to go up and down. When he was done, he just walked away using his arms with his empty pant legs trailing behind him.

Heidi brought an ipod and speakers and we did the Hokey Pokey. The children who could stand caught on easily and did the actions with us. Those that were in wheelchairs or who couldn't stand without a walker, we went over and picked them up and helped them do the dance. They were laughing and having the best time. There are only approximately 8 adults for 80+ children so they don't get very many opportunities to have adult assistance. We were surprised at how the students take care of each other. They push wheelchairs, they get walkers for a school mate, the help feed those who can't move their arms. It was so wonderful to see how they formed their own community and included and helped everyone be successful.

We spent the night in their guest house and the next day, after morning prayer service, the pastor let us go into the classrooms. I think the playground time the day before showed him that we deeply cared. I went into a kindergarten classroom and helped with numbers... the children spoke Kiswahili, but were learning their numbers in English. After that we went into the computer lab. They were just given four computers, but didn't know how to use them very well. I worked with one student on word processing. We may have had different languages, but communication was never a problem.

I had to write Brad and tell him that I gave away most of my money while I was at Faraja. I felt compelled to donate what I had because they were doing such wonderful things and I needed to have it continue. I went there with a full pocket book and left with a full heart! What a trade-off!

Feels Like Home

I sadly only have 2 days left! I feel so at home here. This is the only time I've gotten to an internet cafe in the week so I will try to catch people up on what I've been doing.

First, my family sponsors an AIDS orphan and pays for her education. She happens to be going to the school in which I am teaching. I've gotten to spend some quality time with her and it will be very hard for me to leave her. When I get back to the states I will post pictures of her. She is such a bright spot in my life. When you ask about my children, I will now say I have 4. Happiness is my 4th child and she truly feels like family. She graduates from Form 4 (Senior) next year, so I am going to have to try to figure out how to get back here to see that. I did tell her that my family would continue to sponsor her for form 5 and 6 which is like training before college. She cried when she found out that she won't have to worry about that for 3 more years.

I spent 2 days at Faraja, which is a school for mentally and physically handicapped children. I was in heaven. The students were so happy and well taken care of. They live there and it has become their home. I have about 4 children in the kindergarten class in which I visited that I would LOVE to take home with me. Wait until you see those pictures. Their faces and smiles will take your breath away.

We are getting ready for the big celebration at our Sister church tomorrow. We heard that we will have to get up at 4:00 a.m. to start cooking. We get to help peel bananas and potatoes later today when we get back there. They are expecting around 5,000 people to attend. The animals that have been donated so far and are being kept on the yard of the church are 5 cows, 15 goats, 8 sheep and 160 chickens. Butchering day is today... hopefully I'm not around when that happens. I about cried yesterday when I saw the villagers bring animals and I knew what was going to happen to that animal.

I'm going to end now. Please know I am safe and very happy with my Tanzania Family! I'm crying right now thinking of leaving them because they really have warmly taken us in.

Oh, last night we sat by the fireplace in the dining room to get warm. I'm wearning a scarf around my neck right now. Just thought I'd mention it because we heard that you are in a heat wave. I'll think of you all tonight as I sit by the fire to keep warm.

Kwa Harinie

I'm Here

I don't know where to start. It has been an amazing adventure already. It started out pretty rough with my daughter getting sick and going to the doctor while I was in flight. I was so worried about her. I called from Amsterdam and she was getting better but the dog broke his back and was paralyzed. I found out now he's had surgery and is home now. Maybe now I can quit worrying about home and do God's work here.

I went on Safari with 36 students and 3 teachers and 3 American's and 1 Brit and 2 drivers. That doesn't sound impressive until you find out that we were on a bus that only holds 26 people. We drove hundreds and hundreds of kilometers packed in tighter than sardines. People were sitting on laps and more people on top of those laps. It sounds awful, but it was so wonderful. No better way to get to know the students then to be crammed into a bus like that for 3 days. I only have 6 minutes left on the internet so I'm going to go on and if I have time later I will elaborate.

Yesterday I accidently erased ALL of my pictures on my camera. I wasn't even concerned about it because over here you know there are much worse things in life. Yesterday I got to feel what it is like to go hungry. While at a National Park we were at the picnic table eating the one tortillia and cooked meat and a babboon came up and took our tortillia. He left the meat that was cooked about 5 days ago and brought along in a bucket for our school trip. Needless to say, we went without lunch because I was not going to eat that meat. We didn't have breakfast, so we were looking forward to lunch. Oh well, that night at 8:00 we finally got to eat a meal. Yes, now I know how the people in Africa feel. I have a new understanding for when they say the starving people of africa.

Only 3 minutes left on the the computer so I need to close.

I have only been on Safari. Today I will go to a wedding. Tomorrow I teach Sunday School. Then I will teach for the rest of the week. I will try to make it back to the cafe and let you know what is going on. I did read my e-mail so those of you who took the time to e-mail me please know I did read them and was so glad to hear from you!

I feel like the luckiest person in the world. Thanks for letting me share this experience with you.

Kristi