New Jersey Summer Events!

Eleven days until we leave for the U.S.  Or, for you math geeks like me...only 248 1/2 hours to go.

We're a little excited to see everyone this summer but in splitting our time between states, churches, supporters, family and friends, I know it's going to go very fast and I want to make sure we see as many people as possible.  

So we're setting up 2 group events in NJ - one at the beginning and one near the end of our stay.  We know it's difficult to plan around summer vacations but we hope one of these dates (or both!) works for you.  Please mark your calendars!

Thursday, June 26:  Ministry Night at Covenant CRC (400 North Haledon Ave., North Haledon), 7-9 p.m.  Come see some pictures and hear stories of God's faithfulness to our family over the past year.  If anyone would like to donate baked goods, juice, coffee, cups or plates for the event - please contact us at tanzaniasteens@gmail.com

Wednesday, August 6:  Fundraiser at Blue Moon Mexican Cafe in Wyckoff  Come enjoy some delicious lunch or dinner and help support our work in Tanzania.  Flyers will be available soon!

Neither date work?  We'll also be presenting at the following churches:

June 29: Ridgewood CRC, Ridgewood, 10:30 a.m. service

July 6: Covenant CRC, North Haledon, 10:00 a.m. service

August 3 (tentative): Midland Park CRC, Midland Park, TBD 

August 10:  Ridgewood CRC, Ridgewood, 10:30 a.m. service

Abundant Blessings

Last month, we put together a "wish list" for things we'd like from the U.S., thinking maybe we would get a few items.

Wow.  We were blown away!  Friends and family blessed us so richly with nearly every item on the list, some in multiple.  And these were not cast-offs from attics and basements, but new, high-quality things - many still with tags on them.

Thank you to Jeff, Jed and Rachel for serving as our pack mules, to Joyce and Mary for boxing it all up and to the many of you who donated with glad and generous hearts.  We feel so loved and appreciated by all of you.

"Thank you" doesn't really cut it in this case.  It's kind of a lame response to something that is so overwhelming and humbling.  Kind of like our inadequate thanksgivings to God for his abundant blessings.

If I had to pick a theme for this first year in Africa, it would be exactly that: "abundant blessings." Anytime we had a true need, God not only came through adequately, but extravagantly.  We can see this through our fundraising, through the new house that was provided, through an instant and rich community, and through the amazing growth that our kids experienced this year.

Time after time, we were reminded that we have indeed been given "immeasureably more" (Ephesians 3:20).

One small example of this was Easter this year.  It was our first holiday in Africa without any U.S. family. Hoping not to spend this day alone, we extended a general potluck invitation to our community. It was kind-of last minute (by U.S. standards), and we weren't quite sure if anyone would come.  We ended up with over 60 people, many of whom stayed into the evening:  adults playing board games, kids running around together and everyone enjoying each other's company.  A day that could have been difficult and full of homesickness was instead full of fellowship.  It was probably one of our best days here.

It's a good reminder that our God is not a small God.

All for us!  "Ask, and it will be given to you...for everyone who asks receives..." (Matthew 7:7a and 8a).

The E.C. shirts were a great surprise!

A picture of just the packaged snack foods!  So excited to have lunches taken care of these last 3 weeks!

Spring Musical

In the U.S., the end of the school year is jam-packed with activities, and it's no different in Tanzania.

This past weekend, we all enjoyed seeing the product of many, many hours of hard work and dedication - performances of the musical Beauty and the Beast!

Emily had two roles in the show:  a Bimbette (one of the girls in love with Gaston) and "Soup du jour," one of the foods served to Belle in the song "Be our Guest."

The character of Gaston (boorish, brainless, sexist) definitely irks my feminist soul, and he was played masterfully by a grade 10 student.  While I certainly hope Emily never acts like a Bimbette in real life, she did a fabulous job of simpering, oohing and ahhing through the show.

Here she is in front of the student-produced village backdrop.

The story of getting her costume is worthy of a blog post in and of itself - I went to the Tegeta used clothing market and picked through vast stacks of (dirty, smelly) clothing to find some "Bimbette-looking" attire, trying to approximate her size while loudspeakers were screaming "mia tano" (Swahili for the cost - 500 Tsh) and masses of unwashed bodies pressed up all around me .  Because this equates to about $0.30 USD per article, I felt totally fine with getting a few different options for her to try on.

Here is her soup du jour performance!

Being part of this musical was not always an easy journey for Emily, but like many tough experiences, I feel it definitely built character.  I'm proud of the dedication she showed, even when she didn't get the part she wanted, even when some of her lines were given to younger kids, and even after a lot of her friends quit mid-stream.  It was a huge time commitment (3 to 4 times a week after school for 2-3 hours at a time) and required lots of singing, dancing, and concentrating.   I really appreciate all the hard work of the directors....just managing 40 kids is not easy, let alone choreographing them and producing music with them!

I'm really thankful for the opportunity she had to be part of the HOPAC drama productions this year and I hope she continues to use her gifts again next school year.

Primary Sports Day

Last week, Josh and Charlotte participated in Primary Sports Day, which was a full day of fun track and field activities. HOPAC students are divided into 4 houses - just like Hogwarts - and these houses are based on the colors of the Tanzanian flag.  We are in Green House!  It was fun to see all the kids wearing their house colors and cheering wildly.

The early morning was devoted to the running events and was divided into age groups and gender.  There were two "heats" for each category.

Josh ran in the 200 m and the 4 x 200 m relay.  Here he is receiving the baton

Charlotte ran the 50 m, 200 m and the 4 x 200 m relay.

Every student also participated in the long jump, softball throw, and obstacle course (which I helped to run).

The afternoon kicked off with tug of war, which Green House totally dominated!

The day finished with some relay races.

Then it was time for the victors' stand.  I am a proud mama to report that Josh won a 1st and a 2nd place, and Charlotte won 3 2nd places and one 3rd place!  I thought it was really funny that her two BFFs took 1st and 2nd, and she took 3rd in the 200 meter race.  Speedy girls she hangs with.

Josh and the Green House relay team took first place!

It was a really fun day for everyone...and even though we spent a good 6t+ hours in the sun and did sweat, it really was not too hot.  Woohoo - winter is here!  The kids were really tired after such an action-packed day and Josh asked to go to bed by about 7:00 p.m.

Best news of all - Green House took overall winner!

Hands and Feet

Matthew 25 is known as the story of the sheep and the goats.  It's one of the most convicting passages in the Bible, because it clearly states that if we serve the least of our brothers and sisters, we are actually serving Jesus.  And if we fail to help these hungry, thirsty, lonely children of God, we are actually failing Jesus himself.  The sheep go to eternal life with the Father, the goats to eternal punishment. Pretty sobering.

As one small way in which I'm trying to live out Matthew 25, I've been helping out with two after-school kids' clubs, trying my best to play with the kids and love them for a few hours each week.

But it is not always easy.  These kids smell.  They have open sores.  They cough on me, usually in my face. They love to touch my hair with their dirty hands.  Sometimes the little ones pee on me.  If they don't get a turn on the play equipment, they sob, yell and even hit me or each other with their fists.  Even after nearly six months of studying Swahili, I can't understand very much of what they say.

Many weeks, I go home afterwards tired, discouraged, and in great need of a shower.  Some weeks it's really hard to motivate myself to go and serve because it's not always clear that my presence is actually making a difference.  Although there are certainly moments of great blessing, it's not always a transcendent experience.

In short, I like the idea of being Jesus' hands and feet much more than the actual reality of doing so. Somewhere along the road, I think a lot of us develop a completely glamorized notion of service that is at odds with real life.  We want the pretty picture without the actual sweat and tears behind it.  But we can learn from Jesus that service is gritty, messy work.  He went out among the masses.  He touched lepers.  He showed love to prostitutes. The crowds were constantly thronging around him, wanting more of His miracles but not always more of Him. Sometimes He withdrew to a solitary place, but most often, "He had compassion on them." (Matthew 9:36 among many references).

Dictionary.com tells me that the definition of compassion is "a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering."

Compassion is definitely the key to serving these desperately poor kids.  So I'll keep showing up with compassion and loving them.  And I'll remember that Jesus wouldn't turn His face in disgust from them or turn them away, but would say, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these" (Matthew 19:14).

And how could you help from loving these precious kids...even if they pee on you?

Home Stretch

Four weeks from yesterday is the last day of school.  One month from today, we board a plane in the middle of the night to return to the U.S. for seven weeks.  In between then and now are a lot of things that have to happen...visitors coming, two kids' birthdays, and a myriad of school projects and events, to say nothing of preparing to leave here for an extended period of time and just the daily challenges of life in Dar.

The problem is the same one that I face at the end of every school year:  I'm out of energy.  I'm tired of the daily routine of packing lunches, quizzing kids on spelling words, helping with homework and remembering an insane amount of details. We didn't lose any part of the tedious aspects of school by moving to Africa (library books, permission slips, P.E. clothes) and we added some more (swimming gear and the fact that packing a lunch is a herculean effort here).   There is a great blog from last year that perfectly sums up my attitude at the end of the school year.  You can read about the "worst end of school year mom ever" here.

The other challenge here is that we are moving into "winter."  Even though we're pretty near to the equator, where the periods of light and dark are roughly equal the whole year, I can really tell a difference.  It used to be dark after 7 p.m. and now it's moving closer to 6 p.m.  The bigger impact for me is that it's not getting light in the mornings until much later - well after 6:30 a.m. (and the kids leave for school before 7 a.m.)  This is a big difference from ending the school year in the States, where the days get longer.  I miss that extra burst of energy that sunlight brings in the early mornings.

Our family just completed a 5K race this past weekend and so I've been thinking a lot about the "race" metaphor in the Bible - the challenge to finish strong, to win the prize.  My view of these verses in the past has been that in order to get our crown, we sprint across the finish line, arms raised in victory. But most races aren't like that. When you've run as hard as you can earlier in the race, sometimes "finishing strong" means you are limping across that finish line in exhaustion.

I believe we are not called to run fast, but simply to run faithfully.  We are commanded to "run with perseverance the race marked out for us."  (Hebrews 12:1).  We are instructed to fight the good fight, finish the race and keep the faith (2 Tim 4:7).  Sometimes, as written in Isaiah 40, we will "soar on wings like eagles" or "run and not grow weary" but other times we will "walk and not be faint."

Words I'm holding on to as I'm walking (trying to keep from fainting) and limping into these last 18 days of school....

The Twisty-Tie

I knew that there would be many things which were familiar and comfortable from my U.S. life that would not be available here in Dar...reliable power, water from the tap, hot showers on demand, street addresses, etc. etc.  And while I definitely miss those big things, it's the loss of the little things that have surprised me.

Exhibit A:  the "twisty-tie"...the little piece of wire that goes around your bread and baked goods to seal in the freshness.   I'm sure most of you have never given this a second thought, and it's definitely not something I thought I'd miss!

However, here we have an annoying little sticker-seal around our bread.  It's nearly impossible to remove without a scissors, and even in carefully cutting the sticker, I usually accidentally cut the plastic wrap around the bread more often than not.  There is no possibility of adequately re-closing the bread bag with this system.   And in a place which has very high humidity most the year, (and no preservatives in the bread), sealing the loaf in a better fashion would probably be a good idea.  Even kept in the fridge, this bread can turn to mold very quickly!

(photo and hand courtesy Emily Steen)

The other interesting feature about the sticker-seal is that it's printed with the "sell-by" date directly on it.  However, you can't actually read the date as it's usually printed towards the inside of the seal, and then you need to cut the sticker in order to eat the bread.  Therefore, a better judge of the "freshness" (a very relative term as it's usually brick-like in texture), is to squeeze it and/or visually inspect it for mold before purchase.  Believe it or not, moldy bread on the shelves is not a rare occurrence!

Although twisty-ties seem to be an obvious solution to the problem of keeping bread fresh, they simply do not exist here, anywhere. Why is this?  Does the manufacturing technology not exist in Africa?  Is there a shortage of wire?   If anybody is looking into a new business idea, there's no competition at all for the twisty-tie market here.

It's the little things....