Waiting

The last time I posted about decision-making:  will we stay? will we go?  it was in late November

Although we made the decision in early January that we'll be moving back to the U.S., we intentionally haven't said anything publicly.  We wanted everything to fall into place so that we could trumpet to the world:  We're going back to New Jersey, at this time, to do this specific thing and execute this specific plan!  However, things are still not finalized and we're not sure when they will be.  Although returning to the U.S. does not feel nearly as exciting as heading to Africa, it is still a big leap of faith (and a lesson in patience).  We feel called to go back, although we're not sure how this will happen.

We've been in a very weird limbo for the past 3 months, keeping the news public but quiet, and we have really lapsed in our communication to the outside world because of it.  (Maybe because if we don't talk about it, it's not happening!)  However, the longer we go on, the harder it is to pretend that we're not facing another big life change.  More and more people know we're leaving and things are rolling on without us. We have people asking us if we're selling our stuff.  Just this morning, we had a family looking through our house and hoping to rent it.  I'm eyeing things with the intent to use them up before leaving.  Do I need to buy another jar of rosemary?

Yet we haven't yet fully committed to NJ living either.  Our kids aren't enrolled in school anywhere right now, neither of us has jobs, and we don't know exactly what date we'll be moving back into our house.  When we look to the future, there are many unanswered questions.

This we do know:  our contract with World Missions and HOPAC ends on June 30, and we have plane tickets home, arriving on July 22 at JFK airport.  Beyond that, we have wishes and hopes and dreams but not a lot of concrete anything.  For a recovering Type-A planning-loving perfectionist, this waiting is hard.

This we also know:  it is going to be really hard to leave.  We have made lots of friends and this place has felt like home in many ways.  Change is always harder than status quo.  Life is definitely more complicated, busier and more expensive in the U.S.

This we also know:  it would be really hard to stay long-term.  Neither one of us feels like support-raising is a particular strength and it's getting harder and harder each month.  Every time the kids are sick, my anxiety ratchets up.  Our car is not reliable and would require a major investment.  Looming ahead in just another 2 years are the Cambridge exams beginning for the kids.  Living here is difficult and day in, day out, it takes its toll.  I have so much respect for the people who grind it out here for years.

So, we wait.  And try to live each day in the moment, trusting that it's all going to work out.




(this was a photo that was going around Facebook recently...this particular one is from the blog Just a Girl Who Loves).

Enough

One thing that has surprised me about my time in Africa is how much I have struggled with contentment.   In my very first month here I blogged about these feelings of dissatisfaction (you can read about them here) and although I've made some strides since then, I still struggle with feeling that I have enough.  Enough missionary support, enough food in the house, enough wearable clothes, enough activities to give my life meaning and purpose, enough time and attention to give my children.

The reality is that I'll never feel like I have enough, even though I actually do (especially in comparison to most people around me).

I need to learn afresh that we are to pray for daily bread.  Not weekly bread, monthly bread, or (as I'd prefer) a lifetime supply of bread.

I can't remember where I read this, but it said something to the effect of:  how can you truly ask God, "Give us this day our daily bread" when you have a month of food stocked in your pantry?  The Lord's Prayer is a prayer of dependence upon God, and when things are easy, we feel like we are providing for our needs in our own strength,

The beauty and the frustration about living here is that it is a lot easier to rely on God for provision as I am reminded again and again of my dependence on Him.  It's harder to buy things and it's difficult to stock up.  Many times the store will not have exactly what I want, or as much of it as I want, or the ATM won't have money, or the car won't work, or the gas station won't have gas, or we'll lose power and I'll be anxious about the extra chicken I have unexpectedly defrosting in the freezer.

Although my goal is always to plan ahead, it doesn't usually happen.  However, over the last few weeks, I have been reminded time and time again that God is providing enough.  Even when it's not as much as I want, it's enough.  Here are a few examples:

I needed to make play-dough for the kids in the quarry but I was low on salt (there is an insane amount of salt in homemade play-dough!)  My car was broken and although a friend went to two separate places to buy salt for me, neither one had any (!)  In desperation, I just decided to make due with the amount I had and see what happened.  To my great surprise, I had exactly the half cup that was needed.  Enough.

In preparing for our 2014 taxes, I added up our rental income and subtracted our mortgage, taxes, unexpected repairs and other expenses.  How much did we net this year?  $8.80.  Enough.

I went to buy Vodacom vouchers, which is how we fund our internet .  Although I had hoped to stock up for a couple of weeks, they only had the amount we needed for one week.  But it was enough.

Our car has been a problem since, literally, the first day we owned it.  It has cost us endless repair charges, frustration and stress and has driven me to the depths of despair (pun intended).  But it has only actually broken down one time on the road (and that was really close to home and was a quick solution).  It has safely seen us through the last year and a half, including 4 trips that were pretty far outside of Dar, and most recently, 2 trips across town to the clinic in the pouring rain.  Enough.

Raising missionary support has been more challenging this year, but every month, we're getting by. There will be an unexpected offering from a church, a new one-time donor, a drop in our expenses.  Enough.

Praying this Scripture again today:
Hebrews 13:5:  Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."

He is enough.

Blooming in the Dry Season

Last year, the Tanzanians tell me that we had an atypical summer.  We never went a really long time without some kind of rain, and it had already significantly cooled off by this point in the calendar. Long-term HOPACers told me, "You don't know how lucky you are to have this as your first summer here."

Although I was still sweating profusely last year, I can see that apparently they were right.  This year has been incredibly hot - over 90 degrees (plus humidity) every day for over a month straight.  And it has been unbelievably dry.  I can't remember much rain at all since early January besides maybe a couple of two-minute sprinkles.

Everyone is looking forward to this rainy season with anticipation, knowing in the back of our minds that it is going to bring new challenges of flooding and mosquitoes.

But there is one plant that is extremely happy in this hot, dry season:  the bougainvillea (I can spell it, but don't ask me to say it!)  According to Wikipedia, "bougainvilleas grow best in dry soil in very bright full sun...and in fact will not flourish if over-watered."

Everything around it is lifeless, yet it blooms with amazing beauty.

I think there's a lesson in there about thriving despite challenges.  Are we going to be the kind of people who are snuffed out by the tough circumstances of life, or are we going to flower in the midst of hardship?   Will the hard times cause us to dig down deep to blossom or will we wither on the vine?

Personally, I feel that this hot season has caused me to wither.  But I know that the difference between withering and flourishing is the ability to thrive despite our circumstances.  The only way to do this is to stay connected to the Vine  (John 15:5).

"Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all."  (2 Corinthians 4:16-17)

Ants!

I've always had an appreciation for ants.  They are super hard-working, great team players, and they really know how to get the job done.  They make impressive structures in just a short amount of time and really have a lot to show for their days.

The book of Proverbs even has two favorable mentions of ants, including one of my favorite sayings:  "Go to the ant, you sluggard!" (Proverbs 6:6).  In the Aesop's Fable about the ant and the grasshopper, we are all encouraged to be more like the ant who plans ahead for the winter and isn't afraid to work hard.

Nonetheless, these days, I am feeling less favorably disposed to this industrious insect.  We are under a veritable explosion of ants, both inside and outside our house.  Thankfully, the ants in question are tiny but they are everywhere and there are so many of them!

Every morning, I fill the dog's food and water bowls outside and there are literally thousands surrounding the bowls.  I then return to the breakfast table inside and there are thousands more swarming the toast crumbs and jam splotches that have been there all of 10 minutes.  Last night, Charlotte dropped a forkful of rice under her chair and it looked like a small party of mountain-climbing ants.

The ants make huge ant highways to transport crumbs - across the table, down the floor, up the wall.  I really wish I could get a better picture or a video of this, because despite the fact that I'm repulsed by them, I'm still impressed.

Unlike the U.S. ants I've experienced, I feel that these ants seem to prefer carbs rather than sticky stuff.  They always come out for bread products, including a memorable day when they were transporting a cube of stuffing up the wall.

This is our weapon against the battle of the ants:  DOOM (best name for an insect killer ever!)  Disclaimer:  it's not "odourlous."  It has a sickly sweet, cloying smell....but it does spell instantaneous DOOM for the hapless ants.

My friend Gretchen said a couple of months ago "You know, back in the U.S., when you think there's a bug on you and it's usually just a fuzz or a hair?  Here it's always a bug!"  Usually it's an ant.

I did make the happy discovery that putting a few cloves of garlic in the sugar does get rid of ants. There were hundreds of ants in my sugar (despite it being in an "air-tight" Tupperware container from the U.S.)  While I don't necessarily care about picking out the ants before baking, it was a huge gross-out factor for my kids when they went to make Kool-Aid.   Instead of throwing out the whole 2 kilos of sugar, I decided to try the helpful hint that was included in my HOPAC cookbook.  I was definitely skeptical.  At first, it looked like the ants were just going on another mountain-climbing expedition - this time on the garlic cloves.  But then, miraculously, they vanished...and they haven't returned!  I was also worried that the garlic may permeate the taste of the sugar, but I haven't noticed anything.

 Although I'd much rather battle the ants than cockroaches, centipedes or mosquitoes (all have also been in our house) or certainly a tarantula (has been at school), I'd like them to leave now, please.  Maybe when the rains come all my problems will go away....is it too much to ask that dust, heat, and ants all leave together?  We will see.  

This Week in Relational Living

I'm sure I've mentioned before how relational it is here in Tanzania.  Greetings are very important, and it is essential to greet everyone you meet, even the clerks at the store.  There are no anonymous transactions here.

Sometimes I find this very wearying if I'm tired, in a bad mood, just want to get my milk and bread and get out of the store ASAP.  But I usually force myself to smile and interact, even briefly and I know in my heart that it is how we should treat others.  I've always tried to treat people - even the most humble of service workers - as people, but in my desire for efficiency or in my distractedness, I'm sure that some of my U.S. encounters still made them feel like objects.  Here, it's really not possible to do this, and that's a very good thing.

This week I had 3 memorable encounters with Tanzanians in our community.

On Monday, Charlotte, Josh and I visited our local clinic as none of us were feeling well.  Although the doctor was pretty sure it wasn't malaria or typhoid, it's usually just routine practice to get your blood drawn every time you go, "just in case."  As he was taking our blood, our phlebotomist was chatting with us, half in English and half in Swahili.  He mentioned that his name was Zakayo - "like the man in the Bible who climbed the tree."  Ah...Zaccheus!!  I then asked him if he knew the song about Zaccheus.  He didn't, and so the 3 of us busted out into "Zaccheus Was a Wee Little Man" right there, several times, as he tried to sing along.  He loved it, had me write down the words, and got my phone number so we could stay in touch, saying, "Don't just wait until you're sick - visit me here anytime!"  (He's now sending me WhatsApp messages with things like, "All glory belongs to our Almighty Lord Jesus Christ!")  Added bonus:  it wasn't malaria or typhoid for any of us.

Yesterday I went to the Total gas station at the bottom of our hill which has a little mini mart with basic supplies.  As I was standing at the counter buying luku (electricity), the manager showed me a photo, telling me that one of their employees had just died and they were collecting money for msiba (funeral).  Although I never had a close relationship with this woman, I definitely recognized her and had most certainly greeted her.  She had to be less than 25 years old.  Cause of death?  "She was sick in her stomach and chest."  I gave the equivalent of about $6 and signed my name, noting that there were already 3 pages of signatures and donations, which really touched me.  I hope it touches her family, too.  The death of an otherwise healthy person in their 20's from sickness is shocking news in the U.S.  Here, sadly, it seems to be fairly common.  Most maddening to my Western sensibilities, it seems like you never really know the true cause.  Most certainly, it was preventable.

Finally, I stopped at my favorite fruit stand for some bananas.  I've been going there since we arrived in Tanzania, because although they are more expensive than other places, their bananas are by far the best.  When my mom visited in December, I took her there to buy fruit with me and one of the young Muslim fruit sellers was absolutely taken with her.  He gave her a gift of bananas on the spot and has been asking about her in Swahili ever since ("Is she well?" "Is it cold in America?" "Does it snow there?")  He's also generously given me gifts of extra bananas "for the kids" every time since then.  I still don't know why my mom was such a hit with him - she definitely didn't say anything to him because she doesn't know Swahili - but thanks, Mom!  You've got a lifelong friend here in Dar.

These three encounters are pretty typical of life here, yet I can't imagine even one of them in the context of suburban NJ.   Although some days I long for anonymity, other days I gratefully appreciate the simple beauty of relational living.

Cold enough for ya?!

I think that weather differences between TZ and the US are probably the single most disconnecting experience for me....seeing Facebook pictures of people frolicking in the leaves there (while it's still hot here), then playing in the snow there (while it's even hotter here) and then seeing the joy of winter move into spring there (while it's still hot here although slightly less so).  As opposed to there, the seasonal difference here between hot and less hot seasons is not all that much - maybe 30 degrees Fahrenheit, a few percentage points of humidity.  The landscape doesn't change all that much from season to season.  Although different flowers bloom at different times, there's always something blooming.  And although the grass gets pretty burned up in dry season, it's certainly nothing like the absolute absence of living foliage in winter in the U.S.

This week in particular highlights this difference between our two worlds.  On the East Coast, it is brutally cold and yet here the weather is causing me to melt into a puddle.  A friend and I calculated that one day last week, her wind chill factor of -25 F and our heat index factor which neared 120 F meant that our weather was separated by over 140 degrees!  That's really hard to wrap my brain around.  As another friend said, "Are we on the same planet?"  Pretty amazing.

I think that memories of extreme weather must be kept in the same place of my brain that also stores memories of childbirth pain.  It's as though every year, I have a new realization of how (hot/cold/rainy) it is as I've completely forgotten about the past years and what they were like.

Because of this seasonal amnesia, I literally cannot imagine being as cold as my U.S. friends.  I've totally forgotten what it means to scrape your car, catch snowflakes on your tongue, layer up, have melting snow puddles by the door, have your lungs hurt when breathing the outside air and all the side inconveniences of the season (dry skin, chapped lips, running noses) that comes at this time.  In the same way, I doubt whether they can imagine how intense the equatorial sun feels as it beats down for weeks on end, the fact that your shirt sticks to you already by 9 a.m., the humidity blanketing everything, etc.

Everybody talks about the weather (although everyone complains about how lame that is).  It's definitely a socializing topic as probably no one will be offended by a shared dislike of windchill.  It's just this communal bond that I'm missing these days with my U.S. friends as I'm definitely not missing the actual offending weather (although a nice 60 degree day would be heavenly right about now).  I joked to Tim that we haven't even experienced the temperature that we used to heat the inside of our home in the winter, for almost 2 years.  Brrrr!

Stay warm, U.S. friends!
Keep cool, Dar friends!

Scenes from the road in Dar

Yesterday, we had off for midterm break and so my kids asked for playdates.  Like our old school, HOPAC draws students from a great distance all around the city, and so sometimes these requests involve quite a bit of effort.  Although Charlotte's friend lives within a 2 minute walk of our house, Josh's friend lives around 20 minutes away (without traffic, which is never a guarantee here!)

Thankfully, I made good time, I wasn't stopped by police, and the car didn't stall.  Although it was a hot day, there was cloud cover and so I was only sweating a medium amount in our car without working AC.

As I was driving him to and from his friend's house, I was reflecting on all the unique things that I saw outside my window, trying to see them through new eyes:

* A goat drinking from a drainage ditch
* A group of about 10 men, walking purposefully against traffic, carrying tire irons and machetes (thankful for no stopped traffic at that point!)
* A police checkpoint where all the police were sleeping under a tree in the shade (as I said, it was a hot day)
* The Million Hairs hair salon
* A dump truck without a safety gate, leaking dirt and small chunks of rock as it drove.  Disturbingly, the back was painted, "Born to Kill" along with pictures of Che Guevara (he is really popular here for some reason) and a Muslim fundamentalist (possibly Osama bin Laden).  I kept a little distance from the back of the truck, as I didn't want it to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
* A bus painted with the words Obama Trans.  There's also another bus painted as Air Force One (which I always thought was an airplane...)
* Street cleaners - which here mean actual women brushing dirt from the streets with large brooms in the hot sun, with only a couple of flimsy traffic cones to shield them from speeding cars.
* A variety of roadside vendors including the watermelon guys who have a huge pile of melons with one cut on the top to show what the insides look like.  As with many things here, there are about 4 vendors of the same thing in a row, as opposed to the diversification strategy found in the West.
* A cow grazing in a field of garbage.
* Women in brightly-colored kangas carrying unbelievable loads on their heads.

And then there are the smells:
* The roadside area that sells manure in small bags.
* The unique scent, possibly of sewage, that permeates the road called Africana.
* Thick black smoke emanating from a truck in front of me (there are no emissions laws here).
* Burning trash in piles along the road

The sounds:
* Trucks blaring music combined with religious propaganda (these are in Swahili, so I'm never fully aware of what they're saying...I hear "God" "Satan" and "hell" for sure.)
* The unique sounds of African street music (to get an idea, listen to Paul Simon's album Graceland)
* Bleating of goats as they scramble up the hillside alongside the road.
* The call to prayer as I passed a mosque.

I thought about how different this drive is compared to a 20 minute drive in the U.S.  Way more stressful in a sensory-overload kind of way, yet also so many more interesting things to observe.  Although I'm trying to enjoy the moment and embrace the culture, there are definitely some days where I'm nostalgic for the bland efficiency of Route 287.