The Aftermath

WELL. It has been a long time since I have written, so what better time to start than now! So much has happened since my last post, but rather than bore you with all of the details, I'll just hit on what my mind has been on lately. First, I must say that as my post so many months ago proclaimed, Africa did indeed change me --oh, for the better, I'll add. I still keep in touch with Alfred and Henry and I just got an email from Mejason yesterday. Charles still sends updates on Moshi Town Church, and I still miss everyone more than ever. Since I've been back I've found that my spending has been cut, my friendships greatly cherished, and my blessings daily counted. If I ever find that I begin to take things for granted again I go back to my Africa journal and read or sort through some old pictures of people from Moshi. I actually found myself tearing up the other day when I was looking at some of the pictures with kids from the church. I just hope so much that I get to see them again. I felt so much like I was in my element. That might be weird to think or say, and I'm not sure how to explain it, but maybe you get my drift. I'm not sure the next time I'll get to venture out anywhere, but I hope it's soon. I guess C.S. Lewis said it great when he wrote "You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream." I'll just have to be patient! (not one of my greatest talents) 

Ok, so those are my thoughts and this is what I've been up to...

Since the beginning of school I've been doing a lot with the international kids on campus and I've been LOVING it. They are so much fun. We've done everything from Salsa dancing to making trips to the asian market to whipping up some chapati in room 209. It has been so great to get to know all of them. I probably got to know them the best during fall break. Tracy invited a bunch of the internationals to a lake house in Texas and the Americans (+1 canadian, I didn't forget) drove. My car slept a lot of the way but before long we were jamming to the newest latest chinese pop music! But during that time it gave me a chance to have some good conversations with some of them and that was really neat. We haven't done anything in a big group in awhile so we'll have to think of something to do this next semester. Yes, right now we're on break. Yes, I've been bedridden the whole time. I can't seem to shake my sickness but I have had a lot of time to myself and a lot of time to think, which can be both good and bad I guess, but I think for me that it has been good. Even though it's been kind of disheartening to be sick this whole time, I've had a lot of time to rest...a lot...and hang out with the sibs. I just hope I'll be up and ready to go when school starts! Well, that's my life right now, perhaps I'll write more later...

short and sweet

The time has come for us to say goodbye. We had our last party on Friday and it was a huge success. We had a talent show, and as people went up on stage, more people were running up to me and asking if they could still sign up. It lasted a solid 2 1/2 hours but we had a lot of fun. Benny was our DJ, he had a keyboard and would set the beat for everyone who went up to sing. There was also a drama that some people did that had a lesson in drug abuse. Ismail sat by me and helped me call people up...a few times he randomly jumped on stage to do something, the team really enjoyed watching all of the people interact with eachother.

At the end it got pretty sad because it was the last time we were going to see a lot of them. Our flight leaves Sunday afternoon and we should be in the states by Monday night. My experience overall has been so amazing and I'm so blessed to have had this opportunity. I can't wait until my next adventure.

We are liv-ing in a malaria world, and I am a malaria girl

Ok, so I personally don't have malaira, but 5 out of the 9 of us do. Everyone is fine and on medication but prayers are greatly appreciated. All of that aside, we are still having a very succefful trip. On Friday we had another party. We set up a projector and watched the "Lion King." It was such a great experience to watch that movie with them since I am in a Swahili speaking country. One thing that I did find rather amusing though, was that the part when Mufasa dies came on (sorry for anyone who has yet to see the Lion King, shame of you if you havent :) Everyone, EVERYONE started laughing. I don't know about the rest of you but I grew up watching the Lion King glancing over at my mom (sorry mom) when that part came on to see her crying but apparantly it's a funny thing here in Moshi. They all got a kick out of Timon and Pumba when "Hakuna Matata" came on, too. I sat by Erick and we would pick out all the animals and he would learn the english term and then he'd teach me the Swahili term, so it was an educational movie for everyone!

On Saturday we got to go to Good Luck's church. His choir was practicing so he invited us to watch, or at least I thought that's what we would be doing. He goes to a Lutheran church close by and once we got there they gave us song books and we joined them. It was an amazing experience to get to do that, and we could all tell that Good Luck was excited to share his culture with us, too.

Today I had a really interesting talk with Alfred. He finished the "Luke" workbook and is now reading in the "John" workbook. We got to the 3rd lesson which was John 3:1-8 and it was the story where Jesus teaches that you must be "born again" and that really confused him. We talked for a long time about what that meant but then he said something that made me really sad. He said "Why should I get baptized if I know people that are baptized that live the wrong way" It was really hard for me to get past that with him but I just talked about forgiveness, repentance, and falling away from God. He seemed a little confused, but at the end of the conversation he seemed to understand the concept for the most part. That is the biggest problem I have found here. Everyone is very open to Christianity, but when it comes to being baptized, or attending church they find no need to because to them they feel like they live a good life so there is no need for church. I guess it's the same way in America, too. Our conversation on that was short-lived though before he jumped in to another topic.

I only have 5 more days here in Africa, I feel like I'm just now starting to get close to everyone and I have to go...

A Few Introductions

It's time for another post. The group from Harding and Eastern got back from Kenya monday night, so we had them over to our house and Mama Flo cooked us a Feast. Mama Flo has been teaching some of us girls how to cook...Micah and I made the chipati last night.
My readers are getting so much better. I could barely understand Miraji when he first started and now we're running over time because we talk too long! Our beginners class is going well, too. We decided to have a beginners class for anyone who knows no English at all since there are so many. We get about 20-30 people each time on those. We have one at 9 AM and one at 3 PM. Over all I think the people are enjoying the lessons, and more importantly getting to know some of the church members.
Last night we got the luxary of watching a movie. We all watched "Stardust" on Kirk's laptop since the other group had the projector, it was still nice to watch a movie.
I guess I should introduce my team. I couldn't have asked for a better group to be in Africa with, we all get along so well. Micah always has the common sense and she's my right hand girl when Kirk and Alex team up against us. Lauren is so much fun and has an amazing heart. Charla and I have dressed alike on accident more than once, great minds think alike! :) but she is such a sweet girl and I'm so glad that she's here. Kirk is the hugger, he always gives us hugs and is always cracking a good joke. Alex is our leader and doing a great job at it, he gets along with the people really well, too. Tracy is a lot of fun, too. We have had a couple of really good discussions and he is a very good encouager. Braden, haha, oh Braden. This trip would not be the same without him. He is our walking jukebox. He definitely keeps the group alive and interesting. Jared is our swahili man he has picked up on the language faster than any of us and he has such an awesome drive for missions. And Allen, we miss him a lot but while he was here he was sooo helpful when we went anywere. He was always sure to say the right things at the right time. He also saved Micah and I a few times in the market :) Allen if you're reading this, we all miss you! even if you gave us a hard time :) I absolutely love this team, I'm going to be so sad to leave!

Cake and Tea

What do you get when you have a birthday and the Euro Cup? Some cake and tea of course! Sunday was Micah's 20th birthday, so in celebration we decided to make one of our cakes and Mama Flo got us some hot tea, all while we gathered around to watch the championship game Spain vs. Germany. It was a nice time of relaxation. Church that morning went really well, Jared gave the sermon on nprayer and thankfulness. He did a great job, and they had all 10 of us go to the front and sing 3 worship songs to the congregation. There were several visitors too, some of them were from the states. They are here helping Light in Africa, the orphanage we visited the first day. Two of the girls were from Lipscum and there were two guys from another college in Tennessee. It was really nice being able to talk to someone who spoke clear English.
We had to say goodbye to Allen yesterday, too. He's headed back to the states to get married. We were really sad to lose him, he was the life of the group a lot of times, but we'll still make it through ok. We were invited to Chanelle's home for dinner, so we went and sang songs and visited with her family. Luka came with us to help translate.
Today is a free day. Luka invited us to his shop (he carves things) so we're probably going to do that and shop around in the market. Tracy and Alex found out that the Power Team is coming to Moshi from July 3 - 7th, so we're all pretty excited to see that if we have the time.
Every day we sign up more and more readers, we're getting to the point where we can't take any more. It's a good problem to have I suppose. Time is so slow here. If someone says they'll be here at 11 they might come at 9 or they might not show up until 1. People don't keep track of time, or having to be anywere. It took some getting used to, but I've learned a lot of patience on this trip. Haha, one thing everyone is on time for is the parties. We had 100 people at our last party on Friday. We played football and netballa on a field by the local mosque. It was a lot of fun and it helped us get to konw the readers on a more personal level. Good Luck is an awesome soccer player, and Amos doesn't hold back at anything. He's in his late 50's and he was out there playing football with all of the teenagers and young adults, it was hilarious.
We're all getting pretty close to Charles and Mama Flo, they have been so generous to us, and they are a lot of fun to hang out with when we get back from reading. I can't believe how fast this trip is going, it's alread half over! I wish I could stay here the rest of the summer.

Parlez-vous Francais?

I'm getting to know the readers better and better every day. I personally have 8 signed up with me now, but we are getting to know everyone, not just our own readers. We have a term that Braden coined as "double dipping." It is defined as a reader who simply can't get enough. For example, today we found out that Joyce and Mary were signed up with both Lauren and me, haha.
Yesterday a guy named Shelby was talking to me and started randomly speaking in spanish. I explained to him that I only knew french and he got really excited and had me teach him. I wrote down about two pages worth of information and he kept asking me teach him more...I thought I was here for English lessons! He said that he was going to come whenever I had free time to learn more french. His brother was there too and I had taught him the phrase "I don't know" and so he started walking around to everyone and getting in their faces saying "Je ne sais pas! Je ne sais pas! hhahahahaha" and he would just laugh forever and start doing it again, i thought it was pretty funny.
My reader, Richard, came soon after that and we had a really good discussion on faith. He would ask me what faith meant to me and then he would explain to me how it had effected his life. Sometimes we got off of our reading topic and would talk about religion for awhile, he's a pretty cool guy. Our first party is in about an hour, we rented a field by this mosque in town to play football, or "soccer" and have some candy and food.

A Little Love

I had 4 readers yesterday. Alfred, Benjamin, Miraji, and George. I'm learning so much from them. After our reading sessions our friend Erick invited us to his home. We walked part of the way and then took a dolla dolla the rest of the way. He lived in this compound type of place, but his actual home was about 10 feet by 6 feet. He lived there with his auntie. There were 2 beds, about 6 chairs, and a table, no light. Twelve of us crammed in and sat in a circle, and we sang a few songs. Erick welcomed us and I could really tell that it meant a lot for us to be there. He kept telling me "my family is not royal, but I will give you all that I have." That was really humbling to me. He took in 10 americans and provided us with bread and water, and he went on to say that the bread was to represent the body of Christ and the water, the wine. I couldn't help but think that even though he thought that he didn't have much, he had more than any of us there. He had so much love and hope. We really wanted to help out so we gave his auntie a little bit, and Erick started crying. His Aunt thanked us a whole bunch and said she would come to church wiht us on Sunday. She's muslim, so I thought that was crazy that she would even consider that. I'm really glad we got to go to his house. Later that night we had quite an eventful evening, but I'll have to wait to tell that story later...