Heading Back to TZ

Hey friends,

It's Sarah here. This time I'm flying solo. Ms. Em has officially begun her next adventure in Mongolia where she is serving as the director of Children's Heart Project. It's super exciting, and she has started a new blog at www.emily-arneson.blogspot.com Check it out! As for me, I just completed my first year of teaching 4th grade, and it was quite an adventure. I had a blast with the kiddos, and though I missed Tanzania, I felt like God used my time there to shape how I teach here in the states. It was a year of readjusting, but He is faithful. Tomorrow I begin my journey back to the village to visit and check in with the kiddos at the school, our team, and all of our friends. I can't tell you how excited I am. I am so eager to reconnect with my Tanzanian family! Let's hope my Swahili comes back quickly! I can't wait to report back and fill you all in. So much has happened over the past year here and in Tanzania, so it will be amazing to catch up and see everyone. Please pray for safe travels and that God will use this trip for His glory!

Peace,

Sarah

Readjustment

Wow, where to begin! It has been over four months since we have updated. I am a little embarrassed at that. Time goes way to fast especially in the fall. So where to even begin…first and foremost, we must thank and praise the Lord in this season of thanksgiving, as in all times. As I reflect on the last year of my life, I feel so blessed where He has taken me. It has been a journey that is for sure. God taught me a lot about dependence and trust while living in a cross cultural environment. And now as I have returned home and have had a bit more free time, I have been reading more and more of His word so that I can depend on His promises and share those with others. Our mission is wherever we are in life. As followers of Christ, we are all missionaries to share the Gospel as eternity is on the line. May we boldly plant seeds in people’s lives and pray for God to reveal Himself within people.

So let me update you to the work still going on in Tanzania. We left behind an incredible team, which as recently grown with the addition of a family of five from Canada. They are the Krahn family and you can check out their blog at krahniclesinafrica.blogspot.com. They are facing some huge adjustments as they transfer their family from Canada to rural northern Tanzania. Pray for them as they learn the language and adjust to life in Africa. Leah will be homeschooling their three children as well. Their focus is community development, but right now it’s language and culture learning. Pray for their kids as they learn to adapt to village life and make friends. Our other teammates are doing well. There are always bumps in the road, but God is working through those situations. Our pastor and his wife continue to impact the community in such a positive way even though they face constant persecution.

We spoke so often about our school registration which we had hoped to see it completed in our year there. But there are still delays. When we left, the issue that kept us from registration was our bathrooms. You see, we did not have enough for the amount of students we served. So Sarah, myself, and our team got to work and began building a bathroom building which had 10 stalls. There were a few delays when our head fundi (contractor) got sick and the job was on hold, so we did not get to see them completed before we left. But in July, an inspector from the local branch of the Ministry of Education came and saw that the bathrooms were mostly completed and gave the official okay to proceed forward with the finalization of the registration process. A letter went from Moshi to Dar es Salaam, but as of yet, we have not received the final letter from Dar. Mary, our teammate has traveled to Dar once and stayed multiple days waiting on it, but she could not get it. Last I heard, the letter was supposed to be on a bus to Tanga, but I have no official word that the school is registered. I know this school is in God’s will, so I trust He will work it out. Working with the government, while not paying bribes, can be a challenge, but we know this will be completed. The end of their school year is just a few weeks away. The end of the school year celebration was so special last year; I know we will both miss it. Mary continues to story the Bible with a couple of our closest friends and we pray that soon they will put a last faith and trust in Jesus.

So what are we now up to you may ask. Sarah quickly went back to prepare for school, just weeks after getting back. She switched grades, this year teaching 4^th grade. From what I hear, she really loves her class and is helping them to have a broader worldview. I have visited her class a few times and they asked some good questions about our service. Sarah has decorated her classroom very African themed. Even though her students are only 9-10 year olds, she is teaching them big lessons about caring for others and learning about what other people in the world live like. Sarah has enjoyed catching up with her family and is now living with her older sister. She ran a half marathon in September which is a huge accomplishment after not running the year we were in Africa due to the heat and having to where a skirt to run in.

As for me, it took a bit of time to get an interview for a travel nursing position, which is what I did prior to Africa. But God totally opened the door for me to work in the Pediatric Intensive Care at University of Virginia Health Center. It took me a while for my confidence in my nursing skills to come back, but I am back in the swing of things now. My mindset in nursing in the US is quite different. I was baffled at all the resources I have at my fingertips now, like lots of doctors who work day and night. I finish up in Virginia in just a couple weeks and will be home for Christmas which I am so thankful for. Then I will be serving with Samaritan’s Purse in Haiti in January. I will likely use this website for my updates while in Haiti. I have signed a contract to be working at Denver Children’s from February until May. Always on the go it seems for me.

We have both had some major periods of readjustment. For Sarah it was right when getting back into work in August. For me it has been more recently as I adjust to life working again since I started in late September. Life is simpler in Africa and your complete focus is on the Gospel and spreading it. Where as in the US, we are bombarded by distractions and things to do. There are lots of little things we notice, for example going to Walmart, I was blown away by the selection of toothpastes. I thought in Africa we had like 5 to choose from not like 100 which we have in the US. I know my stomach took some major getting used to eating meat again. When an ambulance went by one time, I thought I sure would have liked one of those in Africa. These are lots of little things, but God helped us through the major readjustments of missing our life back in the village while getting used to life here in the US after what we have experience and the new people we became post Tanzania. We used to always say TIA (This is Africa), now it means This is America.

As the time goes by, I know I miss it more and more and am getting that itch again to get back. But right now, I am where I believe God has me. Sarah and I spoke just today about maybe getting back for a few weeks in the summer of 2011. Please check out this video Sarah made. Go to the You Tube site below. Thanks for tuning in and sorry for an new update taking so long.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq9GjK5FrRw

Blessings,

Emily

Home!

Hiya Friends,
First off, we are home to St. Louis safe and sound. We arrived July 8th into the St. Louis airport proudly wearing our special outfits (pictured above) we had made for our parties in the village. It was a special time to be reunited to our families. They really missed us a lot. Both of us have spent quality time with our families these last two weeks. Sarah’s Mom, sister, niece, and newly born nephew drove up to St. Louis for our arrival.
Well how do I summarize the last month of our service in northern Tanzania. It was filled with celebrations, wrapping up responsibilities, special times with our dearest friends and team, and packing up our house and our lives this last year. In one week, we had four celebrations. I thought a good gift to our students would be a field day, so Sarah and I started planning. We wanted activities just like any American school would have, so when we were in Dar es Salaam, we bought water balloons and the rest were home made games and crafts. We woke up to rain and were disappointed as the ground was soaked. So we moved the activities into an empty classroom which ended up being a blessing. We took each class individually to play the games, allowing us precious time with each class. Before they left we had a water balloon toss and it was shear excitement. The younger kids each got to take a water balloon home and some of them carried it around for days.
The following day, we headed to town with our language helpers to buy food for our big village party. Our language helpers were truly our best friends. There were lots of tears shed with them when we left. 20 kilos of beans, 25 kilos of flour (for donuts), and 10 kilos of sugar makes a lot of food. That evening our teachers threw us a celebration thanking us for our service at the school. Sarah made such an impact on the school, the students, and teachers. The next day it was the end of the semester school celebration. The students performed songs and showed off all they are learning. The top students in each class were recognized. One awesome thing about our school is the students are learning so much and understanding well. The top students have averages in the 90%’s, yet at government schools the top students would be in the 70%’s, and our students are learning more. Education will transform the community. And the last celebration of the week was one we threw for our village. We invited all our friends from various villages and enjoyed loud music (even some Christian music mixed in), dancing, food, and a short program where Sarah and I gave goodbye speeches in Swahili. Many women came over from our village to help prepare the food in the morning (very cultural) and it was partying all afternoon. We invited men as well to our party and a man who we love, our “grandpa” as we call him came. His picture is above. So this was a busy week of festivities.
We packed and closed up our house. It was not only challenging because we were leaving people and a school we love, but also because no one at this time has come to replace us. But we are fully confident in the Lord’s plan for the community and for the work we shared in. We trust He will rise up harvest workers within the D people. The day before we left the village, our church went all out and had a huge party for us. This was by far one of the most meaningful days of my life. The church community was so thankful for our work and said the most kind words. Most of all, they reminded us to remember them and pray for them. Join us in prayer for this church, especially for leadership within the members.
There is so much more to write. This was just a bit of a summary of the last month, but I think we would like both summarize our thoughts on how God worked in us and through us in northern Tanzania. We will save that for another post. I am working on my last newsletter and will have more deep thoughts to get out this week.
Our journey home was certainly an adventure as well. Our team joined us for a few days at the beach. It was nice to have some quality time with them. We continued to give thanks for the team we served with. We complimented each other well in each of our different ministry focuses. Lots of tears were shed as we left. Both Sarah and I feel we left a part of our hearts in Tanzania. We hit the highlights of Egypt with 3 other missionaries from Tanzania before going to London and Paris. We will have to save some of those stories for another day.
Thanks for reading and being a part of our journey this year. We will continue writing on this blogsite. Your prayers kept us so strong. I hope you know that!
Hugs,
Emily

Pictures! Hopefully!

I recently visited a nearby (well actually it's kind of far away) and got to see many of my friends and visit their homes for maybe the last time. That's a sad thought, but on a happy note it was an amazing, blessed day! God is so good. I am continuously humbled as God reveals Himself to me and others in this place. He is enough! He is more than enough.
I even ran into some of my students on their walk home. They saw me from a distance and ran shouting "Mwalimu," which is teacher in Swahili. It made my heart soar and break at the same time. Please continue to pray for our kiddos and our school. We have just over 3 weeks left in the village, and it's going to be difficult to say goodbye. We know the God of all grace will carry us through, and that He doesn't need us here to accomplish all He intends to do. We are just humbled and blessed to have gotten to be a part of His big plan for TZ. Praise God for that!

~S

Back in the village!

Hey there friends…I must say it’s been a while again. Things have been super busy lately, but such is life. It seems funny to me now that one of my concerns before arriving in Africa was that time would go so slowly and that the days would drag along. Ha! It seems we wazungu (westerners) know how to fill our schedules to the max no matter where we are. Our last day in the village is June 21st, and it seems it is coming way too quickly. There is so much to be done, but we know God is in control, and it will all work out in His timing. I am just so humbled that I have the privilege to serve Him in this capacity for the time that I have. He has grown me and I have learned so much about what it means to live our my faith in service to others. It seems impossible that we are leaving this place in less than 6 weeks. The good news is that I don’t feel like it will be a goodbye…just a see you later. I definitely want to come back to Africa some day in some way; we’ll just see what that looks like. One step at a time…I’m getting way ahead of myself here. Let’s back up a little.

Last week all the ladies on our team took an African road trip to Dar es Salaam for a women’s retreat, and it was an amazing time to just enjoy one another and hear about the work of women from all over Tanzania. Em met us in Dar after going to Zanzibar for a few days to scuba dive. She also did a little shopping for us! I must say; she has good taste! We returned to the village feeling refreshed and renewed, which was an amazing feeling since I’d been a bit under the weather and not quite feeling like myself before the retreat. I returned to the school with a renewed joy to be with the students, and I just love them! I have continued working with some of the kiddos with special needs, and it has become so much fun! Some days are challenging and my patience wears thin, but I just felt free to encourage and love on these kids through my time with them. Yes, I want them to progress academically, but more than that, I want them to know they are loved and cared for. When it comes school, it’s been a whirlwind these past few weeks. The chief education inspector came to see our school a few weeks ago, and it was the first time I had to answer questions, so I was a little nervous. It went really well, and they were very encouraging. The glitch was our toilets. We don’t meet the quota for the student/toilet ratio, so we’re planning to build more toilets right now, God willing. We have moved forward with plans and seeking advice from city engineers and inspectors to make sure everything goes as planned. It is still our hope and prayer that we are able to get registration before we go! Once the toilets are completed the local inspector will come and pass along her approval to the big guys and then it’s only a matter of writing a letter. Please pray for our school!!!

On the village front, we are busy visiting and getting as much time in with our friends as possible. We truly love our community here, and it’s going to be hard leaving village life. We get to visit and talk with our neighbors every day! We are currently planning a big going away party for our entire village and our friends from surrounding villages. It’s going to be fun, and we’re planning it with our language helpers. Speaking of language helpers, I got to give my language helper a Bible last week! We are hopefully going to start studying and I have encouraged her to meet with our teammate who stories from the Bible. She is already friends with my language helper, so it will be a great way for them to visit together once I am gone. I will miss her so much! As I’ve said before, she’s my best friend here, and there’s not a day that goes by that we don’t talk when we’re both in the village. I am so thankful for how God has grown our relationship to a more personal level that we can talk about spiritual things and still be comfortable and joke around too! I have also been meeting with one of the teachers from school to go through stories from the Bible in English and Swahili. It has been a great time to encourage one another in our language learning and our faith. I am sad to leave the school, but encouraged to know there are teachers who love the Lord who will continue our work.

I am so thankful that I am feeling better these days, but my dear Emily has been a little under the weather herself. She’s now on antibiotics, so we hope she’ll be good as new in no time. Please pray for her as it’s so draining to be sick here and we’ve been going a mile a minute as time is closing in on us.

I just want to take a minute to thank you all for your support, prayers, and encouragement! This has been such an amazing, challenging, stretching, life-changing experience, and Emily and I are so blessed to get to share it with you! We are so thankful for the love you have shown, and we can’t wait to share more of our experiences and what God has done when we get home.

I know we still have time, but it may be a few weeks before I’m in touch again and I just want to ask for prayer for our school, work, relationships, and goodbyes.

I’ll leave you with a picture of Emily and I and our “family.” The women pictured with us are our language helpers, our sweeper, and Bibi, our washer. We love them all, so we had a little photo shoot and party to let them know how much we care about them. Hope you enjoy the picture!

Blessings,
Sarah

Lost in Africa

Well we have not really been lost in Africa, just super busy. I am sure you can relate since spring is often a busy time of year. I think back to last spring when we were preparing to come here and how busy things were and now our time in Tanzania is almost done. Very hard to believe. We have fallen in love with the people, the culture, the country, and the work. We both feel when we leave, a part of our heart will be left here.
So what has been going on you might ask. Sarah is just about back up to par with her health. She had what was likely a sinus infection with fevers last week, the fourth time she has been sick in 5 months, but thankfully it was not malaria. It was back to the classroom this week for her. I know she is working on A B C books with the older classes. Things got a bit crazy as she introduced this activity because of the students excitement in doing a creative activity. Daily I am impressed with their English ability expanding. The Standard 2 student's English is better than the students at the secondary school which is a testament to Sarah's work. Sarah has graciously taken on many administrative tasks for the school, keeping her more than busy.
Many of you have been praying for our school to be registered with the Tanzanian government. We are to the final step. The education inspector traveled 6 hours to visit our school 2 weeks ago. He was impressed at the work being done and how it affects our community, but got word today that we will not be registered until we have enough bathrooms for our students. We are all a bit bummed, but as soon as the rains stop, we will start the work to build bathrooms as money allows. We are short just 2 bathrooms, but we will get them built and then prayerfully we will be registered.
My work is steady as always. Last month our local government clinic ran out of all medications, but malaria meds, so I spent some time and money getting children the medicines they need-a service I was happy to provide. I took Habduli, the 2.5 year old with cerebral palsy, to Moshi last week with his mother and aunt to see a good doctor. There is a fantastic hospital, Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center, that serves the average people in this country. We saw an attentive doctor and got x rays done to investigate his breathing problem. I spoke with the doctor today to confirm is does have an obstructed airway, but not sure if surgery will be possible. I will keep you posted. While in Mombasa a couple weeks ago, I got him a stroller and he just loves it. Now he can be mobile and his brother is taking him around the village every afternoon. Another exciting thing is that Mbwana, the 3 year old with Downs Syndrome I work with, has learned how to wave goodbye. It is too sweet. He is still not walking yet, but I pray will be soon. Scabies is going around again with many kids, so I am doing lots of treatments.
Socially, we try to be up to something fun every week. Sarah had a birthday party for her language helper filled with good food, fellowship, and music. This last weekend, we had family pictures. By family, I mean our Tanzanian family that includes our 2 language helpers, sweeper, and washer. We all dressed the same and took goofy pics. I will try to get them posted soon as I think they are priceless. Then we enjoyed carrot cake and passion juice (both home made in the village). This weekend we have a women's retreat in Dar es Salaam that we look forward to.
Thank you for tuning in. Sorry we do not write more as things are just very busy. We only have a little over 6 weeks in the village. There is much to be done and wrapped up. Thanks for your prayers!
Blessings,
Emily

Our Bibi and Wild Healthcare Adventures

Think of the most precious, generous, grateful, genuine, sweet little old lady you know and you’ve got our bibi (grandma in Kiswahili). She’s one of the many older women we have come to know and love, but she alone holds such a special place in our hearts. Bibi lives in a neighboring village, and it is a joy to visit her. She attends church with us, so we usually get to see her every Sunday and Wednesday. If we don’t see her at church we know something is up and we need to stop in to make sure all is well. Each time we greet her, her face lights up as if it’s the highlight of her day. Little does she know that each time we visit her it is, in fact, the highlight of our day. Like any great grandma, she sits us down, asks how we are doing, and it’s not after 5 minutes that she is fixing us something to eat. We had the pleasure of visiting Bibi this week with our friend Mary and the thought of having 3 guests in one day was just too much for her! She said it warmed her spirit to see us. As we sat on her mat under the mango tree talking about life there was a simple joy in our fellowship. One only the Lord can provide, and in that moment we were all encouraged by one another’s presence. Em captured the moment by snapping this picture of Bibi. We are so thankful to know her and see how she lives out her faith daily helping to care for her grandchildren and by graciously giving to those around her. Having very little of her own does not stop her, and her humility teaches us all a good lesson. Please pray for Bibi, that people will see her joy and love and give the glory to God for her sweet spirit! I know I do!

Peace,
Sarah


In other news…Emily has a report on village emergency health calls. Just when you think climbing coconut trees can’t get any more dangerous, add in a poisonous snake wrapping itself around your neck…here’s what happened…So I was out doing some visiting last Thursday evening and Richard, our team mate brings his car to a quick stop and says, “Are you up for a sick run?” Of course I am in and we put my bike on top of his car and ran home to drop it off and gather some supplies. A family had come to Richard’s house asking if he would transport an 18 year old young man who that afternoon had fallen from a coconut tree. This was not just any fall. As he was beginning to cut a palm branch down, a snake wrapped around his neck. He attempted to climb down the tree, but had to instinctively let go to relieve the pressure around his neck from the snake and he fell. He was taken by another car to the army medical center, but they have few resources. So Richard, myself, and members of his family sped off to pick him up from the army medical center and get him to the government hospital. We arrived and he was not in the army medical center, but laying on a mat on the side of the road. Got to love health care in Africa. I assessed him as I was worried about a punctured lung, or other serious emergencies, but he seemed to be stable. Praise God as there is little I could have done if he did have a serious emergency out in the bush. We loaded him and thanks to Richard’s fast driving, we made it to the hospital in no time. His family paid the 1000 shillings (about 75 cents) and we waited to see the doctor. After a fairly short wait, we got into see the doctor and the first thing he does after hearing the story is make him try to stand up and walk. Well for those of you who are in health care, you know the first thing you worry about is airway, breathing, and then circulation. But I guess this doctor forgot that lesson and wanted to see how much pain he truly was in. I later offered to let the doctor use my stethoscope as an incentive to him to listen to the kiddo’s lungs. Maybe I should do some basic life support classes for doctors here. But anyway, he was admitted to the hospital and had to wait 18 hours for an XRay the next morning. Oh and another juicy detail in this whole story is that the hospital had no pain medication except Tylenol. They apparently were “out” of all pain meds. Things like this grieve my heart. I have since visited him and his ribs and chest are fine, but may have a broken pelvis or leg and is having stomach issues, but cannot do an ultrasound until Monday, 4 days after the accident. Join me in prayer for this young man-for his healing, recovery, and that there will not be any major issues this his abdomen or leg. I pray this paints a picture of health care in Africa. But through hard situations such as this I see the healing power of prayer. Countless times I have been sure a child would soon die and we pray and God heals. Actually the half sister of this young man is an example. She was born just before I arrived with severe problems. I took her to the doctor many times and her family refused admission into the hospital and I was sure she only had weeks to live. Now she is doing well, minus the case of malaria she has. She is 9 months old and can sit up, laugh, and is happy. God is working in the hearts of these people.

Thanks for reading, caring, and praying!

Blessings,
Emily