What is Joy?

The topic of joy has been on my heart this last week, so let’s talk about it. What is joy you may ask? Webster’s dictionary says joy is “the emotion evoked by well being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires.” But I am not sure how I feel about this definition, so let’s head to the Bible to examine joy. Joy comes from within. Joy is an internal peace of knowing your salvation through our savior Jesus Christ. The book of Psalms and Proverbs is full of the word joy. The reason for joy is well summed up in Psalms 71:23, “My lips will shout for joy when I sing praise to you-I, whom you have redeemed.” Jesus Christ died on the cross for all our sins and for that we are to be joyful. Having joy is not contingent on circumstances. You may not have health or wealth or even a job or a home, but you can be joyful when you put your hope in Christ. The world is facing many hard circumstances, but be joyful because God is in control and that will radiate to all around you. Another verse that has powerful words concerning joy and prayer is 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, “Be joyful always, pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” And these are commands, not advice.
This last week has been awesome to get back into the routine of things. I have been delighting in my time with the children of this community. They run to me, faces full of snot, covered in dirt, and give me a giant hug that makes your heart melt! I do not mind the snot or dirt, or even the many weird skin conditions so many of them have, I just love the hugs. You toss them up in the air or swing round and round and they cannot stop giggling. Generally in this community adults do not play with kids, so I soak it up. I love it when the kids come up to me and show me how they can blow up their muscles through their thumb, a trick my dad showed them. I hope you know what I am talking about; flexing your muscles when you blow on your thumb. Instead of saying, “Show me your guns (biceps)” they say, “Show me your potatoes.” Priceless.
Praise God the rains have come. It was predicted to be an El Nino year here and they might be right as the rains have been great. We have had a few days where we could barely leave the house due to all the rain. Although having a tin roof when it rains makes it a bit hard to have conversations. You have to shout over the rain to be heard. But we are very thankful for the rain as this is an agricultural based community. A couple of nights ago I heard this very weird noise outside. I asked Sarah what it is and she informed me it was frogs. Sounds like we have thousands of them now! Thank you Lord!
This last week I took two children into Tanga to see the doctor. One was immediately admitted to the hospital and the other we are starting her on strong meds for a problem she has had for over a year. Sometimes I have a bit of doubt about what I am doing here since I do not have a lot of structure in my role, but then it is through those situations where I can be an advocate and get children the help they need that the Lord truly affirms all I am doing. Both Sarah and I have both visited the little one in the hospital today and she is making great improvement. Her mother has lost her last two infants at the age of four months, so we are working hard to keep mother, this little one, and her twin healthy.
Now it’s Sarah’s turn to update. She has some encouraging news regarding our school. Please continue to pray for us, especially endurance as I have been feeling tired, but still strong and healthy. Also pray for my work visa. Sarah got hers two weeks ago, but the man who needs to complete it has had many trips away from the office. But I am confident it will come through, just join me in prayer.
Hey kids…not much to say after that. God has a way of bringing joy to our lives every day. The Bible (and my mom) says in this world you will have much trial and tribulation, but be of good cheer because GOD has overcome the world. I have learned so much about trusting in the promises of God when facing many of life’s trials here. It is only through Him that we continue to thrive, and the outpour of my heart is that all who I interact with will know where my joy comes from. I have been able to have more conversations about that very subject with some of my close friends here, and I hope to encourage them more and continue to talk with them as I grow in my Kiswahili. We have many reasons to praise God for His faithfulness.
As you know, we have been working for years now to get our land and school registration for our primary school. After a whirlwind of ups and downs, we were approved for stage one of this process. There are three stages, and as we embark on stage two, I ask that you pray for our interactions with government officials and that they would be supportive and actually in their offices when we go to visit. We still have a long way to go, but God has worked miracles to make this first stage complete, so we are very thankful! It has been good getting back into the classroom, and as Em stated, nothing in the world is better than a good hug! When I returned to my grade one class the students all shouted, “Teacher!” and ran up around me to hug me. The joy I felt about made me burst! As we enter this last month of school for the year, there is much work to be done so please pray that I can balance teaching, administrative tasks, and my involvement in the community.
Speaking of community I am super stoked to start a netball team in our village. Netball is a game girls and women play that is similar to basketball. I learned about it through a language lesson last week, and this week I walked to every house in my village with my language helper to invite women to come practice with us next Wednesday. So far we have 21 women signed up and a few weren’t home. Since we visited everyone, there has been buzz about playing throughout the village and I can’t wait to see who shows up. I am hopeful that a portion of this group will stick it out and commit to playing so that we can even play women from surrounding villages. It will be a fun time to get together and enjoy one another, and provide an avenue to share God’s love with the women of our village. Em and I are both excited about this endeavor.

When it comes to relationships it’s difficult to cross language and cultural barriers, but I have found so much joy in many of the women and children I have met, especially my language helper. We laugh together, learn together, sit in the shade when it’s hot together, and hopefully I will get to go work her farm with her soon. I have truly enjoyed our time getting to know one another and consider her a true friend. I can be honest with her and she is honest with me. About a month ago we had made a cake together (as part of our baking ministry…ha ha) and we were sharing it at her house with her husband (who just happens to be our knight in shining armor when it comes to rats). We were enjoying the cake as it was quite tasty, and for some reason I just thought a nice cold coke would be so good with this cake. I voiced my thoughts and we all had a good laugh and that was the end of it. We laugh a lot together, mostly from the silly things I say. Fast forward to last week. Emily had to go to town to help one of our sick team members so I spent my first 2 nights alone in the village. I had completed my daily routine and was getting ready to do some work in the evening inside my house when I heard a knock at the door. It was my language helper and she asked me to come to her house. She was acting kind of strange, so I didn’t know what was up. The next thing I knew, she and her husband were sitting on her front porch with cake and three ice cold sodas. They remembered my silly comment and the gesture was so kind and considerate that I was beaming and about to cry. This was such a complete act of love and joy. I thanked God for what an encouragement it was to have someone do something so special just for little old me. Joy filled my heart and in that moment I wanted my new friends to know the true joy that Emily so poignantly wrote about. God has put us here to share His joy and redemptive story, and for me that is going to be through love and relationships. Even when it’s hard and we’re tired and grumpy, He provides just what we need to keep us going. In all these things our faith is built on His unfailing love for us. As our team member, Joyce says- He will not let our faith get lazy. I pray we can continue to find joy in the good times and the struggles. Thanks for your prayers and encouragement as we continue to do what God has called us to do here. Blessings to you all!!!

Emily and Sarah

PS-The picture is of our school children lined up in the morning to sing!

Word from the Road

Hey there friends!

We’re sorry it’s been a while, but there’s so much to share since our last post. Hold on to your hats because this may be a long one! We have been all over Tanzania over the past 3 weeks, and we are blessed to get to experience more of this beautiful country. Our journey began October second as we hopped on the bus at 6:00am to head to Moshi to explore the city, hopefully to see Kilimanjaro and pick up Emily’s parents for our six-day safari to Tarangire National Park, Ngorongoro Crater Nature Reserve and Lake Manyara National Park. Moshi, as some of you know, is home to Kilimanjaro: The Roof of Africa. Getting to explore the small city was fun as we talked to many people who had just made the trek or were getting ready to head out. It made me very excited for my return in January with our teammates Wayne and Joyce. We plan to conquer Kili together. Sadly it was too cloudy to see the mountain while we were in Moshi.

Any who, back to Em’s parents. We were very eager for their arrival to show off our new home here, and when we first saw them it was both exciting and emotional. It meant so much to have a piece of home here with us. Emily was ecstatic as you can imagine. Em’s parents were nice enough to bring some items for us, our team, and school supplies donated from my home school in the States. It felt like Christmas! After we had a chance to catch up and relax for a day we headed out to Arusha and beyond on our safari. What an amazing opportunity to experience God’s creation. I, being the nerdy teacher that I am, kept reading up on all of the animals and came each morning ready with a slew of questions and fun facts to know and tell about all of the creatures of the African savannah. I am sure our guide was ready to ask me if I wanted to lead the safari, but he put up with me. He was so knowledgeable and it was amazing to learn so much about the habitats here in Tanzania. I was simply fascinated by how all of the animals interact and the interdependence that keeps the entire ecosystem in balance. I kept thinking of applications for the classroom and wished all the little kiddos from here and in the US could get to experience the wildlife firsthand. Needless to say, it was an amazing trip.

On our way back home we stopped to spend the night in Arusha and took Em’s parents to the Circus Mama Africa we saw our first month here in Tanga. It was good fun, and by the end of the week we were ready to head back to the village to get back to friends, school and the community. Thankfully on our way back from Arusha we had to go through Moshi and got a beautiful view of Kili for Em’s us all to enjoy.

On the next leg of their trip they had the privilege to join us in the village for 3 days, and they were troopers. They learned the ins and outs of life in the village and got to meet all the special people in our lives as well as go to church with us. Everyone was excited to have guests and they got to enjoy a dinner out at my language helper’s house. They visited school as well and played with the children who could not get enough of Emily’s dad! We were proud of how well they did being out of their comfort zone in so many ways and hope they have a clearer picture of how and why God has called us to serve here.

After 3 days we packed up again to head out to a conference for all of the AIM workers in Tanzania. Before leaving Tanga, Em put her parents on a plane to relax in Zanzibar while we headed to Dar. We also got to celebrate one of our team member’s birthdays! These are special times for us since our team is our family here. God has blessed us with such amazing, encouraging people who work along side us day in and day out with such fervor and passion. After the birthday night out, we headed off to Dar for the conference. This meant another bus ride, but we’re growing quite used to public transportation. I can’t even think of words to describe the conference. It was a time of encouragement, spiritual renewal, joy, and excitement about what God is doing in Tanzania and all of Africa. We got to share what is happening in our ministry and hear updates on all regions of Tanzania. From building churches, schools and mobile clinics, to ministering to street kids, fisherman and everyone in between, huge things are happening! I was in awe of how big God is and how He created each of the workers here for a specific job and purpose in His ministry. We got to reflect on the wisdom of God verses our human wisdom and our guest speaker was very dynamic in reviving us to go back to the field rearing to go! We made many connections and truly feel apart of the community of AIM workers here. We hope to visit some to learn more about health care, tropical medicine, and education as well as ministry outreach. Our entire team left feeling revived, and though there are bumps in the road, we press on!

We are currently still in Dar today visiting friends who came up to our village to do a Bible storying seminar about a month ago. They leave on home assignment in December, so we wanted to visit with them one more time before they go. The city life is vastly different from our humble life in the village, but it is amazing to experience this different culture in Africa. While here we had an opportunity to visit a friend from our village who is recovering from a broken leg after being hit by a car while on his motorcycle about 6 weeks ago. He and his wife are staying in Dar until he fully recovers. He had surgery to place a rod in his femur, and he seems to be on the road to recovery. It is a slow process, but we were able to speak with him and he seems optimistic and said he wasn’t experiencing too much pain. Meanwhile their youngest son is a student at our school in the village, so I was able to report that he is doing well and that we are looking after him along with many others in the village. Our friends were beaming as we visited with them, and it was good to make that connection to let them know we were praying for them. They even allowed Mary, our teammate, to pray for them at the end of our visit. It was a blessing to experience that, and I hope they will continue to be encouraged knowing we are praying for them.

Tomorrow we head back to Tanga and then on to the village. We are happy to return home where we can get back into the swing of things. This is a busy time of year with school winding down, and there is much work to be done. We are still interviewing teachers for grade 2 next year, and we are working on the school government registration. This has been a long, tedious process. Please pray that these processes will be completed by December and that we can be an officially registered school by next year starting in January. Please pray that God provides a teacher who loves Him and shares our vision for the students, school and community. On another note, I got my residence permit! Praise the Lord! Emily’s had a slight glitch but she is expecting the paperwork to be sent to her next week and she can complete the process in Tanga soon. We know it will all work out. We continue to learn daily how to surrender things to God and be patient. This is Africa.

Hiya, it’s Emily here. Hope you enjoyed reading all about what has been going on lately. Sarah summed it up well. We will try to write more often, but it’s very busy here as you can imagine. Thank you for your support, love, and encouragement!

Thanks for tuning in!

Grace and peace,
Sarah & Emily

Safari Abroad

Hiya Friends,
As the title indicates, we are headed for a safari. Can you believe we have been gone for three months? Hard to believe! We were both reflecting how as you get older, time goes by so quickly. My parents arrive to Kilimanjaro Airport tomorrow evening for a two and a half week adventure in Tanzania. Sarah, my parents, and myself head to the bush to check out Tanzania’s wildlife on Sunday for six days. We are pumped about this opportunity to see many animals in their natural environment. Sarah really wants to see some giraffes run and I just want to see lots of elephants. Hopefully we will be able to post some pictures. After the safari, my parents will be joining us for a few nights in the village. We have been telling our friends they are coming and many people in our community are very excited to meet them. I wish you all could have the experience of living in a rural village. It would definitely change your perspective on life and what you have.
The time away will be such a blessing. We are both feeling a bit tired and need of some time for relaxation and rejuvenation. Living in rural Africa in a village and learning a new language can take a toll on your physical body, so the rest and time away I trust will be good. Also the time away will be good to reflect on what we are experiencing. I am finding I need to spend more time reflecting on God’s work within my own heart and the heart of this community.
We had a bit of an unplanned get away this last week as well. Our temporary 90 day visas were up and we still had not received our residency permits, meaning we had to make a trip out of country for two days in order to come back in to get another temporary 90 day visa. So we headed to Mombasa, Kenya, a little over three hours away by bus. We were joined by a couple we work with, Wayne and Joyce, and had a really great time. Wayne, Joyce, and their family lived outside of Mombasa for 16 years, so they gave us the tour of the island of Mombasa. We enjoyed lots of good food and laughter. And most importantly, we were granted another 90 day visa. We hope to iron out the official residency permit situation when we go to Dar es Salaam for conference in a few weeks.
I bet you are wondering, “How is work going for us?” For me I continue to stay as busy as I want to be. There was a school holiday and when the children returned, there were countless major health issues. The problem I battle most is skin issues. They come up with the weirdest things and then I searching through village medical manuals about what to do about it. The biggest thing is that parents need to learn to bathe their children with soap and water at least once daily, and I think a lot of these problems would be eliminated. I have recommended a few go to the hospital because of serious infections. Language continues to be an issue at times. Sarah and I visited a lady last week that was bit by a dog. Her doctor wrote that she needed the rabies vaccine. We thought she said she was unable to get it due to money and that is was not available. I was so concerned because if she was truly bit by a rabid dog and does not get the vaccine, it can be fatal. So I get to her Tanga to the vaccination clinic and turns out she was able to get the rabies vaccine the day before, just where she got it, it was their last dose, so would be unable to get the rest of the series. We thought we very clearly asked her if she was able to get it, but obviously there was some miscommunication. But our language skills are coming along.
Good stories Em…now that she has brought you up to date on life here, I will fill you in on my side of things. I, too, am excited about our safari, and we hope to return feeling refreshed with a renewed purpose and desire to serve our community. It has been amazing so far, and even though we face struggles and hardships daily, God has blessed our work and ministry. Here’s a recap on all things school: After our latest school break, the kiddos returned in rare form. As sad as it was to witness some of their conditions (as Em explained before) it showed just how much the school impacts the community. The kiddos were also super excited to be back at school. I realized how much I missed them too! The teachers genuinely care about the wellbeing of students and work with families to make sure they are taken care of. I am thankful to be an additional resource to help the children in and out of school, and more importantly, share with the families that our love comes from Jesus Christ. I got to experience my first round of teacher interviews as we are searching for 2 new teachers next year. Each year the school will expand to the next grade level, so next year we will have 2 kindergarten classes, 1 first grade class, and 1 second grade class. It was quite an interesting experience, but I was very thankful to get to be a part of the process. I got to meet with our principal and discuss possible questions beforehand and discuss how to ask them in English and Kiswahili. We interviewed 3 candidates over a four hour period. It was a long day, but we all learned a lot, and we know God will provide the right person for the job! We are still looking to follow up with more interviews, but we are excited about these first steps in the process. I am feeling more at home at the school and I have been taking over some administrative rolls regarding the registration of our school. We are not yet registered with the government, but we have been working for the past 2 years on this process. Everything here takes a lot of time and follow up to make sure things are happening! Our team has been working with our principal to aid and assist in this process, and we hope to complete it within the next year. I would love to see it done before our time here comes to an end, God willing. Please continue to pray for the kiddos at the school and for the interviews and registration process! As you can see, we have a lot going on! I will end with a cute teacher story. I have been teaching the standard one children the prepositions on, in, under, behind, and in front of to express location. We have done all sorts of activities to practice the words from asking questions playing hide and seek with objects and playing Simon says by putting their hands on their heads and sitting under their desks…I have to be creative. Any who, I saw one of the parents of one student on Wednesday night and she was very excited to be telling me that her daughter came home from school and was describing the location of every object in her house! As a teacher, the best news you can hear is when a child goes home and shares what he or she is learning at school! I was elated! Praise the Lord their English is coming even though there are gaps in my Kiswahili! I will miss the kiddos over the next few weeks, but I am eager to get back in the classroom with these kids that I’m falling in love with! Until next time, thanks for reading, and we can’t wait to share our safari adventures with you.
Peace out,
Em & Sarah