Hey kids!
To give you a glimpse into what life is like here I will give you the play by play of my day yesterday. I will tell you it was not an entirely typical day, but it speaks well to the culture, community, and spiritual life here. I woke up and went for a bike ride with one of my teammates. We are trying to exercise some mornings by riding through surrounding villages early in the morning. This provides good fellowship time, prayer for the villages, and entertainment for the locals. They get a kick out of riding a bike just for exercise-but not really having a destination in mind. We wave as we go by and wave as we come back and they just laugh.
After the ride I ran home to get some water and head off to work on my friend Mama H.’s shamba, or farm. With hoe in hand I trudged through the bush to her farm where we plowed and hoed for about an hour and a half before it got really hot and I said I had to head home. It was fun to spend time with her and learn how to farm from her. I love learning how to live here…not that I’m ready to run out and start my own shamba tomorrow. Farming is vital to life here. Many people in our community rely on their crops not only for food for their family but to cook and sell too. I got to have a great conversation with Mama H. the other day because she asked me about the big holiday that we celebrate that was coming up next month. I then got to share with her the real meaning of Christmas. She is a sweet, gentle woman and her son might be one of the cutest kiddos I’ve ever seen. Every time I go by he sees me from afar and calls out my name and runs to me. Talk about warming your heart.
Any who, after the farm I headed home to clean up and prepare for my language lesson and studied with my language helper until 11 when I made some lunch and headed off to school to help the teachers get end of the year assessments ready. I hung out for a while and then went with one of your teammates and Emily to visit a friend of ours who may be the sweetest old man in all of Tanzania. We met him at his farm and our teammate shared a story from the Bible with him. She uses the chronological Bible storying approach to sharing God’s word with friends and people in our villages since oral traditions and storytelling are still very prominent in this culture. It’s a great evangelistic tool. So, we got to sit in on her story time and it was great to see our friend so engaged in the story.
Midday, news of a baby’s death in the village next to ours reached us and we got the details that the young mother had taken the child to the hospital in the village nearby and they were sending her to town, but the baby died on the way. The traditional funeral was to be held that day and though we did not know the mother, we knew her family and were encouraged to go mourn with them. We arrived at the funeral and sat with the women as the men left to bury the baby. We then moved inside the house to give our condolences to the family and sit with the mother as she cried for her lost child. A picture of her sitting on the floor with tears falling down her cheeks as the sun came through the bars of the window illuminating her sad face will be with me for as long as I live. I kept peering back and forth from the barred window to the young woman sitting on the dirt floor of the house and I could not help but mourn for the prison that so many of these people live in day by day. The bondage of poverty and living a life that seems lost without hope is such a heavy weight to bear. Others attending simply stated that this was the work of God and life must go on. This is partly true, and though the loss and depth of despair can be overwhelming, it is confirmation that there is a need here to pour love and light into a place that can be so dark.
Moving from darkness to light, our day looked up. As when we were leaving we stopped by a neighbor’s house where our teammate introduced us to some old friends of hers. They started asking questions about God and she was able to share the Gospel with them. We then went on to visit several other people and had my language helper and her family over to our house for dinner. It was a great time of fellowship and we wanted them to know how much we appreciate them and love them. We also got to share a story with them, and thanked the Lord for all He accomplished in that day.
Though by the time my head hit my pillow I was spent in so many ways, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, my heart was filled with joy. Though there are many struggles each day and there is sorrow in the world, God’s word says, “I have told you these things so that you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” Jn. 16:33. In all these things, we know God is working, and He has a purpose for us here. Not only to meet the physical and tangible needs of the children and people of Tanzania, but to love them and most of all, share the Truth of His love that brings liberation. I hope this update encourages you and allows you to look into the reality of the world around you. Though there is darkness, He is the light.
Word,
Sarah
