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