I woke up this morning and looked up at the sky over the compound and saw the sun rising through the clouds, making the sky all kinds of beautiful colors and I smiled at God’s love, that doesn’t even require words. His love can be expressed in colors. I love that I have seen the same sun rise over so many countries. So far in my life I have seen the sun rise over 13 countries and everywhere, all over, His mercies are new every morning. There’s newness in the morning—second chances, fresher perspectives, and a sense of peace. Perhaps it’s the result of a whole night just…breathing. If He is the breath that brings life, then I want to breathe Him in all night.
Tanzania is so colorful, but very broken. There is poverty in ways I can’t quite process and comprehend yet, but there is Joy in those who have chosen Jesus as their refuge. The day we arrived here, we were exhausted from a bus ride that seemed to last ten years and what was meant to be a 12 hr bus trip turned in to more than a 24hr ordeal. We arrived around 7:30 am and the first thing we did was drink tea (a blessing carried over from Ukraine because we drink chai twice a day) and eat chapatti (a chewy, greasy, flatbread…sooooo good!!). Eventually we settled in to our rooms and I decided to sleep the rest of the day. Then about 3 hours later, I heard it; I heard the children singing. As much as my body wanted to stay in that bed, I couldn’t help but rise and follow that beautiful sound. I unlatched the gate and turned around the corner to a dusty alley and there they were, about 15 tiny boys and girls with dark chocolate skin, dirty faces, bare feet, torn clothes and those stunning brown eyes…singing with Joy and adoration to Jesus. Then one by one the rest of the ladies from our 2 teams got up and followed the sound of hope. We’ve read of this sound, we’ve heard recordings of it, and we’ve seen pictures of similar faces…but here we were in the midst of their reality.
Each day we have come to know those children more and more and now we have names and personalities and ages to go with their faces. I love when a group of people stop being numbers, colors, and generalizations in our minds and they become individual stories; unique personalities; and chosen children of God. There is Maggie, who is only 10 and loves to take care of people. She is strong willed and very joyful. And when she sings she closes her eyes and tilts her head back out of deep love for her Jesus. And Maranasa who is 6 and loves to dance! She is very giggly and very affectionate and does a great job at teaching her 2 year old sister how to be free and have fun. There is a Swahili song I learned and surprised her when I started to sing it. She joins in out of excitement and her sister Anna tilts her head and laughs. They are so precious.
Our main ministry here is preaching in the local church and in the villages, but Pastor Adam says this month we are ministers and so we must live like ministers. Most of our week is filled will free time…but not free time to sleep and tour around. We have been given freedom, and with that freedom comes the responsibility to live well. So we pray, worship, dig into the Word and seek the Lord—all the time. And it feels so good. When I wake up, He is on my mind. When I eat, He is on my mind. When I talk to people, He is on my mind and He is speaking! Then we go out and just live. So on our way to where ever we are going to we talk to people. We shake their hands and smile. We bless babies and prefer old ladies. Life is good.
The food here is delicious! There are a bunch of ladies associated with the church who come early every day to cook for us and they are so good to pay attention to allergies and to ease us into the different foods. African foods I love: pumpkin, chapatti, ugali, pumpkin leaves and beans, avocado, sugar cane and finger bananas! They don’t usually serve us ugali (a white, thick, sticky substance made of corn flour and water, that you eat by pressing it between your fingers and dipping it into beans or pumpkin leaves) because most foreigners find it tasteless and extremely hard to digest but I love it! Typical snacks usually involve unroasted nuts, oranges, and cassava chips. We went to the city yesterday and found a jar of PEANUT BUTTER and CHOCOLATE BARS!!! It was so great! I ate a whole giant bar to myself, with the excuse that it was melting too fast to save haha. Things I look forward to eating: roasted African sweet potatoes (that are purple) and some form of African curry. THIS JUST IN: as I am writing, my team leader Ashley comes over to me and says: “Pastor Adam says you are cooking chicken tonight, is that true?” I was like, “Me??? This is the first I heard of it!” So when the pastor comes in I asked him and he says, “yes it will be good!” And I said, “…do I have to kill the chicken??” and he says, “yes it will be good!” Soooo….that will be happening today. The pre-race vegetarian is going to kill a chicken. I may throw up but…”it will be good!”
Many Africans are intrigued by me because I don’t quite look like them and I don’t quite look like the white Americans either. Many ask me if I am “black-American”, I tell them I am Canadian with Jamaican roots and they look confused and repeat the question, so I say “yes. I am black-American” haha. I preached the other night and they really enjoyed the message so now they have been calling me “Pastor.” Yesterday in town a couple of guys were being very flirty with me and in awe of how light my skin is. One of them took my hand and was saying things in Swahili and Sara, our cook who escorted us into town, slapped his hand down, laughed and said, “no! She is pastor!” He gave me a necklace as I got on a bus, squeezed my hand and told me his name was Doola. For all I know I could have just gotten married! Haha.
We are all in the process of getting traditional African dresses made and we picked out our fabric, chose our style and got measured yesterday. I am so excited to get them in a couple days! I will post pictures for sure! Anywho, I think that’s pretty much what’s been going on so far. I love it here and LOVE LOVE LOVE this point in the race and part of the process. As before, it is hard but it is good. And as each month passes by I am seeing more of the good and less of the hard. I am beginning to rejoice in partaking in the suffering of Christ.
