(the view walking from our house to church…nbd)
And as much as I tried to avoid it, I had expectations.
I wanted to see the dirt-poor side of Africa. The kind of Africa you see on TV. I mean it’s those children that made me want to travel the world.
I wanted to live out in the bush, in a mud hut, with no electricity or running water, an outdoor squatty as our “toilet,” and with adorable black children running around the backyard. I had even begun bracing myself for the chickens that I would of course presume to be our house pets only to find out later that the men on my team had killed them for dinner. [Josh, I am mainly talking about you]
This is what I was ready for, but this is not exactly what I got.
Instead, we are living in a beautiful concrete home, equipped with an indoor squatty (so that part was almost right), fans to keep us cool at night, electricity, running water every other day (although I will say the water is brown so whether we are actually getting clean is still under debate), and a fence around us to keep us safe. Not quite the Africa I imagined, but I mean let’s be honest, who can really complain. If I’ve learned anything this year, it is that roughing it gets a lot less “fun and adventurous” after day 3. In fact, the reasoning, “this will make for a great story” seems a lot less appealing when your reality becomes — pooping outside in a squatty at night (stressful enough) while also worrying that your neighbors would see you from their roof because you have no door on the bathroom THUS you end up peeing on yourself because you loose your focus and you have no water (because it ran out, hence why you are pooping in the squatty) to wash it off –- thank you Haiti.
Now the cute kids thing: running around, being just plain irresistible, that panned out pretty perfectly. We have kids living all around us and as soon as we walk close to their house they will come sprinting out saying either “Muzumgu” (meaning white person) or the 2 English phrases they know (Hello and How are you?).
Our ministry lived up to exactly what I imagined. Well kind of. I knew that we’d be evangelizing. Yes that’s right, it’s the Dominican Republic all over again. So I bet you can guess my initial reaction. However, I must say this time around things are looking much brighter. I, of course, am not the same person I was in the Dominican Republic. Since that month I have probably asked at least a 100 people if they believed in Jesus, and during those times it wasn’t my quote on quote ministry. Additionally, our host is a big advocate of sharing our testimonies as a way to bring people to Jesus. So as you can imagine, it’s a little easier to start a conversation with “can I tell you about a person who changed my life” rather than “are you saved” dun dun dunnnnn.
But as for the ways it is different than I expected, I am mostly referring to the concept of “door-to-door.” While in the Dominican Republic, we would walk from house to house, inviting ourselves into people’s homes to tell them about Jesus. Here, we are literally going up to people along the street. I’m talking about stopping at people’s jobs and asking them if they have a moment to talk. It’s a little bit crazy, but guess what? Every person has invited us to speak. Thus far, we have gone up to people selling gasoline, fixing the motor on a bus, moving cement blocks, and carving wood. We have had conversations in the most unlikely of places but I guess that’s how you know they’re ordained from God. Only He would send us to talk to men hidden beneath a charter bus, and only He could know that we would end up having an hour-long conversation, sitting in the dirt, about scripture in the Bible. I’m telling you, this ministry is crazy but cool!
And it doesn’t stop there! In addition to street evangelizing, we are also going into schools and sharing the Word of God. Can you believe it? I didn’t know what to expect when they initially told us we would be preaching in school. Where I come from you simply can’t do that. I come from a public school background, in the era when requiring children to say The Pledge of Allegiance went under debate because of the phrase, “one nation under God.” So just imagine trying to share my religious views…forget about it! But here it’s a whole new ballgame.
(the first school we went to)
Our first day in the schools, we walked into a room where 70 middle schoolers were praising Jesus at the top of their lungs. And a teacher wasn’t running this show; it was all lead by the youth. Let me tell you, I was floored. The amount of faith in that room was unmistakable! So much in fact, that God used these youth to give me a sermon for church that night on what it means to live by faith, not by sight. 2 Corinthians 5:7.
And the next day after that was no different. We went to a different school, with even younger children, but the worship stayed the same. These kids weren’t holding anything back. They were going to praise Jesus and it was all the better if the entire school heard them. I am telling you, this country’s openness to displaying their faith was even convicting to me. Here I am a missionary, but even I don’t always praise Jesus this freely, especially at school. I can imagine little Jacquie being terrified by what her friends would think of her if she belted out a song about the Lord. In fact, my friends already refer to me as the Jesus freak of the group. But these kids were unashamed and unafraid. Jesus is there everything and it’s their goal to make sure the world knows it!
(my new friends…these kids were my favorite. I gave a sermon here and when it was time to go they kept screaming, "I love you Jacquie." Daw, heart currently melting. Oh and the girl to my left is also named Jacquie…so cool!)
Now last, but certainly not least, let’s talk about the worship. If I could summarize in one word I would say: jumpin’! I mean, if you aren’t sweatin’ by the time they’re through, then you aren’t doing it right! It’s like any African dance I have ever seen, but the great thing is you don’t have to go to a show to see it, just come to Sunday service. I would even go as far to say that I have never seen such energetic worship service in my life, and please take into account that I grew up in the church and have been to 5 countries before this. I mean, they really get down and wow do they know how to dance! (As you can see, I can talk about the dancing for hours, but I will let a video I make later show you the rest that you need to know).
(We couldn't just be bystanders in the audience, we got up there and joined the fun)
Oh wait and I almost forgot to mention…we also preach three times a week in church! So I guess I can really call myself a real missionary now.
(A picture of me giving a sermon on faith of the unseen. The verse behind me comes from Acts 10:35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.)
So this really is Africa! Or at least the Africa I am getting to see. It’s not exactly what I expected, but man am I in love with it!
And if any of you were wondering, which I know you were, yes I am getting tanner as we speak. I may have underestimated just how strong the sun is on the first day, and got super red, which really confused the locals. I tried to go on a hunt for suntan lotion but they had no idea what I was talking about and were really confused why I was so red. Ha oh Africa. How I love you! (Don’t worry mom, turns out one of my teammates had some lotion and is sharing his) But now I’ve got it down, and currently trying to beat Lynn, my fellow teammate, in a competition of who can get the darkest!
(This is the sunburn incident I was refering to. As you can see, I had a really nice famer's tan going, but no fear that is long gone now. And the adorable girl I am playing with is named Anna, she is the daughter of one of the pastor's kids so we get to play with her each day –Love her)
*Interesting fact of the month: My team and I may have discovered where the phrase Mambo, Jambo comes from. In Tan-Zane-ia (that is how they pronounce it phonetically….another interesting fact) the people speak Swahili and two words for hello are Mambo and Jambo. So we believe that people visiting this country might have been so confused hearing those two words that they came up with the phrase, what is all that mambo jambo. Because we can tell you from experience, we’ve been there, and it gets confusing.
So until next time…love you, miss you, CANT WAIT TO KISS YOU (only apply that to people it would be appropriate to kiss)
(My host brother/ best buddy here in Tanzania. It just didn't feel right excluding him from my "intro to Africa" blog)
