Visitors, Goodbyes, and Women's Day

It's amazing how God times meetings with people. This past week, Kjirstin and I had our visitor (another missionary) at our house!! She's a United Methodist pastor and missionary from Korea and has been at the DAR for almost three months now. She was wanting to see the other United Methodist sites in Tanzania, just like what Kjirstin and I did, and we were her first stop. We only have two rooms, so I gave her my room and Kjirstin and I shared during her stay. It worked out surprisingly well in our tiny house; though I did feel bad that I had to go into my room often to get things I needed. It was super fun getting to have someone stay with us. For me, getting to serve people in my own home is such a blessing. I love doing everything that I can to make them feel welcome!

Christina stayed from Thursday afternoon until Saturday afternoon. I think she really enjoyed getting to visit the school and meet the kids. I know that she also got to talk to Pastor Umba and his wife about their story of how they came to be missionaries in Tanzania. I'm also sure that he was able to give her a tour of the rest of our site (the Susanna Wesley Center, Pastor Umba's house, the church, the pre-school, etc.). On Friday afternoon, Kjirstin and I took her to town and since Christina really wanted to go out to eat, we took her to Acropol, which as great western food. We also got to show her Pira's Supermarket (where we do much of our shopping) before we had to head back to Kihonda.

Here's a picture of all of us with her friend who came down from Dodoma on Saturday:

During her stay, I found that I as much as I was doing to try and bless her life and her stay with us in Morogoro, I was blessed by her presence. We had lots of opportunities for conversations during the weekend, and I found that she has such a love and passion for Tanzania. I was really inspired by some of the stories she shared with me about her experiences in Korea and America prior to her arrival here. I've been feeling a bit down spiritually, so I'm thankful that God provided me with some encouragement. It's hard to see what He's doing here and sometimes I wonder if I'm having an impact at all. But, I know that in all things, God works for the good of His people. And, if He's called me here, then there must be a reason, even if I'm not fully aware of it yet (or ever for that matter).

On Saturday, I woke up early in the morning to run. It was a wonderful morning for running due to the rain the night before. When I got back, I got breakfast for Christina and I and then got to work on my laundry. I was rushing a bit because of the good-bye party for some missionary friends who are coming to Morogoro for the last time. They have been coming back and forth between Tanzania and their home country over the past 6 years (6 months on, 6 months off). But, they have decided that this is going to be their last trip here. Thus, the organization they've been working for decided to throw them a good-bye party.

I thought it was going to be a wazungu (white people) affair, but when I arrived, I found that I was mistaken and it was everyone from their organization (PBT). The party was supposed to start at 1pm, and I had rushed through my errands in town to be there on time. But, true to Tanzanian style, it didn't start until 2pm. We all ate a meal together and then they began the celebration. Different people came up to the front to talk, a group of women sang song they wrote, gifts were presented and more. It was a very nice party, but I was glad when it finally came to a close because I was tired of sitting in the heat. One great thing about the party, though, was that other missionary friends were in charge of the sound system and it was actually set at a reasonable level. I could hear everything perfectly well and my poor ears were not blasted to heaven and back.

They did a skit demonstrating the differences between Tanzania and their home country

Cutting the "Good-Bye" Cake

The event really made me think about my own impending departure in just under four months. It's so crazy how fast the time has flown by. I'm feeling a peace about leaving this year which I didn't have last year, but it still doesn't make it easy. I'm going to miss my students a TON when I leave and there are some parts of the African culture that I think are always going to be a part of me. I mean, you can't spend a year and a half completely immersed in another culture and come away un-changed. It's just going to be interesting to see how things play out once I get back.

Today was the Women's Day at church. Last year, I participated in Women's Day at church, but due to our traveling this year, Kjirstin and I did not get to be a part of it. I was fine with that, though. Last year, the rehearsals took up a lot of time and there was a lot of preparation. It was nice to be able to sit back and enjoy it this year instead. There were songs, lots of dancing, gifts that were awarded to different people (the guest preacher and the other pastors). There was an offering competition between the women, men, and youth. The funniest part of this was when the parents were giving their kids money to place in the baskets. The kids ran up and chose any bucket that suited them ( and a couple little boys chose the Mama's bucket). The women put on a skit centering around fruits which tied in with the sermon on the Fruits of the Spirit. In the skit, a woman was selling "special" fruit to others. The fruits helped those women in areas of their lives where they needed it. It was a great celebration, but it stretched on for over 3 hours. By the time it was done, I was done and ready to come home. But, first, I got to eat some of the delicious food which had been prepared by the women!!
Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so I didn't get to take any pictures of the event.

Another exciting event from this week (that happened this past Friday) is that I got to skype one of my best friends, Holly. Over the past year, I've been able to skype home plenty of times. Thus, I've always got the latest news from my family. However, keeping in touch with my friends has been a lot more difficult since many of them are still in college (either for undergraduate or graduate studies) and are super busy. It's always a nice treat to hear an update from others and be reminded that I'm not completely forgotten about!!

As for this week at school, the students will be taking their monthly exams for February. The tests this month are short (only 10 questions long); except Class VII will have a 25 question test for each subject (since they have their big national exams at the end of the year). I'm not sure which day we'll be beginning those tests, so I may have to teach tomorrow. I guess I'll prepare for either way and I'll officially find out in the morning!!

On Friday, Kjirstin and I will head out early in the morning for Moshi. We will be going to Arusha to participate in the foot races that will be happening on Saturday. I'll be running in the half marathon and she will be running in the 5K. I'm really excited!! I used to run a lot of races back in the states and I've run one half marathon before. This will be my first race in about a year and a half, so I'm interested to see how I will do! We will head back to Morogoro Sunday morning and then it's back to school on Monday!

I guess that's all the news for now!! Have a great week!
May the Lord Bless You and Keep You,
~Christine

Valentine's Day and Lupanga

I didn't actually realize that it was Valentine's Day until maybe half-way through the day on Thursday. I've never been much of a fan of Valentine's Day in the past, and without all of the commercial cue: pink and red hearts all over, over-stocked candy and card isles, ads and billboards, and everything else, it would have passed me right by. However, a student or two reminded me by wishing me a Happy Valentine's Day.

At break time, I passed by some kids during break time, and one of the girls ran up to me and complained that the other girls in the class were saying that her valentine was a particular boy from their class. So, I jokingly decided to pair up the other girls with boys from their class. Somehow, this escalated and a list was written out, pairing up the boys and girls from Class VI. But, of course it couldn't end there because we were all having WAY too much fun. Kjirstin, the other students, and I all paired up all the boys and girls from Classes V and VII as well. (There are significantly fewer boys at the school, so quite a few boys were partnered with multiple girls. Then, Kjirstin and I decided to take everything the next step and make the kids write Valentine's cards to their partner/partners. Luckily, one of the teachers was absent, so we used his periods to let the kids have their fun with paper and colors!

Here are some pictures of them:

In case you have trouble reading what they say:
The one on the left says "Bad Boy" and the one on the right says: "Mr. Good Boy"

A student in Class VII with his card

Girls in Class VII working on their cards

A boy in Class VI working on his card

I must say that we got some pretty interesting results from quite a few students. The girls in Class VI seem to be at the stage of REALLY not liking boys. Thus we got cards like this:

If you have trouble reading it, it says:
"I like Valentine, but I hate boys of Class Six"

Some girls, who Kjirstin and I consider to be particularly sweet and well behaved, wrote things like "I'm not yours forever", "I hate you", "You are not my type", and "You will never be mine". We had to have a serious talking to some of those girls about writing things that are nice. We insisted that they they could just write the card as if they were writing it to a friend or a brother. Valentine's Day doesn't necessarily have to be all romantic. Surprisingly, many of the boys actually wrote decent cards. One boy started his letter something like this: "I've never written a letter to a girl before, but Madam Christine and Madam KJ say I have to. So, here it goes..." The letter was so precious!! I wish we had gotten a picture of that card, but we didn't. Oh well!!

The other big recent news was my hike up to Lupanga, the highest peak of the Uluguru Mountains and probably the most challenging climb up the mountain. I spent the night at a friend's house on Friday so that it would be easier to meet up with the group in the morning. At about 6:30am on Saturday, I met a fellow missionary, and two sons of another missionary couple and we began our ascent up the mountain. It was a very steady and grueling uphill climb the whole way to the top. There were only 2 or 3 short spots where the path leveled out a bit. Honestly, going up wasn't so bad (especially compared with coming down). I was able to find enough footholds and handholds, mostly by grabbing onto tree roots, to pull myself up when the path got super steep. And, it wasn't too hot since we made it to the shaded forest area before the sun rose over the mountains.

Some make-shift ladders and bridges were built in various spots to make the hike "easier"

We reached our destination just before 12pm which is a pretty good time. At the top of the mountain, we found ourselves completely surrounded by a strange and ancient forest. There's also a small tower that was built at the top of the mountain by the Germans. I can't imagine who would want to haul up the metal and tools to build it; even if it was rather small.

The tower at Lupanga Peak

By far, the way down was far more intense and dangerous than the ascent. My feet slid out from under me a number of times because of the steep path. The others found a walking stick for me, but it was still pretty tough. There were many places we had to turn all the way around and climb down the same tree roots we had used to pull ourselves up with. Sometimes it was really hard to find a foothold and I found myself dangling by tree roots a few times. Luckily, there were so many trees around and the path was pretty narrow, I certainly wouldn't have fallen too far down. It was an exhausting climb down and my thighs were put to the test. I still run a lot here (I'm even going to be in the Kilimanjaro half marathon in a couple of weeks from now), but my body was not quite prepared for this. 

About an hour/hour and a half away from town, storm clouds began to gather around Morogoro. We watched the clouds dump buckets over Kihonda before making their way closer to the mountain. It was a bit unnerving as we began to hear thunder and still had another hour to go before returning home. At that point we had left the forest area and were back into the farmland areas where it was a little less steep. But, as we tried to move faster, it almost felt like we were tumbling down the mountain. The moment I smelled that fresh "rain smell" in the air, I knew it was all over and we were not going to make it back before the clouds opened up over us. It started slow enough at first, but before we knew it, we were walking in a torrential downpour. We were drenched all the way through within minutes, but we had no choice but to keep going. On a normal, sunshine day, there would have been no need to keep the walking stick. But, I held onto it because small rivers were rushing down the dirt roads and the dirt had turned to a slippery mud. At some points we had to cross the small rivers and I slipped and fell down. Lucky me, it was raining so hard that the mud was completely washed out of my kitenge (my wrap skirt which I had to wear over my shorts in the populated areas so that I could be "culturally acceptable") before I reached the house in town were I had spent the night. There, I was thankfully able to wash up and change into dry clothes. 

Overall, I really feel a sense of accomplishment and I'm really glad that I finally have made it up to Lupanga!! When I first moved here and saw those mountains, I was very eager to hike all over them. Now, I've had the chance to hike to Bondwa, Lupanga, Morning Site, and the Bahati Camp. I can't say that I'm ready to go up again just yet (I'd like to recover a bit first). But, I certainly wouldn't mind heading up one more time before my departure in June!! :D

Overall, school is continuing very well and the students are progressing at back-breaking speed through their books. All of the classes are ahead of where I projected they'd be at this point in the school year!! I don't think that I could be more proud of their work ethic and their excitement about learning. I'm continuing to throw in different creative activities for the students to do so that they can have a more rounded English education. I've continued with the journaling activities, vocabulary, while adding my own units on tenses and how to write using complete sentences. The unit on complete sentences has significantly improved their writing this year which has been a huge relief for me! The students in Classes VI and VII have even written essays!! Now, they don't know that's what they've done because I made it into a charting activity, but they've done it!! I gave them the topic of "People from other countries should come to Tanzania." They had to give reasons why those people should come and then "unpack" those reasons. They also had to do the same thing with the topic "All students should go to school." I'm planning to do a more extended version of these charting/writing activities with Class V in the near future (since they're SOO far ahead in their books), and I'll explain more about it then. What I've been doing with Classes VI and VII has been more of a small warm-up/experiment to see how the students would respond to it. But, I'd say it was pretty successful and I'm definitely going to do it with Class V!

Well, that's all the updates I've got for now! I hope that you're having a good start to your week and a happy Monday!

May the Lord Bless You and Keep You,
~Christine

Dodoma

This past weekend, Kjirstin and I made our next stop in Dodoma. We were originally going to leave on Friday after school. However, we found out that we were not going to be able to return to Morogoro until Monday morning, so we decided to delay our departure until Saturday morning and take some time Friday afternoon to relax and prepare for the journey.

Unlike the bus ride to Ilula, we had a thankfully uneventful journey. When we arrived in Dodma, it was early afternoon. The pastor of the Dodoma church was not there, so we waited outside for a short time until he arrived. When he did arrive, we hopped into the taxi and made our way to his house.

Before arriving at the site, I knew that it was a less developed site than the one I'm at in Morogoro and certainly less than the one in Ilula. But, I was not expecting what we arrived at. There is one building which serves as the pastor's home, the church, and a pre-school. The pastor has seven kids, the oldest being in her second year of secondary school, and his wife which are living at their house. There's no running water and no electricity at their site. The living-room where we sat to eat our second lunch (I say this because Kjirstin and I had packed lunches which we ate on the bus) was no bigger than my current bedroom in Morogoro. After lunch, the pastor brought us around to the other side of the building to see the church/pre-school before making our way to the guest house where we would be staying.

On Saturday afternoon, Kjirstin and I had a lot of time for resting at the Guest House near the church. In the evening, the pastor returned and we all enjoyed cokes and talked together. The pastor does not have very good English, so I was pulling out my own Swahili left and right. I must say that I rather impressed myself and was able to carry on a pretty decent conversation. Afterwards, we went back to his house for dinner and to meet friends and church members. Again, I had the chance to whip out as much Swahili as I could. It was really exhausting, however, because I had to concentrate so much on what was being said and what the correct response should be.

On Sunday morning, we had breakfast at the pastor's house and then we all went to Sunday School and church together. No one translated the Sunday School lesson for us, so I just kind of sat there and did my best to listen and see if I could understand anything; I couldn't. After Sunday School, the service started. I was rather amazed at the church service. There was so much dancing and singing. It was far more upbeat than any service I've ever been to. The guy who was leading the singing was doing all kinds of crazy dances. He was shaking his knees, kicking his legs up the in air. At some points, he was even down on the ground, scooting himself around. There were some girls who had a coordinated dance going in the middle, and the kids had their own dance line going. It was seriously quite amazing!! All the choirs sang and they even asked me to sing a solo. I was so embarassed. I am classically trained and I don't feel like people here appreciate that very much. I would sing a Swahili song, but I just don't know the Swahili songs well enough to sing them on my own. I still have to listen pretty hard to get all of the words in when we're singing at church. After a long period of praise and having my ears blasted out by their sound system, we had the sermon, which thankfully someone translated.

After the main service ended, they had a special time to welcome Kjirstin and I to their church. They read a letter to us asking for financial support to get the water and electricity and then the ladies presented us with new Khangas (wrap skirts) as a gift from Dodoma. (I'm actually wearing my new khanga now as I type this blog!!) To get both water and electricity for the church would total somewhere around $500 USD, but that's a hard thing for people who have almost nothing to come up with on their own. If anyone is interested in helping, please email me (you can find my email by clicking on the "contact me" button at the top of the page). 

Here are some pictures from church:

In the afternoon, I went to Dodoma University with my friend Mary from the United Methodist Church here. When I first arrived in Morogoro, she was the one who invited me to play netball with some other girls a couple afternoons a week and I went a few times. Over the past year, I've talked to her a lot at church, but recently, she is left for Dodoma to get her bachelor's degree. She wants to be a translator and the Lord has opened up an opportunity to study at the Dodoma Univeristy. However, this is still very challenging for her because she must live far away from her husband and her daughter who is very young. So far, I am the first person who has visited her, and I think that it made her very happy that I was able to come. She showed me the dorm room which she is sharing with 3 other girls. The dorms are very nice (even nicer than some of the dorms I toured at schools in the US) and I enjoyed meeting everyone and laughing and joking with them. 

In the evening I returned to the church and the pastor's house for dinner. After dinner, we visited the home of some church members and talked with them. I was pretty exhausted from using so much Swahili, but luckily their oldest son is in Form 6 at Secondary School and was able to translate for us. They wanted to know all kinds of things about the US, even some things that I would consider strange. Such as: is professional wrestling real or not? And: is CocaCola a big company in the US? All in all, it was a good visit, but I was glad when we got to return to the guest house and have some time to just speak English!! 

We weren't able to leave on Sunday afternoon because of the bus situation. So, we spent the night Sunday night and visited the pre-school on Monday morning before returning to Morogoro. It was a good weekend, but a bit stressful because I was forced to use so much Swahili. I am thankful for it, though, because I can see I'm getting better and my vocabulary is expanding. I know I only have a few months left, but I know I will leave with a sense of accomplishment in this area of my life here!!

I hope that you're having a great weekend!!

May the Lord Bless You and Keep You,

~Christine

Silly Stories

I wanted to take an opportunity to share some silly stories from school with you. Not all of them are stories, but instead just funny sentences that the students have come up with or whatnot. There are so many things that these kids come up with that are hysterical that I decided that I would write them down so that I will always remember them.
Please don't get the wrong idea from this, though. The students really do have excellent English and are capable of very intelligent thoughts and conversations. But, it's still their second language and some interesting things can come from that.

Frequently, the students write or draw on the covers of their exercise books. One of my students wrote on the top: "Don't steal. Jesus see you."

A student was asked: "What does a butcher do?" The student knew what he was talking about, but he was not 100% sure how to express it using English. Thus, he came up with this: "A butcher sells cows which are dead."

A question on a quiz asked the students to describe a stimulus. One student wrote this: "A stimulus is something that you can see in your nose."

Another question asked the students to give examples of involuntary actions. One student wrote this: "Tree, House, Stones".

People in Tanzania frequently confuse the "L" sound with the "R" sound because in Swahili they're pronounced so similarly. Also, to complicate things further, some tribal languages only have the "R" sound and some only have the "L" sound. The students were asked to give reasons why they like coming to school. One student wrote: "I like coming to school because I want to have no rage." What she meant was: "I like coming to school because I want to have knowledge."


Here are some fun journal entries that students have come up with. I always make them write 13-14 lines, but I'll just share the funny/cute parts:

Journal Topic: If you could be any animal, which would you be and why?
Student Response:  "I want to be a cow because I want to be eaten. I think they will enjoy eating me. I think that I will taste very good..."
At least she understood the fact that cows do indeed get eaten!

Journal Topic: If you could be any animal, which would you be and why?
Student Response: "My name is ____ . I want to be a lion of God..."

Journal Topic: Describe a problem that you see and come up with a solution for that problem.
Student Response: "I don't like to play with a lion..."
Well, I hope that's not a problem that he faces on a regular basis! LOL!


For Class V, I give the students a new English word every day to help them increase their vocabulary. For Classes VI and VII, they get a list of 5 words every Monday and have a quiz on them at the end of the week. For each word, I give the definition, the part of speech, and a sentence. Then, I make the students write their own sentence using the word. This helps me know if they actually understand the word or not. Here is a list of sentences that students have come up with for various words of the day:

Word: fatal
Sentence: The water was fatal.

Word: Vivid
Sentence: The boys in Class four they are vivid.

Word: Perpetual
Sentence: Education is perpetual.

Word: Unbecoming
Sentence: It is unbecoming for a beautiful girl to fall down.


I don't quite remember the context for these sentences, but they're still pretty funny:

"If in the aeroplane, fly the aeroplane."  

"Do not play with the fire, but it is also fun."


I hope that this has given you something to smile about today!! I love my students very much and I'm so proud of what they have accomplished over the past year with me (and of course what they accomplished before me as well). Learning a second language is difficult and learning all subjects IN the second language is even more difficult.

I know that I make mistakes in Swahili all the time!! One time, I intended to tell our friendly neighbor at the duka that Kjirstin had gone to Europe to meet her mother. But, what I actually said was "KJ went to Europe to meet YOUR mother." Needless to say, we made a small joke of it for a while. Another time, I was intending to greet someone who was older than me by saying "shikamo" (which means "respectful greetings"). However, what I actually said was "Marahaba" which is what the older person is supposed to say in response to "shikamo". I certainly gave her something to laugh over! And I'll never forget the time at language school when I meant to say "Kuna nymba kubwa." which means "There is a big house." I accidentally said "Kula nyumba kubwa." which is an order to "Eat the big house!"

All of this is part of the process. Honestly, it's amazing how well some students are able to express themselves in their journals and other writings. I am so incredibly blessed by God to get to teach them and help them fix their mistakes.

I hope that you're all have had a wonderful weekend. I know that mine was very busy as I was in Dodoma (the political capital of Tanzania) this weekend. It was a very exciting trip and I was very happy to visit the United Methodist Church there and share and exchange information with them. I also got to practice a LOT of Swahili since the pastor and most of the members of their church do not speak English. Of course, I hope to be able to post an entry about that a little bit later this week!

May the Lord Bless You and Keep You,
~Christine

Ilula

I want to begin by apologizing for not posting a blog sooner. I've been experiencing some internet difficulties here in Tanzania. One of my modems died and the other (which I switched to using) decided that it no longer was going to connect to the internet. And, although I went to the Vodacom shop multiple times to buy a new modem, it took about a week and a half before they got new ones in. But, thankfully, I've been able to get it and am back online.

This past weekend, Kjirstin and I officially began our tour of United Methodist Sites in Tanzania. As for me, I've been in Morogoro for over a year now and I've seen and done just about all there is to do within our vicinity. So, the prospect of getting out and seeing more of Tanzania has been very exciting. I've also been very curious to see what else the United Methodist Church is doing throughout Tanzania. I've known that there are other sites, but I've grown very curious about how well those sites are developed and what other programs the church is offering in different areas.

Our first stop was Ilula, Tanzania, which is near Iringa Town. There, we visited IOP, the Ilula Orphan Project, which was started about 11 years ago by a really remarkable woman. She is originally from Norway, but has since changed her citizenship to the States, but is living in Tanzania. Of course, I’m getting ahead of myself since we didn’t know any of this before we arrived.

The journey to Ilula itself was quite an adventure of sorts. We left on Friday after a very hectic day at school and rushing to pack and get lunches ready for us to eat on the bus. We were practically running to the bus station because we were running late and I was throwing up frantic prayers to God that we would make it in time to catch our bus. I need not have worried. Our bus (quite an old one at that) was 30 minutes late coming from DAR. It was a relief to get on and get going; or so I thought. I knew something was wrong the minute we turned off the main road onto one of the poorly maintained dirt roads. We continued down a few different roads for a while until we made it to the Abood bus service station. When we pulled in, many people, especially from the front got off and I thought “Oh, I guess we’re taking a rest/bathroom break for the people who were coming from DAR.” Honestly, I could come up with no other way to explain our presence there. That is, until I began hearing work noises and seeing lights. I realized then that they were literally started welding the bus with us on it! I had to laugh to myself because that is just so Tanzania! I watched as two, perfectly good buses pulled into the service area and then pulled out again. Each time, I thought to myself “We’re saved! They’ll let us switch buses and we’ll get going again!” But, that would be very counter “Tanzania”. Instead, we waited while they worked on the bus for an hour, and finally at 2:45pm, almost 2 full hours after the quoted departure time, we were on the road.

Let me tell you, our driver was harakaharaka (very very fast). I guess he was trying to make up time, and maybe he was quite confident in the new fixes that had been made. But, I was not quite so sure and I kept shooting up prayers to God that He would hold our bus together and we would make it to our destination safely. All the while, our driver was speeding over the speed bumps and flying around curves while I was flying out of my seat. It was a very exciting ride, but maybe not in the best way. We did pass on the main road through Mikumi National Park and we got to see all kinds of wild animals (elephants, zebras, giraffes, impala, etc.), but we were going so quickly past that I wouldn’t have been able to take any pictures of them. I didn’t realize that Ilula was up in a more mountainous region, and I was pleasantly surprised by our ascent up the mountains (though our driver continued to fly, even around the sharper curves). We saw quite a few cars/18-wheelers in trouble, and even one 18-wheeler which was overturned. It wasn’t very comforting. The other thing that wasn’t so comforting was the vague directions which we were given. Wait until the bus goes up a steep mountain and then get off at the next stop. I kept wondering to myself if we were going up the “steep” mountain yet. But, praise God we arrived and the bus driver’s assistant came back to get us when it was time for us to “drop” and when we got off a group of volunteers from IOP were there to greet us.

When we arrived, we were shocked by how well developed the site is. There are so many buildings and projects that are happening simultaneously and successfully. We thought that our site in Morogoro was doing pretty well, but we had no idea what was in store for us in Ilula. Berit began the site 11 years ago after having been to Tanzania multiple times and having been moved by the orphan problem that has been the result of the HIV/AIDS problem that has plagued Africa. Initially, she only planned to stay for two years. But, soon she found herself overwhelmed with the number of other problems that people were facing and set out to change things for them, too. Now, what began as an orphanage for girls has gained a large amount of land for farming and raising all kinds of animals, a pre-school and high school, a library which is still in the building process, a sewing center, center for making shoes, and a center for wood working. There is also a set of shops and café that are run by IOP. They even have a medical program that reaches out to people with HIV/AIDS (especially those who are underground, meaning the workers go out at night to the less desirable places to begin building friendships with people who are considered less desirable) and a foster care program for children!! They’re also hoping to build a primary school in the near future. It seems like the list of services never ends and I’m sure it’s amazing to see how things work for them. Berit said that they employ a large number of local people at their site, which is great! I can see how this site is truly making a difference in the lives of the community. I rather regret the fact that we didn’t get to stay until Monday to see how everything works.

Here are some pictures from the IOP site:

The girls from the orphanage sang and danced to welcome us!

The Lord's Hill High School (Secondary School)

One of the classrooms at the secondary school

The wood craft shop

The preschool building/church

The orphanage building

 

One of the big highlights of our time at IOP was getting work on the shamba (farm) with Upendo all Saturday morning long. He brought a jembe (hoe) and a big bag of seeds and we went to work. He was making the holes with the jembe, I threw in the seeds, and Kjirstin came behind me and covered them. It was really quite fun, and I kept thinking of all kinds of Biblical references. I kept looking at the seeds and thinking about how small they were and we were just basically throwing them into the dirt and somehow, by God’s grace, they’re going to grow into beautiful sunflowers. The field was so big and it seemed like the seeds could get lost in the mix of it all so easily. It reminded me of how we’re just thrown into this world, and it’s so big, and it can be so easy for a person to get lost in everything. But, somehow, by God’s grace, we grow and find our place in this world. We can’t always help where we’re going to end up, but we have the power to respond to our situations in positive and negative ways.

Also, Upendo is quite an amazing person. His passion and love for God and God’s people is inspiring. I learned from Berit that his first day in Ilula, he was going out to people’s homes and evangelizing. The United Methodist Church in Ilula has had experienced a number of trials over the past few years and was down to just four members or so. But, now it has come back to just under 30 in the couple months since Upendo’s arrival. He truly cares about people and constantly talks about his desire to find people’s God-given gifts and help people to nurture those gifts and share them through the church. He’s also been planning a number of activities to encourage people to learn about and join the church. And, from what I learned, being a pastor here is basically considered a volunteer position, so you can imagine what kind of sacrifice that would mean for someone (especially someone like Upendo who has completed his Bachelor’s degree). 

Here are some pictures of us working on the shamba:

Working at the shamba (farm

mbegu za alizeti (sunflower seeds)

Me using the jembe (hoe)

I have to say that I have rather been inspired since visiting IOP. It's a wonderful site that really focuses on development; which is what is desperately needed here in African countries. I wish I could say that I feel as though the difference I'm making in people’s lives here is as great. Sometimes I wonder if what I’m doing really matters in the grand scheme of things. I’m here for such a short period of time. Soon, I will go, and I will just have been one of the thousands of people who have made their ways to Africa to offer their assistance. God only knows what kind of an impact my time here will be and what it will mean for His kingdom.

Well, that's all for now. This weekend, Kjirstin and I are planning to visit Dodoma and the United Methodist site there. I hope that I'll be able to blog about that early next week!! I hope that you're having a great week so far!!

May the Lord Bless You and Keep You,

~Christine