"I bless the rains down in Africa"

Church in Tanzania is one of the most exciting and entertaining experiences I think I’ve ever experienced. We worshiped today in the village of Mumba with about half the village packed into their church with women on one side and men on the other. The church was in constant motion from toddlers toddling their way across the floor up by the pastor, babies crying, moms shushing, and people running in and out constantly. I sat in awe and listened as the youth choir sang and danced, and then the mothers with their babies strapped to their backs, and finally the children. I got to see my baby choir come to life and it brought tears to my eyes. The songs here in Tanzania are very simple consisting of a repetition of I –IV –V –IV –I (for all my fellow music nerds out there) over and over and over and over again. The melodies are simple yet so catchy. They sing passages straight from the Bible and my favorite thing is that they always resolve their endings! We had to stand up in front of the entire congregation and introduce ourselves, “gina langu ni Hana” and tell them that our churches and families in America send their greetings. At the ending of the service we all sang ort way out into the church yard, a call and response song, and formed a gigantic circle and shook ever single hand of the congregation. It was so powerful and so awesome to walk around the circle shaking each and every hand as the Swahili rose and echoed through the village. Each toothless smile told a different story. Once we finished shaking hands we all stood in the circle and sang. I will never forget the sound of 70 people singing and clapping as the wind blew through the church yard with everyone smiling at each other across the yard. We will be visiting a different church each Sunday.

Yesterday we were invited to the home of Babo and Mama Aiden (every woman is called “mama” and then her first born’s name so Mama Aiden is the mother of Aiden, same goes for the father) in Sumbawanga. This was our first Tanzanian hospitality experience. Babo and Mama Aiden are not well off, he is a local pastor currently in school to be able to teach, they have 5 children and live in a three room house with no electricity, no running water, and the Choo (potty) is a building in the courtyard that they also bathe in. To say the least they are struggling right now. But they invited us into their home. When we arrived they took all of our bags and sat us down in their living room which consisted of two chairs and a couch. Mama Aiden hurried away into the kitchen and left us to our own. The children came around and greeted us with “skikamo” and touched our heads. This is a sign of respect. We always answer with “Malahaba.” They then washed out hands before the meal. First truly Tanzanian meal I’ve had. The meal consisted of Ugali which basically is like thick cream of wheat. It is their staple here and is made from water and cornmeal. You roll the ugali in your hand and then scoop up the beans and greens and shove it all in your mouth. It doesn’t taste like much but it is filling…ha ha ugali kinda sticks with you too. We will be eating ugali twice a day during camp weeks, and that’s all. It’s more formally known as the Ugali and water diet. Mama and Babo Aiden’s hospitality was unbelievable. They dropped their entire day to sit and fellowship with us. While we were there others came and dropped by. This is extremely common in Tanzania. If a visitor comes, you drop everything you are doing and feed them and visit with them. So there we are, 6 Americans who don’t speak Swahili, and 4 Tanzanians who don’t speak English, and still, we were able to visit for three hours. When was that last time someone knocked on your door unannounced just for a visit? Not something we see everyday in America…..don’t be alarmed now after this if I show up unannounced to your homes and just wanna chat : ).

I worked on craft stuff for camp today. Cut out 150 pieces of fabric and then wrote SIONI AIBU on them which means “Not Ashamed,” taken from the verse found in Romans “I am not ashamed of the gospel.”. I will be teaching the girls at camp how to sew so we wrote on the cloth to make it easier for them to sew along the lines. This is our theme verse for camp that all the kids will memorize. Ha ha and now I’ve memorized it too after writing it so many times…..such a useful phrase.

God has kept me on my toes since leaving 10 days ago. There has been constant change, constant newness, and every time I get close to a comfort zone a new challenge is presented. I’m so thankful for this time though because as hard as it is and difficult, it is equally as fun and exciting. Like I said in earlier posts, I crash into bed every night a little changed. This is all for the good and I can’t wait to look back upon this time and see how God’s hand is constantly guiding this adventure of mine, and just how much it has changed me. Every day I am reminded of God’s goodness and grace. When all the glitz of the modern world is stripped away you see with new eyes the world around you. There is so much out here and I can’t believe that I get to experience this.

That is all for now my rafiki. Grace from Tanzania.