Christmas in Tanzania!

We had an amazing time celebrating Christmas in Tanzania this year!  On Christmas Eve, Megan and I made our Christmas meal - pork chops, baked beans, cheesy potatoes, and peanut butter blossoms (thanks to Joann!).

It was all delicious!

Michelle

Megan

 After the meal, we talked with our dad and our oldest brother's family.  We are so thankful for the iPad one of our supporters gave us before our departure - being able to FaceTime with our family members has been absolutely amazing.  Our nieces and nephews LOVE it!!

The next morning we slept in, came downstairs to caramel rolls from scratch, had some quite time with the Lord, listened to a Mark Driscoll sermon about the birth of Jesus, watched the Nativity Story and then opened our presents from each other, Joann, and our mom, who sent a package and it arrived in perfect time!

Our table-top tree & presents!

That night we FaceTimed with our family and continued our annual tradition of acting out the Christmas Story for our nieces and nephews.  Even though we were thousands of miles away and in completely different time zones, God blessed us with a great internet connection and it was FANTASTIC!

Kiddos absolutely captivated!

Me thousands of miles away but clear as day!

Then on Friday, we celebrated Christmas together with our staff!  We invited a local restaurant to cater - Kahn's BBQ, a must-eat in Arusha!  The food was fantastic, everyone was happy, and it was a great celebration!  Megan and I read the Christmas Story from the Bible...in Swahili...pretty sure we butchered it, but everyone was so nice and said we did great.

It isn't a Tanzanian party without lots of soda!

Our workers enjoying the meal - did we mention they are all Colts fans?

 Some of our supporters contacted us and asked about ways to bless Tanzanian families for Christmas.  After much prayer, we felt the urging to bless our 24 workers.  We live life alongside these people every single day.  We have learned about their families, their character, and some of their struggles.  Megan and I talked about a gift that would bless them for an extended period of time and a gift that could even bless their entire family.  We discovered that nearly every one of our employees does not have electricity in their home, and if they do have electricity, like us, it is constantly going out, but unlike us, they do not have a generator.  Additionally, purchasing most solar lights are too expensive, so for the most part, when the sun goes down at 6:30pm every evening, our workers' homes are completely dark.  We found out one of our workers actually sells solar lanterns and so we ordered 24 of the lanterns to bring light to them this Christmas season.  Needless to say, they were ABSOLUTELY THRILLED!!! I don't think I have seen some of these people smile this much!

Lights "wrapped" in our kangas!

Enjoying the festivities!

Opening the gifts!

Such excitement for the gift of Light!

So happy for their new lights!

The lantern is also able to charge your phone!

After all the great food and opening of presents, we went outside for some group pictures!  We also asked all of our men to bring their Colts hats one of our previous teammates gave them as a farewell present!

Our workers very excited to show off their new lights - they don't quite get the whole smile for a picture thing, so Megan is usually in the background being crazy and having them say a word that has syllables making mouths look like smiles!

Our guys and their Colts hats - figured our Indiana friends and family will appreciate the blue & white

Merry Christmas to each and every one of you!

Our First Time Traveling!

Last week we took our first trip while in Tanzania!  Preparing for a trip was an experience in and of itself, we needed to

• double-check that all the toilets were flushed (yes, we conserve water and only flush about once a day, which could be bad if we forgot one and came home after a week away), 
• fill up enough water bottles to last us for 5 days (we try to average 3 Liters a day, and for two of us for 5 days in 1.5 and 1 liter bottles, we filled two bags with water bottles), 
• give the key to our house to one of our workers and ask him to turn on the generator if power is out for more than 12 hours so our food in the freezer doesn't spoil (which he had to do twice while we were gone)
• pack toilet paper, towels, pillows, and blankets (because where we stay may not have any), and
• bring flashlights because there may not be power where we go!

On the road to Katesh

brick houses with tin roofs

On Monday morning we hit the road, Mike driving the four hours to Katesh (the city where him and Joann lived their first nine months in Tanzania to practice language and learn culture).  As we approached the city, it was so interesting how the landscape had changed dramatically from Arusha.  The soil was red clay and because of it, the
houses were made of brick!








We spent our first night in Katesh after eating dinner with our good friend and co-worker, Lulu!  He works with our team leader to recruit church-planter trainees and he continues ministering to our church-planters after they have completed the training course.  His family welcomed us with pilau (rice cooked with meat), and it was delicious!





Tuesday morning we rose early to leave for the bush.  Mike, Joann, Lulu, his wife, Megan and me were headed out to meet the Hesabe tribe where one of our church-planters has been working to establish a church for years!  We drove two hours to a city called Heydom, dropped our luggage at the guest house where we would stay that night, and then drove two hours into the bush.  Let's just say if the shocks and struts on the vehicle weren't shot, they certainly felt like it in the way back where Megan and I sat.  Every minute there were jaw-jarring bumps and neck-snapping jolts...we were more than ready to be there once we arrived!  One good thing - on the way we had some sweet surprises:

We saw pigs for the first time in Tanzania!!! 

And we found this interesting little guy!

Finally we arrived to the village and met with Yacobo, our church-planter.  He introduced us to people and was very welcoming.  His tribe is the Hasabe - they live deep in the bush, their main source of income and main food for consumption is HONEY - they are beekeepers, they are shorter than most Tanzanians, and THEY SPEAK WITH CLICKS!!! Their language is seriously captivating, we had absolutely no idea what they were saying, but they used their tongue with nearly every syllable.

The Hasabe were very excited to show us their bee boxes, which was great because Mike and Joann were beekeepers in the U.S., so they were able to offer some insight and encourage them in their work.

Megan's funny comment - "There's a cheetah in the tree!!"

Mike talking to the Hasabe about bee management

Each tribe carries their babies a little differently

Lulu wearing beads like the Hasabe - every tribe has a
different way of making and wearing their beads

In addition to encouraging Yacobo in his ministry, we also had the opportunity to meet three potential church-planter trainees that will come to our center for training next fall!!  It was fantastic to meet the recruits and their families, which will be great to see some familiar faces next August!  After meeting each of them, they all wanted us to come and see their homes....which were anything but close together!

Hasabe children standing outside a traditional Hasabe home made of sticks and straw - these kids melted our hearts

Where's Megan? - I turned around and snapped this picture on the way to Yacobo's house

All you can see for miles and miles!

Our Hasabe friend cracking open some nuts for us to try - very similar to walnuts

It was an amazing day and completely worth the rough ride to meet the Hasabe.  We were able to bless Yacobo's family with water, rice, and sugar (last time they took rice to the Hasabe, they didn't know what to do with it!).  We were able to encourage Yacobo in his ministry and come alongside him in prayer for the shackles of poverty and drunkeness to be broken in his tribe.  He has seen breakthroughs for the Gospel and we continue to pray for God's work among the Hasabe!


The rest of our week was spent in Katesh meeting friends of Mike and Joann and practicing lots and lots of Swahili!  Overall it was a great time to visit more of the country, meet people from different tribes, and continue to fall more and more in love with the people God has led us to work alongside!

December Widows & Orphans Day!

The first Saturday of every month, we have a Widows & Orphans Day out in the bush with the Maasai people.  A little over two years ago, one of our previous teammates pioneered a program centered in Community Health Evangelism.  We began by asking our church planters in the area who the neediest widows and orphans were in their areas (stretching in a 10-mile radius).  They nominated 30 widows to enroll in the nine-month training program, where we teach them about health, hygiene, business principles, and about living for the Kingdom.  Additionally, the church planters named 127 orphans who needed support and we have since been working to place each of them on the CMF Child Sponsorship page for people all around the world to sponsor these children so they can go to school (which is EXTREMELY expensive here - 1 year of school costs over 1/2 the average Tanzanians annual salary), be given allotments of food and hygiene supplies, and to be given health check-ups.

These programs are on-going, yet the first Saturday of every month, we join together to learn about the Word of God, to share a meal together (making sure the children get a good allotment of food), and to give out monthly allotments of food and supplies for those in the program.

all the children in our program - about 35 are currently sponsored

the widows in our program

Each month we announce newly sponsored children!  It is quite a celebration where everyone is clapping and the children each get a cross necklace!











This month we also gave out clothing to the children because one of our program's partnering churches (Plainfield Christian Church) graciously donated them to our children!


AND because it is December, we celebrated Christmas together!! As part of the special occasion, we had entertainment from two men who dressed, danced, and sang like traditional Maasai - the kids LOVED IT!  And so did we!

our kids received Bibles last month thanks to Hazelwood Christian Church and many had them in hand this month

 Some of our adorable kiddos!!

Overall it was a FANTASTIC DAY!  AND on the way home we got a sweet surprise!!!!!

some giraffes on the side of the road

and a flock of about 40 ostriches!!!

Praying Through Your Clothes

I'm reading a book titled "Western Christians in Global Mission" and it has been challenging the way I think and how I act with respect to my national co-workers.  Though I am living in a different country, speaking a different language, and doing life in a different culture, I am learning new ways to expand my Christian worldview through this book.

As I flipped through the pages, drinking my cup of Tanzanian coffee and underlining key points with my pencil, I came across a convicting way of praying for the nations.  I've heard of praying through the news (when reading headlines or watching the TV following that time with praying for those stories, especially the global aspects), but the author talked about "praying through your clothes."

He writes, "A few years ago it dawned on me that I could enlarge my global praying by praying for the country on the label of my clothes.  In other words, the world is in my closet."  In expanding our prayer life beyond our own territorial borders, God creates in us His compassion for people all around the world.

So, I put my book down, raced upstairs and grabbed each article of clothing I wear every day.  I found out that my skirt was made in Vietnam, my t-shirt in Honduras, my underwear in Thailand, my bra in Cambodia, and my shoes in China!!  The diversity stunned me and invigorated me to pray for the people in Vietnam who worked to make my skirt, those in Honduras, in Thailand, Cambodia, and China.  I pray that these people will come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

This idea has transformed the way I used to do a monotonous task every single day.  It is fun and challenging, informative and yet sometimes I struggle with what to pray because I literally have no concept of what this person's life is like.  But God is using this to expand my view of the world and crafting in me His heart for the nations!!

I want to challenge you - tomorrow morning when you get dressed, take a moment, look at the tags, and pray.....pray through your clothes!  How awesome would it be if during the Great Celebration in Revelation 7:9 you are standing next to the guy from Honduras who made your t-shirt, that through your prayers he became a follower of Jesus Christ?  Isn't that reality worth five minutes in your closet each morning?