My First Birthday in AFRICA!

Celebrating my birthday this year made me realize how God has blessed me with amazing people to live life with in Tanzania!  For the first time EVER my sister pulled off a surprise party for me and she did this not only once but twice AND catered to my every desire on my actual birthday.  It was quite different than the 23 birthdays before, but it was amazingly memorable and I am so thankful for the amazing time I had with everyone!

The festivities started early, which is why I was seriously SO SURPRISED!  (Also, I wasn't expecting anything special, but Megan LOVES birthdays so I probably should have guessed she was up to something).  On Saturday before Easter, we had some friends over for lunch and were just finishing up with our meal when Megan said we really needed to go over to the Limiero's house (our teammates) to take them the Resurrection Eggs we promised to take them so they could go through them with their kids.  I was less than thrilled since it seemed rude to run an errand when we had people at our house.  With some more prompting we left the house and were walking down to the Limiero's....our friends walked in ahead of us and Doretha greeted me at the door....it seriously took over 30 seconds for everything to register.....the balloons, no one in sight, then I saw the cake and right as I realized the candles were the outline of a 2 and 4 everyone jumped out and yelled surprise! Needless to say, I was quite surprised!

Megan organized an early party so that everyone could be there because Mike, Joann, Judy and Chelsea were going to be gone all week (on my actual birthday).  It was so absolutely wonderful because people took time out of their weekend, busy schedule in trying to pack and get ready to leave, and their Easter weekend to celebrate with me.  It was such a blessing to feel all of their love and it made me realize how truly thankful I am to be part of this Tanzanian team.  We played games, ate cake, and I received some great presents from everyone :)

Doretha and the cake she baked!

Limiero kids and me with the cake and presents

SO EXCITED that Megan got me all the ingredients for cherry cheesecake!

The next surprise happened the day before my birthday.  We had on our calendar to go and visit our amazing house helper, Mama Joshua, who makes life here so enjoyable and it possible for both Megan and I to take on lots of ministry responsibilities.  We simply adore her four children and we planned to go to her house and play with them that afternoon.  Little did I know that as I walked in the door I would find some great birthday cards, soda, juice, AND mandazi (awesome doughnut-type things)!!  Then we celebrated the Tanzanian way, complete with the birthday song, sipping our soda, taking pictures, and praying together.

Left to Right - Zenice, me, and Mama Joshua

Mama Joshua's kids - Ester, Shadrack, and Jordan

My actual birthday was great - I slept in, spent some great time with the Lord reading through Ephesians, listened to some worship songs as I made my birthday cake (thanks to Megan's mission in finding all the ingredients, I was able to make my favorite cherry cheesecake)!  Around 11am here I got two awesome phone call from my awesome brothers wishing me a happy birthday (thanks to planting, they were both awake at 3am to call me during daylight hours here)!  Jason was quick to point out that since I wasn't born until after 7pm CST, it wasn't actually my birthday yet - gotta love his logic :)

Then Megan and I went off to our favorite Chinese restaurant in town and enjoyed some great food.  The climax of the day was supposed to be watching Rio 2 at the movie theater!  It was our very first time to the theater, so we looked rather lost.  We found out the hard way that by "box office opens at 1pm" and "you cannot enter the theater until 10 minutes before your movie" that for the 2pm movie the box office really doesn't open until more like 1:50pm.  So then we get our tickets & popcorn, make our way to our seats (realize we are the only two in the theater) and then wait....and wait....and at about 2:10 I make a snide comment to Megan that even the movies don't start on time in Tanzania.  Then a worker comes in and says the movie won't play.

We discuss the issue with him for a while and ask if it can play in the other theater, which he says it can't.  He said we should just go to the other movie at 2:30pm.  It was rather difficult to explain that we didn't come to simply watch a movie, we came to watch that specific movie.  After about 10 minutes, we were standing in the manager's office, and he explained the dilemma that the projector is having a problem and it takes 3 hours to download it onto another machine, so we could try to come back another day after the projector is fixed.  He gave us complementary tickets and offered that since we were already here to go and watch the 2:30pm movie as well.  So that was a Tanzanian experience :)

At the movies with the BEST SISTER EVER!!

That night we had dinner and played games with the Limiero family, which was super fun, especially with the kiddos!  Overall, the experience was quite enjoyable, even with the minor movie issue.

Cherry Cheesecake for my actual birthday!

Our party pals - Reeghan & Andwynne

AND funny end to the story - we went to redeem those tickets on Sunday after church and as I am in the theater watching previews, Megan is talking with the manager about our tickets and we realize......the projector is STILL broken, so no Rio 2, but we made the most of it and watched the 2pm movie they were playing in its place :)

Gotta love Africa!!

Easter in Tanzania (lots of videos)!!

One of my very favorite Easter traditions for our family is a huge Easter egg hunt, and by huge I mean massive! It started when we were young and our Dad would wake up early Sunday morning and hide the eggs outside in our yard. We’d drive off to church with our eyes glued to the windows trying to spot the pastel eggs so as to have the upper hand in the hunt when we returned. The tradition has grown over the years and now our two older brothers, Jason & Jaron, hide over 400 eggs in the yard for all of the grand kids to find! Well, I’m grateful to say the tradition is continuing… now all the way to Tanzania!

Stuffed eggs ready to be hidden.

The package arrived, just in time!

In preparation for our Easter party we asked our Mom (who you already read is the bomb dot com at packages) to send over the plastic eggs and maybe some things to put inside. The day before our party, a teammate did a final check at the Post Office and sure enough the package arrived!! We spent the morning stuffing 180 eggs with Starburst, Tootsie Rolls, Balloons, and Double Bubble – the best gum ever that loses its taste after about 3 minutes – and then hiding them all around our center! It was a blast watching all the kids run and find the eggs! Watch a video of them here! (Michelle is speaking some mad Swahili, too!!)

The parents weren't afraid to get in the mix as well!

Did you know that if you hit the ends of two hardboiled eggs together only one will break? Me neither, until we played “Crack the Egg” where everyone pairs off and hits eggs until there is only one person left. We had one girl with a very special egg who won both rounds! That egg won’t crack! Check out the video here!

Then, the parents did an egg race… men vs. women! Michelle and I only took a few opportunities to try to slow the men down!! Another great video here!

Finally, and this was when we realized they weren't afraid at all, we paired up husbands and wives for an egg toss… with regular eggs! I’ll never forget how competitive they were and the shock on their faces when the egg finally broke. It was priceless watching two husbands get splattered at the same time! Check out the last video here!

A few years ago Michelle and I began a new tradition with our nieces and nephews that we learned about after becoming Christians… Resurrection Eggs. Making our own dozen of Resurrection Eggs, we helped tell the story of Jesus and what Easter is all about to our Tanzanian brothers and sisters that day. We walked through the story of that Passover, remember how Jesus was betrayed, beaten, hung on a cross, and died to pay the ransom for our sins. But, there is hope in the 12^th egg. It’s empty. Jesus rose from the grave, conquered death, and promised to return again! Now this is the reason we celebrate.

HAPPY EASTER!

Megan

Oh, and one more thing… just like at home when we couldn't find all the eggs hidden in the yard, we are still missing 6 here. I wonder who will discover one with the mower and shower the ground with pastel?!?