Shopping Extravaganza

When Michelle got home from grocery shopping one day, we were talking while unpacking and putting stuff away. After our conversation, I smiled and told her, “I needed to write a blog post of our conversation because it so captures our life here in Tanzania!” 

So, here's how it went:

Michelle: “Hey, I looked for the red grape juice you wanted, but they didn’t have any so I got you white instead. Hope that was okay.”

Me: “Yeah, sure, no problem. I’ll try that flavor this week.”

Michelle: “And I couldn’t find the American Garden brand of peanut butter we usually get, so I grabbed a new kind. It was a little cheaper… maybe it’ll be just as good?”

Me: “Yeah, that’s fine too.”

Michelle: “OH! And, they still had Mini-Wheats!!! I wasn’t sure if they’d have them again, so I went ahead and bought 6 boxes.”

Me: “Awesome! They’re all expired which is why I think they are priced at 7,000 per box ($3.50)! They are so cheap and so good! Soaked in milk you can’t tell they’re expired! I wonder how long they’ll be in stock. Good thinking on getting 6 boxes! We can just store them. Oh, and if they still have them when you go back, feel free to get more!”

Michelle: “Yeah, ok, I will. Hey, remember when we were in the States and we both got sick and ended up spending a boatload on medicine?

Me: “Yeah, why?”

Michelle: “Well, on the way home I stopped in at a duka la dawa (pharmacy) to get an antibiotic to deal with this sinus infection. Guess how much it cost?!

Me: 10,000 shillings ($5.00).

Michelle: No, only 4,000 ($2.00)!!

Me: I can’t believe we just had this conversation! I love that this is our life – being okay with not getting the kind or brand of something we like, stocking up on cereal, and cheap medicine! I’ve got to write a blog about this! No one is going to believe it! Maybe I’ll even post about it as my #TanzaniaTuesday!”

Yep, 6 boxes, and they're even family size!

Celebrating the Risen King in TZ!

Easter was such a great experience for us this year.  We kept traditions and made new ones, visited with friends and family that are in the U.S. and that are here, and got to experience church in Tanzania and at home!

One of our teammates mentioned last year that they spend the hours from 12pm-3pm in quiet and darkness to remember those hours of darkness Jesus hung on the cross.  Megan and I loved making this part of our Easter weekend and found that those hours of reflection helped us to get into the right frame of mind.  Afterwards, we watched The Passion of The Christ, which we've done every Good Friday since deciding to follow Jesus.  It was a great day of remembering the price that was paid.

Saturday we worked hard in the kitchen to prepare some Easter favorites - cheesy potato casserole, baked beans, and fruit salad!  Then that evening we went up to our office to Skype with our awesome nieces and nephews back home to do the resurrection eggs together!  Another sweet tradition we have done for the last 4 years, even with thousands of miles separating us for the past two.  Such great memories made with our favorite kiddos!

Sunday morning we went to our church here - Arusha Vineyard Church.  It was a very memorable service that focused on the power in the fact that He is Risen...He is Risen Indeed!  (And for those of you who don't know, that is a thing.  One person says He is Risen and your response is supposed to be He is Risen Indeed.  Well, Megan and I didn't know that.  In fact, never heard it before.  So when people kept saying He is Risen, we were like, Amen!  Thanks to the sign outside church, we caught on!)

Megan with Flat Stanley at our church here in Tanzania

My favorite part of the service was when we highlighted the global nature of our God and our church.    A person from each nation represented in the congregation stood up and declared that "God is Risen over 'home country'" in their national language, then everyone would respond in English, "He is Risen Indeed!"  IT WAS SO COOL!!  We had people from Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Bulgaria, Canada, America, Mexico, Korea, Philippines, and India!

After church we raced home to get food in the oven and eggs hidden!  Megan and I stuffed and hid 180 plastic easter eggs that our mom sent us in the mail last year.  It was such a blast for the 4 kids on our team and 2 grandchildren of another team member to race around our Center to find the eggs!  Okay, in all honesty, I think it was most fun for Megan and I to hide them all :)  And we hid some so well that an estimated 5 are still MIA.

Sunday evening we came up to the office to access our internet and got to live stream our home church's, WRCC's,  Easter Service!!!  It was so cool!  The first 20 minutes was painful buffering (5 seconds of talking followed by 30 seconds of buffering).  But then we figured out we could rewind and then the rest of the service was flawless!  Coolest part was seeing everyone we know.  For us, our internet usually isn't fast enough for watching anything live, so we need to download sermons, which are usually just audio.  But we got to see our pastor, the worship team, and even the people who gave their lives to Christ!  It was such a great way to end our weekend of celebration!

He is Risen...He is Risen Indeed!!

if home is where the heart is...

If home is where the heart is . . . then I must have a lot of homes!  I became more aware of this fact over the past few months.  As we traveled from place to place in the U.S., visiting with friends and family we love and miss so much, it felt like we left little pieces of our heart everywhere we went.

The paradox is that while in America, we miss our friends and people who have become our family here in Tanzania.  But while here in Tanzania, we miss our friends and family back in America.

Don't get me wrong, life gets busy and quite frankly, being sad isn't an emotion I enjoy having....so I tend to let myself get caught up in the here and now and may not do the best job at communicating how much I miss and love those back home.  (There it is again...that tricky word with so much meaning!)

I love this life and find the most fulfillment in being a missionary in Tanzania right now because I am 100% confident this is exactly where God wants me.  And because I'm right where I'm supposed to be, I am able to experience the fullness of what the Lord has for me.  But it is hard.  It is a heart-wrenching, tear-filled, hollow-feeling sort of experience to say goodbye for 2 years...that's over 100 weeks, over 700 days, over 20,000 waking hours that I'm not physically there to hug you, wrestle you, do airplane with you, color with you, chat in the car with you, play charades with you, watch a movie with you, and simply be with you.

However, I cherish the moments I spent at all my homes while back in the U.S., and I do agree with the idiom that, in fact, home is where the heart is.  And I am privileged to have so many homes, because here is where my heart is: