Weekend with the Maasai

This weekend, Michelle and I traveled out to the bush along with our two summer interns, Lauren Kolenda and Sarah Underwood. Saturday was filled with all sorts of new lessons for us. This month, Michelle had organized for two local nurses to come do physical exams for all the widows and orphans in our program. We learned very quickly just how scary getting weighed and measured could be for some of our little kids who had never done something like that before, not to mention the finger stick at the end to test for HIV/AIDS. So, we quickly changed strategies and invited some of our older, braver kids to come in first and go through the process while our littler ones watched. Once they knew what would happen, things went a lot smoother! We also continue to learn that we need to change our expectations here, especially in the area of time. Half way through the day Michelle leaned over and told me that even though she had allowed for a 3 hour delay, she had expected that we would be able to get through everyone. However, as we assessed the progress, we knew that wasn't going to be the case. Instead, the nurses saw half the children and we walked away from the day realizing that was a huge accomplishment! We'll just be inviting them back next month to see the other half and our widows!


Sunday was a day I will forever remember. We stayed overnight in the bush and were told that church the next day would be a baptism service as 7 women had decided to get baptized. We arrived in time to witness the making of their baptismal. Some men had dug a deep hole in the ground and secured a blue tarp with large stones inside to hold the water. Then began the filling process. Buckets of water had been transported by a BUV (Business Utility Vehicle), the product of the ministry of our CMF counterparts, Scott and Annelle Price, working in Tanzania through Business as Mission.

Maasai Baptismal

Next, we went into the church where the seven women were gathered to ensure they understood the biblical reason for baptism and to confirm their decision. Part of this process for the Maasai includes choosing a new name because they are becoming a new creation in Christ. As the women went around saying their new names, one in particular made me light up.  One of the women had chosen to take the name Nashipai, which is the Maasai name I was given and now go by when I'm in the bush. It means "Always Happy", which fits me pretty well most of the time. Gathered around the baptismal, we sang and praised God as the women were baptized, only instead of seven, we had nine as two more decided to be baptized as well!

Click here to see a video of the new Nashipai's baptism in the bush!

After church, we all piled into the car for the 2 hour drive home. Only on the way back it wasn't just the four of us... instead it was 15! We squeezed in to make room for the widows and orphans committee who came back with us to our training center in Arusha. They are here for three intense days of learning together what God's Word says about taking care of the oppressed and how they are going to address the problem of oppression of widows in their communities!

Driving back home - 3 up front and 12 in the back! We belted Disney songs together the entire way!! I think the Maasai riding in the car probably didn't know what to think about us! :)

Digo of Tanzania

A few years ago, Michelle learned about an organization known as the Joshua Project that is committed to sharing information about people groups around the world with the fewest Christ followers. She subscribed to their daily emails, committing to pray for the world's unreached. Recently, she received this email about the Digo of Tanzania. It was just so exciting that I had to share...

WE HAVE 3 CHURCH PLANTER FAMILIES CURRENTLY WORKING TO SHARE THE LOVE OF JESUS WITH THE DIGO OF TANZANIA!!

Today I am refreshed with encouragement in the job we have here. As the CMF Tanzania Church Planter Team, our work is to train Tanzanians to reach the unreached people of their nation with God's message of Good News and salvation in Jesus Christ.  Please pray with us today for God's Word to go forth to the Digo of Tanzania, and especially for our 3 families who carry out this task each and every day. Their names are Andrea & Martha, Yacobo & Eva, and Lenard & Selina! They could use your prayers for encouragement and endurance. I'm just so excited!! They are actually doing it... reaching the unreached!!

If you are having trouble viewing this message, see it in your browser.

Digo of Tanzania More than 175,000 Digo are concentrated on the northern coastal strip of Tanzania from the town of Tanga to the border of Kenya. They inhabit the fertile plains of the Pangani River. Their culture generally regards women as childlike and irresponsible. Digo women do much labor, but are excluded from participating in politics, religion, kinship issues, and major economic transactions. As they are the only Mijikenda tribe to be almost totally Muslim the Digo often consider themselves superior to other Africans in their area. Ministry Obstacles The Digo are proud of their early adherence to Islam, seeing themselves as models for other tribes in the area. Outreach Ideas The New Testament is available in the language of the Digo and persecution of Christians has lessened recently. Pray that nearby believers will take advantage of these facts. Pray for the followers of Christ There may be no followers of Jesus among the Digo of Tanzania. But pray for those whom the Lord will soon draw to himself, that they will not mix the purity of the Gospel with a religion of works. They will need teachers to help them. Pray for the entire people group Pray for the women in Digo society, that they will be honored and treated with kindness. Scripture Focus "And to Him was given dominion,Glory and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations, and men of every language Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion Which will not pass away; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed." Daniel 7:14		People Name: Digo Country: Tanzania 10/40 Window: No Population: 180,000 World Population: 513,000 Language: Chidigo Primary Religion: Islam Bible: New Testament Online Audio NT: Yes Jesus Film: Yes Audio Recordings: Yes Christ Followers: Few, less than 2% Status: Unreached Progress Level: 1.1
Mobile App Social Networking On your Website Print version
Presented by Joshua Project

This message sent to michelle.e.moss@gmail.com by unreached@joshuaproject.net. Joshua Project 640 Chapel Hills Dr. Colorado Springs, CO 80920 Unsubscribe | Manage Subscriptions | Forward To A Friend | About This List

Meet the Youngest Worker at our CMF Training Center.... YOSIA!

Look who greeted me this morning riding on the back of his mother. Yosia is now 3 months old and since his mother, Joyce, has returned to work in the little store at our gate, Yosia comes to work too! This little bundle of joy has come a long way to the smiling boy he is today. Yosia was born prematurely, which was a very scary time for all of us here. Michelle and I were able to visit them in the hospital where Yosia was in an incubator, which in Tanzania means a very, very hot room with about 20+ other premies. It was such an eye-opening experience for us and as we prayed for growth and healing, little Yosia made it through. Now, he has grown into a little chunker and  is such a blessing to see each and every day! We praise God for our little miracle, Yosia.

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?!?  

God is Being Glorified Through Our Tanzanian Church Planters

Here is a fantastic article CMF wrote about our Tanzanian church planters, Solomon and Sarah Kipi!

http://cmfi.org/church-planters-persevere-see-results-in-hostile-tanzania-region

Church planters persevere, see results in hostile Tanzania region

MARCH 28TH, 2014

Tanzanian church planters Solomon and Sarah Kipi have endured loneliness, persecution and tribal warfare in their efforts to establish a church in a hostile region along the coast of their country, but they are finally beginning to see fruit from their ministry.

“On Christmas, they had 251 people come to hear the Gospel under a tree,” said CMF missionaryGary Woods. “And several weeks ago, 50 people from all three tribes received Jesus as Lord and Savior.”

The work has not been easy. The Kipi family moved to the area two years ago to minister among the Parakuyui, Sakuma and Wagogo tribes in the middle of tribal unrest that has seen up to 70 people killed, according to Gary Woods. There are no churches in the area and the local belief systems have made people opposed to the gospel. Additionally, tensions have been high because of the fighting between herders and farmers.

As Tanzanian missionaries Megan and Michelle Moss recently reported in their newsletter, however, “Satan attempted to thwart their plans and discourage them, but nothing would cause them to give up, not even trouble in building a house and being outsiders in a new community, Sarah being severely burned after being sold gasoline instead of kerosene (for cooking), and (tribal) killings in their community.”

“New people in that area are looked at as outsiders, not guests or visitors,” added Michelle Moss. “They must take a long time to get to know people, especially the village leaders, and establish relationships built on trust and friendship. But while this is a very difficult and time-consuming process, it is actually a fantastic tool in presenting the gospel.”

While there is still conflict between those fighting in the area, Solomon and Sarah have become well-respected by the village leaders.

“When some of the men trying to cause trouble locked Sarah in her house and threatened her while Solomon was out of town, the village leaders sought them out and told them to never do such a thing again,” said Michelle. “This is just one example of their being accepted by the leaders. So after the ongoing storm for the last two years, the Lord is using Solomon and Sarah in amazing ways to further His Kingdom!

Here's a video about Solomon & Sarah! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtDLsxTRt48

Our Mom is the Bomb Dot Com!!!

We've realized we brag on our mom to about everyone in person, but we seriously need to give her kudos on here as well!  Since we left the U.S. we have seen her servant heart blossom like no other!  Seriously, this woman was made to be a missionary mom - so here's where we we give you a sneak peak into how she has spoiled us rotten, loved us unconditionally, and given us such encouragement to persevere!

1) When we left she drove 5 hours over to the airport, only got 3 hours of sleep then got us up for our early departure (and she looked stunning the whole time)!  Little did we know that during the night she managed to slip 4 cards into our carry-on and luggage.  We found two on the plane and cried like babies, and then again once we were in our new home in Tanzania as we unpacked our belongings.  She encouraged us with Scripture and love - it was perfect.

2) Then came our very first day in town and we went to the post office with our teammate only to discover a letter from our mom!!  She sent it the day we left and enclosed a packet of Ranch Dressing mix (Megan's favorite) and some taco seasoning - it was fantastic!  Once we told her it made it through, there was no stopping her, the cards and seasoning packets just kept on coming!

3)  She constantly checks-in with us and offers help in even some of the most ridiculous ways - for example: our team leader was coming back to TZ from furlough in the U.S. for a few weeks and she literally offered to pay for him to bring a bag full of extra stuff just in case we wanted anything (to which we replied we had only been in country for two months....so probably not).

4)  Then came the month of December which takes the cake for being Best Mom Ever!  Mary Moss sent us a card for every day of the month!  Only two didn't make it through, which means we had 29 cards stuffed full with awesome goodies she sent our way + all the awesome notes she wrote inside.  Icing on the cake - she tried sending the first package (which was discouraged previously because our team has had terrible trouble getting packages from the post office) AND IT ARRIVED, perfectly intact, the weekend before Christmas!!

Gifts she managed to stuff in the letters - bookmarks, stickers with Scripture,
and crosses with verses to give others here with words of encouragement

AND OUR FAVORITE - spice packets & Orbit gum

Bookmarks, cards with verses AND Fannie Mae Fudge she makes every year!

Our month of December :)

I love you...and I'm not lion!

And our favorite card

After a month of fantastic gifts, she continues to shower us with her love & cereal :)

So as a tribute to the BEST MOM EVER...we want to say thank you and brag on how our mom is the bomb dot com!!!