Just when I think I have problems....
I get a little look into the life of one of my Tanzanian friends. My friend, Flora, is a single lady who is a licensed minister and a teacher at the Mwanza Bible College.
She has taken her first class towards her Master's Degree and is now attempting to write her final paper for the class.
First, her computer, which itself is a miracle, crashed. When we arrived back from Kenya we found her stressed with no computer and a paper due in one week; all her research was on the crashed computer.
Her father and mother have come to live with her and she also has 2 nieces and 1 nephew that live with her and she supports all six of them on her teacher's salary. Her father is very elderly and has been quite sick.
She is trying to get her niece and nephew in a boarding school in another part of Tanzania and she sent them there by bus only to have the school refuse them entry because they didn't bring the right school supplies. So, they have been staying with a pastor in the same town. Finally, she was able to gather enough money to wire them the needed amount and the school accepted them.
The electricity at the Bible school is off more than it's on, so she wasn't able to get very much done on her paper before her computer crashed.
Tim spent two days trying to get her computer to come on just long enough to put all her notes and research on a disc. Finally we accomplished that task and she is coming to our home each day and using our computer in an attempt to meet her deadline.
Yesterday, her family called to inform her that her Aunt had passed away; they wanted her to travel with the body from here in Mwanza back to the village 5-6 hours away for the funeral and burial. She had just sent her parents on the bus a few days ago to attend another family member's funeral in the same village. It's expected of her because she is the single daughter and they don't understand that she is a teacher and can't leave whenever she wants. She politely declined and now faces censor from her family.
On her way out of the house yesterday she dropped her cell phone and it fell apart; thankfully we were able to resurrect it and it is now being held together by a rubber band.
And that's just the highlights of her life for the month of January.
Wow, still a lot of month left!
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Happy New Year
It's the middle of January and I haven't blogged yet! Sorry.
We left Tanzania for Kenya a couple of days after Christmas to attend a week long East Africa Mission meeting; we stayed at the beautiful and cool Brackenhurst Retreat Center. I'll take crisp cool mornings any time over hot and humid areas; it was great to actually feel chilly.
It was good to see all of our missionary colleagues there as well; of course, there are always new missionaries to get acquainted with at these yearly gatherings.
Before we went to Brackenhurst, Tim and I took a couple of days and nights to go on a safari to the Masai Mara Game Park. We have been back in Africa for 2 1/2 years and haven't taken any vacation time. It was time for a break and we thoroughly enjoyed the time away although it passed too quickly.
We arrived back in Mwanza on January 8th and have been trying to catch up since then. We have a team of 16 people arriving on the 24th from the Southern Missouri District; the logistics have been a real challenge. We have a number of places to go and none of them are easy to get to so we are still finalizing travel and lodging plans.
We leave this Saturday, the 21st to head for Dar Es Salaam; Tim has some meetings to attend and we will prepare to meet our team at the airport on the 24th.
Pray for us as we travel with this team as we have a lot of miles to travel; much of it over rough roads and it will all be on public transport buses. We will need God's protection as we endeavor to meet all of our deadlines.
We also pray that all the team members will stay healthy and be able to accomplish all they came to do. Fourteen of the team members are women and they will be conducting a Women's Conference in Mbeya; there are over a thousand women registered!
Exciting but challenging!
We left Tanzania for Kenya a couple of days after Christmas to attend a week long East Africa Mission meeting; we stayed at the beautiful and cool Brackenhurst Retreat Center. I'll take crisp cool mornings any time over hot and humid areas; it was great to actually feel chilly.
It was good to see all of our missionary colleagues there as well; of course, there are always new missionaries to get acquainted with at these yearly gatherings.
Before we went to Brackenhurst, Tim and I took a couple of days and nights to go on a safari to the Masai Mara Game Park. We have been back in Africa for 2 1/2 years and haven't taken any vacation time. It was time for a break and we thoroughly enjoyed the time away although it passed too quickly.
We arrived back in Mwanza on January 8th and have been trying to catch up since then. We have a team of 16 people arriving on the 24th from the Southern Missouri District; the logistics have been a real challenge. We have a number of places to go and none of them are easy to get to so we are still finalizing travel and lodging plans.
We leave this Saturday, the 21st to head for Dar Es Salaam; Tim has some meetings to attend and we will prepare to meet our team at the airport on the 24th.
Pray for us as we travel with this team as we have a lot of miles to travel; much of it over rough roads and it will all be on public transport buses. We will need God's protection as we endeavor to meet all of our deadlines.
We also pray that all the team members will stay healthy and be able to accomplish all they came to do. Fourteen of the team members are women and they will be conducting a Women's Conference in Mbeya; there are over a thousand women registered!
Exciting but challenging!
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