Dear Cherished Interested’s,                                                                             December 30^th 2024

Hilda and I got our Christmas together.  Happy New Year.

51 hours of travel and delays without any place to lift my feet or sleep in any meaningful way, got us together near the baggage claim in Colorado Springs Airport, very delayed, and very late Christmas Eve. 

My carry on luggage has no wheels.  I carry it.  So combined with my relative antiquity and degraded by the journey energy, I am not the quickest nor first anywhere in an airport anymore.  Still, upon my ears perceiving a familiar happy squeak, my right hand joyfully dropped the soft-side fabric Tz homespun suitcase to instead catch Hilda’s full speed arms-wide embrace of greeting.  God is good!

We overnighted nearby and were welcomed by our eldest and her family for a time together on Christmas Day.  God does cool things.  We traveled north over two hours to Greeley arriving before dark.

The next morning we gathered at a small local restaurant owned and operated by people who have adopted and included and watched over Hilda for her four months living here alone.  God does cool things.

We ate, chatted around the busy-ness of family run business and then tried to be effective finding common cords with standard ends that would allow plugging computers into U.S. power.  Breakfast went great.  No success with the rest.  We have made do for now.  Then.. I got very sick. 

I drove us back to the apartment but was done for nearly four days.  Hilda got sick a day or two after me.

God does cool things.  We, together, had gotten time with children and grands.  We, together, had shared time with loving local caregiving people.  Then, together, we were isolated in a lonely high-rise apartment on an empty university campus too sick to even try to find medical assistance.  And so took care of each other.  That is precisely how we started forty years ago.  We were not anything but open and vulnerable in our known faults and needs then.  God wanted us, together, isolated in that place again.  God is Good!

Preparing ahead of time for reemergence into the often infantilizing and abusively que-ed medical scheme we operate under here in America, I came with antibiotics and over a month’s supply of medications, with scripts from an official hospital and real African Doctors in case some bright eyed customs stalwart wanted to relieve me of them.  

We had appropriate antibiotics for our needs to help us fight a respiratory onslaught that has put us both down, but, together.

You-all are my first work, this is my first coherent construct.  I pray it seems so for you.

-------------------------------------

For those in America who have lovingly prayed for us, Hilda and I will work something out as soon as money permits to hopefully share something of those messages for and from Tanzania with you too.  Please Pray for this as we do NOT want to leave your amazing praying hearts out of any of it.

So, now that God has reset me by humbling me once again with a near and severe health challenge, let me try to be an ambassador for Christ and his people. 

Where there is desperation like our nation has not seen in any significant way since perhaps the 1930’s, though I contend we likely need to go further back in time.  Where the divorce from Pharaoh-onic tyranny has been less than complete in attempt to be short-term kind.  There exists many unfortunate relationships birthed of unrealistic presumption.  Hence if your culture has been one of lies, like nearly all of human history, there is no qualm to adamantly declare yes to get the attention and business of anyone who looks like the departed pharaoh.  Lies are a means.  Our culture too often fails as well.  And we cannot build anything of any true value on lies.

God’s Kingdom is different.  John records for us that Jesus explains to Pontius Pilot that Jesus came into the world to testify to the truth.  This is why we are so hurt by lies.  Our leadership, Jesus, does not support nor testify to lies.  God’s Kingdom, Heavenly culture, is built upon truth.  Relativists, like Pontius, will respond likewise to Pontius.  We get to choose our leadership.  Jesus or Pontius, Truth or expedience.

I was nearly certain that I will never return to Africa again in my life.  51 hours of travel and delays, four days so completely physically humbled and isolated with Hilda, and I am no longer certain of anything but God.  Whatever whenever however, God willing.

Characters along the way..

His middle name is Christian, but it is only a name and yet a deep cultural expression that motivates this other old guy from Copenhagen who has been walking the same mountain with the same people we have.  I met him while waiting to leave Kilimanjaro.  After the long flight to Doha we sat together in that hub airport of Arabia and my old face and shared places and people let him open in ways he hasn’t been able to.  The children call him ‘father who wants our freedom’.     

He boldly walks to every school in that region looking for and confronting any signs of corporal punishment.  He has cases before several layers of the local judiciary and now high court which have consistently show manipulation and disregard. 

Safely with me he was able to be simply a human child of God once again.  His body too, is old and broken but his eyes are full hard steel.  The details of what he has witnessed, uncovered and confronted are not necessary to share but what is, is, his complete refusal to quit.  He simply says that he cannot.  He tells me that he knows that I cannot quit either. 

His cause is righteous, even as he may never trust the church.  His dedication to children, the vulnerable responsible for building tomorrow, is righteous even as it may come from empathy of shared trauma. 

That is a massive failed human broken mess beating the weak as they themselves had once been beaten.  The answer is Jesus.  But if God’s disciples refuse to move outside their comfort of familiar wounding’s found in consumeristic expression and individual identity seeking, then God will and does use any willing.  However they are motivated.  However incomplete or narrow their approach.  Even if God does not receive the credit.  God loves that much. 

Please Pray for Nicholai.  He is willing to go to jail for children, confront immigration, that hounded me too, for children, even die for children.  Sounds like Jesus to me..  maybe not the church.  Please Pray.

Sat next to a blonde white American sitting across the isle from his wife from India.  They were returning from visiting family in India with their six beautiful children, about 12 – 1 years old.  Not a smart phone nor computer screen among them.  They were the quietest children and family on the plane.. for 16 hours. 

Good affirming conversation for that mother and father who were obviously expecting judgement from me.  They home school.  I can’t blame them.  They now live in Texas where they can do lots of things together as a family, most of those things productive things like growing food and raising specialty flower stock.  Even kids with kids of their own may need affirmation from an old face, even one with a crucifix hanging beneath it.

Arab Doha has only been a deeply welcoming and civil hub airport.  Very busy.  But indescribably more humane than Dallas.

Carlos Danger.  Yes, that is the name.  I don’t know if he is a character beyond looking every bit like a critical technician on a car racing team, but his doctorates include law and economics.  Universities taught at, including south America and Europe?  I truly don’t listen to stuff like that.  His visible persona is a challenge to be left alone until he decides to ask questions and challenge.  Then open up.  Then trust.  Then open up more.  

I got challenged.  I challenged back, hopefully with eternal things.  Cool.

There are a few more but that’s enough.  Even in motion around the world God uses us.

Your prayer does things like this too.  Please believe that..  Thank you.

------------------------------------

Closing Africa house will be happening mostly without me.  Stuff doesn’t matter except for what deaths big or small it may allow others to strive after overcoming.  This is still a place of tremendous premature death.  Right alongside still being a place of tremendous life, including human life. 

The two most overt miracles went to the airport with me along with our two translators.  Four ladies across the back seat of that stupid little truck.  Two Lutheran, Two Pentecostal, from four different language and tribal groups.  Three with University degrees, two working on multiple degrees.  As the sun was coming up it was quiet back there and Mchungaji Daktari riding shotgun, turned to look.  Amazed he turned forward to say, ‘They are all crying.’ 

They had lost Hilda, they were now losing me.  I relented upon getting out and yielded to what those truly beautiful Godly precious African Women needed.  They grabbed and threw my gear onto a cart which the Pastor in training herself proudly pushed into the terminal for me. 

Deserting the loved ones there/here is extremely painful.  Perhaps, with today’s tech, it won’t be as complete a desertion as it was in the past.  We’ll see if there is interest here for connection in the face of perceived rejection.  The gap is huge.  Inconceivably huge.  Even when seen, lived and encountered. 

Perhaps having served here within the slaveries broken humanity builds for themselves here, will allow us to better serve even within my hyper-independent family, blindly fearful, self-servingly defiant, family of all kinds wherever we are.

Going to rest for a while.  Christ’s Peace ever.  Thank You.

------------------------------------

Keep our feet to the fire, please.  Thank You!

You who read and pray and suffer along with us.  Please believe what we get to see.  Thank you for praying our strength and guidance for each moment with each face.   Folks like you are beyond precious. 

vwilliamson@sprynet.com

For our health to stay ahead of whatever is before us –

For each and every one of you –

Each and every one of your prayers, your precious conversations with God –

Prayers, Your Prayer, Even your groaning prayers makes all the difference..

Vern W

May life be as Music to your Heart – May Music be as Heart to your Life – May Heart be as Life to your Music

 Dear Cherished Interested’s,                                                                                     December 14^th 15^th 2024

I have a flight to rejoin Hilda in Greeley Colorado leaving Kilimanjaro International Airport here early on December 23^rd.  I will arrive very late on December 24^th at Colorado Springs airport, a couple hours south of Greeley.  More hours than it sounds travelling the direction, west bound, after many long hours northbound to first changeover in Doha.  Travelling westbound, chasing the sun through the sky makes the days very long indeed. 

-------------------------------------

This week a ride scheduled to collect Hilda and get her safely to her truck failed to arrive for an hour and a half..  She standing outside in the gathering darkness of her school parking lot.. in the wind and rapidly falling temperatures..  As she was heading to bed, this morning for me, she was still chilled after nearly 48 hours of time since being forgotten outside in that wind.

As I go to sleep tonight I learn she is too sick to leave her apartment.

That and, another too clever for me, Tz businessman full of false promises from Arusha, has hastened my departure to join her even though the book has not been printed, nor delivered. 

This Monday one of the local Editor/Translators and I will work out the plan for the printing to be completed by the 15^th of January and that Precious Editor/Translator will manage delivering all the Tanzania copies.  This will leave out many people I know only on sight, or by first name, but that is the best we can do. 

For those in America who have lovingly prayed for us, Hilda and I will work something out as soon as money permits to hopefully share something of those messages for and from Tanzania with you too.  Please Pray for this as we do NOT want to leave your amazing praying hearts out of any of it.

Your prayer does things like this too.  Please believe that..  Thank you.

------------------------------------

Closing Africa house will be happening mostly without me.  Stuff doesn’t matter except for what deaths big or small it may allow others to strive after overcoming.  This is still a place of tremendous premature death.  Right alongside still being a place of tremendous life, including human life. 

Two of the most overt miracles went to town with me, at Hilda’s insistence, one to get shoes that fit her feet so she can have transportation to serve her people.  Then both to visit a museum and art gallery that I have come to love far more than anything in the NYC of my early years. 

Deserting the loved ones there/here is extremely painful.  Perhaps, with today’s tech, it won’t be as complete a desertion as it was in the past.  We’ll see if there is interest here for connection in the face of perceived rejection.  The gap is huge.  Inconceivably huge.  Even when seen, lived and encountered. 

Perhaps having served here within the slaveries broken humanity builds for themselves here, will allow us to better serve even within my hyper-independent family, blindly fearful, self-servingly defiant, family of all kinds wherever we are.

Long way to go, still..  Your prayer deeply sought for this work too.  Thank You.

------------------------------------

Keep our feet to the fire, please.  Thank You!

We may live dangerously, but we are alive.  Thank you for praying us the courage to live this way, if dangerously.  We don’t see it that way.

-------------------------------

You who read and pray and suffer along with us.  Please believe what we get to see.  Thank you for praying our strength and guidance for each moment with each face.   Folks like you are beyond precious. 

vwilliamson@sprynet.com

Really blessed while deeply under attack..  all of it is spiritual..  I wish I could teach that to everyone so they could truly know it.  I didn’t know it for far too long. 

Please keep crumpling us up and throwing us at God.  That is where we need to be.  God will sort us out.

One day at a time.  Just like how you each live.  Just one day at a time. 

Thank you, each of you.

                -------------------------------------------------------

What to Pray for:

Our armed forces families, our leadership, our people, whole world round, all of Gods kids -

All the tough and blessing expressed above –

The love of folks –

Whatever is on your hearts and minds for us –

For our children and grand-children who miss us?.. 

For Makumira Secondary School looking to share stories and partner in some way with a foreign school, Great leaders, teachers, students, programs, strong backs, minds, and hearts –

For our health to stay ahead of whatever is before us –

For each and every one of you –

Each and every one of your prayers, your precious conversations with God –

Prayers, Your Prayer, Even your groaning prayers makes all the difference..

Vern W

May life be as Music to your Heart – May Music be as Heart to your Life – May Heart be as Life to your Music

 Dear Cherished Interested’s,                                                                                     November 25^th, 2024

Traveled to a graduation in Moshi at KCMC, Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center.  This graduation was for Wachungaji, Pastors.  Pastors of all ages who have over the past many months been studying CPE, Clinical Pastoral Education, so thoroughly that each and every one of them has written a large book on the topic.  That book published and presented to each on their graduation day, in church on campus, as part of a worship service.

Patience while here alone is harder for me.  I was asked by one of those Mountain Village Pastors attending training, to please come by 2:00 pm to gather him and his things to take him home as his training will be complete.  I agreed.                                                                                                                                         9:00 pm the night before, that Pastor’s daughter started texting me about coming along to collect her father.  I agreed and we sorted out where and when to collect her.  I was at the agreed place before the agreed time.  While waiting for the daughter to get prepared other local ones started piling prepared food in pots and pans on the back seat.  Then, only about 30 minutes after agreed departure time, Daughter and her son got in and begged we collect what became three other ladies and another child and more food.  Three more stops to make that happen.  We were late for the worship service at 11:00 am, but as is typical were able to simply wander in and sit.

There was a celebration after that involved the food and gathering in praise of the pastor completing his studies.  The master of ceremonies, also a pastor, was preparing to wind me up for a donation of cash, also typical pastor behavior here, when the wife of the graduating one I had come to collect stood suddenly to deflect the normal public squeeze for cash that was about to be applied to me. 

 She did that with such sweet authority and kind affirmation of her husband that any grasping after my empty wallet was forgotten.

.. She is an angel..

The trip back to this graduating pastor’s home had the bed of the truck loaded with stuff and that back seat filled with five people.  Two riding shotgun in the passenger front seat.  Success..

This is something you have done by praying too.  Thank you

-------------------------------------

Just broke the news to the last two of Hilda’s local Angels who have been helping me. 

We are praying that in spite of what we can obviously see, that I can be back in America with Hilda before or by Christmas.

In order for this to have happened, the book has to be done and delivered to those who have only wanted God’s word from me.  That is still rumbling back and forth between this house and the printer as they build it for printing.

And, there was another requirement Hilda and I set that has been amazingly met by what God has chosen to do.                                                                                                                                                         The other requirement involved the precious one who came to cook for us after Hilda was settled in Greeley.  This precious one is the same person who three years ago saw me studying outside her kitchen at a home for children who have no home.  Her job was to feed the office staff.  While doing her job she still made time to come out from her kitchen and help me learn enough Biblical Swahili abbreviations to start serving the adoptive Mama’s of those children.  She is the one who helped me crack the most important part of a churches secret code.  How they identify parts of the Bible.

She, in conjunction with her health, have since been abandoned by the blind leadership of that place where we first met.  The same place that expelled both Hilda and I from being onsite as they fear Tanzanian Immigration discovering us there.  That did not stop us serving those Mama’s and through them the children we used to bring Sunday School to.  Those Mama’s have gotten the written messages they have asked for, every Sunday since the 12^th of June 2022.  Those messages are delivered each week to them, and to children in a nearby church boarding school who are the more grown life work of those Mama’s.

Well, this precious one, on the out’s like Hilda and I, was suffering from long term extremely high white blood cell counts, uric acid crystals affecting her ambulatory(both knees) and leaving her left arm chronically swollen and unusable.  She was filled with pain and as is too often the case here, had no way to afford pain management of any kind.  She doesn’t even drink alcohol.

Other long term and unattended symptomology in conjunction with what I have already shared left Hilda and I concerned that this dearest of dear ones was possibly terminal without any hope of any oncological evaluation or support.                                                                                                                                                               We discovered and then took the opportunity to include this one by having her shop for and prepare meals for the rest of the team.  This they all regard as cooking for me.  But even the one helper who is now in school and not earning active pay from me, still comes to eat meals most week days.  They all go home full and with food enough to get them back for breakfast, except for weekends.    

Hilda and I decided after I returned without Hilda that I was to stay with this precious one likely until she died.  I was to employ her and facilitate her finding and getting care but that in Hilda’s experience, in our experience, all I would be able to do was hold her one functioning hand until God gave her permanent freedom from degrading joints and pain.  Hilda instructing me that I was to be here, stay here no matter the expense until that happened, even far into next year.  Instead, we are now praying that I can leave this home, to come home, soon.

The details of miraculous healing that started occurring in earnest over a desperately fearful weekend of emergency visits, IV treatments and then verified by impossibly clear and shockingly normal bloodwork.   Bloodwork done daily over only two days and then twice more since.  Bloodwork to guide emergency treatment and ongoing treatment into beautiful recovery with vastly reduced medications nearly over.  Nearly down to no medications at all.  Her knees are without pain.  Her left arm which had been given up on by medical practitioners and herself is now being used automatically and without thought, also without pain, all swelling gone.  Even her skin tone has recovered.                                                                                        She has started raising chickens and has sold enough of them to have recovered all her expenses with over five dozen left to sell in that first batch; the second batch coming on well.  This around working for me three days a week.   

Your prayer does things like this too.  Please believe that..  Thank you.

------------------------------------

Closing Africa house and returning to Hilda I pray will be easy, no matter how impossibly hard.   Deserting the loved ones there/here is extremely painful.  Perhaps, with today’s tech, it won’t be as complete a desertion as it was in the past.  We’ll see if there is interest here for connection in the face of perceived rejection. 

Long way to go, still..  Your prayer deeply sought for this work too.  Thank You.

------------------------------------

Keep our feet to the fire, please.  Thank You!

We may live dangerously, but we are alive.  Thank you for praying us the courage to live this way, if dangerously.  We don’t see it that way.

-------------------------------

You who read and pray and suffer along with us.  Please believe what we get to see.  Thank you for praying our strength and guidance for each moment with each face.   Folks like you are beyond precious. 

vwilliamson@sprynet.com

Really blessed while deeply under attack..  all of it is spiritual..  I wish I could teach that to everyone so they could truly know it.  I didn’t know it for far too long. 

Please keep crumpling us up and throwing us at God.  That is where we need to be.  God will sort us out.

One day at a time.  Just like how you each live.  Just one day at a time. 

Thank you, each of you.

                -------------------------------------------------------

What to Pray for:

Our armed forces families, our leadership, our people, whole world round, all of Gods kids -

All the tough and blessing expressed above –

The love of folks –

Whatever is on your hearts and minds for us –

For our children and grand-children who miss us?.. 

For Makumira Secondary School looking to share stories and partner in some way with a foreign school, Great leaders, teachers, students, programs, strong backs, minds, and hearts –

For our health to stay ahead of whatever is before us –

For each and every one of you –

Each and every one of your prayers, your precious conversations with God –

Prayers, Your Prayer, Even your groaning prayers makes all the difference..

Vern W

May life be as Music to your Heart – May Music be as Heart to your Life – May Heart be as Life to your Music

 Dear Cherished Interested’s,                                                                                     November 4^th & 11^th 2024

I had been disheartened when delivering a message to the guard station I pass when travelling to and from the Secondary School on Friday.  Two weeks of prior messages were laying on the ground in the mud.  So I asked the only guard on site if he wanted the message for Sunday, he bent collecting the prior messages from the mud and nodded verbalizing an affirmative, so it was placed in his hand.                 

On the way to church, dawn just breaking, I stopped at the small gate to the university and hopped out.  Two young guards came out smiling and I folded the message open to the beginning of the Swahili, handing it to the elder of the two.  As I was getting back into the truck and fastening my seatbelt, I heard the older guard reciting the Swahili message to the younger guard.  Cool..

Another copy dropped off at the main university gate for the invisible hands there.  Beautiful open smile from the woman on duty.  Cool..

Yesterday, Sunday was men’s day for running service(s).  Four or five at the Cathedral alone.  The Pastors were all away.  The last Pastor who had come to start things, leaving, as I arrived for English Service about half an hour early.  

I was directed by the men officiating the English service to read the Psalm at beginning of service.  Then as a young elder with several young children started his sermon for the people, I was asked to stand and define what family is.  This before what turned out to be a challenge to fathers, to be fathers, to not give up, to not shirk, to hold on knowing that God wants fathers to love.  To lead in love in ways that point to what God does to bring us into eternal family.  Not bad for a group of us men..

Before service started, there was an ity-bity sitting with her mama in front of me who turned around in total shock.  She looked at me and I smiled back.  That was a mistake.  She couldn’t crawl into her mother’s arms fast enough, just a wailing in fear.  I walked forward and got a couple worship books handing one to the shaking, crying one’s mother and another to a young lady sitting in the same pew as me.  Her mother and siblings directly behind her.

As the services were all laity-led, one service and officiants would be departing and another would be in the wings gathered and ready to lead the next service in the Cathedral space.  While leaving, I was facing that next group of officiants walking to enter from the front of the church.                                                                                Faces from up the mountain, had come down to join the work.  Faces that saw me and stopped processing to smile huge and greet me shaking hands and speak to me in the little bit of Meru they knew I could share with them.  The stodgier strait-faced attendants of the Cathedral proper shocked that the white guy who chose to worship among them for years now, would be greeted in their mother tongue in such overtly accepting and loving ways by those coming down to help.   

It became open laughter and a moment of challenge accepted with smiles of happiness and smiles of chagrin all around.  The Mountain men calling me their Meru given name for me, joyfully receiving blessing from me in that briefly shared language, and then still laughing, processing in a jog to worship leaving the more proper-practiced to catch up, also laughing.

That’s cool. 

A little way along the track, alley, to the house, another ity-bity all by himself next to where motorcycles and other vehicles pass, stretched as high with his waving hand as he could to say high to the hairy thing from up near the end of their dirt track. 

This is something you have done by praying too.  Thank you

-------------------------------------

Friday I collected a young husband and father who had come and found me for help.  A contemporary young Maasai Mchungaji looking every part the developed world person trusting me to help him do something that took time and fuel but no cash.                                                                                                                              We are out of cash.  We left everything that was ours to leave with God’s growing family here.  We have also left everything you have trusted to us.  Thank you for that trust.  In order to get Hilda safely situated in Colorado we had to borrow money again, like young people.

We left with daybreak heading for the bush community Maroroni, south of both Maji Ya Chai and Kikatiti.  It only takes a moment after turning off the blacktop of the big road out to the National Parks to be rolling over cobbles and dust rubbed loose from gouges and ruts from rainy season washouts.  Tracks, not roads.      

Children are everywhere.  Most little primary students pack jugs to collect water to and from school.  That and the firewood they work together to gather both ways to take home too.                                                     People still believe in life here.  People still regard children as blessing even as those children have what may be seen as inconceivably hard lives from our home cultural perspective.  I grew up on family farm, learning mechanized farming from the generation who had stopped using horses and brought the first tractors onto the farm to roughly coincide with the World War 2 effort to feed half of the world’s Army’s and shattered civilian populations around the globe. 

My world did not make logical sense to my classmates growing up, let alone my children, but my eyes included training by people born in the 1800’s.  That has been extremely valuable here.

We carefully got around or through flocks / herds of goats and cattle, lean large eared donkeys laden with a hundred liters of water or more apiece among nearly everything else possible here.  One donkey cart full of older children going to secondary school, beyond logical capacity with people jumping off or running up behind to jump on.  Two jersey cow sized donkeys doing all the work with no reins of any kind, only long whip-ended stick from the eldest boy perched on the cart front. 

We gathered this young pastor’s spouse and infant daughter from his parent’s home, after sharing cups of Chai.  This young mother had nearly not survived childbirth.  This infant girl had nearly not survived her coming into the world.  Both mother with surgical incisions impeding every step, every move, and infant daughter got into the back seat of the truck with a living angel.  A Maasai mother-in-law who guarded, attended and facilitated silently with huge smile of affirmation every step of her daughter-in-law.  I had brought Tylenol with me so that young mother had taken two about 15 minutes before trying to climb into the truck.  This was the first and only pain management she has had.

An hour later they were together at Hospital.  Wonderful news is that they are both doing extremely well.  Good news is that they are safely back home having survived the trip out of the bush and back.  The best news is that mother-in-law.  Strong, determined, joyful, infinitely loving of a young daughter given her by her son.                                                                                                                                                                   We stopped at the market day in Kikatiti on the way home, both she and that young pastor went off to collect supplies to the bed of the truck.  When we got them home the loose ndizi, plantain, in the bed of the truck needed gathering and this grandmother took off like the wind, leaping around like those young secondary students earlier in the day, gathering buckets from around the homestead for filling without missing a single step of her daughter-in-law.

I was fed Loshoro, cold gruel of sour milk and puffed swollen, not popped, corn kernels, before I was allowed to take that young father back to university.  Even the stick figure cats and kittens were unafraid of the people in that home who shared that gruel with them. 

One of the better fed village cats just ran by through the razor wire on top of the wall outside being chased by a monkey.  Here, in town, both monkeys and cats get kicked and stones thrown at them.  It was wonderful to get back into the bush where living things are included as they can be.

Your prayer does things like this too.  Thank you.

------------------------------------

Plan for Tuesday is to take what we have managed to translate and go visit local print shops.  God has to do this too.  Pray Hilda and I can afford this even here, no way in America.  Thank you.

First snow hit the ground around the campus in Greeley this weekend.  I have to get back to Hilda.

Closing Africa house and returning to Hilda I pray will be easy, no matter how impossibly hard.   Deserting the loved ones there/here is extremely painful.  Perhaps, with today’s tech, it won’t be as complete a desertion as it was in the past.  We’ll see if there is interest here for connection in the face of perceived rejection. 

Long way to go, still..  Your prayer deeply sought for this work too.  Thank You.

------------------------------------

Keep our feet to the fire, please.  Thank You!

We may live dangerously, but we are alive.  Thank you for praying us the courage to live this way, if dangerously.  We don’t see it that way.

-------------------------------

You who read and pray and suffer along with us.  Please believe what we get to see.  Thank you for praying our strength and guidance for each moment with each face.   Folks like you are beyond precious. 

vwilliamson@sprynet.com

Really blessed while deeply under attack..  all of it is spiritual..  I wish I could teach that to everyone so they could truly know it.  I didn’t know it for far too long. 

Please keep crumpling us up and throwing us at God.  That is where we need to be.  God will sort us out.

One day at a time.  Just like how you each live.  Just one day at a time. 

Thank you, each of you.

                -------------------------------------------------------

What to Pray for:

Our armed forces families, our leadership, our people, whole world round, all of Gods kids -

All the tough and blessing expressed above –

The love of folks –

Whatever is on your hearts and minds for us –

For our children and grand-children who miss us?.. 

For Makumira Secondary School looking to share stories and partner in some way with a foreign school, Great leaders, teachers, students, programs, strong backs, minds, and hearts –

For our health to stay ahead of whatever is before us –

For each and every one of you –

Each and every one of your prayers, your precious conversations with God –

Prayers, Your Prayer, Even your groaning prayers makes all the difference..

Vern W

May life be as Music to your Heart – May Music be as Heart to your Life – May Heart be as Life to your Music

 Dear Cherished Interested’s,                                                                                                     October 24^th 2024

Hilda has had over ten days of a bug.  Wisely she took antibiotic we acquired here where self-care is required and there are no legal impediments to such care.  She sounded not only better as she went to sleep Tuesday night Colorado, but very nearly great.  This at about 4 AM my time Tanzania.                  She has weathered well, in spite of illness, several long days and two very late evenings of Parent teacher conferences.  She met many parents, even a few she really needed to meet.

Thank You for the time and effort to pray for us.

One of our editor/translators is now in school.  She is in her thirties and this hoped for Music degree will be the second following History.  She is starting from zero with music except for a remarkable gift of pitch and sensitivity to parts in choral arrangement which pours out in her singing.  About an hour before dark last night she was here singing the TZ national anthem into my ear so I could get the tune and timing into my computer.  This for an assignment ahead. 

This is something you have done by praying too.  Thank you

-------------------------------------

Thank you all of you who have continued to give.  I am thankful.  We did not know what to plan for.  We only sought not to leave anything unused in what we have been brought into and through by God and your praying to use even people like us.  I know many of my fellows at home would not approve of the skin of our teeth serving wherever we are.

In fact, I don’t approve entirely either, but I am still learning.  Learning that tomorrow brings more than I can do and yet, God does everything I am supposed to be part of anyway.  I only get to participate and watch.

Like children’s choir at church..  Too many littles to count..  Not a single microphone among them and yet they filled the Cathedral with sound like the grown up choir often doesn’t.  Can’t wait until they come to English service again.

Like new local ones coming to English Service.  Young little ones coming with other young little ones and caring for younger little ones with them.  Somehow choosing not to be afraid of me, even without Hilda.  Then sitting in the same pew so I can help guide them through worship.

Right now just the simple goodness of fresh hot cooked food lovingly prepared by the same chef who three years ago would leave her kitchen, come outside and help me learn the various abbreviations of Swahili names for the books of the Bible.  Hilda told them I was supposed to be fat when I get back to America..  Most often, I don’t eat supper because no one is around and I have already eaten enough before Hilda’s minions depart.    

Like bringing the occasional literally starving student to eat with us during the day.

Your prayer does things like this too.  Thank you.

------------------------------------

Last messages are now within the capable efforts of the editor-translators.  Hoping to have the help of some of those desperate and fearful with regards printing house that supports servants of God’s people.  We’ll see. 

Also need help here with some other issues regarding funds owed this tyrant who trusted.  Hoping to turn those debts over to a more remote mountain church near to and related to the borrowers.  That church is striving to do entrepreneurial enterprise to feed widows, shut-ins, and support educations.

Please pray, I can’t take credit for success but must strive.  You do your part please, it is amazing how willing God is to hear you.  Thank you.

Closing Africa house and returning to Hilda I pray will be easy, no matter how impossibly hard.   Deserting the loved ones there/here is extremely painful.  Perhaps, with today’s tech, it won’t be as complete a desertion as it was in the past.  We’ll see if there is interest here for connection in the face of perceived rejection. 

Long way to go, still..  Your prayer deeply sought for this work too.  Thank You.

------------------------------------

Keep our feet to the fire, please.  Thank You!

We may live dangerously, but we are alive.  Thank you for praying us the courage to live this way, if dangerously.  We don’t see it that way.

-------------------------------

You who read and pray and suffer along with us.  Please believe what we get to see.  Thank you for praying our strength and guidance for each moment with each face.   Folks like you are beyond precious. 

vwilliamson@sprynet.com

Really blessed while deeply under attack..  all of it is spiritual..  I wish I could teach that to everyone so they could truly know it.  I didn’t know it for far too long. 

Please keep crumpling us up and throwing us at God.  That is where we need to be.  God will sort us out.

One day at a time.  Just like how you each live.  Just one day at a time. 

Thank you, each of you.

                -------------------------------------------------------

What to Pray for:

Our armed forces families, our leadership, our people, whole world round, all of Gods kids -

All the tough and blessing expressed above –

The love of folks –

Whatever is on your hearts and minds for us –

For our children and grand-children who miss us?.. 

For Makumira Secondary School looking to share stories and partner in some way with a foreign school, Great leaders, teachers, students, programs, strong backs, minds, and hearts –

For our health to stay ahead of whatever is before us –

For each and every one of you –

Each and every one of your prayers, your precious conversations with God –

Prayers, Your Prayer, Even your groaning prayers makes all the difference..

Vern W

May life be as Music to your Heart – May Music be as Heart to your Life – May Heart be as Life to your Music

 Dear Cherished Interested’s,                                                                                                     October 10^th 2024

Carried gear for a returning theology student, with her, to her new rooming assignment on campus yesterday afternoon.  The weekend before, while filling hopefully one of the last commitments made by my huge hearted wife, had taken the stupid little truck, the two precious editor-translators and myself about 3 to 4 hours away, nearly Kenya again.  There we were close to this theologian’s home and church servicing so that we were able to pack her gear back here in the truck for her. 

Being on campus is something I avoid in the light of day, in respect of the disreputable who happen to have power and engender tremendous fear among those they are trusted to serve, with, among and to.  Large back-pack on, but only one strap of a large duffle because I am an elder who can’t carry anything, you know.  The other strap was being carried by the theologian herself.  Another large sack was in the capable hands of a daughter of the University Chaplain.  Shhhh..

Few were on campus but they are gathering.  I was greeted in Meru by the guard on duty and amazed by the students walking up to this outcast to shake my free hand with such earnest grace.  Those roots are being loosened all the time but nutrition is still lovingly getting through.

I walked myself home greeting people, working people not authority people, who want Hilda to be greeted.  The church world around needs its butt kicked.  Since Constantine converted to Christianity and shared authority structures from outside the church into the church, those authority structures are a double edged sword too often blunted on the side of those wielding power through them. 

Fear lets them.  Desperation lets them.  However, are those structures from Roman antiquity the authority that saves anyone of anything, ever?  Tired and self-oppressed beloved North America, what is our excuse?

More than the church world round needs its butt kicked, I need a good kick or two too.

So, pray for me please..  I don’t have that huge hearted wife with me here to share some of the oppression with.  The oppression born of that fear and desperation.  I look like the colonizers that were thrown out.  But seemingly everyone avoids the desert with God on the journey from enslavement to freedom; there is still addiction to desperation and fear and what colonizers used to bring that was beneficial. 

And as we have abused ourselves at home with our choice of leadership over the many years, the destructive consequence to our personal authorities and responsibilities manifest over those same many years; our diminishment at home has taken and continues to take lives here.  Who and how we are either serves the world we are part of or leaves it bereft of us and what life can build with us where we aren’t even aware.  70 times 7

-------------------------------------

Two weekends ago, was a trip to the mountain country almost due east of here.  There three days.  Day one travel, celebrate with a bride her send-off into marriage.  Day three, gather at the church for the wedding. 

Day two was insane.  Beautiful but insane.  I did all the driving.  From remote volcanic hot-springs to power damn to sunset canoe ride on waters between TZ and Kenya in sight of Hippopotamus plural.  Then goat trail in the dark up extremely steep and abusively washed out track to the one of the highest peaks, senseless drama at the top but eventually sleep. 

All the way, God was using those travelling with me to facilitate and challenge those allegedly serving us. 

I am forever proud of the Godly editor-translators who had this journey too. 

The region had lost both their hugely beloved hands-on Lutheran bishop and their Catholic bishop on the same day to two separate car accidents.  The Lutheran bishop leaves a young family at home and a larger one through the church.  Desperation and fear..  Shutting up and listening can help, even if that is not what some may want.  

Here in these more remote places I am still introduced as pastor.  Back in Usa river, I am now introduced as Evangelist by the desperate, fearful, and politically connected.  This is like being identified as Deacon or Elder or Trustee to keep one in their place.  Those roots are loosening but nutrition is lovingly getting out to some spiritual mycelial web in places. 

Your Prayers have protected along every step which was also prepared in response to your prayers. 

I can’t take credit for Guards securing vital power infrastructure asking for and getting prayer from me.  Nor can I take credit for spontaneous bush walks given freely by one of their number.  Or a young Maasai Shepherd deciding to walk alongside me for most of that bush walk, just to speak a little Swahili with something he has never seen before, get a fist bump and run off smiling huge.

Not one asked for money or gift.  Only prayer..  they can call me anything they want. 

-------------------------------------

Landlord’s wall seems fully erected, final pointing and coating with mortar underway.  The craftsmen wave and smile freely, enough interaction has occurred for them to know my hands have gotten dirty and striven like their own.  

Your prayer does things like this too.  Thank you.

------------------------------------

Last messages are now within the capable efforts of the editor-translators.  Hoping to have the help of some of those desperate and fearful with regards printing house that supports servants of God’s people.  We’ll see. 

Also need help here with some other issues regarding funds owed this tyrant who trusted.  Hoping to turn those debts over to a more remote mountain church near to and related to the borrowers.  That church is striving to do entrepreneurial enterprise to feed widows, shut-ins, and support educations.

Please pray, I can’t take credit for success but must strive.  You do your part please, it is amazing how willing God is to hear you.  Thank you.

Closing Africa house and returning to Hilda I pray will be easy, no matter how impossibly hard.   Deserting the loved ones there/here is extremely painful.  Perhaps, with today’s tech, it won’t be as complete a desertion as it was in the past.  We’ll see if there is interest here for connection in the face of perceived rejection. 

Long way to go, still..  Your prayer deeply sought for this work too.  Thank You.

------------------------------------

Keep our feet to the fire, please.  Thank You!

We may live dangerously, but we are alive.  Thank you for praying us the courage to live this way, if dangerously.  We don’t see it that way.

-------------------------------

You who read and pray and suffer along with us.  Please believe what we get to see.  Thank you for praying our strength and guidance for each moment with each face.   Folks like you are beyond precious. 

vwilliamson@sprynet.com

Really blessed while deeply under attack..  all of it is spiritual..  I wish I could teach that to everyone so they could truly know it.  I didn’t know it for far too long. 

Please keep crumpling us up and throwing us at God.  That is where we need to be.  God will sort us out.

One day at a time.  Just like how you each live.  Just one day at a time. 

Thank you, each of you.

                -------------------------------------------------------

What to Pray for:

Our armed forces families, our leadership, our people, whole world round, all of Gods kids -

All the tough and blessing expressed above –

The love of folks –

Whatever is on your hearts and minds for us –

For our children and grand-children who miss us?.. 

For Makumira Secondary School looking to share stories and partner in some way with a foreign school, Great leaders, teachers, students, programs, strong backs, minds, and hearts –

For our health to stay ahead of whatever is before us –

For each and every one of you –

Each and every one of your prayers, your precious conversations with God –

Prayers, Your Prayer, Even your groaning prayers makes all the difference..

Vern W

May life be as Music to your Heart – May Music be as Heart to your Life – May Heart be as Life to your Music

 Dear Cherished Interested’s,                                                                                                     September 24^th 2024

Spoke with Hilda about 3:am as she was washing up after supper and heading for sleep.  Her day included checking up on young people watching out for her.  Two young people who work out at the Weld County Airport.  They are trying to fit in finishing high school while working the small restaurant there.  They work for a couple who are senior to both Hilda and I who run the kitchen, the young ones work front of house while ducking into the kitchen once in a while to help with piles of dishes. 

They message Hilda to check on her.  She went yesterday morning to check on them.   

Then off to a conservative Presbyterian church that no longer uses the Presbyterian name but calls itself a community church.  It was the eldest Presbyterian church in Greeley, over 100 years old.  Those folks have TZ missions connections already and Hilda has been there most Sundays since I left.  Who knows where or what when we are together again.  I am glad she has community that doesn’t look cross-eyed at her or runs away from communication that includes service so very far away right alongside their welcome of street people into worship and the fellowship hall.

I was wrong about the wall outside.  Only enough rock to become the base of the footing.  Then solid concrete block about 6 by 10 by 20 inches and about 2 meters tall.  Before the gentlemen got here to continue their work this morning, about a dozen monkeys in a troupe of all different sizes were lazing around here and strutting along the top of the wall there.  So there is now a rising monkey highway where once was shrub. 

About 4 to 10 dollars a day for sun-up to sun-down wall raising, depending upon age and responsibility for the mafundi, craftsmen.     

-------------------------------------

Went to a predominantly European enclave, south of Usa River, where wealthier folks gather for a kind of tailgate market.  I went to check on my pharmacist who had no order to bring me but has had life stuff that he trusts me to talk with.  People needing him were waiting for him.  So I walked a little and ended up helping a Malawi-ian woman selling baked goods..  Laugh now.. I helped her for about half a second with her Swahili.  And she was grateful.. HAHA! 

So, my pharmacist is tending his customers having brought orders out from Arusha and as this is Africa, he is also free to guide those coming with medical or psychological troubles on what to try next.  As soon as one leaves another one comes for help. 

As I wait in the truck a young little mountain woman carrying a well fed white baby filling her arms, detours slightly from following the baby’s mother to come to my window.  There she propped her burden on one hip to take my hand with one of hers and call me by my mountain name. 

I don’t know which church.  She knew who I was and was pleased to drop her English and rattle on with me in super-simple Swahili-Meru.  Prayer was wanted.  Prayer was given.  I still don’t know what we talked about.  Comprehension has not been gifted me.  Can you believe that I am seen as safe?  That’s crazy and may be proof that I am not seen at all.  That may be proof of amazingly accepting hearts of folks for whom Hilda and I may have been the only white faces ever to be in their church.  While leaving with her white employer she turned steeply around placing her hand, fingers all spread open, on the car window at her side, to look me in the eye with a guarded expression.  I returned as best I could with my pale raised one.  She looked as long as she could.  You never know.  Prayer given.       

-------------------------------------

The working people, guards from campus, send one of their number, one of the men, over at night while the wall is in process.  He walks through the working piles, turns to look into my window just once with a big thumbs up, then stops on or where the wall will be.  Moving around quietly some, but looking out away from the little house while hovering in front if it.  He is there until relieved.  They leave with daybreak.  No, I have never paid them anything.  Only shared the same printed message, with whoever is on duty, at the two gates to campus that the mama’s and children get each Sunday. 

Your prayer does this.  Thank you.

------------------------------------

The book of messages written from Tanzanian Lutheran Church lectionary in two languages is still in process but nearing completion.  I only have three lesser festivals for December to write.  Three more are already with Hilda for approval before moving on to the editor translators.  These messages are from the latest American Lutheran worship book, red, with readings as assigned there from the calendar therein.

Closing Africa house and returning to Hilda I pray will be easy, no matter how impossibly hard.   Deserting the loved ones there is extremely painful.  Perhaps, with today’s tech, it won’t be as complete a desertion as it was in the past.  We’ll see if there is interest here for connection in the face of perceived rejection. 

Long way to go, still..  Your prayer deeply sought for this work too.  Thank You.

------------------------------------

Keep our feet to the fire, please.  Thank You!

We may live dangerously, but we are alive.  Thank you for praying us the courage to live this way, if dangerously.  We don’t see it that way.

-------------------------------

You who read and pray and suffer along with us.  Please believe what we get to see.  Thank you for praying our strength and guidance for each moment with each face.   Folks like you are beyond precious. 

vwilliamson@sprynet.com

Really blessed while deeply under attack..  all of it is spiritual..  I wish I could teach that to everyone so they could truly know it.  I didn’t know it for far too long. 

Please keep crumpling us up and throwing us at God.  That is where we need to be.  God will sort us out.

One day at a time.  Just like how you each live.  Just one day at a time. 

Thank you, each of you.

                -------------------------------------------------------

What to Pray for:

Our armed forces families, our leadership, our people, whole world round, all of Gods kids -

All the tough and blessing expressed above –

The love of folks –

Whatever is on your hearts and minds for us –

For our children and grand-children who miss us?.. 

For Makumira Secondary School looking to share stories and partner in some way with a foreign school, Great leaders, teachers, students, programs, strong backs, minds, and hearts –

For our health to stay ahead of whatever is before us –

For each and every one of you –

Each and every one of your prayers, your precious conversations with God –

Prayers, Your Prayer, Even your groaning prayers makes all the difference..

Vern W

May life be as Music to your Heart – May Music be as Heart to your Life – May Heart be as Life to your Music