Dear Cherished Interested,

In letters from my grandmother in 1958 during her time on mission station in Cameroun with my uncle’s family she describes being simply taken forward and given seating up front..

Some things don’t seem to change..

Due to my being out of it for quite a few days we missed both weddings we had been invited too. When Pastor Ombeni caught up with us again last Saturday evening it was to insist that our Sunday plans make way for what he wanted to include us for. So he called our Tanzanian daughter and very soon all was arranged.

We were collected by Pastor and his wife at 6:30 am, traveled up the hill to the oldest permanent church on the mountain which serves a parish 119 years old. There was to be a celebration for a retiring pastor serving this parish. Big deal is not a fit descriptor.

There were choirs from every region of Tanzania. We have yet to find a church with an organ here, with the human pipes present there is no need and the music is far more beautiful.

There were groups from every parish this pastor has served over his 30 years. At least a hundred pastors and evangelists were in attendance and two Bishops and other Bishops representatives from other regions as well. Somewhere between 700 and a thousand people were there for this worship and celebration.

Pastor Ombeni introduced us to at least two dozen other pastors including the leadership of the celebrating parish. We all were fed. Then as all the robing up was commencing Hilda and I were directed specifically to sit in the front of the church on the right where the seating was reserved for pastors. The two of us sitting with robed clergy, a Reverend Dr. friend of Ombeni diligently yet quietly translating for us.

Hilda says that what I posted to a friend was wrong. We were in service for 4+ hours not 3+. Towards the end of that long celebration with at least 4 opportunities for offertory, Bishop presiding over the service called Hilda and I forward to speak to those in attendance.

We went forward and I spoke about a dozen words in English giving greetings from Freeborn Lutheran Church of Stanwood WA, our home congregation. Then with just four more words of Swahili I was able to thank all those there. I turned and handed the microphone back to the Bishops attending and we walked back to our seats among the then grinning and chuckling Pastors who were well relieved at my brevity. Everyone was getting hungry again.

The politely surging mob of celebration moved outside where Hilda and I found a quiet out of the way place to sit well away from the head tables. HA!! Wishful thinking..

Ombeni found and collected us. Then smiling like a joyful cherub deliberately seated us at a head table with me right next to the Principle of Mwika Lutheran Bible College. Pastor Ombeni then disappears. Yes, that is the college with all my paperwork waiting to be presented to the Bishop of that region about 3 hours away.

I had the head of the college I hope to enroll in translating festivities for me, finding out about me, challenging me with oblique questions and getting direct answers. I take great joy at the fact his wife, a teacher like Hilda, insisted on introducing herself to me with such a look of acceptance and commonality.. God Knows..

Several hours later again and the church part of things is breaking up. Pastor Ombeni finds me and pumps me for information and I tell him that the college Principle said he would let me know later about how the process is going. Ombeni says good, it’s now later, he’s about to leave lets go talk to him before he goes.

In tow once again, Ombeni and I get to the Principle’s truck and Ombeni flashes that knowing cherub smile and the poor man insists that he will be taking my paperwork to his Bishop in person. The Principle’s wife beaming from her seat.. God Knows..

No.. not over yet. Ombeni informs that it isn’t over until the local folks, and that now amazingly includes us, see the retiring pastor and family safely to his home. We get there and there are more chairs, more goat meat, we are coaxed to dance in welcome for the retiring pastor and family to the brass band on the retiring pastor’s lawn. I wiggle my arms and Hilda goes to town with ladies gathering around joining her.

They get home and I’m thinking, okay I’ll sit in the front row of chairs on this lawn and just be glad to sit down. WRONG!

We are taken into the retiring pastors house and Pastor Ombeni disappears once again.

We are seated in the living room with the Bishop, his entourage and local parish pastors. There we are fed by custom, through the Bishop, by the family. Everything is ceremony. Everything is joyful. Everything is thankful..

As ceremony and custom fade into conversation, Bishop turns to Hilda and I and asks if we have any questions. Then he tells us he was a missionary pastor from Tanzania to the U.S. and served in Wisconsin for 14 years before returning home to Tanzania.

In Swahili I responded with thank you very very very much. We then talked openly about his time and experiences and my concerns and longing for my home country. We also explained how we came to be there and why. This in front of his quietly listening entourage of highly educated Pastors and Evangelists.

Then he says that.. we in Tanzania have many deep hardships and struggles but I had to come home. He had to come home where family, clan, tribe and even nation are all layers of interconnected mutual support. All hardships are shared. All joys are shared.

I had been watching the face of the retiring pastor all day.

My response came from seeing in that face the face of my uncle, my father, my Alaskan brother’s father.

I said, the retiring pastors face..

The retiring pastor came into his living room and listened as I spoke. I see in that face the hardships and struggles.. and the Joy. I see in that face the face of my uncle, my father, my Alaskan brother’s father, all faces of people who saw hardships and struggles and just like this pastor they had the face of one who in spite of all those things always chose Joy. It is a beautiful face.

Bishop simply nodded.

We left before dark and Pastor Ombeni insisted on driving us the few kilometers down the hill to the lodge. He played a game of having me guess which way to turn from one dusty rut to another as we came down and surprisingly I managed to guess each turn correctly. Then it was Hilda’s turn.. with Swahili thrown in on top.. and both Pastor and Mrs. Pastor were happily laughing heartily with their guests by the time we got to where we are staying.

The upshot so far of being made so visible is the following:

This Thursday, the 2nd, there is to be a gathering of local Pastors at the lodge where we are staying. I am required to give my testimony as part of a seminar, I don’t know how to prepare for, that I am to give to those 70 local pastors and their Bishop.

Sunday I am required to preach some at Ombeni’s church, second service, Hilda is too.

There are two other Pastors close by who went out of their way to speak, translate and show other kindnesses to Hilda and I. We are to be with one of their congregations the following Sunday. The other is waiting his turn, apparently.

What to pray for:

Rain -

My being well, awake and available for whatever God wants in the moments ahead -

Hilda to stay strong as she teaches teachers these next two days -

A Friday visit for Hilda, with me in tow, to a secondary school with Pastor Ombeni. And then a trip of support also with Ombeni for a local Pentecostal Pastor who is graduating nearby -

Prayers too for our children and grands who are missing us -

Some struggling more than others - 

Whatever is on your hearts for us -

Gratitude for opportunities.. and words and actions given to greet them -

Gratitude for you -

Each of you -

and your amazing prayers -

Thank you, Thank You, Thank You.. Prayers, your prayer, 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,

Surprising stewardship..

I felt strong enough to climb the stairs to the roof. The dark of night fading as day brightens. I step quietly, a gift of feet too large to be shod by local flip flops. Barefoot up into the cool of almost morning. Up into the all surrounding birdsong praising the miracle of yet another new day.



The moon high over Meru, located just west of north from the vantage afforded from this surprising rooftop. Just east of north the sky is clear enough to see mighty Kilimanjaro low and broad on the horizon. Thanks to the brightening sky I now know, not just a guess but know, where east lies. Elevation drops away into a distant haziness to the east, the way to the coast, Dar-es-salaam, Zanzibar and the Indian Ocean.

Brightening moments eventually bring first morning voices of people up from the surrounding village painted across the hillsides beneath lush Dr. Seuss trees and small Banana groves everywhere.

Time to head down from the roof.

I don’t want to be spotted atop the largest building in sight. I don’t want to be seen in that way. The village cows, who can be heard lowing late in the day as full udders and empty bellies have them calling for their shepherds, are still quiet, morning milking and feeding likely completed in shuffling darkness, tubs of milk covered with cloth waiting. Waiting for fat to rise. Waiting for chickens to be fed, eggs gathered, fires awakened.

Chickens?, not so quiet, but noisy and endemic as they can be they are nearly voiceless in comparison to the indigenous Hadada Ibis. A large bird with long narrow downward curving bill, green flash across each wing and truly loud call, especially when in flight. Almost like a more aesthetically pleasing miniature pterodactyl but with a call fitting a dinosaur.

As I sit starting to write the first whiffs of renewing cook fires are swept on the breeze into the room as the owners of those first morning voices prepare for the day.

Hilda chose this place before we left the U.S. on Airbnb because it has internet and laundry service available. We had no idea that we would be housed in the largest building in sight. Nor did we know that we would be housed in the home of a family.

Upon consideration it is obvious that this locally massive edifice, erected up in the hills away from the big road and its tourist centric commercial development, up in the midst of a village, must be locally sourced, locally owned, locally occupied, locally supplied.

Locally minded, this bubble of affluence was intentionally planted here by two people who are from here, one born here the other born high on that bigger mountain sitting low and broad on the horizon just east of north from here.

Their younger grandchildren play here, we get to hear their voices well after dark. They come to us now with their impeccable English to challenge our difficult Swahili with their eager flowing Swahili. They are fluent in Ki-Meru, Ki-Chagga, Ki-Swahili, and English. They are elementary school students. They are blessed and fortunate and know it. They already know they are expected to be tomorrow’s leaders. They have fire in them and can’t wait.

It took many years of risk to build this place. It opened to the global public just before covid-19 killed tourism, killed what economy there is here. When fear swept around the planet in response to that new pathology did this family discharge their staff and shut down? No. They chose to compound the many years and deep risks and keep their staff on site and paid.

On site, paid, and with health benefits, you see the best and brightest here in Tanzania don’t become teachers or even doctors, nearly none can obtain the training. They become tour guides. The best and brightest here get to train to care for, serve and clean up after the worlds’ wealthiest who come to visit.

Each member of staff serving us here who interacts in any way with visitors has all the same capacities for leadership as do the grandchildren who live here. They are alive, awake, multi-linguistically astute, in love with life and people enough to learn the ways of that bubble of affluence. Ways that nearly all never had growing up, nearly all never will have when they step form this bubble back to the reality of most of the worlds people.

There is literally just one step, one gate from walking on paving block to steps in the dust.

Grandmother, the boss, came to her intended retirement home last week. The one born high on the mountain just east of north from here came to inspect and expect, to determine and demand, to teach and tolerate and reward while pouring more water, more risk on the seed planted in a village in the hills out of sight of and above the big road. This seed, this place, intended to pull some of what stops at the big roads edge out into the reality of most of the worlds’ people, at least the people of this village, this hill.

Grandfather, a man born right here on this hill, needs to stay several countries south to care for his many patients. That is how he carries the water for his beloved to pour over this seed that is home for their grandchildren and hope for a better tomorrow on this hill of cook fires and few watches and fewer phones and nearly no transport other than feet.

Grandmother arrived just in time for us too. She fearlessly chose to get to know us, sharing her personal blend of tea and local fruit, and while I have been up in our room either near the bed or in it, sharing her favorite traditional foods, not on the menu, while eating with Hilda.

Friends, my lifetime of experience among America’s wealthy has been less than mutually fruitful. Often with me being forced to leave behind financial security to make plain that I can be owned only by the one who died for me, only God and never only just one or two of His misguided children.

My silent prayer has been to see the active community minded affluence I grew up around as opposed to what seems to have become a self-serving or distracted affluence.

Selling the cow intended for the family freezer so the oil tank at church could be filled and the church not freeze. Selling the family’s first new car and taking instead a used one from the lot so the same oil tank could be filled once more. These are examples of two different family’s sacrifice for community I got to glimpse that nearly no one knew about while growing up when and where I did. Risk takers, willing to sacrifice today in hope for a tomorrow that might not be about them, or not only about them.

We don’t know where we will be from one moment to the next right now. The Holy Spirit has borne me up so I can attend and participate in some beautiful things with precious people given to us and us to them.

It is like in John 4, at the well and the returning disciples with food for Jesus who tells them He has had things to eat, things to sustain, that they were not aware of. Jesus had that precious lonely woman, parched for water, parched for living water, parched for Messiah, parched for Jesus and who can’t wait to share those things with her community.

Well The Spirit let me hit the wall and thanks to Grandmother, Hilda has been well taken care of. Thanks to Hilda and a Tanzanian pharmacist who stayed up late to text continually with Hilda helping her to determine how to get and keep me stable, I am well taken care of too.

Yes, we’re paying to stay in Grandmother’s lodge, her home, but that is not what’s going on here. She quietly told Hilda while I was not around that she has made arrangement that when the lodge is full on December 3rd including the room we are in, that we are to have her personal apartment to stay in if we are still here.

We haven’t paid that pharmacist one cent, one shilling.. Not yet..

As absurd as it may seem to me, someone who has lost everything but his children and spouse to business ventures at home, I think this Grandmother see’s us as kindred. People like her and her husband willing to risk everything in hope of making tomorrow better all while striving to raise up leaders for that same tomorrow.

Our children are leaders. Each one of them has a back bone and grit allowing us to sell up and step out into this crazy we are on. I have been a determining and demanding father striving to teach and tolerate and pour water on our growing children and now, currently somehow by example from afar, our grandchildren.

Need to be Hilda’s caboose and get her up the hill where she can teach elementary school teachers how to do some hands on laboratory science.. without a laboratory.. perhaps a kitchen.

We are thankful for everything God is showing us.

We are thankful for strength.

We are thankful for weakness.

We are thankful for family wherever we go.

We are thankful for not knowing what the next step will fall upon.

We are thankful for our children and grandchildren safe at home in the States.

We are thankful for our children and grandchildren safe at home in Tanzania.

We are thankful for the opportunities whatever they are.

We are thankful for you.

We are thankful for the Holy Spirit resident in each of you.

We are thankful for prayer pulling us into whatever is next.

We are thankful for your prayer.

Thank you, Thank You, Thank You.. Prayers, your prayer, 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,

When you get up to go forward or slip out to take care of something, your seat is filled when you get back..

Three baptized and six confirmed yesterday of the growing littles at The Small Things. They were part of a group of twenty total confirmed. First service ran from seven to ten, then the big service with all the extras from ten to three.

This was at a smaller mountain church near the children’s village. Three Pastors serving the second service which was done with parts in both Ki-Swahili and Ki-Meru. The Pastors asking for a show of hands from those attending as to which language those attending preferred as parts of the service progressed. Hymn numbers given in both.

His adoptive parents are reformed Jews living the most beautiful expression of Christ’s adoption of us all into Gods family by spending their lives in service to children and families. They love and support him in his faith but could not serve as his chosen adults to come forward for his baptism and confirmation. He chose me, the husband of Hilda who tutors his school age siblings and himself in their home not far from the children’s village. His youngest brother, 16 months and a chatterbox in Swahili and ever more in English, calls Hilda Bibi (grandmother) and me Babu (grandfather).

No, I didn’t know. Until we were sitting in the 7AM service and he and his big brother came in to find us sitting there. They were glad we were there. That’s when he looked up at me to ask if I was his adult? Who could say no?

That’s how I know about your seat disappearing when you go forward.

That’s okay though as it lets you be part of the scrum outside the open doors waiting for parts of service you have something to do with. Like offering, twice for those who have currency, but another time for those with mangos or potatoes or plantain or sugar cane or avocado or chickens.. lots of chickens, feet bound but otherwise unscathed. Living meat stays freshest in these climes.

That 16 month old wandering into and through the service looking for his big brother being baptized and confirmed.. The other big brother and Bibi in Hot pursuit.. Other people coming and going.. the offering of the bound feet taking turns making themselves heard..

Sound like chaos? Very blessed chaos with dancing young and old, singing, concerns for getting in place at the right time but deep joy.

Hilda and I took turns. I was gathered to the front for both the Baptism and Confirmation. Hilda was sent forward by the close-by members of the congregation to stand with me for the Confirmation too. I was gathered by his biological father who is unable to have his son at home with him. He did travel far to be with him yesterday though and went out of his way to keep me an active part of those two pieces of the service. Then came first communion and I was outside getting water, shade and a moment of space.. Hilda’s turn came then to joyfully commune with the newly confirmed, teaching and demonstrating correct hand placement for receiving the elements for the girl next to her.

Then back to the children’s village for celebration, food, and people, people, people.

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

Last Thursday we were collected by the children’s village school bus..

Tutoring was cancelled so Hilda and I could be gathered with the non-profit operations staff, not the Mama’s as they are full time with the children, to attend a get-together of non-profits working relatively nearby in Tanzania. The get-together was an attempt to find a way to get together as a network for mutual support. Over 50 people were there.

It was intended to be a gripe session. What are the problems your organization is facing? Brainstorming solutions intended to come later hopefully as a network of connections forms up.

Now, Hilda brought with her a flash drive of her lesson plans from teaching. That little flash drive is becoming a rather sought after item. Although it teaches science in the context of what is available in North America, it teaches science to the latest standard giving student comprehension and hands on activity goals. Science is not taught here that way. It is taught by memorization for the purpose of passing an exam.

Thursday was another long day with no power at the end so we ate on the porch under the moon and flashlights. Diesel did arrive after supper so we had on-site generator power to find our way to our room.

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

Years ago I built recycling programs for Whatcom County, Washington State. This I did between 1989 – 1999 with the last nine of those years as General Manager of a private Recycling Collection company owned by the local Garbage company.

Well, one of the connections people within the non-profit is working to get, himself and I, into one or more local plastics recycling manufacturers. This so I can help them figure how to develop a plastic bottle recycling scheme appropriate for here. This is complex so I won’t spend time here but as there are at least two local end users of plastic waste nearby, there is a market. That gives local folks a place to start.

One of the hoped for projects at the school that the non-profit has been given access to is gardens and farming. I haven’t been active there for decades either but have been asked to help in that.

Having hired and trained professional drivers over the years, defensive driving is also on  the table. I intend to prepare a brief presentation on that topic for the driving staff at the non-profit. Local professional drivers are awesome with eyesight and reflexes that amaze. There are some things I may have to share though.

It seems that as we wait for God to open doors regarding my atypical Pastoral education, we are both finding we have things folks around us here need.

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

Prayers..

Thankfulness, thankfulness, thankfulness..

Whatever is on your heart for us..

Our health, our wits, our spiritual awareness..

The process up at Mwika Lutheran Bible College..

Patience.. and energy..

I have a lifetime of worry about money.. My faith in Gods provision..

That we stay open and formable for God’s gift of our next moment..

Recovery from floods in the Northwest and rain for parched Tanzania..

A Joyful Thanksgiving wherever and however it is celebrated..

Thank you, Thank You, Thank You.. Prayers, your prayer, 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,

Africa time.. Is not North American time.. Both literally and figuratively.. That must be striven after to understood as.. good..

This affects everything else.

I think I’ve wrapped my head around Swahili Time which cycles in two twelve hour units like western time. However Swahili Time, a product of near equator living with hours of day and night being both equivalent and consistent throughout the year with nearly no seasonal variance, has sunrise at 12:00.

Then the counting of the hours of daylight 1 thru 12 at which time the sun sets. Western time would record sunrise at about 6 with sunset at about 6 this means that western time is 6 hours out of phase from Swahili time. Swahili time is still extremely sensible where power fluctuations make artificial lighting less than reliable and reliance on daylight still the most prudent choice.

Further, time here, where not everyone has a phone nor a watch, is less than precise.

Yesterday we learned, when we were collected by Pastor, that the college we were going to see is not the one hour to Moshi, TZ that most folks think. Moshi, TZ is actually about an hour and a half away. The college is three hours away.

It was well worth the six hour round trip.

We were welcomed with time, courtesy, patience and food. We were listened to and we were trusted to .. listen. We had the company of the Assistant Principal of the College as the Principal was literally called out on an emergency.

We had that attention for four to five hours.

“We exist to support the local parish.. the local parish has nearly no resources to send people for training..” Assistant Principal..

Then he showed this old former farmer the cows. They have a small dairy. They have goats. They have Chickens. They have gardens of plantain, maize, coffee and other fruits and vegetables. The Assistant Principal himself maintains a swineherd next to his home on campus. This they do at this college for the sake of providing food and income to support the training of Evangelists and Pastors, ..to support the local parish.

My Dear North American siblings connected with higher education, especially education intended to affect the formation of pastors and other church leadership.

Firstly, if you haven’t spit it out, swallow your coffee..

This grandfather is sick to death of the debt culture model our North American church machines foist upon those rare few who not only feel the call, but respond.

Further, I get regular solicitations from OUR training institutions seeking to pull ever more resources out of our local parishes to support the training of our current and future church leaders.

Forgive the farming reference but OUR training mechanisms milk both the student and the parish to maintain.. what?

? A debt culture that ties the hand of graduates limiting the parishes they can serve or demands they walk away from their call to work in service to that debt?

Which Master do we want them to serve?

Pick your college or university and you can see manicured lawns and ornamental gardens. I know this was not always the case for us in North America. When my grandmother attended Cornell University students were part of programs that helped fund that center for training.

Yes, WE know how to do this too. We are the culture that has turned the flow of resources completely wrong. Friends this is part of OUR failing witness to our communities full of people who wonder why the Word of God we preach doesn’t seem to affect our own steps. It is almost like Jesus asking the lepers, orphans, widows, and those who serve them to take The Cross in His place.

That is NOT the character / nature of our God. Jesus does what we cannot. God supplies everything.

God even provides opportunity to exercise leadership that is self-sacrificial for the sake of communities of people who we may never know in our here and now.

What joy it will be when we find their precious faces in our hereafter together because we were given the opportunity to lead through self-sacrifice. Our small self-sacrifice investing in their having a witness that lives the truth of Christ’s Cross, the truth of God’s love, the truth of change for the better because Jesus lives, even through the likes of us.

Today is a new day! Let us try again. Let us try.

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

Why would a Pastor of an impoverished 300 plus person parish collect Hilda and I in his own truck and take us to his own college 3 hours out of town?

“We Pastors here, we have nothing so we rely on miracles..” Pastor Ombeni said through a knowing smile then explained how he had to borrow the truck we were in and when he tried to return it.. he was told that he needed it.. and to keep it. Yes, Pastor Ombeni keeps cows and gardens. As endlessly busy as he is, I am certain that many others help in their maintenance. How busy is a Tanzanian Lutheran Pastor?

So busy that he had me drive the last hour or so back, then up the bush road to where we are staying for the moment so he could be on his phone to catch up with and direct those needing him.

Yes, Hilda and I saw to his truck getting needed maintenance. Yes, we bought the fuel. His joy and our joy in our time together in that miracle truck. His joy in his encountering everyone at his college as we were there. His choice to find joy in this strange old man who still dreams dream’s and this man’s brave capable life partner, is beyond any price.

We found acceptance to enter a process for me to be evaluated by Tanzanian means, both Governmental and Diaconal, for fitness and readiness to attend this college because of the respect all who serve there have for the gift of this Tanzanian Pastor. You prayed us together with this joyful Pastor. Your Prayer has pulled us here.. Keep it up!

I asked the Assistant Principal to please Shepherd me through this Tanzanian process as this old man is like a child here. I simply do not know what I do not know. I am here to try. The fact we were taken on a tour of the campus, that we were introduced to so many and got waves and greetings from everywhere, including a Montanan teaching music here, Pastor Ombeni assures, means that Hilda and I have indeed found a willing shepherd.

What to Pray for..

Got word this morning that our friends and family in the Pacific Northwest have gotten 5 to 6 inches of rain in the last two days.. Yes this is deeply problematic.. swollen rivers, flooded valleys, towns and homes..

The missing rain would be a blessing here below Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Meru.. Your powerful cords of prayer have done the miraculous already.. shift the problem there to a solution here..

The heart of yet another Bishop, a Tanzanian Bishop, and his Stewards at Mwika Lutheran Bible College.. for my striving to study scripture alongside tough capable impoverished Tanzanians and other interested foreign nationals..

Gratitude for every unexpected turn, each and every unexpected person..

Gratitude for both our health and our weakness and vulnerability..

Gratitude for each and every one of you, miracle workers all..

Gratitude for Pastor Ombeni’s grandson who is doing very well..

For our wits and our hearts, for our feet and our willingness to take every moment as given, to live as God would have us live it..

Thank you, Thank You, Thank You.. Prayers, your prayer, 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,

We were ushered into the Sanctuary and seated directly in front of the speakers. Power was out for the whole village but battery sufficed for keyboard, Bass guitar, Drums and microphone. Loud is not the word. I’ve had to work on 2 stroke Detroit diesels with the exhaust manifold broken or removed and the noise from them running as you fiddle with injectors to find which cylinders aren’t firing correctly is so concussive that is seems to effect ones cardiac rhythm.

Not that loud, not that concussive, but it was close.

Chairs were added to the front row so Hilda could have a lady interpreter and I could have an interpreter(Samuel). We met another Simon who teaches Biology and teaches The Word as well.

Service ran from 4:30pm to 7:00pm with fifteen young ones starting it out with praise song. Pastor thanked all for coming and blessed all those attending at the start of the service then slid out to pray for one in desperate need trusting the young speakers to be fine as he poured nurture into that one.

After returning to service he took both Hilda and I out to his office where water was prepared. He was extremely happy to tell me that although we aren’t able to go Monday as planned, due to a funeral the head of the college in Moshi needed to attend, that we will go on Wednesday and that the head of the college is expecting us. There is housing. There is a student body of Tanzanian Nationals and foreign students.

Please pray the way. Please pray the way.

This is not a logic only place. This is a heart place. This is a deeply Spiritual place as evidenced once again with Pastor having the joyful mirthful courage to have Hilda and I speak to his people at the end of service.

Our family of God circles the world joyfully including strangers like Hilda and I.

Thank you, Thank You, Thank You.. Prayers, your prayer, 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 Interesteds,

A brief one about financial assistance.

Hilda and I are just folks.
We are not an organization.
We do not have the capacity to track donations.
We cannot offer nor provide any tax paperwork.

If having Tax paperwork or other tax stuff is necessary please:
Talk with your church.. and if they agree .. let your church make a donation for you..

There is now a paypal button on the blog:

https://babuvernbibihildatanzania.blogspot.com/

We are uncomfortable at the thought of displacing any other benevolence any church community is participating in but will not deny what The Spirit is bringing forth in and from you..

Your Prayer support is touching the Heart of our perfect Heavenly Father, touching the Heart of His perfect Son who longs to include such as us, you, me, and even that stranger over there.. in the precious, irreplaceable work of preserving life.

Life here and now so the way to Life Eternal can be shown, learned, believed..

If you want to support an organization that loves and supports children, loves and supports families, here is the one that found us our first morning here.

www.thesmallthings.org

info@thesmallthings.org


The children are surrounded by people who pray for, love and cherish them.

Upon entering the preschool just a few days ago we had to wait as the ladies providing care were praying together with yet another local Pastor who comes regularly to help and pray for this organization and those in their care..

They had a few full moments while the littles were asleep so they were spending it in prayer, open spoken, chanted, call and response prayer that you get to hear .. here and places like here .. and if you listen you can hear names we all know from the old and new testament stories we share with our brothers and sisters in Christ world round.

You Prayers have brought us to where we are being shown Gods heart and even Hilda and I in that.
We cannot thank you enough. We are just folks, like those who include us here, like you are there.

In this work we are together and your part is being done wonderously well..


Vern & Hilda

Dear Cherished Interested,

It’s in the cracks.

You know, that crack between the pours of concrete that make up the sidewalk, that crack in the board at the bottom of the fence, and that crack in the plans that we humans make. That is where weeds, life, pop up. That is where the amazing can happen.

When serving in both Africa and Alaska in the past I was always transported there with a plan. Then, as is normal with our human plans, cracks form. Cracks form and open up into something different, not expected, and the one with eyes has a choice. The one with eyes for anything as opposed to only the plan, the expected, can choose to regard that crack as either something to be feared, or an opportunity. Fear is a waste of energy.

We are surrounded, thanks to your prayers, by people with eyes for anything. We are surrounded, thanks to your prayers, by people who can see even us. They can see us in spite of our strangeness to this place. They can see us in spite of the parched dusty landscape down here in the foothills low on the mountain. They can see us even as the long missing rains have those with mini-trucks, motorcycles, and hand carts shuttling water to family. Family they see also in neighbors. Family they also see in friends. Family they also see in the stranger. We know we can be seen as strange even at home, in the U.S. Strangers here we are.. yet.

Hilda is tutoring three near brilliant ones loved well into brightly glowing hopes for the future. She is tutoring them in their home. A home they share with each other as siblings swept together into hearts of affection, trust, and determination of deeply effective parents. This is her story to tell, mine to watch.

The plan yesterday was to be given a coffee-farm-tour as appreciation for participation with the work of an amazing nonprofit. This diligent group of nearly all local folks that has successfully uplifted children and families both. Uplifted families and children to the point where more children have been returned to their families than still reside in the immediate and conscientious care of the non-profit.

This work reminds me, in the best ways, of South Africa back in 2005 where the work to keep the survivors alive in a community with an HIV/AIDS prevalence of 90% was so huge that the labels describing Christian faiths fell away.

Folks from all the local South African Christian faith groups, and too many foreign groups to name, all provided something to the massive problem of keeping people alive and helping them to grow into a new life out of unbelievable death. An unbelievable death-toll proved by a graveyard of fresh graves that covered a larger area than the village those buried there had called home.

You see the work of saving that community’s remnant people, a few tired grandmothers and children raising only children, many sick and likely soon to lie with their parents just outside of the village, sprung up in the cracks between Christian labels.

In much a similar way this non-profit has sprung up in the cracks between the Abrahamic Traditions. All three, Jewish, Islamic and Christian have leaked and continue to leak love out into the cracks between them. That is where this non-profit has sprung up to serve remnants of failing or failed families.

Almost always those remnants are too young to care for themselves. That is where this non-profit of overwhelmingly local folks work diligently to forestall the failure of families due to endemic poverty seeking for every child a home, either with uplifted family or with a family built of others like themselves and their new Mamas and Babas for the time they need to grow.

Like other works that bloom in times of desperate need that God breathes life into from any and all willing directions, this one wisely chooses to diligently work itself out of business, by the help of God. Hence a morphing and partnering with other groups into other things like education and their joyful thankfulness for the presence of Hilda.

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Finally, what happened yesterday..

We were sitting in a pre-coffee-farm-tour lecture in which the organizer was trusting us to be patient students to a young apprentice lecturer and up the hill comes one of those with eyes for anything bringing a beloved local Pastor with her to meet.. me.

The crack opened, the lecture graciously, even joyfully, forestalled itself, and a beloved local Pastor was rocked in his chair by our story. Rocked so deeply that the crack in the day’s plans became a most thorough day blooming to be spent with him.

To Pastor’s truck Hilda and I went. To Pastor’s home to check on work with his bio-gas from cow manure digester and most importantly to check on his sick grandson. To Pastor’s church, all the while, questions answers, questions answers, then..

I was trusted and put to work. It started with me being put into the precious job of counselling Robert and Ruth, two of his large flock intending to be married. After starting this in the sanctuary, we made our way to Pastor’s office and I brought Hilda into the process. Hilda and I were in the midst of answering questions and this brave amazing Pastor who had just met us.. picked up his phone and left us to the work unsupervised.

.. There was also time eye to eye with a son of this congregation struggling and feeling alone, frustrated, broken and powerless in his marriage as his spouse is unwilling to meet together with him and Pastor..

Then food.. oh, and we must stay for another couple..

Paul and Mary are also to be married.. We went to work and yet again Pastor left us most predominantly alone with his precious people, trusting us to love, listen, answer and challenge while trying to prepare a young couple for a life together.. daunting yet beautiful. Yes, Hilda was asked to pray at least as many times as I was.

Beautiful also the Evangelist of this congregation, a joyful woman serving her community in this capacity for the same 36 years as Hilda and I have been married, who came to greet and beam at us, encouraging us greatly.

This is something you prayed us here for..

We were not prepared for the discovery that our 36 years together would be seen as valuable to those of this place. We were not expecting that our willingness to sell home, board a plane and come with only hopes and no plans would be seen as anything but crazy let alone valuable to those in direct charge of a church full of precious people many they have known since their birth.

It is okay to be unprepared.

It is forcing Hilda and I to face situations that grow in the cracks with a faith that reflects the faith empowering your precious prayers making our way before us. Keep it up!

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Prayer requests:

For Rain

Thankfulness for what we have seen and experienced.

Thankfulness for the many receptive and encouraging local folks, some now dear and challenging as family.

Thankfulness for our being used in ways we were unaware of until we were in the midst of them.

Thankfulness for beautiful answer to our prayers and yours.

For a Tanzanian Pastors 6 year old grandson with Tonsillitis.

For preparation and calm for the following invitations borne from yesterday’s breathtaking inclusion and use:

A wedding on the 20th

A wedding on the 24th

Pastor taking time and effort to collect and take us in person to service this coming Sunday at The Bishop’s church..

.. after many questions and much discussion in English and Swahili between Pastor and Evangelist while including us both ..

.. Pastor taking time and effort this coming Monday to collect and take us in person to a college in Moshi, TZ. This college is about an hour away towards Kilimanjaro, is Pastor’s own training college and one with international students who may share some of my crazy for studying scripture with Tanzanians who know how to survive and love God in deep adversity so very very much..

Our health to get stronger, our acclimatizing to come along, our hearts to be open, our wits to be sharp yet far less important than The Spirit’s precious prompting and willing provision of words, affirmations, memories and scripture to share.

Am I frightened? You bet! Is that fear a waste of energy? You bet!

Thank You for holding us up in spite of our imperfections and failings. God uses those too, whether we like them or not.

Thank you, Thank You, Thank You.. Prayers, your prayer, 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,

What to report and what to leave out?

Friends, I am still very much my self. Hilda laughed at my response a couple hours ago when she said she was so very comfortable and relaxed. My response was that I did not think that I had made any progress on finding a venue for my non-traditional education yet. We have been here eight days, a week and one day.

You see, we aren’t fluent in Swahili yet.., what’s the matter with me?!

God has given us local friends who are though. Local friends who already trust us enough to let us teach and accompany their thirty or so children of desperate circumstance to places out near the bush. Places this older guy maybe shouldn’t go but can’t help himself.

Saturday was a rare road trip to let the littles see and hear about things that belong to their history as Tanzanians. Troubled hard background or not, this is good.

After going down and then coming out we were told that there were three hundred steps. These were not uniform nor were they shallow but deep inconsistent steps swaddled in mud. Hilda slipped three times going down and I was able to catch her each time. I sat on a rock at the bottom and let my lungs burn.

We had travelled about three hours towards MT Kilimanjaro and were now in the bottom of a gorge looking up at a sixty-five meter (213 feet) tall waterfall of glacial melt run-off from Kili. The littles and their keepers splashed and played in the pool at the bottom.

On our rock was a good place to be as it let those cautious little ones from difficult situations walk over and look, then leave, then return, then leave, each time getting a patient no-tooth smile. After a bit, both Hilda and I started to gather shoes. We had become a safe place for them to come, leave their shoes, then return to the water to go in a little further with bare feet.

One brave little fellow who doesn’t yet speak, in spite of his size, crawled up behind me on the rock using me so carefully as a hand hold to leave his shoes high and dry on the rock behind. Then he leaned over my shoulder to stare at my face for a little while before scurrying down and back over to the water.

These are hard cases. Littles who haven’t had consistent nutrition so you can’t estimate their age by their size. Some have seen horrible abuse so you simply cannot expect them to trust as children blessed with capable stable loving environments so freely do. What is amazing is that they are able to learn to interact in spite of what led them to be swept into the care of this non-profit full of loving local folks empowered by willing extra-nationals.

Time came to climb out of the gorge by means of those three hundred treacherous steps. I was the last up. My legs and new knee were not the problem. My lungs scarred by pulmonary emboli back in 2008 were. So I stopped often, sat down and waited for my blood to re-oxygenate too many times to count. Each time the head-man of the trip, 27 years old and soon to marry, and one other young guide stopped to sit and wait patiently with me.

We discussed among other things: how the littles were praying for me, how worry, fear, complaining and judging others were all a complete waste of time and energy, that discernment is different from judging and discernment is a gift, and marriage. You see with a Tanzanian median population age of about 17 or so, Hilda and I being married for 36 years makes an impression. I am glad to say a good impression.

When we started our climb up and out this steep switch-backing muddy stair, debris from the others passage up made its way down through the thick lush brush to rain some on those waiting for my respiration to recover. Yes, steep is an effective if pale descriptor of the climb. Oh yes, Hilda made it to the top well before me having been helped the whole way by another guide. My final stop below the top let me look up to see Hilda and a bunch of littles looking down expectantly.

For those who know me and perhaps even travelled with me in the past, yes.. “are you Father Christmas?” ..was asked by one bright young one who hovered finding me comfortable and this was asked in English. All I could do was say that I am a friend of Father Christmas and that the young one can be too. Grandparents and parents aplenty are friends of Father Christmas aren’t they?

We then visited caves nearby that were dug by hand in the 17th century by the Chagga Tribe enabling the entire tribe and their animals to hide from Maasai raiders coming up the mountain during times of drought. Ingenious…

One more note about the littles getting comfortable with Hilda and I. Hilda was handed one little girls precious notebook for safekeeping while we were at the waterfall. We did not gather as many shoes as did the Momma’s herding and seated with us, but those gathered shoes led to lunchtime at the caves with Hilda, the caregivers, the littles and I in a circle. In that lunch circle many of the littles chose to bring me their bottles of water to open for them.

This, I think, is a great segue. Time. Time I don’t believe I have. Time and taking it anyway. Time to let any of Gods kids of any age get comfortable whatever it takes for them to get comfortable. So that they will bring you something they need to have opened up for them. Water is essential for life. Jesus opened up to us living water. Living water is essential for life eternal.

Two times those with us pointed out the community across the gorge from those stairs as where the first German Lutheran Missionaries came to Kilimanjaro, the first missionaries to what would become Tanzania. Somehow, without us being obvious, without wearing our crosses or having Swahili on the tips of our tongues, those in our company knew.

They knew that we were connected to that legacy, a mission legacy for this part of the world that the locals in our company hold near and dear for themselves and their nation.

Friends this world is unimaginable without that legacy, however imperfect. That is a legacy of love, Jesus Christ’s love for Gods own precious children, Gods own precious broken, striving to grow, thirsty, curious littles. I hope to always remember one solid little fellow, another one who did not yet speak in spite of his size, who had the right idea about opening that water bottle only it is tricky if you turn it the wrong way. I was so proud of his effort and even prouder when wordlessly he approached with his bottle, its cap all gouged with tooth marks, to hand it to me to find a way to open it.

The challenge for us who think we have the bottle open is that if we do, is that really all there is? No, this world needs us to respect and support that legacy of God’s love through His Son. Through Jesus’ churches and their people. Through the churches people from one to another, opening water, living water given by Jesus Christ because eternity is a long time without all of God’s littles and their stories to fill it with.

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Now what to pray about.. We could not have known what we have so amazingly been pulled into. Keep it up! I will strive to take the time, each and every moment. You keep throwing us at God’s love work. Love work that can be physically hard, but spiritually humbling and joyful.

And imagine seeing that love work, that love legacy in the work of a non-profit and not a church... God will find and send the willing, if not approved…

Some of you know my personal story about how we got here. How I was a candidate for Pastoral Ministry training with a North American flavor of the Lutheran Church. How the affirmation of the call on my life into pastoral ministry seemed unanimous among a committee of ordained leaders of that North American Lutheran flavor.

Yet, when I stressed that my call included being trained for ministry among the worlds impoverished and under the authority of a sister Lutheran Church here in Tanzania, a sister church that is one of the fastest growing churches on the planet, I was literally written off in a short paragraph as being too stubborn.

That tendency of those comfortable with their authority, what they know, to fear a change is problematic. That tendency to fear a different way, fear those birth-pangs of tomorrows love work of God happening without their direction and control, lives not only in North America but here in Tanzania too.

So far I have had one very unfortunate meeting with a leading steward of the Theology program at Tumaini University, Makumira. A university known for producing hymns found in three generations of Lutheran worship books in North America. A University known for producing pastors serving throughout sub-saharan Africa. Known for producing Pastors and other leaders who are being used to witness and participate in the growth of this one ..of the fastest growing churches on the planet.

Tomorrow’s church can’t look like todays church. Tomorrow’s human issues of brokenness and thirst for truth will be the same but the context of tomorrow’s world will be different.

Praying to the Lord of the harvest to send workers and then calling those willing to up-end their lives in order to grow into their call outside a familiar comfortable box of limited thinking too stubborn to be trusted for training into their call .. is schizophrenic. I have found it sad, deeply sad at best. I have also experienced it as yet another spiritual attack levied unintentionally by those caught up into a machine ..we call church.

We are all caught up into something that others must pray us into the company of Jesus for, so we may find forgiveness, healing, freedom, true living waters of God’s love.

Among my many crosses is the work-ahol-ism that has left my still young grandfathers body broken, battered and challenged. So what. I have your love empowered faith filled cords of prayer pulling me, pulling us, into God’s love work one face, one precious beloved face at a time.

I promise that by the help of God. That by the help of God laughing at me through Hilda. That we both will stubbornly sit on our stone and let shoes gather at our feet so others can find their way ever deeper into the water. Maybe then they will trust us to open up some living water for them, with the church of God’s people in service to God’s love work through Jesus.

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Please pray also that the church machine which is itself full of precious and loved people of God, shed some fear. Fear of The Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but only the beginning. Fear of change is a waste of time energy and too often tremendous opportunity.

Please pray also, that in spite of my deeply knowing that I am unqualified by lack of approved education and likely stubborn temperament, that I stay stubborn and seeking after all of them. The ones who don’t know the eternal quenching of the living water, and those who fear their machine changing, more, than precious others going thirsty.

Thank you, Thank You, Thank You.. Prayers, your prayer, 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,

We’ve been here for 4 nights and are now nearing the end of day 4. Power is intermittent and internet even more so. That is forcing us to rest into our altitude and time zone 10 hours ahead of WA.. sort of..

Here is a lodge in the foothills of Mount Meru on the hill above Tumaini University Makumira. It is not sustainable to stay here over the long run however I have finally learned with this, our most recent travel, that we needed family at each stop to recoup and recover.

So.. we were sitting at table downstairs our first morning eating breakfast. In tumbled a mom(US) and two girls(TZ).. they were having a girls day out.. I was wrong though.. as dad arrived(Kenya/UK) with three boys(TZ). They are a wonderful glorious mix of a family with all the children calm and comfortable but eagerly engaged with each other and then..

Hilda and I got swept into yet another family.

Day two we visited the Orphanage and education and child care facility about 5k up the hill above us that this family runs as part of an expanding non-profit. This was an almost too difficult climb for me at our elevation and second morning in Tanzania but thankfully they found and collected us by car for the final push up.

Their timing was perfect as I was nearing the end of my strength. They were all able to see a North American man with white hair willing to push himself that hard and that far, on his artificial knee and scarred lungs, and be vulnerable for the sake of coming to see them.

Good things are happening with local folks being in on all of it. More children have been safely gotten home to family than are currently in care. I was asked to preach to the littles by the head matron on sight and suspect I will at some point. God Help ME!

My phone was demanded from me on our second morning by our latest daughter, a Tanzanian woman the age of our sons, who has done amazingly in just a few short days and few dollars. My cellphone is now Tanzanian.

I have OK service up here at the lodge even without internet. I have excellent service down on the main road. If I have internet I have the ability to communicate with all kinds of folks with whom I do not share a common language and even some stateside.

This Tanzanian phone will force me to learn Swahili as that is the language the phone communicates to me in.

Day three and day four have been spent with Hilda evaluating Science labs at a private secondary school closed by the government after gun fire between the owner and the Principal. Closed about 5 years ago now several local nonprofits are working with local folks and authorities to see how they can re-establish the facilities to benefit the community.

The Primary School is in process of renovation for reopening. We fell into a need our first wakeful moments of daylight here and have made the time to help folks understand what is on site and what may be problematic with the facility and how to get around that.

It is a beautiful facility that nature and five years has hammered badly but the labs are large and well enough built to be worth time, effort, and investment. It has been a joy to be swept up, included, and be of benefit to folks, serving folks, who need Hilda, her experience, and even some of mine.

I may have my first meeting at Tumaini University Makumira, a few kilometers down the hill on Friday…

The powerful cords of your faith-filled praying have drug us into the company of those who need what we have to share and kept us busy from our first moments and that is what they are for. Your hard work on our behalf fills our hearts.

Thank you, Thank You, Thank You.. Prayers, your prayer, 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 -