Dear Cherished Interested,

My hearing for working machinery and music is good.

Both mother and daughter have the exact same sweet, kind, clear and soft voice. Their movements and cast of their eyes make them at least closely related. Were it not for mothers head being shaven in the married Maasai way, and the daughter wearing a western style dress her long hair up and draped in mourning with a scarf, sisters would have been a good safe assumption. But no, mother was mother very young and so she could have a 21 year old daughter and still herself be in her thirties.

A few posts back Pastor Lazarus collected us and took us to his Maasai Parish down on the dry flood plain. Pastor Lazarus included us in spite of having had two very recent brushes with white European men seeking to traffic young impoverished women from this area.

At that time, we met a Maasai daughter from that parish of families subsisting on no more than one meal a day. She had been removed by Pastor Lazarus from one of the two recent attempted trafficking situations he had faced. She got to know Hilda and I on the way from the parish back to and up mount Meru to Pastor Lazarus’s home.

Pastor Lazarus had included us that day in spite of our being white. He had also included us in spite of having spent the night taking and staying with his father in the hospital. We did not know until we were in the car with him and on the way. He had to stop and speak with his sister who was walking along the road to the hospital to be with their father.

Pastor Lazarus is older than our children though still slightly younger than us. He is nearly the youngest among his siblings. Their father was born in 1913. Yesterday, the 29th, we attended the funeral of that 108 year old Meru man.

There, among the hundreds in attendance, that Maasai daughter came and found us taking our hands and insisting to take us from among the many standing to seats. Insisting to sit with us in a wonderful, out of the way place, away from where the honored and presiding sat.

Thankfully we were late arriving having walked from the children’s village half an hour or so to the church we had been informed the service would be at only to discover it had been moved to the family home about 20 minutes back and just down the hill from the children’s village.

After the three hour service and internment there at the family home, it was time to feed the throngs. We were hoping to perhaps slide out as folks started to move to one of the food stations.

We had been spotted. Before anyone around us could be released to go eat, we were summoned, collected wordlessly. With Hilda being led by her hand once again by that precious Maasai daughter, we were taken to the presiding and honored guest station for feeding. There we were given seats in front and next to Bishop Kitoi’s spotless white landcruiser.

Our Maasai keeper at this large Meru family home left us there for only a little time as she went and collected her mother to sit at my right as she sat on Hilda’s left. This is how we came to hear and study the voices of these two young women.

I know that mothers and daughters can and do sound alike. Cousins too can have nearly identical voices, inflections, lilts but most often there is something that separates two individuals, especially a parent from a child. I have been able to listen to a vocal performer and then go home and write music for that specific voice and have it be right.

One had to listen for the difference brought about by station, mother versus daughter, but that was very subtle. When that authority piece was removed these two sweet kind clear soft voices are to date the closest voices I have yet to hear. That made the two styles of dress, Maasai Traditional verses African-western somewhat jarring with the same eyes looking to each other from both sides of us. I’m still adjusting/learning.

I had been honored by this Maasai daughter’s father while visiting their Boma by being the one given the stick. His very own dark beautifully cleanly shaped and polished walking stick to use as we took a walking tour of their home.

He made the trip up the mountain to be with his pastor in their family grieving of lost patriarch. I had caught a flash of his chosen Maasai wrap color during service among those hundreds and found his head tilted and eyes waiting to meet mine with a calm open knowing smile full of acceptance.

When seated between this proud father’s daughter and one of his wives, her mother, all I did was take the index finger of each hand to indicate his daughter on the left and his wife on the right. Then bringing those fingers together side by side and shaking my head in amazement I tried to show that I had noticed the near perfect cloning hidden beneath the different clothing. His sturdy chest rose even further with tremendous pride.

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Between Christmas and New Year many of the children at the village receive opportunity to return to some part of their extended families for a time together. This is one of the many ways that this group of folks strives to find ways to bring families back together for the sake of each child. As a result this week has had only a few children at the village with the Mamas. Most of the Staff is gone for a well-deserved, hard-earned, time with their own families.

Unfortunately not all family reunifications work. Not all work right away. Two young girls returned to the children’s village this same week so many were able to be gone.

Hilda was asked to evaluate and work with these two girls as their grades indicate that the time spent in attempted reunification has severely affected their academic performance.

So, Tuesday through Friday, today, we have been up at the children’s village each morning to work with these precious ones. I have been Hilda’s co-teacher allowing each child to have one on one effort. This type of effort is unheard of within the school environment here and ever more so even at home in the states.

I really felt we made a couple good breakthroughs especially today.

With nearly no staff available that means nearly no drivers so we have been walking quite a bit. There has been insistence that we get collected and driven up the hill each morning. However we have been able to insist that we walk wherever we need to after that. So, counting the trek up the hill from Kilala church Sunday, we have walked about fourteen miles together this week.

Not bad for a fake knee on uneven and steep ground. Hilda of course is a dynamo only starting to slow down some today.

This walking as opposed to being driven around brings us into more contact with people. We are pleased to report that with local Pastors including us, letting us drive their vehicles around, us attending events and being seen there, that we have become known.

That means that we are not asked for money very often. That sets us apart from the typical tourist. We are not often drawn into long conversations with limited vocabulary because we have been seen figured out, included, and accepted.

The humor that is seen on the faces of those who witness us carefully disengaging from the rare inebriated individual is in fact a sign of that acceptance as well.

The walk up from Kilala church on Sunday was 3 miles up from almost the big road. We were facilitated on this trek by the weather turning to rain and keeping us cool. Also assisting was one local who walked with us from about the half way point to make certain we did not lose our way here where roads are trails and there is no signage.

It was during this walk up the hill that I noticed the change.

Instead of folks looking at us and trying to figure us out, the words from many properties we passed were in Swahili or Meru directed to the local who walked with us. They were making certain that he was guiding us correctly and was not going to take advantage.

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Hilda’s house is to be ready soon. In theory, this coming Monday, the 3rd of January ’22.

There are friends of friends now on the look-out for a mechanically sound motor vehicle around the nearby communities that is large enough for me to get into and out of.

Appearance does not matter to me. In fact I would prefer something that was ugly and abused on the outside as it would be uninteresting to those who might want to break a window to look for something. Lead not into temptation is something one has to strive after here for others.. just like at home.

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What to Pray for:

That our many friends and family in the states having hard winter weather stay safe -

Whatever is on your heart and mind for us –

Thankfulness for the rain we have had –

For more rain –

For a Meru family moving on without a man they’ve had for 108 years –

For Makumira Secondary School seeking to partner with a school outside Tanzania –

For the many victims of human trafficking –

For the renewing of hearts and minds so human trafficking is no more –

God wants to free people from whatever traps them, even traffickers are trapped –

For our Children and grandchildren missing us –

We miss them too –

Visa’s –

Our strength, our weakness, vulnerability and challenging our own uncomfortable –

Gratitude for the many friends and family getting stuck onto our lives here –

Gratitude for the many improvements from 16 years ago that I am witness to here –

Thankfulness for answer to prayer, continual answer to prayer –

Each Prayer –

Each and every one of you who do that hard work of keeping us in Gods hands –

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 -