Dear Cherished Interested,

Palms down and fingers open..

That is how I try to describe what I strive to be like with regards becoming a Pastor acceptable for use by the church machine. I do not have control over any of the process. I still do not know what the process is or will be.

It should take several years of study and training to get to where any diploma from here would find acceptance in Europe. Several Tanzanians have taken their Bachelors from here to Europe and entered Doctoral Programs there without a Masters level Degree, so strong and full the Bachelor degree program here in Tanzania seems to be.

No one has attended a theology program here from the U.S. No citizen of the U.S. has taken that training and challenged their home church machine to lift its eyes and seek value in that training. The church machine in the U.S. has another failure to admit to..

The report of Jesus’s words to those he sent out as recorded for us in Luke 10:2 ;

He said to them, “The harvest is bigger than you can imagine, but there are few workers. Therefore, plead with the Lord of the harvest to send out workers for his harvest. (Common English Bible)

As we in the U.S. make training programs ever more costly. As those programs fold and disappear over time becoming fewer and hence less inclusive. There are fewer workers being empowered for the work that is already on their hearts and minds. Work that is already quickening their feet, their sight, their hearing otherwise they would not seek it.

Ministry should never be a good business opportunity. Business is structured to be about competition. Ministry is a life opportunity. Ministry is a life opportunity in relationship through cooperation and even submission. Submission to the person of creation.

Much talk over the years at home has to do with who has power and who has what privilege. The who’s in question in these discussions are created human people callously grouped into presumptive boxes by other created human people twisting around hurts, injustices and fear of each other that are a result of sin. Missing the mark is sin.

Who is the mark maker? Who is the only person qualified to perceive all the missed marks by having in their person and their work what those marks are? Who then is the only person worthy of submission to?

In that light, I strive to keep my palms down and fingers open. To not hold on to what I think I understand or feel driven to seek. That authority which creates gravity to pull things from open downturned hands can most assuredly push into those same hands whatever is chosen by that authority.

For me that authority chose to shed its all-encompassing vastness in all ways and things to take up residence through love in the loving secret place that authority created in a young woman over two thousand years ago. That authority chose to be knitted together and grow in that created to be sacred place. Choosing to be made of the same things as that young woman and in fact growing out of that young woman’s willing sacrifices of substance, time, life, and cultural acceptance by her peers.

Then that authority chose to live among us. Chose to live as a created biological miracle like each of us. Chose to live a life of sacrifice in reflection of all of His parents’ choices. This He did for your sake, my sake, and the sake of that stranger way over there.

Surely those strangers created and loved as we are know how to.. plead with the Lord of the harvest to send out workers for his harvest.

Mchungaji is the Swahili word for Pastor. Mchungaji is an ordained position.

Here in Lutheran Tanzania many already refer to me as Mchungaji and Hilda as Mama Mchungaji. That is because the workers are few and those who show talent, those who choose to strive after a life of sacrifice in reflection of the only worthy authority, are ordained and put to work. Training given as need or opportunity comes.

There are PHD Mchungaji. There are Masters degreed Mchungaji. There are Bachelor degreed Mchungaji. There are certificated Mchungaji. There are Mchungaji who are simply ordained and sent out as workers. This is both new and familiar to Hilda and I.

We raised our children and indeed even ourselves in deep ways in that local Lutheran Church in Everson WA, choosing to serve both there and through that tradition, that machine. Before that, we had both been ordained lay people from a different North American Christian tradition, machine. People of Christ ordained into harvest work.

What has been additionally opened to my heart however is that the harvest ever more includes those within those Christian Traditions, machines, some of whom we call Lutheran. Loved and cherished precious people in those machines are ever more part of our harvest work as those living with the consequences of sin assail from the outside and those living with the consequences of sin assail from within those machines.

That authority that chose to be born of Mary stands ready to reconcile not only each of us from death and the grave to eternity with God, but also those who feel assailed on the inside of our church machines with those who feel unjustly, even casually driven out, ignored and excluded.

Cherished attending and praying friends we are amazed at that work where we are. Two nights ago we were surprised guests of two breath-taking and unexpected conversations.

First we were taken to meet and talk with a retired Tanzanian General and ambassador who in his long lifetime of service worked alongside and for the first President of this nation which found freedom in many of our lifetimes. A first president who was a teacher before becoming president of a young new nation with long-lived diverse and both familiar and strange traditions. A little like us in our U.S.

I was finally able to ask someone who was there and responsible about how this brand new nation Tanzania with their first teacher president had saved the rest of the world from a madman dictator back in the 70’s called Idi Amin Dada, and the consequences.

Yes, it felt much like talking with Alexander and Elizabeth Hamilton might have felt. Even at ninety-one he is full of passion, energy, excitement, story and patient wisdom that Alexander Hamilton perhaps did not live long enough for. She, the Tanzanian general’s amazing spouse, is perfectly suited match lacking nothing linguistically, intellectually or in passion to her partner in long life.

Then at our head shaking return to the lodge after a, short feeling, long evening of inclusive deep conversation, we found another young American daughter waiting with a young Tanzanian friend.

This was to be our second encounter with them. He was raised by the help of Compassion International. His challenging passionate outlook for his nation was bleak and seemingly hopeless at our first meeting. He listened, questioned, listened, questioned, challenged and they left. We thought nothing more of it.

Although late we sat with them on the entry porch and partook of yet another, a second, conversation that went challengingly deep. Eventually we were figured out enough to be trusted. His name is Erick. He has passion for God, his nation and her people too. He has come to see hope in what Hilda and I are connected with up on the hill at The Children’s Village and also connected with down near the big road at the School in Usa River.

Enough hope he wants to be part of it and how, and who, and he is choosing to try.. over disillusion and bleakness. Two young friends’ with minds just as capable as the General and spouse.

Yeah.. like that evening was just a result of a loveless randomly self-created universe full of miraculously intricate mechanisms leading to life just beginning to be understood by science..

Life is important. Life like we know it is important. Jesus is Mary’s precious baby boy, grown within her lovingly created womb because life is important. Our common precious pathway of growing into life with Jesus is important. Death is important only in as much as like the womb it is a lovingly created place for us to be taken into life eternal. The child of Christmas shares it all with us so His making the mark can be ours too.

Merry Christmas..

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What to pray for:

Whatever is on your heart and mind for us -

Thankfulness for the Rain –

More Rain –

Our Children and Grandchildren at home missing us –

We miss them too -

Erick, a Tanzanian, and his American Friend Abigail leaving for home soon –

Erik, my friend and brother, a North American Mchungaji braving what may with us –

A very much alive Tanzanian General and Spouse –

Our health, weakness, clear headedness, confusion, and emptiness so we aren’t in the way of the next surprising moment -

Two children returned to the Village as a home with a part of their family has been unsuccessful, so far –

Visa’s changing, refurbished house, and now to find a car that lets us travel and serve –

Success with understanding and completing directives given by college representatives –

Makumira Lutheran Secondary School looking for an American School to share with -

Mchungaji serving everywhere –

Thankfulness for being seen as useful to folks in their work and their lives –

Our ever expanding family –

Thankfulness for amazing answer to prayer -

Thankfulness for all of you –

Each of you and each 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 -