We were included in goings on up at the children’s village Saturday the 4th. I went along with computer and Bibles to use the internet in the office and even their printer so I could prepare for the Sermon I was expected to give Sunday.
I got the citations I was after copied into a single one page document as paper is rare here. I was about to print it out and pow… No power, no wi-fi, no printer. I laughed a good old belly laugh alone in an office without power.
I laughed because I know Gods sense of humor when I see it.
I was the only one in the office. The festivities going on in and around the buildings up above the office on the hill would go on just fine with the generator. No one else was affected in any important way. So obviously I did not need the printer, even if I thought I did. Nor did I need that full word document of citations, even though I thought I did.
We went to Pastor Ombeni’s church in Kilala Sunday morning arriving at 7:30 with my Common English Bible and a sheet of paper with the following three verses to remind me of the stories around them:
Mark Chapter 2 verse 5.. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Child your sins are forgiven”
Mark Chapter 10 verse 21.. Jesus looked at him carefully and loved him.
Luke Chapter 9 verse 23.. Jesus said to everyone, ”All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow me.”
Our invitation to offer a word from the word came and we stepped forward. Through an interpreter provided by the congregation we gave greetings as people sent by Freeborn Lutheran Church of Stanwood WA.
Then I paraphrased the story from Mark 2. It is the same story I shared here before we left the states to emphasize the tremendous power your faithful prayers have on where we find ourselves and how we are used in those unknown moments in surprising ways.
It is the story of Jesus in a home in Capernaum with so many people in and around outside, that friends carrying a paralytic could not get in the home to bring their paralyzed friend to Jesus. So, they tore the roof open and dropped their paralytic friend down on cords into the presence of Jesus.
The faith Jesus saw, of course, was the faith of those who carried the paralytic, tore open the roof, and dropped the paralyzed one into the His presence. In response to that faith Jesus forgave the sins of the paralytic and soon thereafter removed his paralysis. The former paralytic then picked up his mat and walked home. The paralytic’s faith had nothing to do with any of it, only Jesus choosing to respond to the faith of his friends.
What came out after the paraphrase was that as Christians it is a Privilege and a Joy to bring people on faith filled cords of love into the presence of Jesus. That it is something we as Christians can do for anyone.
That we all know someone in our families, our communities, who is paralyzed in some way by something, and that we can bring them into the presence of Jesus with our faith and Spirit inspired prayers knowing that Jesus can free them from anything.
Without citing the story of the Rich man going away saddened after Jesus tells him to sell everything, give the money to the poor and follow Him, Mark Chapter 10.. I expressed that wealth can paralyze people, people who Jesus loves. That it is a privilege to pray for and bring them into the presence of Jesus, to long for their sins and paralysis to be removed.
That we also know that poor people can be paralyzed by their circumstances and situations and that as the Spirit directs and inspires we should always take the time to respond and pray. Pray with all assurance that this record of Jesus and His character from 2000 years ago is still true today, tomorrow, and ever.
Then I asked this listening endemically poor Tanzanian Congregation to consider that if that is how Jesus responds to our faith for the benefit of those who may not yet even know him, just imagine how Jesus longs to help us who do know Him, do trust Him.
I pointed at myself and said that we all have something in each of us that is paralyzed.
It may be small. It may be big. It may be paralyzed for just a moment. It may have been paralyzed for our entire lives. Ask the Holy Spirit to take you to that paralyzed piece of yourself that Jesus longs for you to take to Him. It does not matter what you think of that paralyzed piece of yourself. It does not matter how ugly or wounded you think that piece of yourself may be. Take it into the presence of Jesus in Prayer. Jesus frees people.
This I managed to do without looking down once. I looked each and everyone there in the eye multiple times while speaking.. And they were looking back..
You dear people who know me know that I worry every word on the page like I worry every note on a score. You know that Vern in front of any group of people is unable to be there by himself, let alone without it all written out before hand and in front of him.
God laughs! It didn’t even seem that long.
Then Hilda was asked to share some words and she hit the ball out of the park taking folks to the first Chapter of John and Jesus being the word made flesh. That Christ was there at the beginning and is still with us today. Jesus can, Jesus will, that is the truth.
Service ran for a while still after we spoke and it was a special offering Sunday for Diaconal outreach.
The diocese (Synod in North American Lutheran Terms) seems to give multipoint parishes to pastors that take them to different communities of different depths impoverishment.
No one is to be left out, that is the striving. That means that no matter how poor a church may be it is still expected to help out. Help out so those places where there is no cash economy of any kind, where there is nearly no food and children and parents alike subsist on just one small meal a day as they hope and pray for rain, they too can be served by a Pastor and Evangelists sent by the diocese.
Hold your breath!
This endemically poor Tanzanian Congregation with many members only able to bring chickens and produce as offering raised over 2 million 400 thousand shillings in this one service. That is over $1090. It was a celebration. It was an arm twisting among some of the men. It was Mamas giving out of their families need to empty their purses for the sake of other endemically impoverished people.
It is empathy. It is knowing what it is to have only dust and not wanting others to be left in that state. How will these knowingly empathetic folks get by now with their purses empty?
Their truest and deepest earthly reserves are found in their extended families and neighbors who, like them, will not let others go without something even if it comes off their own table, out of their own trees, out of their own cow, chicken or goat.
Service ended at about 10:30, only three hours.
Hilda and I were lovingly greeted by one of the married couples we had been trusted to give premarital counseling to before we left, Paul and Mary. They are so young, so real, so beautiful, so joyfully inclusive of such as us.
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Then came Monday..
Pastor Lazarus is another ELCT Pastor who chose to step up and translate for us at events we were part of. Pastor Lazarus, 41 years old and full of energy, collected us Monday morning to take us to his remote parish about an hour away.
This remote parish is not among the Meru people. It is among the Maasai people. Pastor Lazarus learned of my time among the Maasai further west of here, sixteen and seventeen years ago, and offered to include us in his visitations among his Maasai parish.
We went.
We have been deeply touched, deeply impressed, by the inclusion extended us by so many in such a short time. We’ve been here for a month and a week. There is deep need everywhere and one could be swallowed up by it. One could also become hardened and immune / choosing to be blind to it.
Pastor Lazarus drove to his remote Parish of Maasai Pastoralists living on the low broad flood plain below the mountains. I had seen this type of scrub and desolation of dust before many years ago west of here.
Cows and goats eat the vegetation away, completely gone but for the large thorns that are gathered to make the kraals. Kraals are where the herds are gathered too each night.
This is the home of the Maasai who, unlike the Meru and the Chagga who marry only one wife, marry multiple wives. They choose to live out the directive in Genesis, go forth and multiply. The Kraals are in the center of a circle of huts, homes, inhabited by the many descendants of one grandfather. The people surround the kraals to protect the highly piled thorn barriers that protect the animals.
Cows are the currency. Cows are spent to purchase wives. That means that girls are sold for cows. Judgement is a waste of energy. These folks love their children and long to find better tomorrows for each. If that means using their traditional means then that is what they use.
I’m now going to talk about an even tougher subject.
Starting with that amazing acceptance Hilda and I have been given. How amazing?
Pastor Lazarus was going to collect a Maasai daughter from her parents and return her to his own home. She had been living with his family attending school and training as a chef until a European man befriended Pastor and offered to pay this precious Maasai daughter to clean house and cook. Further he offered to pay secondary school fees for yet another Maasai daughter.
Why secondary school (grade 7 and up) is so very important for Maasai daughters is because if they can stay in school they have a government protected right to stay in school. If they cannot afford school or do not have the grades to continue in school they have no government protected right to be in school. About grade 7 is when many girls are therefore traditionally exchanged into marriage for cows. The young Maasai daughter mentioned above has an additional new mother who is younger than she is.
Back to this 71 year old European wanting a housekeeper and cook. That was a fabrication. Pastor had to suddenly collect her from the Europeans service and return her to her family on the lowlands full of dust. The European was intending to remove her from the country to Europe and further was insisting that she sleep with him otherwise the other girl would lose her school fees. Then Pastor had to deal with the police regarding the removal of a servant from someone’s premises.
We were going with this very Pastor to collect this very girl. We were going with this very brave Pastor to collect this very brave girl. Why did he want white people in his car??..
There is more..
While traveling Pastor was asking question after question and decided to trust us. Pastor had very recently just ended meetings with other European parties managing a large farm producing products exported for consumption in Europe.
Those parties also have a Safari Lodge here in Tanzania. He discovered that they too were looking for girls with no options and likely nearly nothing to go home to. They were trying to help Pastor form an NGO that on paper educated Maasai daughters but in actuality intended to traffic them at their lodge and likely further afield to where their families would never hear from nor know what happened to them.
Why did he want white people in his car??.. Why would he even consider taking me, a white man, on visitations within his Maasai Parish??..
You dear praying people need to consider that Hilda and I have been put into the life of this one precious pastor in direct response to your prayers.
I understand the near tears in his eyes and his grabbing and holding my hand tight to his shoulder in relief as we discussed what he did not want to. As we discussed how precious each Maasai daughter is because they are each Gods daughter, because they are the future and possibly even the source of others borne by them, each a future, a forever with God as God has intended. Just like you. Just like me. Like strangers everywhere.
Yes Hilda and I were horrified and furious with what this servant of The Lord has had to live through, what his charges have had to live through. But, now you can glimpse just how amazing the acceptance and inclusion is that we have received. Received each and every morning we open our eyes here.. You Pray, The Sprit, Jesus, and God all listen..
Hilda and I just go along for the ride hanging on for things we don’t know are coming.
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Whatever is on your heart for us –
Our strength, weakness, vulnerability, humility, openness -
Gratitude for rain -
for more rain -
Gratitude for verbal job offers for Hilda -
that we make the choices God wants -
Makumira Secondary School from prior posting hoping for a sister school -
Gratitude for Makumira Secondary School including Hilda again on the 8th in last day ceremonies.. until January 17th when they start up again -
Our children and Grandchildren missing us –
We miss them too -
Our weird wonderful stuck-on impossibly inclusive family here in TZ -
You amazing praying people -
Each of you and each and every prayer –
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Adding some more as it is now the 9th of December which is Independence Day here in TZ. I hope that some of what Hilda and I share in these postings describes some deeply good things that are both new and familiar.
We came without any known contacts here. Both of our Dear siblings in Christ who lived and served others here died of Covid this year before I was able to return. We came anyway. We came with the support of amazing, praying, worshipping congregations and people from where we raised our precious biological children and even further afield.
Our Independence Day in the US is louder and more boisterous because we can afford those things in celebration of both our dissolution of relationship with Britain almost 250 years ago and a renewed relationship with many sister nations around the world since as striving equals, not as subjugated peoples.
I point to this as a mirror into what we can hope for our children. That as we age and they mature their independence in time willingly chooses interdependence with us their imperfect parents. This we hope for our children as we see them, their grandparents, and their great-grandparents in the people we encounter anywhere we go.
I had a conversation with my grandmother on the steps of the Children’s village just a week ago. She was speaking to me through an octogenarian nurse who comes to care for the many children and to teach parents nutrition and so many other things.
We hope for a growing interdependence with our children both begotten and stuck on because, if they can overcome our very real and perceived imperfections to choose that interdependence, then they are well and thoroughly on the road to deep interdependence with their perfect parent.
Their perfect parent who had them each lovingly in mind and on an effusively loving heart before the first creation words were spoken.
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Our blog is not perfect either. As one clicks the button to give financially they are taken to someone named: Kajun Crofton.. She is our daughter.. She was lovingly named after my mother and Hildas mother, Katherine June. Squish the names together and you get Kajun. Crofton is the name, her gift of a son to us, gave to her. Without her help we would be voiceless. We are thankful for her help in these many things.
For those who have given financial support we are grateful.
We are grateful for all of you. We are grateful for God and our daily opportunities.
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 -
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