Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Dear Cherished Interested’s, 

June 25-28th 2022

Saturday morning.. and we are up at The Children’s Village so Hilda can teach, monitor teaching and of course add more to her plate by adding another story-time to the day.

There is a story-time Saturday evenings for the residential care children up here at the village in which, as technology functions, a Zoom meeting brings a story reader live from some other part of the world to these littles right here. These littles whose home is this place of several buildings terraced into the steep sides of Mount Meru.

To say this story-time and the Friday night story-time at Silverleaf Academy down in Usa[pronounced Ooosa] for those residential school kids takes weekly research, planning and time is to say far too little about far too much. Still Hilda wanted to spread a love for reading into yet another group of children.

Saturday morning’s this well protected and loved Children’s Village opens for supplemental education for children of the surrounding community. Some of this, surging mass of beautiful eager youth, are getting their very first story-time today. Hilda with computer and projector left the office just a little while ago and I can hear her boisterously animated and happy recitation of a story projected for the littles to read for themselves while hearing it.

Volume is not a problem, obviously, as there are two walls between us and I’m blasting Telleman as loud as the laptop computer in front of me will go but can still make out Hilda’s happy tones.

Why blast Telleman? Why not? Besides, it dares the peek through the door into the office so the ones who dare to peek can get the reward of being seen, acknowledged, smiled and waved at. Words aren’t necessary when the old hairy white guy who drives Hilda around and who the Mama’s call Mchungaji Kisali looks so much like a ridiculously oversized Father Christmas.

Their curious smiles, shining eyes and waves in response are far better than words for me too.

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Back up to The Children’s Village for Monday morning meeting. Just had a brief in truck cab meeting with a vital one for this community about where the truck is to be useful this week. That is, at least for the current moment.

Moments bring change. When at work as The Spirit directs, one often finds the prevalence of change a direct sign of the Spirit, as The Spirit uses those who seek to not let their own limited intellects and wisdoms be in complete control of every moment, every plan.

Are you feeling trapped and stagnant? Is everything comfortably under control? Does that bother you?

That is good. That is good because it means The Spirit is tapping on your shoulder and steering your vision, perhaps preparing to quicken your feet by disturbing your heart, disturbing your comfortable, your familiar. Let go of those things and ask The Spirit, ask Jesus, ask God to pour into your heart. Then wait.. and hold on. Go ahead. Do it. Love you for considering it for even the briefest instant.

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In the quiet before that last rush of arrivals for Monday morning meeting when walkers from the surrounding community arrive with their little ones for baby school and preschool. A familiar sight is a young girl, barely woman, with a blanketed well clothed bundle wrapped to her back or clenched in her arms to her chest, a little head on her shoulder.

There was one pair this morning. Arriving all alone for me to see while working in the truck and they bring again the wondering of: is that a brave big sister bringing her little sibling or little cousin or little neighbor.. or is that perhaps another brave, too young, mother bringing her very heart, the very fruit of life from her, too young, yet mighty womb to trust that heart here, in this place, on this mountain?

I can hear the thoughts, some even leaking out of myself over the years.

We don’t know whether the woman of that womb was knowing or unknowing, willing or even.. unwilling. None of that matters to a too young mother and the life that sprung knitted lovingly together out of bits self-sacrificially given by the one trusted to have that precious and mighty womb.

Forgive me for being less than politically appropriate.

Forgive me please as I risk being mistaken for being brazenly insensitive for daring to give a definition of inexpressible beauty. That is a young girl, barely woman, with a blanketed well clothed bundle wrapped to her back or clenched in her arms to her chest, a little head on her shoulder. If she is a mother, no matter how young, she is a woman and she is beautiful. That beautiful woman has chosen to, or unwillingly at first, sacrifice more, than over half of us can know, to bear and bring another living one like her precious self into a world that believes lies about lots of things.. especially about her.

The wrong side of the tracks.

That idiom means something to North Americans of a certain age group. Who needs to hear the message of Jesus more than those who are least likely to have examples of it in their lives? Many of those who do this hard caring for children here are themselves from tortured, abused, and difficult backgrounds that required overcoming, salvation from.

Hilda and I are profoundly affected, even at this stage of our lives, as we live with others who have had to be self-reliant from their earliest years and are surprised that we are still here. Surprised we haven’t given up and fled back to where we came from. They are surprised too that if they, like the littles peeking through the office door, dare to open up even a little about something that we will strive to put them first.

If that means turning Telleman down and listening?..! If that means acknowledging the hard won pride and hard won love in the life in front of us and sharing burdens of any kind, then that is what we are to strive to do.

Hilda’s little truck has been pressed into service in late after work hours this last week helping the cousin of someone from the wrong side of the tracks. The one from the wrong side of the tracks was raised by the same grandmother who raised his cousin. His cousin, who loves him like a brother, and uses her tremendously impressive entrepreneurial insight, work ethic, and trust of such as us, to do simple things no matter how difficult.

Simple things for large, connected, mostly unbroken and joyful families. Not so simple for bits and pieces of often discouraged remnants of families from the wrong side of the tracks.

Big parties are expected. Big engagement party to celebrate a bride to be, and her family. Big wedding and party afterword to celebrate the groom and his family, of whatever size and make-up, as well as the precious new couple. The two made one who are seed for more family.

Hilda’s driver got to help by hauling sixty cases of soda pop in half liter glass bottles and crated twenty bottles up. This, Hilda’s little truck did in two loads crawling slowly around the unmarked rutted tracks high on Mount Meru many kilometers above the big road.

There were two deliveries, one for the engagement party and one for the wedding. The cousin who works with, and lovingly watches out for both Hilda and I, managing communication and directing quite literally every bottle and every turn. She quite comfortably even reached over and blew the horn in warning for anyone coming at us unseen due to rise, twist, turn or hidden intersection in the track.

Then Hilda’s driver escorted this infinitely capable one to her cousin’s bride’s engagement party Thursday night. And Hilda to the wedding on Saturday.

Back story is that the young man getting married has no living parents and was raised by others. His bride’s family are also from the wrong side of the tracks. There are wealthier, better connected, elements who were maligning the couple and their ability to pull off any sort of gathering as is expected.

Shame was expected. So, shame was projected. So, the grooms cousin said.. NO!

The groom’s cousin worked her job all last week and worked with Hilda’s driver after hours to get things collected and delivered. Then, after sending Hilda’s driver home,” to rest”[finger wave included], she worked through the night.

She worked several nights preparing the locations. Then she showed her determination and love by making sure the bride slept while helping to prepare her gown and other attire. She did the brides hair, make up and dressed her so everything was perfect walking every step of the way with the bride so nothing ever got out of place.

This is a massive undertaking that needs a committee, she organized that too. And she found and stretched too little money to purchase everything, including the best beef and chicken I’ve had since getting here. This for hundreds of guests. Sound system, DJ, tents and chairs, security, and always time for aunts and uncles, friends, and always.. the Bibi who along with precious auntie and uncle who raised the groom.

Never underestimate folks from the wrong side of the tracks.

Since starting on this section yesterday, Hilda’s driver got called away to help get a pick-up truck back on the road. A Toyota Hilux that had gotten flown half way across a meter deep rubble and mortar ditch. Then the truck punched into the high bank on the other side of the ditch wracking the steering and other front axle components way out and giving that corner of the truck some cosmetic challenges too. No obvious radiator or engine damage though.

The truck came to rest one front tire in the high bank, one, diagonally opposite, rear tire was on the road. The other rear tire was in the air, the other front tire resting in the air near the bottom of the ditch. No wreckers are available, let alone adequate to the task. I have no tow rope or chain of any kind yet. However, given that this vehicle is owned by one of the community’s, indeed Tanzania’s, most treasured still living persons, most of his male staff was attending the scene.

Definitely someone from the right side of the tracks, here, but what is here if not the wrong side of the tracks for too many to notice? I was honored to be trusted to be called. I was called by a neighbor who loves this person. I just knew that Hilda’s driver was only going to be a fifth-wheel, old, in the way, spoiled, white guy, ridiculously underfoot.

The staff, of this beloved personage, are all white-haired guys like me. They did bring a couple young ones along to learn. They left and returned with an older work truck filled with dirt and rock. Without language all of us white haired guys started packing rock over to fill the ditch under the rear tire left high in the air. I was able to grab a couple shopping bags from Hilda’s truck as I had left it. They were good for moving dirt for this ditch filling operation.

That loving neighbor is the adoptive dad/uncle to our Sunday school helpers. One of those Sunday school helpers was also on scene. He eagerly pitched in to fill one bag while the other was carried and dumped. He and his dad/uncle were full of questions about how Hilda’s driver would proceed so I noted a couple things about how preparations to the scene were going for an attempt to get the truck back on the road, hopefully under its own power.

Before I knew it those things were eagerly shared by that gifted young translator whose hands were now dirty like all the old guys hands were. I didn’t expect him to say anything at all. He must have said it right. The staff head man paused, looked, then re-directed the guys again. I knew the attempt was ready when that head man, the professional and long-time driver to the personage, walked to the driver’s door, right side here.

All the largest guys, including this old one, clawed our way into the bed of the truck and sat above that high in the air rear tire. The truck started and ran without even much fan against fan shroud tic. First attempt didn’t completely work. But it did get both front tires into the ditch. However we had prepared and the ditch was filled in mostly the right places.

This on a steeper portion of the road up the mountain from the big road to the first hospital erected here over a hundred years ago by German Lutheran missionaries.. Right across the road from the first church of nearly the same date.

Even with good guessing there still was a high rear tire and much of the ditch fill had followed the now significantly freed trucks precipitous acquiescence to gravity. The truck was turned off immediately followed by further wordless evaluation by old white-hair-eds. Some of the younger guys were starting to have the cast of defeat about them and were standing hunched against the cold silently watching, a couple arguing and pointing.

Believe it or not the driver, and Hilda’s driver, moved at the same time without speaking. He went back to and through the driver’s door. I crawled back into the bed of the pick-up and our Sunday school helper eagerly raced me to the high side of the truck again.

Several other fellows joined and those who could reach the cab-guard held on tight. The others held on to them. I had one hand for the cab-guard the other against the back of our Sunday school helper who could only cling to the side of the bed, just in case.

The truck started and everyone in the bed of the truck threw their weight to the high side. Down it went and the tire caught with a little jerk of movement then the other side took air and we all threw our weight over there. Back and forth, little by little, it crawled out of the ditch as it also fell downhill and back onto the road.

Part way through this somewhat questionable maneuver there was a moment of stillness long enough to get almost everyone out of the truck bed. Especially our Sunday school helper lovingly retrieved over the side by his dad/uncle who had dashed in for that unspoken purpose.

Almost everyone was out of the truck bed. Hilda’s driver just can’t move very fast anymore but was enough weight to throw for the very last bit. There was excellent driving by the head-man with a truck floundering, two front tires pointing wall-eyed and only one of them still straight up and down.

Hilda and her co-workers had passed by the scene together in a Children’s Village mini-bus to go to the office at Silverleaf Academy in Usa. Hilda’s driver caught up with her there and changed into Sunday clothes to attend the funeral of a Children’s Village guard’s mother. Then helped that determined loving cousin to collect those sixty cases of empty bottles and get them returned.

One gets to hear great stories when hanging out with the worker bees from the wrong side of the tracks.

What had been expected to be more hard times, for folks over there, love had overcome. Both families were overjoyed for how everything had turned out. Both families had done all they could and everyone bubbled when talking as they all completely believe that God had overflowed the cups of even their greatest unexpected hopes.

Love is real. These two families will never forget. And they are tied together by what they can’t believe they witnessed for their now married children.

Centurions, Canaanite women, Samaritans and Gentiles like most of us. We all started out on the wrong side of the tracks until someone chose to be available, listen, perhaps challenge some and then participate. That Jesus still chooses us. We can do nothing of any value without him. Nearly everything we do with Him, no matter how seemingly small, turns into something of deep lasting value for someone we will be sharing forever with. That’s a little of what we get to be part of.

In theory there is a donation of furniture from a local re-opening lodge tomorrow. Mount Meru Lodge established 1959 is under new ownership. So glad they want to help. That is what the Monday plan was anyway. We’ll see what the next five minutes brings.

Sorry too many stories to share but glad to get these out there..

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Okay one more.

Eighteen years ago while being the wheels for a palliative care nurse out of the Selian Lutheran Hospital in Arusha, the old hospital not the new one, a group I was part of visited patients. The neighbor, an elderly Maasai man, of one of those patients, also an elderly Maasai man, blessed our group leader, a gutsy and infinitely capable woman. He blessed her including what we would consider an inappropriately intimate laying on of hands. He nearly got his block knocked off. Yes, it was written all over that dear woman.

Turn around is fair play. God got me yesterday while collecting cases of empty bottles.

I’d been to the funeral before so had the Crucifix and corn husk rosary a Mexican brother from Freeborn Lutheran Church had given me around my neck. This as a wonderfully ancient and always surprisingly skeletal Meru Mountain Man with full beard, knit cap, blanket, and walking staff spied me waiting for a key to arrive.

The loving and capable cousin mentioned above who usually tells me to ignore trouble, listened to her mother Meru coming from this wonderful man who saw me, and instead asked if I had any coins. I had to stand and dig but found one. I gave it to him.

I have no Meru to speak of but one can know when someone has chosen to really love you. After laughing together two tall old men with beards and no common language but God, I got my blessing.

I already have four kids and six grandkids. Isn’t that blessing enough?

If only I’d stayed sitting in the truck.. Have to get more coins in the ash tray.

Seriously though, back in the truck moments later and laughing about what had just happened, my eye went to the rear view mirror on the driver’s door. There walking away up the mountain rising behind, about a quarter of a kilometer away, was my brother Christian, staff raised high above his head along with both arms. His whole body expressing joyful prayer as he walked up his mountain.

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Also please continue to Pray for:

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

Hilda’s invisibility to those who can only see their own authority –

Sorry, still my Visa situation -

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

All the tough and blessing expressed above –

The love of folks –

Whatever is on your hearts and minds for us –

For our children and grand-children who miss us.. we miss them too..

I continue to be under much harsh spiritual attack concerning my sense of self-worth and those many things I have yet to get to, please, only as you are comfortable, remember me, indeed us.. the world doesn’t like what we are doing out of love we don’t own.. yet have none the less -

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

For a way for us to invest with our experience and even financially in support of local industrious people so we can afford to stay and continue to make a difference one face at a time –

For those who have braved the donate button to discover Kajun Crofton, our daughter who helps getting each one of your donations to us and every blogpost to where you can read it –

For you who find other ways to uplift and support us -

For each and every one of you –

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

Prayers, Your Prayer, skipping stone and even groaning prayers make 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 -

Monday, June 13, 2022

Dear Cherished Interested’s, 

Keep it up, and thank you again for those moments of prayer. Even just one instant of throwing us at God. That is right where we need to be.

About 25 years ago Hilda and I and family met another family. A family who had traveled so Maasai father could attend Trinity Lutheran College, formerly Lutheran Bible Institute, located in Issaquah WA. We met them at Church, Immanuel Lutheran Church, in Everson WA. At that time they asked about Hilda and I, and we about them, and the decision was made that we would pray for each other. They wrote us down for specific prayer. They were meeting so many people while in the US.

It was with them in those brief moments in a receiving line where both Hilda and I openly communicated in any public way that we hoped to become missionaries. Arguably, we have been missionaries in many ways much of our lives especially if we regard the mission as that stated in Matthew 28, The Great Commission. A co-mission we have learned together through serving each other, our children, other children, other children’s folks, other folks, community, stranger, each however imperfectly, requiring us to hold onto God and that precious person, Lord and Savior Jesus.

It is most often culturally unacceptable to speak of such things in public. And, care must be taken when speaking of such things in private too. One must always consider the audience and if love keeps you quiet, let love pick a time. If time is brought by love for you to speak, don’t hesitate. The smallest of spoken or unspoken speaking by action or inaction can be used. And, if no time, no opportunity comes for you to speak about God, leave it. Trust God to be at work whether you are there or not.

Back to prayer.. So, two couples from opposite sides of the earth agreed to pray for each other. Communication, being most significantly limited over the intervening years, lead us to last week. That precious African Maasai husband and father had died a year ago, February 28th. My closest cultural bridge into this part of the world is who died a year ago February 28th. He was that to many folks.

As you all know, we came anyway. Part of our being here has been a long search with many false starts and dead ends to find this Maasai Pastor, Teacher, Missionary’s precious spouse and son. Last Wednesday, thanks to Reverend Dr. Justin Mungure of the Cathedral in Usa River. He and I traveled to the far side of Arusha to find Mama Mchungaji Lemboris Justo Polangyo, Janet.

She had not had to sell and leave the home she and her husband had shared. She was not on the far western side of the country. She was not way down south nor up in the Northwest near Kenya. Lemboris is buried in their garden, her garden. She is well. She is amazing. After finding her Justin had chosen not to tell her who he was bringing to visit her. She greeted Justin through the passenger window of the truck before I could bend low enough to be seen.

We haven’t seen each other since their prior home in 2005. I knew it was Janet while driving up the road as she has not changed one iota. After bending low to get my head away from the roof of the truck, Janet instantly recognized me. My hand was sought for, taken, and words poured out as tear brightened eyes. Thank you for praying this into our lives. God does not need us to take care of anyone and can often simply take them home to himself for the most perfect best of care. I am amazed and humbled. The beard was no longer muddy red but white. She saw and knew me anyway.

Okay from here, in Usa, you head west into and significantly through Arusha on the road that takes you to Nairobi Kenya, the big main road. It was new ground for me so it felt a very long journey but really wasn’t. While traveling west you look for a sign for a business called Maasai-land. That is where you turn right, North-ish, off the main road onto village roads and follow those signs for just a little bit. Then you turn right again. You leave those signs to head East-ish on village roads and just past the new Seventh Day Adventist Church, on the right, you look for a Gate on the left, among the multitudes of gates in the high walls at the side of the road. If Janet is waiting outside the gate, you have found it. There, that’s the simplest version of directions involving unmarked twists and turns.

Janet’s son David is currently in Seattle and a pilot in training with Alaska Airlines. Janet and I were able to muse about how children grow and get crazy busy so communication, even when facilitated by modern tech, becomes sparse. We can still pray for them all and use these vacuums drawing at our hearts to exercise and grow our trust in God who made, knows and loves them so much better than we.

Feel free to contact me if you want more and I will try to provide what you want. Again, Thank you..

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This is Monday and yesterday I tried an experiment. I wrote out a message in English tying the three scheduled readings for that Sunday together. I then had my young co-presenter of messages to The Mama’s of The Children’s Village read it while he and his compassionate, caring, amazingly capable, and highly confident brother were waiting for breakfast. Hilda feeds them eggs cheese and rice. That and Juice has turned out to be a favorite Sunday morning repast before our race through two Sunday Schools and message for Mama’s.

After the Mama’s singing hymns, we asked permission to try our experiment. I read the prepared message in English, phrase by phrase, and my teenage Genius co-presenter struggled through successfully translating a much more complicated message than ever before into Kiswahili.

The Mama’s were pleased and the Mama’s were proud. My Genius co-presenter and his brother both had their earthly salvation and start right here among these very Mama’s.

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We’re up here again today for a regular Monday Morning meeting. I’m working in the truck in the rain and waving at folks coming up the steep mountain to The Children’s Village. Woman of all sizes ages and shapes with children wrapped in cloth tied to their backs.

Two days ago on Saturday Hilda was not teaching as usual up here. Instead there was a bi-annual gathering in support of reunification. Reunification is where a child, or children, are successfully returned to life with some remaining part of their birth family. The brilliant self-sacrificing global citizen - North American Woman, who trusts us with her sons, her Children’s Village children and Mama’s on Sunday, spoke briefly with me of the tremendous value in gathering familial remnants in an intentional and strictly nonjudgmental way.

It allows participating to see each child is taken care of. It allows former residents of the village to see those they had spent much of their early life growing up with. It allows children to see some piece of where they came from before the village and perhaps renew some small hope in belonging outside the village and nearby community.

Then there are those children who are quite literally the last of the line, or otherwise alone. There are no participating adults for them.

Well, that’s when Babu is called forward to stand behind some precious little man who arrived into care too late and is the size of 4 or 5 but has clung tenaciously to life on this earth for 9 or 10 years. After the obligatory affirmation by applause and photos, God and whispered permission by caring one, gave me the good sense to pick him up, this tiny old man permanently stunted in any developmental measure, and hug him. Hug him away from any camera and tell him how proud I am of him. Surprisingly those tiny thin arms squeezed back, hard. Thankfully his younger twin siblings got here earlier in their development but drug use and neglect by parents weigh hard on their growing too.

Good news is that old young man didn’t fade, trying to become invisible, into the background of many better off children yesterday. He hears just fine. He doesn’t speak. Instead, he walked right up with a smile and bumped my fist before darting away still smiling.

If you remember one of our earliest posts upon arriving and a trip to a waterfall with little ones leaving their shoes in our care so they could wade out into the pool at the waterfalls base. This is the same little one who used me as a ladder to climb up on the rock I was sitting on to leave his shoes high and dry behind me. Then he bent over my shoulder to look at the side of my head and face. He has never been able to take a direct look. Not before yesterday morning and gathering for Sunday School.

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Saturday foolishness included me watching the boys dragging the girls around in a tug of war with a big rope. Then I stepped to the last girl in line to reach around with just one hand and plant big fat feet. It was enough. The girls won. It was the right thing to do because even the boys were smiling and laughing. A second go had me on my face. More laughter and high fives after I came up smiling. Third go with the rope and the head Mama placed us on each side in a mixed up fashion.

I was again on the end with a couple young ladies, Kemper and Mimi, from the US. Again all I could do was reach in with one hand and try not to stomp all those little feet around me. The steepness and hard concrete stairways downhill of us had me pulling uphill far more than any other way. We won again. We all did, all tired happy kids and keepers.

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Can’t quite describe what it’s like to drive onto the Silverleaf Academy Campus, where Hilda’s house is, and have to drive with one hand with the other held high above the roof to wave back to the people with happy young voices calling out hello to Babu na Bibi. It does us good. I hope it shares to you-all some too. At home in the US, I spent much of my life being the wrong flavor for many. My head just shakes. Who do we not see around us simply because they challenge us?

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Also please continue to Pray for:

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

Hilda’s invisibility to those who can only see their own authority –

Sorry, still my Visa situation -

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

All the tough and blessing expressed above –

The love of folks –

Whatever is on your hearts and minds for us –

For our children and grand-children who miss us.. we miss them too..

I continue to be under much harsh spiritual attack concerning my sense of self-worth and those many things I have yet to get to, please, only as you are comfortable, remember me, indeed us.. the world doesn’t like what we are doing out of love we don’t own.. yet have none the less -

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

For a way for us to invest with our experience and even financially in support of local industrious people so we can afford to stay and continue to make a difference one face at a time –

For those who have braved the donate button to discover Kajun Crofton, our daughter who helps getting each one of your donations to us and every blogpost to where you can read it –

For you who find other ways to uplift and support us -

For each and every one of you –

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

Prayers, Your Prayer, skipping stone and even groaning prayers make all the difference..

Vern W

May Life be as Music to your Heart - May Music be as Heart to your Life 
- May Heart be as Life to your Music -

  Dear Cherished Interested’s,                                                                             December 30 th 2024 Hilda and ...