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 -