Dear Cherished Interested’s,                                                                                           December 5th 2022

We needed to be two places at the same time so..  I took Hilda to the duka(shop) of dearest bravest beloved friends where she was to wait until others were ready to walk up to the church in Nkoaranga, across from the hospital. 

Confirmation Sunday at Nkoaranga and Hilda was there all day to support a precious someone’s precious child.  Rites of passage are still a major thing here.  Statutory prescriptions about legal adult age are not the end of it.  Folks go through ceremonies and trials and overcome and endure and get celebrated along with all those who endured with them on the way.  One of those rites, Confirmation, takes the local pastor and the Bishop’s representative and many hours at church.  Party after..

The prior Sunday I had been too ill and so Elisha and Hilda handled both Sunday schools and message sharing with the Mama’s.  All I did was drive. 

With Hilda attending Confirmations with Elisha in support of his neighbors, yesterday, I got both Sunday schools and message sharing with the Mama’s on my own.  This started down at Silverleaf Academy, on Momela Rd, Usa River, Arumeru District, Arusha, Tz, where Hilda has had both office and little house.. 

The littles were gathering chairs to face towards the big windows on the entrance side of the dining hall, this was normal.  The littles all called me Babu, this was normal.  “Babu, you were sick last week.. how were you sick?”,..  fearlessly asking me anything, this was normal.  “Where is Bibi?”..  Bibi not being here with me is.. not ..normal.  “Babu.. where is Elisha?”..  this from some bright eye-ed little ladies and Elisha not being with me is also.. not ..normal.

With some already having gone home I suppose the number in attendance were about thirty instead of forty.  This is their praise time.  I am only a witness and focal elder. 

The normal things happened.  Unbidden, the littles quieted then one of them stood holding her palms together and with eyes closed opened their praise time together in prayer, a prayer in unison with all there and loud enough that thirty little voices filled that vast dining hall big enough to feed four hundred. 

Then the dining hall almost shook as they danced in place and sang songs from inside them in Swahili and English and now also the songs inside them in English given them by Bibi.  I sang too, stopping every once in a while to just be wrapped up by the sound of them all ..and sight of them all.

The bigger girls who came in from a large lake out in the bush at the beginning of the year who I was not to convert to Christianity and to whom I have never spoken alone to about anything, were hovering.  This was new.

They were hovering around the group getting the very few sleepy boys and littler girls up to participate.  Also, hanging from their ears and necks I saw crosses, probably gifted them by the other older school girls already gone home.  This was also new.

Quick prayer here..  Please..  for these growing bush girls now wearing outward signs of Christianity..  Please God, be ever in their lives in ways that builds their relationship with You God.  Their relationship with You is what is important and I selfishly want to have them in eternity too.  Grant them safety and protection from both those of ill-will and those of good-will.  I pray my time with them brings them nothing that you won’t help them to overcome.  I pray that my time and the time of their fellow students brings to those who love them nothing that you won’t help them to overcome.  May those hearts that arranged this opportunity for these girls to have education and freedom from F.G.M. be comforted, uplifted and empowered ever further in the ways you God would see fit… 

Bwana Yesu Asifiwe..

There were no teachers. There were no Christian Mama’s.  There was only one Mama and she is from the big lake out in the bush and came to the school in part to protect all her bush girls from Christianization.  She was there with all of us clapping to the music and singing what she has come to know in her own way too. 

This Mama from the bush lake is impeccably put together, not one of her short cropped hairs is out of place.  Her traditional clothing is always spotless, she sees and hears everything.  She is pencil thin and stands so straight she impresses with much more height than she has.  She is several inches shorter than Hilda, maybe 85-90 pounds.  She displays nearly no expression other than attention to everything.  She needs, will never need any make-up.  That would be an absolute sin.  The truth in that calm yet alive face that suffers no foolishness is nothing to cover. 

If she is thirty, I shouldn’t be surprised but has to still be in her twenties at the most, though a very deeply rural and want-filled-wise twenty-something. 

She has the infinite respect of all the girls on campus.  I don’t think she has ever raised her voice, or ever needed to.  Her eyes speak.  I watched once her holding another woman’s sick child to quiet it and so the mother could get some rest.  She and that calming child were surrounded by the girls in rapt attention as she tended this sick baby and spoke clearly, calmly, and irrefutably, simply teaching other future women her hard-won wisdom from living where there is nothing a developed-world person would recognize as resource. 

Once again, my grandmother from the 1890’s is in sight.  As is the younger grandmother from 1900.  Wisdom we’ve forgotten is gifted often through those who go unseen.. and unheard.  Loud, center of attention, demanding, all just cover, like make-up.  Truth, openness, competence, wisdom, nothing else.

I had re-re-re-read the message planned for the Mama’s up at the Children’s Village and thought I could simplify that well enough but, after the littles all got seated in the middle break from singing they keep for me, we unsurprisingly just talked about babies. 

Asked the question about what is special about December?  Christmas!  Jesus’ Birthday!  Who else here has a birthday?  This while sticking my own hand up to show that indeed I had been born too.  We talked about God being born as a baby just like all of us.  We talked about what that says about the importance of babies.  We talked about the vulnerability of babies and what that says about the importance of God and God’s choice to come as one.    

One final observation with this precious group of little boys and girls of this little academy in this little place in this little country and my all too little time with them;  We started with the perfect provision of two teenage boys coming every Sunday to translate, read scripture, read out prayer written in one language which they spoke out for us in another.  Except for singing, yesterday no Swahili was used. 

This group of developing world youth have acquired competency in English well enough to speak with me in a group about deeply spiritual things.  From the ones fortunate to be fluent from the beginning to those bush girls taller than Hilda and small as a china-doll who came without even Swahili, I believe their attention, their questions, their participation boys and girls both.  Their participation in their own service ever opened and closed in prayer by them shows power, nothing less than miraculous power. 

Yesterday, Sunday the 4^th , may be the last Sunday I have with the boarding students at Silverleaf Academy. 

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There are but about a dozen of you reading these posts.  Please regard what prayer is and has done. 

Thank you.. 

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Also please Pray for:

Hilda’s temporary contract with the local NGO ends next month, her work will hopefully transition over to Tanzanian hands.  If not it will come to a close.  Money is super-tight here like at home there.  We don’t know what is ahead though the few locals in the know are working as hard as we to discover what that may be.  We know we are used and God’s trust is even more beautiful than the trust we have among God’s children here.  Keep your good work up?  Please.  You are doing the best of best by taking even a moment of your precious time with God to think of, to mention, us.

Yes, reluctantly, you can help us if you wish and you don’t need tax paperwork.  We cannot provide that.  We are just folks.  We are not an organization.  Your Church is an organization and can provide paperwork and if moved by The Holy Spirit can help us and get you that paperwork.

If that is not possible, please consider The Small Things of Nkoaranga, Tanzania.  They are the parent NGO responsible for The Children’s Village we have been diligently around and among this last year.  They can get you tax paperwork and have sincere needs to attend.  The perimeter fence project and more importantly, on-going school fees for about fifty children.  These are too much for this old couple who live hand to mouth alone, but, money goes much further here.  These are easy do’s for a group of us.  God Bless you for reading and even considering.  Thank you.

Silverleaf Academy has wisely chosen to find ways to make local provision alone work.  This means that these children come from organizations or families that can provide well enough for their education that Silverleaf Academy can stay open and do their diligent best without the vagaries of foreign funding.  Still, Hilda has poured her life into the teaching staff here and they have blossomed so much like the littles have.  If you are being prompted by The Spirit, I don’t think they would say no to a helping hand.  They should be on-line with several schools.  The address for this one is above.  Yes, they know our names.

Gratitude..

Gratitude for our time in the Pacific Northwest and over to Colorado for those dear children and grandchildren who miss us and whom we are overjoyed to have had our precious time with.

Makumira Secondary School, my brilliant helper Elisha’s school, is looking to share stories and partner in some way with a foreign school, Great leaders, teachers, students, programs, strong backs, minds, and hearts –

Imbasenny school is one of two schools run by a Mchungaji here.  He requests prayer for Imbasenny school as that school has no external support and parents school fees fall short of what the job takes.

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

Visa situation..  Good now until after Christmas..  May we be able to learn and be lead into what is best for the benefit of what God would have us do, how God would have us do those things and stewardship of the resources God has put into us for God’s purposes -

Our armed forces families, our leadership, our people, whole world round, all of God’s kids -

All the tough and blessing expressed above –

The love of folks –

Whatever is on your hearts and minds for us –

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 us to let our health fail so others can shine –

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..

If we should ever cross your mind, even if we are strange and confusing, just grunt, crumple us up and throw us at God.  That is where we need to be.. 

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