Babu Vern & Bibi Hilda in Tanzania: April 2023

Saturday, April 22, 2023

Dear Cherished Interested’s, April 20-22, 2023

Mchungaji Ombeni, the local pastor, had me read scripture for the 3:pm Good Friday service. He insisted that I read aloud in Ki-Swahili. Then I had to speak extemporaneously. I asked Ombeni if he had already spoken at prior seasonal opportunities about the two Josephs and the two Peters and a couple other topics which he answered all in the affirmative. I asked if he had spoken about Mary. He said no. I had my topic and standing two steps below Ombeni so our ears and mouths could be near enough to hear he graciously translated.

I still do not understand what I am reading aloud in Swahili however, God somehow gives me clear pronunciation and fluent diction. I cannot explain it. No need for a microphone either. Not too bad for someone who has never been comfortable in front.

Please don’t be too shocked. I am not doing something I want to do. I am doing what I have to do, God help me.. I was scheduled to preach Easter Sunday, my translator, Mchungaji Omeni, was called for emergency fill in a little ways further up the mountain, his fill in, in Mulala, was a wonderful young Ki-Meru speaker so my message waited for Easter Monday.

Easter Monday was surprisingly full. After my message was given, Ombeni took his huge smile out to the benches and pulled Hilda forward to speak while he again translated. She can easily speak extemporaneously. Career teaching, forty years of Sunday school, and one of eight siblings.

Last Saturday the local Sunday school here in Mulala gathered about 75 children from local parishes onto two large busses including about 15 adults for a morning at the airport watching aircraft, many for the very first time. Many littles even enjoyed watching cars on the way to Kilimanjaro International Airport, this too a rare thing for them, some of them pointing and claiming this car or that car as their own.

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Truck is gone for a week at the Truck Doctor.. Please pray, yes, please pray that parts can be found and that four wheel drive function be restored. I used my farm-kid traction control to get the truck out of the hole where the house is and up to the Kanisa(church) where I have been allowed to park it. Yesterday I took it to town and left it there. Farm-kid traction control? The truck bed is full of rocks.

Monday the truck was still stuck in the hole where the house is. We set off in the rain to walk the 4 kilometers to Makumira Secondary School down closer to the big road. We made it about half way before folks who know us saw us walking and sent other folks to take us to Mchungaji Ombeni’s house. He insisted that he drive is down the rest of the way to the school with the church’s working four wheel drive.

Today, Saturday, cats and dogs rain again (thank God for a real rainy season!!) I set off to walk about a kilometer and a half to where I tutor English. Ruts have become torrents. Depressions pools. The younger brother of the man whose house we are residing is was out bundled up in knee length foul weather gear, bare foot, using a shovel to buttress piles here and dig water way to save what little road there is to get in and out.

It is Eid. Eid ends the Ramadan fast and celebrates family often including goats cooked and shared with families who have chronic malnutrition. Eid feast means no community education support at The Children’s Village. I walked by beneath the Village and came upon littles walking to education support not realizing the Saturday off. One bright-eyed one asked if Hilda would be up waiting for her there. I explained Eid and had a companion for a significant part of my walk as she walked back home.

Walking means we need extra time. We need extra time as we are slower. We also need extra time as we are considered by many here now as their people. We are to be greeted. We are to be spoken too and appreciated and included. This is their choice. We have been diligent in seeing people and not shacks or torn imperfect clothing or the different manner of speaking since arriving among these people.

We do not ignore them. We do not hide behind raised tinted car windows. We risk being taken advantage of. God pours love into us for each face. Even the angry faces that frown and glare. Amazing.. I think you have been praying for us. Thank you so very very much.

We walked early afternoon to the home of a retired pastor whose wife is the center of The Children’s Village. We were fed and had a wonderful conversation at the table afterword. One of their many adopted children is likely my best English student. The walk in the rain was about two kilometers the other way from the house from this mornings walk. My English student happily drove us home.

Hilda is preparing for folks to come to the house for supper today.

A week ago Thursday we had a houseful from The Children’s Village operations staff who came, were fed well, and we then sang Nyimbo(hymns) together. It was a blessing quite beyond expectation. I even managed to lead a few. The young man who is in charge of the Saturday education programing jumped up to pray happily. Folks know where we are.

Please keep crumpling us up and throwing us at God. That is where we need to be. God will sort us out.

One day at a time. Just like how you each live. Just one day at a time.

Thank you, each of you.

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What to Pray for:

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..

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 –

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

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 each and every one of you –

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

Prayers, Your Prayer, Even your groaning prayers 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

Wednesday, April 5, 2023

Dear Cherished Interested’s, April 5^th 2023

My computer is dead once again. Back on Hilda’s..

Hey.. Not giving up.. We’re now in a house up on the mountain. Mulala is the community. We’ve preached at the local church twice now since appearing among these precious people. Local Tanzanians are our human salvation. Mixed bag as they are a tremendous challenge as well. That must mean that we are trusted to be challenged. Thank you for praying us there. Thank you for praying us empowered in those challenges.

When part of working with missionary Pilot trainees at Mission Aviation Training Academy at the Arlington Washington Airport, some of what often got shared is how when striving in missions some of the most difficult times can come through fellows in mission alongside us. As many of you know Hilda and I are unaccompanied. We are only able to serve because of what local Tanzanians have asked us to be part of. No organization surrounds us with any support. Your prayers are what surround us and keep our faces in front of God’s face. Your prayers are what keep any reflection in our faces even remotely true in any way to the face of God. Thank you for that too.

We are up here not because of any fellows in mission. We are up here because of the same cultural divide faced by anyone daring to live in spite of human longing after money and power first. Simply, we were not willing to be manipulated and have our pockets picked by highly educated non-Tanzanian folks seeking money only, in service to good things, and those local Tanzanians who have been taught those behaviors in order to have a job. Yes it is sad.

Hold on though. The best, God things, happen anyway.

The house has power when power is available. Water, either falls and is collected from the roof in buckets, or we take the little truck further up the mountain to community water near a local hospital tucked up among farms and semi-tropical vegetation and fill buckets and tubs. Hot water happens when power and water come together.

WE are well. In fact, Hilda’s mosquito bites are finally starting to heal up and she is off all the medications needed to combat the severe allergic reactions and post bite infections. Yes, Hilda is tough.

Local pastor and wife came to eat supper with us and we were told that many local folks know us as the old white people who don’t ignore them walking along the road but wave and greet as best we can each one. Many of the littles know Hilda from her Saturday morning participation at The Children’s Village in remediation and tutorial programs for all local children close here on the mountain.

Another piece communicated to student missionary Pilots was the need to have a habit of participation in ministry wherever they are. The Academy in Arlington required pilot trainees to be part of active ministry with some local congregation. The fact is that if ministry among others is not a bones deep habit where culture and language are shared, it will likely have no chance of expression where culture and language are not shared.

Our bones deep convictions are seen by people and communicate beyond these seemingly impossible barriers. That is why I keep being asked to preach, something that continues to surprise me from my experiences of a lifetime at home in America. That is why we have a house up on the mountain when somewhat narrow-minded well-meaning people from North-America, Europe, and other “developed world” context and training inadvertently teach idolatry of money and power first and at any cost to those local ones they work through.

Humility is hard. Many life-long ones seeking to help here maintain separations with the local folks having their own gathering places, services, and group-think. This invades the thinking of many locals too. All we can do is strive to be aware and willing to lose everything when needing to teach something different. This we must strive to do with love, patience and grace. Only your prayer keeps us even remotely in those precious things.

Our consolation is among those who have nearly nothing, are left out, and still choose to see we have a house to live in.

While writing Hilda is dancing among wet laundry hung throughout the house on clotheslines strung between curtain rods overhanging windows. Windows put into this home that never had them. Windows put into this house by impoverished local others intending us to be here. We are getting a rainy season this year, however brief it may or may not be.

One of her two cats, who came with us up the mountain, was missing for four days after arriving up here. She is overjoyed to have the cat appear in the middle of the night a couple nights ago, well fed and well taken care of. That cat does not want to leave her side.

The doors are barred at night but fully open during the day. Children of all ages come with buckets of water, requests, waves, and smiles. One very bright teenage girl visits Hilda whenever she can to practice and challenge her already very good English. And like Hilda’s cats, she is very comfortable in Hilda’s company. So far, no one has touched the little truck parked outside.

Saying no.. It may sound harsh, but we spend a lot of time saying no. We say no to nearly all requests for money. To protect dignity that seems so willing to be sacrificed, we would rather purchase some eggs or fruit so those who come with defined need can afford to service it themselves. Also I have to say no to being a taxi-service. Fuel costs a lot. We live down a very steep, very rough, shared driveway that I can only drive out of by quickly getting into second gear and speeding in an attempt to fly up onto the main road. Hilda climbs up to hold traffic as I make my attempts. Yesterday a tractor and wagon loaded with corn stalks tried to climb out the same driveway and failed. I was asked to pull them out. I had to say no.

School for Vern.. Through the efforts of another amazing local one I now have a Tanzanian Primary School certificate and a Tanzanian Secondary School certificate and a Tanzanian Secondary School transfer certificate. We have been told.. that in May.. I will be.. applying with those things to be accepted as a student at Tumaini Universtiy Makumira. Further.. we have been told.. that after some more paperwork with the Tanzanian Government that is in process.. Hilda may be lecturing in the science program there.

This long year and a half has taught us not to hold our breath. However, given that we are unaccompanied missionaries. Given my rejection by a PNW ELCA candidacy committee for being stubbornly adherent to not only a call to pastoral ministry, a call that same committee overwhelmingly affirmed, but also to the long-time call to seek training here among one of the fastest growing Lutheran denominations globally, any progress brought about by the local people right here has to be God sent.

Whatever barriers we have striven to overcome to study scripture here are barriers reduced for anyone else in the future. That is more important than any success for me as an individual. The church must seek discomfort in inclusion of truly impoverished faithful ones no longer as students, but teachers.

No, we don’t know it all. That candidacy committee was so very young. Pray for them. May sincere regret appear in hearts to break them open to more growth for each precious one. We still long to include them, indeed anyone willing to let us sacrifice ourselves in the strange and even eccentric ways we are striving in. The church is not merely American. The church is not merely urban. The church is not merely ordained pastors. The church needs every piece wherever and however it lives.

Who am I to be saying, living, teaching these things? Nobody. I did hard, even dangerous, physical work for half a century. If success happens for me here, it is NOT my doing. I know I am unqualified in the eyes of those so believing and sure that they are. I care too much. God does not care.

Hilda does not want our struggles glossed over so we won’t. Hard is too small a word and the attacks are deep, slanderous, and spiritual too. We pray that means we are doing something right. Please keep crumpling us up and throwing us at God. That is where we need to be. God will sort us out.