Dear Cherished Interested’s,                                                                                         September 25th, 2023

Forgive me..  Yesterday I did not get to any service by 6:30 am.  Hilda demanded that I rest.  By the time we needed to be on our way to The Children’s Village it had rained hard so..  Stupid little truck was unable to climb out of the hole the house is in. 

We walked, about a kilometer, to The Children’s Village and did Sunday school with the children together then I had the privilege to worship with the Mama’s.  The mama’s are not all Lutheran, not all Pentecostal, not all any specific brand of Christian relation-ship-ing with our Lord and Savior.  They are comfortable enough now to have discussion during early worship about what songs they want to sing.

I can read and pronounce Swahili well enough to sound fluent even as my brain seems steadfast against comprehension.  This means that I can sing many songs that have common tunes from North America.  These are the older ones here and familiar to older Lutheran and other U.S. Protestant denominations.

‘Tenza za Rohoni’ is a small yellow softcover book of song lyrics available from local Lutheran and other sources for about $1.20 each.  We’ve been gathering some to The Children’s Village and both Hilda and I have a copy with us most Sundays.  Song lyrics only, so the tunes need to be known.  I do not know them all.  The Mama’s pick the songs for worship as we worship and lead the music themselves letting me join them. 

As we have been consistent for well over a year now, I can sing some of the songs with known tunes by myself and may start Sunday school or worship at The Children’s Village by sitting off to one side and singing hymns while people gather and quiet themselves.   

Quiet themselves, is a relative paradigm.  The Children can be very boisterous and combative among themselves now that they know that they do not need to perform for Hilda and I.  They can be their imperfect yet growing selves.  We are trusted by these children with all sorts of behavior with them knowing that we will be back. 

This is amazing given that these are children who have lost their own people, parents, siblings, extended family, community.  We are not therapists nor counselors.  This is only possible through prayer, your prayer.  Thank you for your time and heart for these moments of prayer.  

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After The Children’s Village, we walked about half way back to the house to Mulala Church and sat out on the porch, steadfastly communicating our comfort there with squirmy little ones there too. 

It is a big fundraising time of year and this little mountain church is trying to build another floor and hopefully roof over the new church building next the existing church.  The new church is sized large enough for the whole community to gather together, with room for growth, and not only in shifts on Sunday mornings.  The worship schedule has shifted this month to accommodate this month’s activities.

We left on foot before worship was over to walk the three or so kilometers to Nkoaranga.  There we were swept into consuming fresh fire roasted goat, boiled goat soup, special time bottles of soda and large extended family gratitude celebration.

Celebration for grown and gathered bulk food grains.  Sacks of corn, two loads for the stupid little truck.  Sacks of beans from a two day harvest this last week Wednesday and Thursday, and manual threshing and clean up at a farm plot located off google maps over an hour away. 

This bean harvest also brought by the stupid little truck with ten people crammed in it among each other and the harvest.  This is trust too.  I am trusted to drive the still 2 wheel only drive truck through one water crossing after another loaded with laughing people to a place in the bush that even locals struggle to find.  Then that overloaded truck and laughing people back to, then up on the mountain all safely.  Your Prayers make this possible. 

I often am confronted with severe moments of consternation around safely transporting people who have no experience with transportation.  At least not the experience that I have.  They are all so young and often so full of themselves.  Clueless as to consequences to actions that they so casually assume are fine. 

I pick my battles and keep my keys in my pocket until loads are adjusted to be least problematic.  Then pray openly for success and that when another, known one, along the road decides to climb on top of the load or the roof of the truck that they can stay there until we get to wherever we are going.

When only people are in the bed now, they let and even expect me to place them, not sitting on the sides but, on the floor of the bed with arms interlocked with each other and the roll bar behind the cab.  They know Babu is crazy but comply well.

This last week’s grains transportation happened around 18 hours of harvest and threshing by hand for twelve people, two arriving by motorcycle.  Clean up and chaff hauling with five then six people the following day.  Two trips to the bush plot. 

My nose is peeling badly but I stuff my pockets with extra handkerchiefs regularly so with three I can make head covering to protect everything else including the back of my neck and head, so I am very tired but really good. 

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Monday we drove to Kilimanjaro.  There we were guests in the mountain home, above 6000’, of the surviving business partner of the last active African contact I had who died of COVID while we were driving across the US on our way to Tanzania.

This reconnection with David, who lost most of his contacts into America at the same time Elizabeth died, is also answer to prayer.  This is what prayer does, over and over.. 

Hilda and I were spoiled with another oversize bed which extended to below my feet, cold and hot inside running water and inside plumbing.  Accommodation in David’s ancestral home built into the Kilimanjaro landscape and completely engulfed in native species gardens and mountain trails.  Subsistence agriculture carefully and respectfully married into the nooks and crannies of the home of his fathers and grandfathers.

Food from the very grounds prepared to appeal to cosmopolitan eye and palate served not twice, like most Tanzanians have, but three times a day.  Our Tuesday night supper with David included Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson enjoyably playing softly behind easy conversation.

Again, Hilda and I are blessed to be seen as a safe place for someone who fits into their community but not quite completely.  David is a Chagga man, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine trained in Germany, who serves his local communities on Kilimanjaro and Arusha by employing and training local people.  This he did for years with Elizabeth, his American and then African business partner. 

David’s experiences are amazing and larger than his community, region, nation, and even family can comprehend or help him contain and share.  Somehow, we let him be more fully himself by being quiet and sharing what comes out in joy, sadness, hope, and longing.

Those local hymns that I can sing some on my own?  David was amazed that I was singing songs he heard from his father and as a young one in church here on Kilimanjaro.  He now has a songbook too and we sang, us two old guys, on one of his porches among trees and flowers and birds, hymns that bring joy and challenge to our friend.  You did that!  I don’t plan any of this.  Praying my will to the back like you do lets this stuff happen.  Thank You!

David wants me to record a country and western Christmas song I wrote just a few years back.  This will by my first try and I would never consider it for anyone who wasn’t as sincerely interested as David.  Technology is limited.  But please pray that it is adequate enough for his enjoyment of an original song that I thought no one would ever hear.         

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The Sunday before yesterday..  We went early to the cash machine at the bank.  A guard who works there, and loves to soften his hardness to show Hilda the monkeys that gather to play safely behind where people go, trusted us with an eye prescription.  An eye prescription he was given when, in desperation, he went to the hospital.  This person is someone who has never asked us for anything.

Former professional military and familiar with firearms because of that, his far-sight is still excellent.  Paperwork has become impossible and this can be seen as he struggles to find where he must sign over shifts and perform other documentation. 

He did not really know, because he could not see his own prescription, but he trusted us, alone as we were there, early Sunday morning.  Because of my brilliant, kind and loving Islamic Pharmacist and his wonderful wife I have a stash of reading glasses now in the truck. 

I was able to walk to the truck and return within seconds with a pair of reading glasses close enough for that guard trusting us to see the message I had written for the day lain out in front of him.  Trust is tears and hugs with an accompanying head on your shoulders from a former East African Military man.  Tears for being able to see.  Tears for being able read scripture again.  Tears for being given scripture to read.

This is one of those amazing side things that become so central for individuals who can no longer read, but long to.  I’ve been able to help non-biological grandparents of that precious mother to her sister’s children and grandchildren.  People who helped save her so she can now save her sister’s children.  

The response is so similar.  Disbelief, then tears.  They can’t help it.  Like the Mama’s at The Children’s Village last year who leapt, danced and cried out with joy reading scripture before them as my reading test is often Genesis chapter one in Swahili. 

The Biological Grandmother, most responsible for saving the life of that precious industrious busy one, was able to read the large print MWANZO, or Genesis, but no more than that.  She turned to me while holding my Bible in her lap after reading MWANZO and thanked me profusely for giving her the word of The Lord to hold.   

Please pray that we can make a time to gather her with her granddaughter to visit the same eye doctor in Arusha who helped with renewing her granddaughter’s glasses.  I fear cataracts.  I don’t know enough yet to know how or what can be done with those here.  Otherwise her eyes seem amazingly healthy and clear given her age and decades of cooking over wood fire.

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Another meeting this week, now scheduled for Thursday, about Tumaini University at Makumira and my potential enrollment there.  ? ? ?

Again, my will to the back please.  God’s will is so much better, always!

Please pray also for the church.  The higher bureaucratic church whose personages of power are missing so very much beautiful by leaving us unaccompanied. 

Please pray also in thankfulness with us that we are free of any expectations and demands of that accompaniment as well.  God’s will is so much better, always!

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Yes please …

Relationships here on the ground in addition to my imperfections and mistakes are being used to try to drive us away from our striving.  Each day is a sincere struggle.  Hopefully that means we’re on the right track.  Please pray for those around us.  Please pray for the local faces which fearlessly now smile and greet us as we walk.  

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