Dear Cherished Interested’s,                                                                                         January 1st, 2024

Happy New Year.. 

Photographic evidence of paperwork proving a Student Visa has been issued to me from the Tanzanian Government for a couple of years has arrived by phone during Christmas break.  It was sent on to the University who is in trouble if such things are not in order when immigration comes looking.  Hoping to get our passports back in the next couple weeks.  We were required to surrender them.  I know, I know..  

This is not our country.  Our rules and ways don’t apply.  Still.. THANK YOU for Lifting us up in this regard, you did it!

             

It is too late for 2023 and more importantly you know we cannot give any tax paperwork out.  There is no matching giving program. 

If, however, The Spirit is poking you and you want to tell us or ask us anything, we are where a little can literally save a life.  Share that to others who give regardless of taxes.  Folks like you are beyond precious.  vwilliamson@sprynet.com

Happy to respond about anything when we can.

Hilda got local church calendars for all 36 of us first year Bachelor of Divinity (BD1) students.  Gathering for classes tomorrow should be today, though, I remember being young and being a nearly last minute arrival over the years.

Transportation is an automatic point of grace here.  The roadways are extremely hazardous yet the only source of mass transit.  The only marginally affordable way of getting around is busses of differing sizes corresponding with distance travelled.  Although significantly better than 20 years ago when smoking and burning brakes was a fairly common sight along with riders all over the outside of vehicles, maintenance and repair are still an issue.  Outside riders, except for manual laborers, are nearly no more.  People get where they go when they get there, but almost all are carried on the inside now.

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We have been hunkered down.  Letting the world go by.  Poking our head out only to leave my tenuous Greek studies to collect supplies. 

Still, they find me.  The last week of school before break in the midst of testing a young man came and spoke to me about his family having nothing (likely true).  He spoke with me about not having all his school fees (likely true).  He wanted a job.  I don’t have those. 

I can’t have his school fees either.  I explained that each member of this older couple has worked over 50 years and have very little to show for it.  That in order to come here and try we had to sell up, just about everything, and come.  But for you –all we are most significantly on our own, there is no sending agency, no official group walking alongside us. 

I asked this young man to look at me.  I asked him to see how old I am.  This grandfather of six has worked over 50 years and not until now, and not until here, and not by anything but God’s effort alone have I finally come to where I am able to attend University.

I told him whatever he is facing, God is with him.  I told him to never give up but stay in conversation with God so every step can be taken without knowing how or where.  Focus on the who.  If his family is starving and he cannot find his school fees, perhaps he is right.  Perhaps he needs to find a job if that is possible.  If that is only by walking out the University Gate, then follow his feet and trust his back, hands, heart, head and the one who truly is walking alongside all of us.   

Cherished interested, I know scripture.  We are to clothe and feed.  Those are deeper things than fabric and nutrition.  We have poured our resources out into lives here, and still are.

Only we cannot set them up for dependency, true.  We cannot set ourselves up for dependency, true.  We cannot let even the desperate use us continuously, true.  We cannot let the manipulative milk us dry.  None of those things are good for anyone. 

We can do no good in any way if we have to leave with one-way-tickets to come home and start over.  Even if that would be the sensible thing, the comfortable thing.  Hilda and I do not have that habit.  It is not part of our life training.  That is part of why we are approachable here.  We really do listen.  We do not understand all, but we do understand much. 

Your prayers help ..  They help them to find us .. They help us to do what we can even if that is to say no.  No as our hearts explode inside us.  We’ve lived too long and with eyes open to not understand much.  Thank you for praying our strength and guidance for each moment with each face.

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Christmas Eve and today I got to walk around campus and find those invisible people. The security people.  Some wanted soda, which I do not have, and God helped make a joke of that.  What I got paid when I was 18 to work security would be a boon for any family with a guard in the home.  Not the case here.  Locals get paid wretchedly.  Guards here pick up sticks while patrolling to build little fires to heat water for tea.  That may be all they have for however many hours or days they are on duty.

Christmas Eve I had juices to hand out.  Today I did not.  Today I have a cough and full on cold but still got around to hand out left over messages from yesterday and the message written for today. 

This insistence of the feet to walk and take sheets of paper with words in two language to people who are hungry and thirsty I do not fully understand.  Yet, each and every face across campus was smiling and grateful. 

That must be your prayers  too..  Great work!

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Christmas day we were with little ones and their parents and grandparents up on the mountain with a family who insisted we come.   We ate delicious local food and were also blessed to have spoons to use.  We were able to take some sacks of supplies so there would be food left to prepare after we left. 

Yes, the poorest will give everything they have away and eat faith if that is all there is.  Hilda and I see and find these ones to be the foundation of why we are here.  NO one at this meal asked us for anything.  They just told us how happy they were that we came.

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Hilda did everything at The Children’s Village Yesterday.  I waited and coughed in the truck, teenage girls coming back from church taking my hand through the window to hold while scolding me for not being in service with them. 

We are a different paradigm here.  We are the blessed white faces that are trusted by the best hearts to take the truth, any of the truth, good or bad, happy or sad, or mad, or disappointed.  No performances necessary for Bibi na Babu. 

Sunday before we were at The Cathedral.  The local Pastors who have done so much to help us find affordable have also been leaving me alone to my studies.  Kindness.  

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Really blessed while deeply under attack..  all of it is spiritual..  I wish I could teach that to everyone so they could truly know it.  I didn’t know it for far too long. 

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