Dear Cherished Interested’s,                                                                                         January 18th, 2024

Still, they find me.  He wanted a job.  I don’t have those.  I asked this young man to look at me.  I asked him to see how old I am.  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.

I am concerned about you who read and pray for us.  Please sit.  Please be willing to suspend any disbelief. 

What I am about to tell you is unbelievable.

Since last writing huge bad news has been trusted to us.  Details are not anything I want to put in writing anywhere.  A certain vagueness is necessary to protect even those who may not be deserving of that protection.  I am not supposed to judge.  In all things I am to be thankful.  Sometimes that is very hard.

I removed myself from University enrollment. 

It came to our attention, after receiving an unexpected bill, that the process that resulted in me becoming a member of the student body likely included payments to people.  Payments never intended to see the light of day.  That means that my enrollment was by extra-scriptural means.

Extra-scriptural is the strictest bar and is what kept me going until the University was no longer directly responsible for me in any way.  I saw my academic advisor, then the Dean, and turned in my student ID. 

Yes, this is devastatingly difficult.  However, striving after obedience has kept my feet and the rest of me going through discovery and as careful as possible management so far of this problem.  A problem made by people instructed NOT to follow extra-scriptural, if traditional, means.  People who love me enough to have worked at this for two years. 

This is also a North American problem and not just a problem here.    

It is a complicated mess requiring me to take a one year deferred enrollment and leave the student body.  After striving to witness through this mess.  After striving to teach through this mess.  We have decisions to make.

Will we still be able to afford staying on?  Please pray that the peace God has already provided to us, as affirmation to having to walk away from classes no matter how hard, includes obvious discernment on this front too.     

Please also pray for those who chose to help, in spite of the mess.

Please pray for my entire class.  All 35 Bachelor of Divinity students who so openly took me as their own.  Also please pray for the entire freshman class of the university, many hundreds, who have seen me before them teaching them, as one of them, either by intent by presentation, being singled out by lecturers, or by answering questions for the group posed by lecturers. 

Please pray for my professors.  No one has wanted me to leave.  Everyone has been praying and trying to figure out a way that affords appropriate scruples and remaining steadfast to scripture.  One professor came to the house with her son to sit with us, demanding to know what is going on, and pray with us after communicating her depth of sorrow and desire that God make a way forward that gets her student back. 

Watching hearts and seeing things grow:

That professor that came to be with us is a Maasai Daughter, now mother of four, and Professor at a University known from Germany to North America.  Lutheran readers need only look at the worship book in your pew to find music there written right here at this University, in Tanzania.

Why is that a huge thing?  Twenty years ago I served for an eye-blink amount of time at the Maasai Girls Lutheran Secondary School in Monduli Tanzania.  A school that plants seeds of change into a people group with gender based roles and traditions that until, seemingly yesterday, denied much education to their daughters. 

Two of my professors were Maasai daughters, now grown women and mothers serving the church here as University Lecturers and Pastors.

I got to see that!

The best part of the University is the class of Bachelor of Divinity Students from around the country.  The Holy Spirit so alive in each that they responded to its prompting to come pray for me those desperate hours and days before I was able to decline active enrollment and be gone from campus.   This without knowing anything about what was wrong. 

I got to see that!

Many from that class of theology students came to the house Saturday.  They came to help Hilda to celebrate my birthday.  After filling them with cake and soda, I had to tell them why they were not seeing me in class with them.  And why they would no longer be seeing me in class with them.  Even the Maasai man I was taking classes with wept openly in front of women and people from other tribes.  In our over-populated living-room.

I got to see that!

Today while collecting pharmaceuticals brought to a close secondary school by our pharmacist, we got lectured yet again.  We got lectured yet again by our Islamic son, his father died this last year, who insists that somehow I will find a job that allows us to stay.  He is one of the team of Islamic medical professionals who gathered after Friday prayers at the Mosque in town to put their heads together to keep Hilda alive and recovering, just a few months back.

I got to see that!

There are in fact too many things we get to see because we dare to come and try to plant the seeds or ourselves as God’s children without fear of dying.  A seed has to die in order for anything to grow. 

This is unbelievable.  We are at peace most of the time within our spirits even as our bodies do reflect the consequences of deep stress and suffering of loss.  Still we strive to focus on the who.

The who is Jesus.  The who is you.

You who read and pray and suffer along with us.  Please believe what we get to see.  Thank you for praying our strength and guidance for each moment with each face.   Folks like you are beyond precious.  vwilliamson@sprynet.com

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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. 

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