Dear Cherished Interested’s,                                                                                                       May 14^th 2024

Two weeks of sickness and we are nearly all recovered.  I missed last Sunday.  Hilda the Sunday before. 

We were down to one translator-editor for a little over a week, but have both again now. 

Our helpers are extremely intelligent and gifted.  What has worked out is that two brilliant women, between jobs, who know us, are helping us.  This over several months and ongoing. 

Please keep them in prayer that better and more permanent situations for them come along.  And that this happens before we likely leave TZ to head back to the USA.   

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We are where we are remotely? uniquely? connected to a church in Dar es Salaam now.

Pastor there sent a donation to us.

One of the members there donated a huge sum of money and that church council, Pastor, and local government reps, have secured property for a church building. 

Any..  outside fees for government facilitation were completely waved..  !!

Pastor from there sent us another donation, claiming that, you who pray for us, are a huge part of this becoming possible.

Then, another unexpected and, for here, large donation of gold was given to start construction.  Again, you who pray for us, are part of this and local people here, donating for a local church plant here, and supporting and praising here, deeply appreciate all of you who pray for us..

So much so, that we have been requested to go to Dar in July. 

They want me.?  to teach.. them? 

It is their faith that God is stirring to bubbling over.  However, I leave the request in your capable praying activity.

For us to be able to go:

The book needs to be done, and at the printer..

Expenses to drive to Dar and back for four persons, and stay over in that hot expensive coastal city need to be at hand for us..  currently, they are not..

I would only go, without our translator editors, if they have good jobs before.

God will use me in my weakness wherever I am.  If it is for three days among people in Dar, then that is fine.      

Please Pray as you do..

 

There is another..  safe home.. for Maasai daughters in Maji ya Chai..

We were invited a few weeks back to an event.  We did donate directly and through several Tanzanians.  We donate through local people to reinforce that local people need to be participating in these local needs. 

We have since been contacted with messages of trust and thankfulness that we are now their ambassadors to help them seek funding for their ongoing work of getting lost, forgotten, and sold for cows young girls, and lost and forgotten young boys, raised and educated.

We have tried to perk-up interest from home, for people here living like our people did, only a few generations ago. 

You, who pray for us, are like Hilda and I.

We are extremely limited, financially.  So, we do the best thing, we Pray.

We cannot fix everything.

But, we may stop accepting invitations that seem likely connected to the incessant drain on God’s resources remaining in our shrinking bank account. 

Please Pray, my head on straight for what God wants, my heart wants to stop beating with the weight of it all at times.

The Sunday Hilda was sick, I preached in Mulala, up on the mountain.  Last Sunday Hilda walked onto campus and attended service at Chapel.  A former fellow student            to me, met and attended with her.

The Mama’s on the mountain and Children at boarding have not missed a single week’s message being delivered for them to read.

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Another week and South Africa has not sent the water pump we need to try.  We need that water pump to try fixing the only source of electric power at an Evangelist College serving people of the bush in Oldanyosambu. 

Please pray for this again.  That the parts come.  That we can afford them, when they arrive.  That they will fit, fix, and work to serve the college.

Your prayer again.  Thank you.

 

I have starting teaching English for fluency again.  This time to University students.  Only to a couple who have come and asked. 

Insane right?  God knows, I don’t.

 

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The book, which is completely the fault of, and doing for, local Mama’s; is being edited in two languages and we pray that it will be affordably printed here before we, likely, head back to the states.

I know, absolutely crazy to think we can afford a printing, but we have to try.

Music update includes that there are now two pieces of music written to challenge editor translators to produce lyrics from themselves.

One piece has only English lyrics so far.

The other, only Swahili lyrics so far.

Long way to go.  Your prayer deeply sought for this work too.  Thank You.

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We may live dangerously, but we are alive.  Thank you for praying us the courage to live this way, if dangerously.  We don’t see it that way.

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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

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.

                -------------------------------------------------------

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 –

Pray for YWAM, YWAM families, Tanzanian families who choose Joy, over and over in defiance of death - 

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

 

 Dear Cherished Interested’s,                                                                                                       May 14^th 2024

Stupid truck is back..  While driving from Maji Ya Chai to Makumira Secondary School, late Saturday with four, University Students, wachungaji, in the back seat, to deliver Sunday messages for the children at the school; I tested for the very first time ever, working four wheel drive, high range.  Still no low range nor diff-lock. 

However, it is so good to have four wheel drive at all.  Because, I can now stay in first gear through water crossings and mud washes and through ruts that leave us laying on the inside of the door,  on one side or another.  Traction at all tires is far superior to speed through hazards that would leave us stuck without recourse or help.     

When I was logging, I had a radio and cell phone that, even if I had to walk to where I could get signal, would bring people and equipment to assist in getting going again.  Not so here.  I’ve been part of teams, here, that have used backs and hands to drag vehicles out of trouble and back to where they can move, but those teams are not likely where you need them, nor when.

So, hooray for four wheel drive.  I was able to go so gently, we even took someone out from the school to the big road, riding in the open bed. 

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Two unusual things to report that have given tremendous goodness to our hearts.

The young expectant mother being cared for by her mother and Hilda, admitted that she had been near to doing what the illegitimate-non-father was demanding of her.  She was literally hours from terminating her unborn child and praying for an answer when she met Hilda.  Hilda, who cared enough, to teach her how to overcome her morning sickness and other symptoms.  The brutal cost to this young mother’s conscience, and the conscience of her mother too, has been erased with the on-going life within her. 

This other thing is amazing too. 

One of our editors has a close pastor contact in Dar es Salaam.  That contact is a young Pentecostal Pastor with two children who started a church with his wife, just a few years ago, and now has a congregation of about 100 people, four of whom are he and his family. 

Upon hearing about Hilda and I, that young pastor chose to respond to deeply felt Spiritual prompting, and insist that we receive a donation from him.  Not an American.  Not a Lutheran.  Not anyone from a mainline North American tradition.  Not a European, nor wealthier one from anywhere. 

A Pentecostal street Pastor of East Africa, now having services in a beautiful tent, identifies with us older missionary ones from across the Atlantic enough, to donate to what we are doing.  Sight unseen.  No face to face contact.  Simply hearing about us from others.    

This is unheard of.  Even local Lutherans here, whom we serve among, tend to invite us to fund raising events so our participation can potentially include monetary donations only, from, us.  Prior to this, the only local Christian donation we have received was about 40 cents from a young man who responded by giving, what he had, to me while I was speaking to a gathering at an engagement party.  I was not talking about fund raising, nor, money at all. 

We are part of something good and hard.  To have this unbelievable affirmation, from literally out of nowhere, is amazing and must be told to you who pray for us.   

Your hearts and minds faithfully work miracles, your praying is part of that!

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Another week and South Africa has not sent the water pump we need to try.  We need that water pump to try fixing the only source of electric power at an Evangelist College serving people of the bush in Oldanyosambu. 

Please pray for this again.  That the parts come.  That we can afford them, when they arrive.  That they will fit, fix, and work to serve the college.

Your prayer again.  Thank you.

------------------------------------

The book, which is completely the fault of, and doing for, local Mama’s; is being edited in two languages and we pray that it will be affordably printed here before we, likely, head back to the states.

I know, absolutely crazy to think we can afford a printing, but we have to try.

I’ve started to work on the English Worship book for the Cathedral.  Not an impossibly priced English worship book from somewhere else, but updating the East African English Worship Book as it already exists here.  I say East African as the Lutheran lectionary used in Tanzania, is also used by Kenyan Lutherans who hold the Tanzanian Lutheran Church as a mother church which sent missionaries to help them get going.  I don’t know how far this quiet work for the Cathedral will go, but trust some will find faith building through it. 

As a part of this work, one of the options I plan to offer is the inclusion of minor festivals and commemorations from the larger and older global church.  These include stories of people we know from scripture who served alongside Jesus and lived lives like ours as we too strive to serve and model Jesus. 

Our Editors do not yet know, and only God knows if I will get through, but two messages for two sets of readings associated with two festivals have been written.  These are readings from the older global church.  What I write may still challenge many, often myself too, but nothing goes to the local editors without having first receiving affirmation from Hilda. 

Last weekend another gift, in the form of work coming from me, erupted through the computer into another score.  A piece of music intended for more than one language.  I think it is to be a gift for that young pastor who donated to us.  He loves music and praise. 

I have not put a single note to page since driving across America to see people, after selling the house in 2021.  I was at my sister’s church in Renville, Minnesota, Ebenezer Presbyterian.  The piano there is likely the most pitch accurate piano I have heard for a very long time.     

Long way to go.  Your prayer deeply sought for this work too.  Thank You.

------------------------------------

 

We may live dangerously, but we are alive.  Thank you for praying us the courage to live this way, if dangerously.  We don’t see it that way.

-------------------------------

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

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.

                -------------------------------------------------------

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 –

Pray for YWAM, YWAM families, Tanzanian families who choose Joy, over and over in defiance of death - 

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