Dear Cherished Interested’s, November 25th, 2024
Traveled to a graduation in Moshi at KCMC, Kilimanjaro
Christian Medical Center. This
graduation was for Wachungaji, Pastors.
Pastors of all ages who have over the past many months been studying CPE,
Clinical Pastoral Education, so thoroughly that each and every one of them has
written a large book on the topic. That
book published and presented to each on their graduation day, in church on
campus, as part of a worship service.
Patience while here alone is harder for me. I was asked by one of those Mountain Village
Pastors attending training, to please come by 2:00 pm to gather him and his
things to take him home as his training will be complete. I agreed. 9:00
pm the night before, that Pastor’s daughter started texting me about coming
along to collect her father. I agreed
and we sorted out where and when to collect her. I was at the agreed place before the agreed
time. While waiting for the daughter to
get prepared other local ones started piling prepared food in pots and pans on
the back seat. Then, only about 30
minutes after agreed departure time, Daughter and her son got in and begged we
collect what became three other ladies and another child and more food. Three more stops to make that happen. We were late for the worship service at 11:00
am, but as is typical were able to simply wander in and sit.
There was a celebration after that involved the food and gathering in praise of the pastor completing his studies. The master of ceremonies, also a pastor, was preparing to wind me up for a donation of cash, also typical pastor behavior here, when the wife of the graduating one I had come to collect stood suddenly to deflect the normal public squeeze for cash that was about to be applied to me.
She
did that with such sweet authority and kind affirmation of her husband that any
grasping after my empty wallet was forgotten.
.. She is an angel..
The trip back to this graduating pastor’s home had the bed
of the truck loaded with stuff and that back seat filled with five people. Two riding shotgun in the passenger front
seat. Success..
This is something you have done by praying too. Thank you
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Just broke the news to the last two of Hilda’s local Angels
who have been helping me.
We are praying that in spite of what we can obviously see,
that I can be back in America with Hilda before or by Christmas.
In order for this to have happened, the book has to be done
and delivered to those who have only wanted God’s word from me. That is still rumbling back and forth between
this house and the printer as they build it for printing.
And, there was another requirement Hilda and I set that has
been amazingly met by what God has chosen to do. The
other requirement involved the precious one who came to cook for us after Hilda
was settled in Greeley. This precious
one is the same person who three years ago saw me studying outside her kitchen
at a home for children who have no home.
Her job was to feed the office staff.
While doing her job she still made time to come out from her kitchen and
help me learn enough Biblical Swahili abbreviations to start serving the
adoptive Mama’s of those children. She
is the one who helped me crack the most important part of a churches secret
code. How they identify parts of the
Bible.
She, in conjunction with her health, have since been
abandoned by the blind leadership of that place where we first met. The same place that expelled both Hilda and I
from being onsite as they fear Tanzanian Immigration discovering us there. That did not stop us serving those Mama’s and
through them the children we used to bring Sunday School to. Those Mama’s have gotten the written messages
they have asked for, every Sunday since the 12th of June 2022. Those messages are delivered each week to
them, and to children in a nearby church boarding school who are the more grown
life work of those Mama’s.
Well, this precious one, on the out’s like Hilda and I, was
suffering from long term extremely high white blood cell counts, uric acid
crystals affecting her ambulatory(both knees) and leaving her left arm
chronically swollen and unusable. She
was filled with pain and as is too often the case here, had no way to afford
pain management of any kind. She doesn’t
even drink alcohol.
Other long term and unattended symptomology in conjunction
with what I have already shared left Hilda and I concerned that this dearest of
dear ones was possibly terminal without any hope of any oncological evaluation
or support. We
discovered and then took the opportunity to include this one by having her shop
for and prepare meals for the rest of the team.
This they all regard as cooking for me.
But even the one helper who is now in school and not earning active pay
from me, still comes to eat meals most week days. They all go home full and with food enough to
get them back for breakfast, except for weekends.
Hilda and I decided after I returned without Hilda that I
was to stay with this precious one likely until she died. I was to employ her and facilitate her
finding and getting care but that in Hilda’s experience, in our experience, all
I would be able to do was hold her one functioning hand until God gave her
permanent freedom from degrading joints and pain. Hilda instructing me that I was to be here,
stay here no matter the expense until that happened, even far into next
year. Instead, we are now praying that I
can leave this home, to come home, soon.
The details of miraculous healing that started occurring in
earnest over a desperately fearful weekend of emergency visits, IV treatments
and then verified by impossibly clear and shockingly normal bloodwork. Bloodwork done daily over only two days and
then twice more since. Bloodwork to
guide emergency treatment and ongoing treatment into beautiful recovery with
vastly reduced medications nearly over.
Nearly down to no medications at all.
Her knees are without pain. Her
left arm which had been given up on by medical practitioners and herself is now
being used automatically and without thought, also without pain, all swelling
gone. Even her skin tone has
recovered. She
has started raising chickens and has sold enough of them to have recovered all
her expenses with over five dozen left to sell in that first batch; the second
batch coming on well. This around
working for me three days a week.
Your prayer does things like this too. Please believe that.. Thank you.
------------------------------------
Closing Africa house and returning to Hilda I pray will be
easy, no matter how impossibly hard. Deserting the loved ones there/here is
extremely painful. Perhaps, with today’s
tech, it won’t be as complete a desertion as it was in the past. We’ll see if there is interest here for
connection in the face of perceived rejection.
Long way to go, still..
Your prayer deeply sought for this work too. Thank You.
------------------------------------
Keep our feet to the fire, please. 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.
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 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
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