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.

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

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

 Dear Cherished Interested’s,                                                                                         December 12th, 2023

Sometimes it feels like I am in a spiritual intensive care ward.  Surrounded by people, many of whom are already serving as Pastors because of call first, who have been given this opportunity to attend theological training.  The deep real kindness and inclusion in important things that we have in common.

And then.. There is the language issue.  Being lost is just the way it needs to be.  The least amount of academic stress and the whole community is back in Swahili managing things.  A few are always trying to keep me included but.  So, faith that somehow I can work my way through each unexpected dumped truckload of requirements that appear into a workload that should be manageable.

Should be but for never quite understanding enough.  Enough whining from me.  I already have Hilda’s permission to flunk though so many are trying to help.

Mchungaji Daktari Justin Mungure just came and took us a few kilometers away to near Makumira Secondary School.  To a church where the students from that Secondary school, located just behind the University, walk to on some Sundays.  There we loaded a table as directed by Mchungaji Ombeni.  That table is now on the porch awaiting cleaning and moving into the house for our use.

We are getting treated here like we are their own missionaries. 

I had made a desk from trunks, bed slats, refrigerator box and bedsheet but that will be going away tomorrow, I think, and the table will take its place looking out onto the shady side of the house from the living room / dining room.  That alone saves us millions of shillings, while also getting the bed slats back available for the bed.

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We had two major things today.  A presentation on Pastoral counseling for the whole freshman class, many hundreds.  I was selected by my theology classmates to be the primary presenter just a couple days ago.  This done in Swahili by the group.  Me being informed after the decision was hashed out and made, while I was clue-less-ly sitting there blown away by the rapid crosstalk. 

I was a hard case while presenting to a group of young people about heartbreak surrounding relationships, failed relationships.  My fellow Wachungaji and Wachungaji in training acting out culturally appropriate heartbreak and loss as part of the presentation was initially seen as humorous to the greater class.  I shut that down hard.  Telling them that heartbreak is serious and absolutely nothing to laugh about.

I taught from Genesis 1:27 asking the whole room to consider that perhaps the ability to feel heartbreak was also part of being made in God’s image.  That God felt heartbreak in the Garden, during the flood, at the tower of Babel, at Sodom and Gomorrah.  I stopped before challenging them to think of Pharaohs army being drowned during the flight from Egypt. 

Sophies choice is faced by God every moment.  God has to separate his children sometimes.  God lives heartbreak.  They were thinking then.

The presentation grew in unexpected ways and was amazing.  One of my classmates presented as suicidal and with a plan to commit suicide.  No, I did not know about that either until this very morning.  That was taken as a special opportunity to teach.  He was gathered to me in a culturally appropriate way for where we are.   And he was kept there while I explained to the Assembly Hall of hundreds why if we find someone considering suicide and already having plan that nothing else matters, not grades, not food, not anything.  We are to not leave them alone while we get help. 

The format was that of a small short service for youth, centered around their questions and requests for help.  Drama ensued.  Hilarity was squelched.  We then had a blessed time of deep teaching in an amazingly few minutes.

Also in Swahili, me being informed after, my classmates had chosen “What a friend we have in Jesus” for me to sing the first stanza of during movement of presenters.  Somehow, that piece flowed into ending prayer acknowledging our Islamic siblings and any Jewish siblings well enough that as I was leaving later the Islamic women students on campus who had been present not only made eye contact with this big hairy barbarian, but beamed at me.   

Spontaneously, our entire theology class bubbled up on stage near the end so I was able to tell all those hundreds to remember these faces.  We all care and you can come to any and all of us.  Even the grumpy ones came up and were beaming, nearly all with wet eyes.  We did well.

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Then..  There was a test.  Immediately after for another required course for all freshman.  I do not know. 

I wrote across the top of the empty paper: Genesis 1, Leviticus 19, Deuteronomy 6, Mathew 22, Romans 13.  Then started to answer the two parts of the one question selected at random filling both sides of a blank lined sheet of paper.

That instructor likes to single me out at every opportunity while lecturing about Development Studies.  I am not certain whether he is a Marxist.  He loves to lecture in Swahili and make my fellow theologians scramble to translate into my ear.  Yes, a piece of work.

Every part of my answers was bolstered by those scriptures.  He deserves to get to know me.  He deserves to know whose children deserve development and why.  I’m not trying to pick a fight.  I think.   

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Pray for my brain.  Pray for my information gathering style as it is like being blindfolded and spun twice each minute.

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Yes please … Keep praying for those we have lost to their self-righteousness..  those we have lost to their lying and now hiding..  Love doesn’t stop but trust does..  Forgiveness we can give but it is best if it is asked for ..

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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.

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

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

 Dear Cherished Interested’s,                                                                                                     December 4th, 2023

Yesterday, we woke up in a different house.  We got up and going late.  We drove up the Mountain and did Sunday school with the Littles and then worship with the Mama’s. 

The youngest Mama stood and read the message for the rest in Swahili after each Mama picked a song and we sang them.  This, as usual, where they are preparing food for lots of precious stomachs. 

We then drove down off the mountain after finding and collecting one of Hilda’s cats.  Hilda went up and looked again today for the Tomcat but nope.  She won’t give up, Mulala neighbors see him at night but not when Hilda gets a chance to go by.

The Sunday before, Hilda spent the day going to two different Confirmations without me.  I took care of The Children’s village by myself and then went home to study.  Well crash first. 

The biggest difference between the two Sundays is that we now have a house just barely outside the wall of the college, down off the mountain.  College security knows where we are and watches the house.  We have running cold water in every sink and even the toilet, shower too. 

Bedrooms are bigger.  Truck is parked.  I walk to chapel and classes.  The rent is half of what it was up on the mountain.  Mchungaji Daktari Justin Mungure of the Cathedral in Usa, who I’ve preached for several times, approached his uncle and bargained our rent for us insisting that we are missionaries and not high dollar world travelers. 

Local people who love us are trying very hard to help us save resources so we can afford to stay and, God willing, my old brain can find an education. 

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I spent an eye-blink amount of time serving at the Maasai Girls Lutheran Secondary School in Monduli Tanzania in 2004 and again in 2005.  That school teaches Maasai daughters in an English medium environment.  Daughters of an extremely patriarchal and nomadically pastoral culture. 

You will not believe this.

Two of my professors are Maasai women who attended that very school.  They are beyond brilliant and hard working.  One calls me Baba in front of her students.  She called me a prophet today as I was presenting with a group of classmates about deuteronomic history and the books of Joshua, Judges, 1&2 Kings and Samuel and Ruth.  I stood there shaking after being called that.

Later she returned to Baba and told the class not to call me a prophet because ..  well..  I don’t want to die.. not really.. not yet anyway.

Three hours of presentation and question and answer.  My fellows of the group did not understand my introduction as it was not like the example they were given so they tried to rewrite it before I gave it.  I put my foot down and gave my intro.  After the presentation they apologized and were hurriedly changing the printed copy for Professor back to what I had written.  And they were doing it happily.

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I am still not on the computer system.  “Kisa” is working on the problem.  She is the information system guru for the university.  I went to see her and she called up the chain rattling cages and answering questions about what is possible and what is not and told me to come back tomorrow afternoon. 

Higher-ups must higher-up apparently, but she has given them a deadline now.

That conversation was like at least half the conversations here.  Rapid fire ki-swahili that leaves me lost still.  As I talk with my professors I ask them to shift to and stay in Swahili for the benefit of literally ALL the other students.  I am happy to be a challenge for them to learn more English fluency but not at the expense of Theological or other content.  This is year one.

What is fun though is when one of the grounds-keepers or janitorial staff or secretaries sees me they greet me in Meru.  I greet them in Meru in return and the students who aren’t Meru but from elsewhere in the country, most – almost all, are floored that Babu who struggles with Swahili can talk with the worker bees, greeting in passing, like he is one of them. 

It still elicits laughter.  That is so much better than fear or hate.

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Pray for my brain.  Pray for my information gathering style as it is like being blindfolded and spun twice each minute.  Locked out of the information system, over a month late starting, classes at least in part in a different language.  Not even a map of campus.

One professor has taken me to his office twice now to talk about a relationship with God, how to hear, how to know, how to give.  He can talk with me about his coursework too because it is technology that I have been blessed to be around but most here have only seen drawings.  But his hunger is God.  Deep hunger, deep wanting.

Pray I be a decent John the Baptist and keep pointing to Jesus.  That is who he wants and needs.

This professor is another hard working one trying desperately to change an educational paradigm set in presumptions that cannot see or understand the technology he is tasked to teach.

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Yes, it is still raining.  But, I do not have to drive an ever changing mountain track anymore to get to school.  Just get up an hour and a half later now and walk. 

Your prayers do that..  Thank you

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Yes please … Keep praying for those we have lost to their self-righteousness..  those we have lost to their lying and now hiding..  Love doesn’t stop but trust does..  Forgiveness we can give but it is best if it is asked for ..

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

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.

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

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

 Dear Cherished Interested’s,                                                                                         November 20th, 2023

Missed a Sunday to attend a Confirmation in the bush.  Way south of Usa River just about off any Google map reference.  Service was beautiful with 24 confirmands way out in the sticks, beautiful country. 

Yesterday I was again the sick one.  Hilda did everything on foot from the house, returning to check on me.  Today, a day late but while down off the mountain, we took the Sunday messages to the children at Makumira Secondary School.

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Don’t tell anyone.  Not yet.  Still immigration troubles possible, but..

I attended my first class as a student of Theology at Tumaini University, Makumira, today.  I am starting over a month late.  But, I have started.  The Dean has ordered me to come to her office anytime for anything.  I am lost but swimming for the surface.

Yes I was so sick this morning I could hardly stand, let alone walk half a kilometer up to the truck and then drive to school.  Hilda went with me today.  Still sick and very tired but somehow energized by the amazing inclusive kindness of the students I am in program with.

I was able to amaze the Dean by showing her my student ID with three years of campus access printed on it as she was under the impression that I could not do more than one year.  She was thrilled that problem got worked through and was bubbling about me working hard and doing well so that she could extend that into a fourth year.

Mchungaji Daktari Justin Mungure, a graduate of that university and someone I have preached for multiple times, accompanied us to campus this morning.  When visiting with us afterward he indicated two things: local pastors plan to work me while I go to school in order to cram the fifth year practical into those same three or four years ..  And several people are looking for housing for us closer to campus, more cost effective housing. 

There is another Mchungaji Daktari Mungure possibly in my future.  She may be my academic advisor and serves some dual capacity both the ELCT and the ELCA.  Please don’t out her..  I am not the ELCA flavor of the week, if I ever was, but as my mother might have said; strong medicine can taste bad but still do its job.    

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Yes, flooding and death and destruction.  We are safe.  We are a team.  Your prayers make everything possible by whispering our names in our Heavenly Fathers ear.

You do that.  Thank You.

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Some heartbreaking revelations about close people refusing their commitments to us. 

Commitments made to facilitate our doing everything we can and more to help them.  Manipulation sucks wherever it is.  Pray that God can enter it and somehow fix what I cannot even address, as isolation and triangulation are the bastion of the fearful and self-righteous..  It does not matter how much you love them, how much you were willing to sacrifice for them.   

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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.

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

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

 Dear Cherished Interested’s,                                                                                         November 07th, 2023

Two Sundays ago I was so heart sick I was sick in body too.  I missed early service entirely but drove Hilda to The Children’s Village and Makumira Secondary and she did it all, even as she also was sick.  I crashed in the truck.

Sunday, two days ago, Hilda was still sick and I left her to sleep.  I was an Elder for the annual Men’s service at The Cathedral in Usa River.  I read the announcements and the first half of the first Chapter of Job.  My fellow Elder read nearly the entire second half of that chapter.

The message was given by a fellow congregant and grandfather intimately familiar with the polyglot tasking required to read, a sermon provided by the diocese in Swahili, out in English for the English service.  I was still called upon to speak extemporaneously about Job, fathering, prayer, and what Christian fathering in particular may entail. 

I was not run out on a rail.  I did have my simple raiment on backwards with the Cross on the back.  The Cross hanging from my neck falling to the front.  Not one robe yet found here fits enough to zip and snap let alone look like anything right, but the Elder raiment is a square of embroidered and edged white fabric lain on the bias across the shoulders to drape, head through the middle.  I did not feel any more ridiculous than usual with that feeling going away when required to share.

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May have found a place to help get the truck working more fully.  In one day the ABS system reports as working.  This has not worked ever in our time with the truck.  Hoping to be able to give that shop the two days with the truck they have requested soon.  Five generations of Hindu family from India living and working right here in TZ. 

Father, probably younger than us, of that clan is a very hard-nosed businessman but straight.  His father died when he was 18, so he has survived and done well learning his ways along the way.  The young son took his training in the UK and Canadian Maritimes and does his father proud while understanding North American enough to be comfortable with and for me.  We will see if they can understand a white person who is not full of cash but must plan.

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Hilda got a consult with Mohamad our pharmacist yesterday while waiting for the truck in Arusha.  She slept fairly well for the first time in almost a month last night.  Hilda is no quitter.  She’s a little groggy today, maybe we’ll try breaking one of those pills in half. 

We also went to the Cultural Heritage Museum while in town.  The Islamic family who owns it keeps it open for free.  They are building another museum for Jane Goodall right next to it.  When the headman sees us he remembers us.  As we are remembered, the pride for his gemstones and jewelry gets set aside with those things. 

He then really lights up as he shares about what his family and the families of his large life-long staff are doing in support of community development right here in Tanzania.  Most of these folks are wealthy enough to live anywhere in the world but as a group have chosen to stay and turn serving into something so joyful it looks like.. determined play.

We, the strange poor whites, are not shamed but accepted and even wanted.  Wild.

This Cultural Heritage Museum is huge.  It is stunningly appointed and curated full of artwork changing slowly with time but simply breath-taking.  I can’t do too much at a time, even the few abstract pieces are amazing.   The faces, physiognomies, places and animals are familiar to me from my brief time serving among them so my connection builds connection that can be overwhelming given the artistic veracity within artwork of extremely high character and quality.

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It has been two weeks of predominant silence.  Silence from the University and my diligent helpers.  I have been assured of an update today.  Assurances are often unable to be fulfilled. 

This seemingly contemporary paradigm of unfulfilled assurances is difficult for me.  It is not a paradigm I was raised to exercise in my times.  My patience is imperfect.  I have not yet been run out on a rail.  Nor have we dusted off our shoes.  I hate having to dust off my shoes.  When personal conviction and the peace of God brings you into striving sincerely in love, nothing hurts more than having to leave its outpouring. 

Face that every day.  Sometimes every minute.  Still playing the worldly fool praying to be heaven's tool. 

God’s sense is better than mine.  Obedience is easy to say but hard to live in the face of all the reasons not to. 

Yes, classes have already started for the year, two weeks in.  Awaiting assured for signature of Vice-Chancellor.  Latest theory being that as the last hurdle.  Again, my helpers doing their best for this to happen without money changing hands in inappropriate ways. 

At home, if you are seen as part of the one percent, you are expected to contribute things too.  Those expectations have very little to do with what my sense of call is.  I wonder how many others get drawn into those expectations here or at home without question.  Is that a fair burden to lay upon any church they are to come to serve?

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Had a bunch of little ones run up and throw their arms around me last night before sunset.  This was a community over on the mountain, about seven little sets of arms all at once.  Then off with smiles and waves and laughing.  Not one request for anything.   

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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.

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

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

 

 

  

 Dear Cherished Interested’s,                                                                                         October 23rd, 2023

We drove to the border and then on into Kenya, Maili Tisa{nine mile}.  This for Visa compliance once again.  There we turned north into the bush and overnighted at a facility before returning to brave the border and come back south.

This brief overnight was unwanted expense yet, awesome.  This one night was a return.  Last time, at this facility, I stayed up late as Hilda rested helping the staff find and repair water and power issues. 

They were sincerely glad to see us again.  We hadn’t given up on them and came back in spite of the problems on our first visit.  Perhaps that is part of why we were approached late in the afternoon on the balcony by someone who was not in our plans.

The owner of the facility is now another of that growing body of people whom we are protective of.

Protective of even as that protection is not needed.  The owner is beyond mandatory retirement age for Kenya yet is kept continuously contract bound to serve his nation.  As he is not black, but a very light brown Muslim, he will never ascend to the highest positions he is responsible to.  For this he is openly thankful, fearing for his soul should he ascend to the top.  Wise man. 

His facility for visitors is kept behind a fence so other government officials cannot simply enter and help themselves to its contents and services.  We get to enter. 

We spent the late afternoon, supper, and into the late evening with a soon to be grandfather who still calls his mother three times a week.  This done by this military man responsible for many things.  One of his joyful responsibilities is directing and participating in Game Warden duties.  Two days after we left, I got a video and pictures of successful giraffe tagging operations as part of confronting cross border poaching.  Cool..

This Game warden who does many other things built this facility with recovered and up-cycled discards, cast-offs, and it is beautiful.  It will fool you at first look into believing it is a much older facility that is in a process of slow renewal, but that is a consequence of the materials found and used in its construction.

The region is in the twelfth year of a drought and so this game warden finds ways of feeding the local wildlife.  Hilda fed, out of her hand, a young male giraffe.  There are Eland, Ostrich, and many other animals and birds.  Without internet except for near the pool and common house, the sounds of nature throughout the day are healing to this old farmer and logger. 

This Islamic game warden has been married for 35 years.  He is married to a Catholic Maasai woman who sounds like a dynamo equal to her spouse.  Because of this union, this Islamic game warden is an elder of the Maasai in that region and includes in his long list of duties conflict resolution for the tribe.

I do not know why God takes moments, I do not seek, and makes them immeasurably valuable.  Again it is people.  God makes moments but not for moments sake.  God makes moments for life and people.  I did not expect a five hour conversation with anyone, we went to satisfy Visa compliance by having our passports stamped out of country then back in, my fingerprints taken at the border each way and each time.

We were able to listen to an exceptional insider, who is also an outsider to the various cultures, he lives within the tension of, in the in-between.  He is the last of his generation still in Africa, so likely could legally afford to follow his parents and siblings elsewhere, but chooses to stay where he can make a difference in the wild places and supporting the service among the people of those places he loves.  I understand that.  A secular Muslim and a Maasai Catholic doing much of the work of missionaries to support and improve human lives without knowing all the scriptural basis.  Cool..

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The Sunday after the trip north I preached in Kilinga again, a little further up the mountain, at 7:AM.  We waved at the Pentecostal Church on the way by as our Swahili teacher worships there.  She thinks it is cool that we preach among her people at the Lutheran church.  She has been studying my messages as part of our education and has never found fault with the challenges offered therein.   

Yes, Hilda preached too.  I leave them quiet and pondering.  Hilda they just adore, she can’t stand still and doesn’t.  She makes Mchungaji chase her around, so he can hear to translate, as she gets all her ‘students’ engaged by beaming love over everyone.

Yesterday was attending English service at 7:am, preaching only with the TST Mama’s, messages delivered to the children at Makumira Secondary, then we took a teen to boarding school way over on the west side of Arusha. 

On that trip we also took a young Italian woman, fluent in Swahili from studies at University in Naples.  And we took that precious mother to her sister’s children and grandchildren.  We then attended a Catholic Confirmation for a bitty little princess and her friend.  Huge deal here.  I was asked to use the truck to transport both children, inside the cab, and videographers filming from outside in the bed.

I was told I was to follow someone.  Then the tired mother of a confirmand got in the passenger seat and directed me to lead.  She directing to where she did not know and me taking direction in tired Swahili being spoken through her nose that I still don’t really know. 

How tired was she?  She was so tired that someone had to close the passenger door for her after she sat down in the truck each time.  That event lasted hours into the night. 

As the event was drawing to a close that tired Mama was energized by the music, dancing and celebration to the point of her and her husband coming to beam on Hilda and I with sincere gratitude.  

Gratitude for hauling 15 children, little princesses, in the back seat of the stupid little truck and letting videographers document from the bed while wandering dusty streets aimlessly going in circles looking for places we did eventually find.  Hilda and the ladies waited at the celebration venue while I wandered with children and videographers driving to directions mostly non-verbal and completely comical.  

I never seem to get video evidence but Hilda danced with all the African ladies like the world was on fire.  One Bibi coming to the table and making Simba dance with her too between joyful bouts with Mama Simba, Hilda. 

We got the two ladies we traveled with home, parked the truck at the church, and then walked home from there ourselves.  We did not get stopped until after midnight.

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Hilda is planning to take on two swimming students.  One of those students is looking for places to affordably have pool access.  These are adult students.  One is our Swahili teacher.

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Huge expenses again surrounding the school for Vern thing with last minute hurdles out of nowhere.  Thanks to Pastors here who really believe in who we are and Pastor Erik in Washington State who is also likewise supportive, hopes of clearing those hurdles have appeared.  We’ll see.  We are at work without the training.    

Hilda and I spent a few hours today around working those school for Vern issues with a German Pastor wanting to attend the same University also.  She was heartbroken at how she has been treated. 

Some of this is due to our developed world presumption that every type of communication is valued and equal.  That is not the case here where access to internet, phone service, e-mail, etc, is not common. 

Often only face to face communication works.  Now, good luck finding the faces.. 

I think of the Temple authorities as recorded in scripture.  I really do.   I’m sure that does not win any friends.  I hope it challenges a spiritual sibling or two. 

Two years after being told, while going through candidacy during COVID, that I was too stubborn to be accompanied in candidacy for listening to the call to come here, I learned that the candidacy committee did not think I would ever serve in a North American Congregation.  Because of that narrowness, their way or the highway, it may have become a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Hilda and I still hope there is a small church somewhere in America desperate enough to let us live near the front door.  I hope it is in a blessed community with businesses running shifts.  We hope to have services either before or after shift changes, perhaps both, so we can be used to make some students among folks running as hard as they can. 

We hope there may be a church in farm country or along a trucking route so I can have coffee with folks sick of being lectured to by meta-thinkers with manicured hands that have never been broken by anything.  Not fair, I know, but needs are real as people.  Those needs are opportunities.  Like funerals are.  Like weddings are.  Like hunger is. 

Not all people who need God’s constant love can afford men’s and women’s retreats and special training programs or seeming adult play dates, entertainment as faith community.  They can’t afford my training.

Perhaps I shouldn’t buy that expensive and expected training that excludes the willing but come to trust my lifetime of suffering and miracles.  Both proof of God being with us and wanting us, forever.

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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.

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

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

 Dear Cherished Interested’s,                                                                                         October 9th, 2023

I have been led to write more about lies in the messages for Sunday.  No, I still write mostly about Jesus and God’s constant love, yet, there is really a lot in scripture about lying.  I am told something by someone and I believe it to be truthful so I make plans and commitments based upon what I thought was truth.  When what I was told was not truthful but a lie, then I too am a liar when what I had promised based upon what I was told cannot occur as I had said it would.

Desperation makes people of poverty say anything.  That leaves them impoverished and enslaved.  That leaves their culture also impoverished and enslaved to lies that waste each others time and efforts.  But, it is in fact a human problem because I know that the greatest liars I have faced are the most educated, most influential, who come with the biggest bank. 

Once lost a business because a very wealthy Christian family chose not to pay for their new houseful of custom cabinets artfully fabricated for each individual space in that large and beautiful home, made far lovelier, by the cabinetry lovingly made for them by a neighbor and myself.  We did this with reclaimed cast off logging slash pile debris carefully milled, dried, and curated into efficient and warm use of space within that home. 

An earlier job loss came when the son of the owner of two businesses that were operationally my significant managerial responsibility chose to assault me in my office and then .. lie about it.  The presence of financial resources can shield folks from the consequences of their lies but the lies remain.  Lies destroy trust.  The wealthy often think that enough money can buy that trust back. 

There is much I have to think about now that was not my problem living near the economic bottom in North America.  Here, we are in the 1 percent.  What and how do I teach through the use of resources?  Resources that are not present in nearly all the lives around us.

The casual use of falsehood to control others time and efforts and calling it being kind to their feelings is part of the desperation of impoverishment but is also an excuse used by the wealthy everywhere to avoid facing themselves.  We have struggled together for too many years not to care about these things. 

On the farm with living things my moment by moment responsibility lying was inconceivable.  Either the animals are fed or they get sick and die.  Either the animals are milked or they get sick and die.  If the animals are dead there are no resources at all for the people.  If the crops fail, there are no resources to feed the animals.  Consequences taught by survivors of consequences kept the youngest me on my toes and focused on truth. 

That is why we have consequences isn’t it.  So consequences can steer us towards something better than lies.  So consequences faced and avoided can reward us with truth.  That is a mission statement.  Is it a good one? 

Over and over in Revelations it is communicated that all liars are part of a group going into the lake of burning Sulphur as part of the second death.  That is more prescient than people riding on the roof of our stupid little truck.  That is more prescient than the reckless operation of motor vehicles in general here.  Life is both precious and flouted foolishly in completely non-vicarious ways.  It is not a video game. 

Yet, lies, not foolishness, is part of what makes death permanent for people God lovingly creates. 

I want God’s heart on these matters.  I get lied to so casually and I hate it.  Where is my grace?  Where is my empathy?  My empathy got lost with that job?  My empathy got lost with that business?  Those are part of the plethora of losses we face in life.  We lose opportunities, places and, if we are alive inside at all we lose people the hardest. 

That is a mission statement too.  To lose people the hardest.  That is starting to touch the heart of God in these matters.  God creates me.  I don’t.  God creates all people.  I don’t.  If my heart is made so as to feel loss and then trained up through a life of losses then..  perhaps, we can understand a little of why Jesus chose to lose his life, instead of losing all of us. 

So, as I face the lies of the malignant, manipulators, and desperate, and those thinking they are kind, and lies come out of my own mouth by intent or the web of this interconnectedness, help me to hold to that Jesus who chose to lose his life, instead of all of us.  Let that love be with me when even my hard won and deep empathy gets lost. 

You hold us together in all the uncomfortable.  Keep me vulnerable as I pack water into the house.  Keep me vulnerable as we wait for power and internet to return.  Keep me vulnerable and not hardened by the tragedies that seem so needless.  I did not make any of God’s people.  Jesus was vulnerable enough to die for them..  me too.

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Yesterday was Cathedral where I was called upon to read scripture three different times during the sermon as given by Mchungaji Daktari Mungure.  Then the Children’s Village for a good Sunday school after being embraced by the other older local Mchungaji who comes for the children whenever he can too.  A wonderful worship with a Mama again standing to read the message for her fellows after singing so beautifully together. 

This particular Mama is an older Mama who looks so much, having a similar spirit to my grandmother when I was at my youngest.  She can run like the wind.  She can run like the wind while holding or grabbing up children nearly half her size.  Her smile is half her size too.   

This Mama, has keenly perfect eyesight and helped me figure out who needed reading glasses last year. 

When she reads a Sunday message, she is intentional about not being in a hurry.  I can read along as she speaks.  She raises her voice as she ends each question.  She pauses briefly at places that can use it.  She cares about scripture and not just being impossibly busy all the time. 

Again, my brain remains steadfast against comprehension even as I can read, hear, and speak the words.  Listen, see and appreciate the music of the language in its usage without knowing a thing.

Later in the day we were again at Makumira Secondary where we are currently avoiding entry into the school grounds as immigration has put a huge fear into the community about foreign nationals. 

Yes, which Visa, and how many resources will it take to get what this official, or that official, insists is official, until next time.  Christian schools do not have many of the protections afforded in the U.S.A.  Headmaster was heading to court early last week to deal with matters important to the government from 2008, long before he was headmaster, that involve a foreign national as student of the school at that time.  The government wants its way as resources are scarce, and some officials may be hungry. 

Perhaps some of the hard talk of lies has been in my face for a while.  People will show themselves in time.  Pray please that we have that time and the patience to watch what God does with our messes. 

Oh, the young ones at Makumira Secondary who want us there?  Hilda takes the Sunday message to the gate.  Adult in charge inside sends for a young one so the messages can still get to the young ones.  Then the adult gets busy with something so two or three of the young ones can come bubbling out of the gate and hang on the truck to talk with me still wearing my seatbelt. 

Yes, this is humbling.  This is amazing.  This is because of prayer.  I have written a lot of things.  I could not write any of this if it did not happen in front of me.  Thank you for your time and effort in keeping us in the thick of blessings.

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It is weird.  I learned early to work impossibly hard and by myself on the farm when I was very young.  I am surprised to find that the energy I was given then comes to me now not when I am alone and working but when I am obedient and working.  Working with, serving people as a lifelong introvert and finding energy in the obedience.  That has to be your prayer too.

Jesus changes the nature of fish who seek the bottom of the lake in the heat of the day to instead rise to the surface to be caught.  Jesus changes the nature of Simon the fisherman into Peter the Apostle and servant of people.  Jesus changes us too.  Just spend some time with him.  You give this time to us by your exercising hearts in conversation on our behalf.  You make this happen.

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Discipline is also true.  Loss of opportunity to be obedient I feel bodily in that it ages me decades in a second.  The Spirit in me weeping when a lie is revealed; even The Spirit seeming to long for death at the lost obedience.  Still being worked and shaped.  

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Patience for what comes with University.  When the lies, deflections and questions seem to come to an end.  You will be the first to know.  Don’t for a moment think that our university structure isn’t riddled with the same.  Of my four biological children there are only two associate degrees and one bachelors. 

They could not stomach the gaming and manipulating now part of what challenged this father to come here and try.

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!

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

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.

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

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