Dear Cherished Interested’s,


Computer is back.. again.. It stays turned on now and will turn back on after being shut off. Much slower though, but it should still serve a purpose. I’m slower these days too.

Last Blog I was heading to the airport. Got there and most the way back then Hilda’s little truck made a noise that required me to pull over and turn it off. Still awaiting its return from the shop I towed it to.

The Taxi for Sunday costs about as much as fueling the little truck for a full week worth of movement. That is why we have the little truck. That and the Children’s Village has a car, a Toyota VX, a Dahla dahla (minibus), a piki piki (motorcycle) and a Coaster (larger Toyota School Bus) but no truck of any size. We’ve hauled desks, chairs, water, soda, food, propane tanks(full), plumbing supplies, etc. Its utility in addition to seating five in safety belts means it is missed by more than just Hilda and I.

Safety belts.. Not North America. A few weeks back, after a birthday party, we transported five adults in the back seat, after dark, into Arusha where we dropped them at various locations along the big road. No one was wearing a safety belt except for Hilda and I in front. All were happy, laughing, and talking right along in local free shorthand Swahili/Meru that still goes too fast, I have learned, for even most seasoned foreigners who have lived here for years. Ladies often prefer to sit in the back because they choose to skip the safety belt back there so as to better take care of their clothing, or so they claim.

They are all so very young.

This is a world of pedestrians. Though pedestrian is too strong a word in that it implies an understanding of other modes of transportation. I think I can safely say that most rarely, if ever, travel in a car. Some can afford to pay for rides on motorcycles. Some can afford the Dahla dahla that cruise the big road between communities. Fewer can afford taxi’s and then only as a crowd of folks jammed in with goods to be taken to market, or to a funeral, perhaps a wedding.

Most who operate motor vehicles likely purchased a license, to show when waved over by traffic police, without the impediment of training. So folks who are unfamiliar with motor vehicles, unfamiliar with trying to see people on foot after dark, unfamiliar with anything to do with operating, controlling or avoiding people on foot with a motor vehicle, are operating most motor vehicles. Everything is operated by people who are most familiar with travelling on foot. Most travel by foot and are clueless about motor vehicles.

This changes everything. Firstly walkers don’t understand why they shouldn’t walk in the middle of the road or the middle of a lane. After dark, especially a busy Saturday night, they do walk in the middle of the lane, middle of the road. They walk in family groups in their Sunday best going to prayer meeting or late Saturday service. They walk, beautiful dark skinned people, in their black dresses and fancy black shirts and slacks on their way to and from one local drinking establishment or another. They wander out into the road unknowingly, are shoved, or run into the road to have a pugilist exercise of dubious merit.

Forgive those on foot, because, they do not know what they are doing. Beware those on foot, because they are precious and do not have any protection from anything a driver may be operating.

Yes, I am pointing to Jesus’s last words from The Cross. There is a moment by moment reminder here of the consequences of not doing everything perfectly. The consequences of a miss-step by a walker can be permanent, harsh, and deep loss for families, friends, and a motor vehicle operator. Sin is like that.

So by necessity walking people must be monitored at all times. And their animals must be monitored at all times. Here, unlike the US where farmers are required to pay for damages resulting from their animals going wild from pasture or barn, motor vehicle operators must compensate for every cow, goat, chicken or dog that bursts out from ditches or undergrowth into their vehicles path.

As I understand it so far, there is no compensation for struck people. Perhaps the required insurance helps with medical expenses if a collision is survived. But when a human life is lost, the impression I have gotten is that there is no compensation possible. This is because the walker was allegedly responsible for themselves, unlike an animal. Further is a deep cognizance that a human life is priceless. That too is different from North America where judges and juries are required to find faults and demand compensations for anything and everything including those things beyond price.

Next in roadway pecking order is busses of any size. They serve the rare walking ones who can afford their use and hence operate as though they own the road. Given that they are most often full to bursting of people, it’s best to let them own the road, no matter how they are operated.

I was passed several weeks back by an empty articulated fuel tanker weaving through traffic like a motorcycle at a truly insane speed. Large trucks here have different slower speed limits. That does help overall yet results in much overtaking and passing by other motor vehicles and even other trucks. This means that your lane of travel is not your own.

Your lane of travel is shared with people on foot, their children and their animals. Your lane of travel is shared with motorcycles overtaking you, or not, on both sides of your motor vehicle. Your lane of travel is shared with other motor vehicles merging into the road way without thought or concern. Hopefully that merging is in the same direction your motor vehicle is travelling, however, this is not necessarily so. Your lane of travel is shared with other motor vehicles overtaking other on-coming traffic and you are expected to leave the lane if necessary and not kill any walking ones, their children or animals in the process. This is why Hilda has chosen not to drive her little truck here. That is what I am here for.

Hope that little truck gets back to us soon. It has been a long expensive three weeks.

That description of the current driving conditions here is a fair representation. I have the experience of having been here thirteen – fourteen years ago. The current driving conditions are hugely improved from that time. There are crosswalks everywhere. When people on foot choose to use them, traffic is required to stop and let them. Not so thirteen-fourteen years ago. Although I am convinced that nearly all traffic police have never received any training involved in operating a motor vehicle themselves, they travel by Dahla-dahla to where they wave traffic over and demand money, at least they are now.. there.

Traffic police assure that crosswalks are respected, if not repainted. Traffic police assure children wait in a group before entering a crosswalk and get safely to the other side of the road. Traffic police are people on foot and are at least there to look out for those like themselves. Not so thirteen-fourteen years ago.

Tanzania may still be near the bottom of the still developing world, but, Tanzania has been improving itself in very real ways. When I am required to teach about driving here, I start with the massive improvement undertaken by this poor country in that too long, yet short, time I was gone.

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Two Sundays ago I did preach in a rural church for Pastor Lazarus. Last minute Pastor Lazarus was called elsewhere. So I had the joy of an older gentleman translator who, now retired and working his farm back in TZ, is brilliant enough to have received his economics degrees in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Together we were one presenter. How much of that is this man’s brilliance, and how much is The Holy Spirit and what difference that could possibly make, I don’t know. It was a joy. It let me come to understand something I wasn’t so consciously aware of. Awareness coming from seeing it also in my brilliant translator’s eyes.

That rural church is a building in progress like so many other preaching points here. Open on three sides, from the pulpit one is looking West, North and East over pews then open countryside. The Cross is above on the South wall behind the pulpit. South of that wall are three rooms without doors accessible from outside the worship space.

The East Pews were empty but for one young man sitting in the morning sun. The West Pews, in the morning shade, were full! Words were given me and I let them go. I took folks through the days scriptures and added another Gospel Reading along the way. I was given the ability to do this while looking everyone there in those full west pews each in the eye. No one turned away even when I challenged them. But for only one distracted older man, they all looked back.

When we were done I was aware of it in my translator/guides eyes. We had done well. We had done well in spite of me knowing I am not enough. I realized yet again that I am not alone in this teaching, proclaiming, challenging, job called preaching. I also realized that I am blessed and tried in these moments of preaching by knowing simultaneously that here I only have the attention of these precious people for a few minutes before I am gone, likely to never see them again. Further, that as I present scripture I present it to precious people who I could not be more in love with. I love them like my own children.

Since growing up on the farm and learning to work with and for my folks and Aunt and Uncle, siblings and cousins I have been working every job for the sake of love. Leaves one vulnerable in the worldly context and in retrospect I see that now. The world tried to teach me to work for money, position, even power. It disgusted me over and over. The farm and those precious relationships there taught me to work and work hard.. out of love. And, somehow, the impossible task of loving every person to their face and in their eye, so much that it aches, gets done. Nobody is enough. God help me, ever.

Last Sunday, English Service for worship, up the mountain to gather helpers, down to Silverleaf Academy for Sunday School at 10. Then up the mountain again to The Children’s Village for Sunday School there. Then Text study / preaching with the Mama’s of The Children’s Village.

My grandmother was there joyfully singing old hymns in African English to me. Matron is nearly ninety. She comes at least weekly to check the children’s health and teach about wellness and nutrition. She is a retired nurse from the local hospital. Like my grandmother on the farm Matron is petite, wiry and lean. Were she not gentle, the fire in her eyes would cut you without a single word. This is also like my grandmother on the farm. She is a breathtaking rare elder here who survives and thrives by choosing joy in the face of such deep hardship and want. Somehow presentation of last weeks scripture evoked dancing and singing to spring forth.

I not only have love.. I am given love.. We are given love..

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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.. we miss them too..

I continue to be under much harsh spiritual attack concerning my sense of self-worth and those many things I have yet to get to, please, only as you are comfortable, remember me, indeed us.. the world doesn’t like what we are doing out of love we don’t own.. yet have none the less -

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 –

Gratitude for my dear friend and Brother in Christ who writes now with my dear friend Reverend Dr. Justin Mungure -

For our health to stay ahead of whatever is before us –

For a way for us to invest with our experience and even financially in support of local industrious people so we can afford to stay and continue to make a difference one face at a time –

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 our 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,

We took a break today.. After helping to move kitchen from the house next to us to the Old Headmasters house, a move into a mostly re-done now office space, we drove bravely into town. Just Hilda and I, no indigenous help nor facilitation until we got to the Pharmacy.

There the bright young Mohamad was glad to see us. Of Indian sub-continent lineage, he surprised his parents by leaving the UK after getting his Masters in Pharmacology and came home to Tanzania. Tanzania where his gifted brilliant mind is not told to fit inside a box that disengages it from people and what troubles them medically. He does not live to count pills and fill the prescriptions written out by others. He does those things but lives to listen and turn his internet of the mind to use for the faces with problems that come before him.

Hilda is mostly out of the woods now and thanks to Mohamad’s efforts a missing medication has been found and is now with us to complete what her body needs to function more optimally.

Too bad, almost, because they then made me talk about what I’ve been dealing with ineffectively and not talking about for two months, since Covid, to keep Hilda at the center of our medical efforts. Just broke fast after sunset and took a dose to hopefully handle what is likely amoebic dysentery. Maybe I should be tired.

Yes, since Ash Wednesday I’ve been fasting from supper to supper. This became more important after the dear young one whom I was supporting by fasting alongside became severely anemic and had to stop fasting entirely. I’ve been hungry before and this is no big deal. However, if amoebic dysentery is a culprit in my guts, getting rid or it will be a tremendous gift. Sorry to talk about such things but it’s in our weaknesses that these amazing relationships happen. Relationships that would never have happened if we had never had weakness and need.

So yes, I see Jesus in the face of a young, brand new father, Islamic Pharmacist. If I can just continue that and see Jesus in the angry, self-loathing, face of the Tanzanian Traffic Cop who gets paid so poorly that he must randomly wave cars to the side of the road and extort a few shillings so he and his family can eat. If I can just continue that and see Jesus in every face, even the teenage boys with nowhere to go and nothing to do and no food and only anger to make their skeletal forms matriculate through days of utter desperation. How dare I drive by in a car! How dare I have a car!

We are safe here. Their culture is a strong one that guides them even through such desperation demanding respect and most of those angry boys have a faith promising hope. May that hope be ever answered in those tiny ways that they can see but we have often become blind to.

We are safe here and we are as helpless to affect what Russia is doing than anyone else. We are sought out for our age and Nationality to question about what is going on in eastern Europe yet again. We encourage them as we encourage you as we encourage ourselves, to pray.

You all are amazingly good at that. How dare you Pray! How dare you know the God of our Prayers! Don’t stop! Pray without ceasing.. Ephesians..

Which brings me to a mistake from last time, Blog 20, Numbers Chapter 6.. Not numbers chapter 7..

We’ve been running 7 days a week for weeks. I’ve had no time to even start to work at getting into classes. I’ve had no time to go look for my deceased Maasai brother’s spouse. I’ve had no time to go find my deceased friend's business partner, someone who is my friend too. I’ve had no time for all those pieces I juggle.

I put them down and ask you to help me pray them. The work pushed into our downturned palms is beautiful, amazing and so very important. I sometimes find tears leaking out of these old eyes at the impossibility that I am being used in any way at all for it.

There is now an office close to the house, easy short walk, ribbon across the doorway cut by the Tanzanian Minister of Social Welfare Saturday. There is now staff to help wrangle the amorphous hopes and dreams of empowering those with the dirty hands of serving by serving them. A coalition of NGO’s helping each other with what each has found to work on the ground. Helping each other by sharing specialist staff none can afford on their own. A serving seen and valued by the imperfect government of a small nation of impoverished yet beloved people.

That is what the office is for. It is not our idea. We fell into it. Each heart we have been brought into contact with in that falling into this time and place is worth what we can give and do and not just because they are those who also do. That is Monday thru Saturday.

Sunday is English service at 7. Silverleaf Academy Sunday School for 40 or so boarding students at 10. The Small Things Children’s Village Sunday School for another 40 or so whenever we can get up the mountain. Then earnest anguished sharing of the weekly Lutheran church texts with those old and young women and young men who serve the littles at the children’s village..

They sang to me again this week. Those Mama’s of babies saved from death or perhaps even worse.

Sunday is my most important day because it is work that receives no financial compensation and no one else is doing it. Thank God for Hilda’s house and Hilda’s truck and the work we get to do that helps to bring that house and truck to where we have them for Sunday too.

Instead of attending English worship at the Cathedral this coming Sunday I am to preach at a village church by insistence of the pastor who will be at my side translating into whatever language he feels is best for those in attendance. Then the Sunday schools and time with Mama’s of the children of failed families. I wish and pray such challenge come into each of our lives. We come alive in ways we don’t know when we know we aren’t adequate yet walk into the work none the less.

Power just went out then after a bit came back.. who knows for how long.. No power last night.

I need to be on the road to the airport before sunrise tomorrow. Going to save this and get some sleep.

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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.. we miss them too.. for the Army family in new quarters..

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 –

Gratitude for my dear friend and Brother in Christ who will write now with my dear friend Reverend Dr. Justin Mungure -

For our health to stay ahead of whatever is before us –

For a way for us to invest with our experience and even financially in support of local industrious people so we can afford to stay and continue to make a difference one face at a time –

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 our 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, February 27th 2022

Bible study at Silverleaf Academy is more like a midweek Sunday school or afternoon recess. 2:20 pm local western time for two Thursdays now Hilda and I have been on the large green in front of the primary school within easy sight and sound of the main office. There little ones are brought by teachers to hear from such as us. They come single file.

Last week they came cautiously. They came looking up at me, someone they have all waved and yelled happily at from afar, and carefully punched my outstretched fist. This week was all smiles, some getting a run-up before trying to knock my fist out of the park.

Last week it was the first day and the creation of light. We had them cup their hands tightly then look inside to see the darkness. Then had them lift a finger to let light leak into those cupped hands. We were then able to talk about how strong light is and how nothing darkness is. How light is strong, always wipes out darkness, and reveals everything we get to see. How darkness is lazy revealing only itself, nothing. Then we walked, about half of the school, 125-ish littles, single file sort of with them following hand signals they could see from my raised hands. We walked around the campus to see what light revealed to our eyes. Yes God knew what he was doing when inventing light first.

This week it was water being separated; what was above from what was below and dry land and water each in its place. I introduced someone else they all know from walking campus twice a week to observe classes, someone they all wave and yell hello happily at. I introduced Science Teacher Hilda to talk at an elemental level about where water is found outside them and inside them. Then we tried another campus walk but the noise level was too high to go among the classes. We went towards the dining hall away from the classes crossing water courses getting quiet to listen and watch. Then next to the dining hall where local farmers hands have cut irrigation trough’s we stopped to see what light and water together can do. That, of course, is grow food.

Two Sundays now we have had a Sunday School on Campus too. All ages, all littles, all boarding students both boys and girls, about 40 total, plus some keepers. We get help with Sunday School from a couple 13-14 year old boys and their slightly younger sister, last week. The younger of the two boys has been in TZ his entire life so is fluent in Swahili, Meru and English. He also shares words in Spanish with Hilda as we travel in a car from place to place. He stands with me in front and translates my English on the fly, stone cold on the fly with no prep, as the message for the littles comes to me from the scheduled readings.

Silverleaf boarding students get their time of teaching and lots of song, almost all their strong-hearted and full-throated doing. Hilda and I just get to watch most, Hilda leads some. They get a blessing then..

We drive up the hill to The Children’s Village and do it again with the littles living there, another 40-ish.

Something put on me from no where but God to do is to leave helpers in charge of the littles up at The Children’s Village, take my amazing young translator out to where the Mama’s are doing laundry for all those 40 kids and give a more adult message just for the Mama’s. Last week I sang a prayer/blessing setting I wrote several years ago for them. This week they sang “On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand” in Swahili to me. I was able to read out from Numbers 7: 23-25-ish that most ancient of blessings we all hear in service. This week I read it out in Swahili.

Full Sundays indeed. Then yesterday morning, Saturday, I got a call from Reverend Dr. Justin of the Cathedral in Usa River asking me to preach at 7:am for the English service today. We made it in spite of car trouble. We made a new Taxi driving friend, a rare woman who joined us at each Sunday school participating, helped us locate a full bottle of stove gas for the home of our helpers, and treated us and our helpers like gold. Her number is in my phone.

The house still has issues. The thoroughly paid for little truck has issues. We still have health struggles. There are demands out of nowhere like another Pastor I’ve written about before who brought to our door last night, Saturday night, a document in Tanzanian English and needed the logger to rewrite it into North American / European / standard English. He departed happy. We have another supper invite sometime. I am also trusted with his PHD Thesis too..

Blows ones mind. These folks who have only each other and the likes of us and are eager and thankful.

I wish everyone such company. Company of folks who have oversize beds made for you, oversize mosquito nets too. Folks who cook a huge meal for you after letting you take their children to help teach Sunday school. Folks who send you home in their own car so you can rest, they insist. Folks who know you will come day or night when called. Folks who won’t think twice when the need is there.

Folks who don’t care what you look like, what languages you speak or don’t speak, what school you have or haven’t attended. They only care that you care. Unbelievably that’s enough.

Please keep it up! Your prayers are breath-takingly effective. Your hearts are touching our Heavenly Fathers heart and I can’t be more overwhelmed with humility and deep deep gratitude.

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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.. we miss them too.. for the Army family on the move..

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 that person to write with my dear friend Reverend Dr. Justin Mungure -

For our health to stay ahead of whatever is before us –

For a way for us to invest with our experience and even financially in support of local industrious people so we can afford to stay and continue to make a difference one face at a time –

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, 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,

Different computer.. Mine is flying to the UK late this week for re-repair. Taken by willing hands traveling there.

A child was taken back to the hospital last night. This dear one has been having a very difficult post-tonsillectomy. Poorly prescribed pharmaceuticals leading to becoming unconscious and unresponsive midweek and a long night for all involved. Being prayed over by someone who scared her deeply, not me.

Beyond a CT Scan scheduled for today, I don’t know details from last night as I was intentionally left uncalled with the intention that I sleep.

Well, why write about a sick child? Why write about a driver who got partially crushed by the bus?

Firstly, you folks are praying ones. That is the biggest reason to include you.

It has been a rougher week than most.

Second is to explain how there was a timely blessing as part of these very recent and difficult events.

That is the arrival of Hilda’s little truck. I got it to the house determined to never drive here after dark.

I was almost in bed, in the dark, when the midweek call came about the child. It was a long night on some unfamiliar roads after dark with a good used but unfamiliar vehicle. Driving on the left not on the right.

The truck paid for itself the first night it was here. Then got loaned out to a family we work with whose car was unavailable. The truck was in the right place for another medical transport on Saturday. One of the drivers got pinned while working on the bus, thankfully the sternum was missed but broke a clavicle and dislocated a shoulder.

That imperfect little truck has mechanical/electrical issues but has been perfectly placed for two events that make its expense seem as nothing. It also has four doors. Four doors that I can get through and get seated beyond. Not everyone’s struggle but limits my options some. It also comes with good people.

It comes from a local family of gearheads. Gearheads who didn’t want to let the truck go but needed to so the owning son could keep his business going and get a smaller city car for his wife. The former owner’s father and I spent a morning comfortably talking about important things, even hard important things. This we did while the truck and another needed vehicle were worked on by the former owner’s brother. Yet another Islamic family who are glad we are here, glad we read scripture, glad we bought the truck, glad to consider us.. trusted.. friends.

A vital member of the vital inside team at the Children’s Village and beyond is heading to the UK this week. There was a death in the family there that needs time. While that member is gone, my imperfect efforts will be in higher demand.

A Teacher at Silverleaf Academy brought her two young children to our door so they could meet us. The people/staff of this Academy want Hilda and I to start a Sunday School. It may be on Saturdays. It may include the Islamic children too as Friday is their important day leaving them free for Saturday. We’ll see.

The best part in all this is we made ourselves visible. We made ourselves available. They had time to get to know us. All of the staff has gotten to know us not just the teachers. The littles who board on site have decided we are to be waved and smiled at. They chose to ask us. It is their idea.

The Spirit has been and is at work, we just need to say yes. When I tell them that the science teacher, they’ve seen active on campus taught Sunday School for 30 years, jaws drop. Again, that is longer than most folks here have been alive, 30 years is older than many get.

Yesterday, Sunday, we went to English service down in Usa River at the Cathedral. Then we drove up the hill to Nkoaranga and went to a Ki-Meru language service with three teenagers, born locally, adopted or in process together now as the children of a diverse family. A family glad for us to go to church with their children.

One of the boys is the one I stood up for at his Baptism and Confirmation those first couple weeks here. Children who have survived things no children should. Children who have been loved softly and firmly enough to trust again. Children whose survival comes with joy and empathy that lovingly, at times laughingly, comes out. It is unconscious for them. They can’t help it.

There is another introduction to make. Reverend Doctor Justin Mungure is a recent graduate with his PHD in Hebrew from Tumaini University at Makumira. He runs the Cathedral and leads the English service. He’s been aware of, helped and included me/us since my first Sunday here when he was given the unfortunate job of translating Bishop’s sermon on the fly for two old folks from the U.S.

He was scheduled to return to Germany to complete his PHD there but COVID changed that. COVID also took away his pen-pals, friends. He sat in our living/dining room this week Friday and decided to trust us enough to ask that there might be someone reading this who would like to communicate with a Tanzanian Pastor. A highly educated Tanzanian Pastor whose linguistic ability includes English, but is not limited by it, I would add.

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What to Pray for:

All the tough and blessing expressed above –

The love of folks –

Whatever is on your hearts and minds for us –

A beloved Mentor at home whose lifelong cousin companion co-mission-ary and brother in Christ went home Friday a week ago –

For our children and grand-children who miss us.. we miss them too.. for the Army family on the move..

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 that person to write with my dear friend Reverend Dr. Justin Mungure -

For each and every one of you –

Each and every one of your prayers, your precious conversations with God –

Prayers, Your Prayer, 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,
Computer is back!

We found an affordable, unsold from the Emirates, computer too so we each have one.

There is an English language service at the Lutheran Cathedral in Usa River not too far away. It has been a pleasant respite for two Sundays now. I haven’t had to preach, though I understand that it is my responsibility and my joy to talk about and proclaim Jesus Christ and all the intricate intimate and public ways God loves.

So far we are the only native English speakers there. Reverend Dr. Justin Mungure heads the Cathedral staff. His PHD is in Biblical Hebrew but his demeanor is kind, very kind and inclusive.

Since last posting we have gotten a fan. A fan. Simple but profound blessing that I understand makes no sense in the context of winter north of the equator as faced by so many of you.

We also have hot water, or cold water, but not both except in one sink just outside the shower room. The Shower room is the same size as the room with the western toilet. It has a tiled floor and walls up five feet or so. So is the room with the toilet.

An electrician came by motorbike replaced half a dozen outlets and got the hot water tank working. More work to do and he insisted he would be back to do it. The kitchen sink and the shower mixer faucets only flow water from what should be the hot water supply. Turn on what should be cold water supply and nothing comes.

So, we turn on the hot water tank and wait for it to heat up. Timing has been everything until very recently because wait too long and even the dribble from the shower head will scald. A fixer(Fundi) from the Children’s Village came down and got some cold water supply to function.

Another plumber came by motorbike a couple days ago and in spite of no common language he and I communicated well. Seeing and showing problems is universal. That and I know the word for crazy now and it fits this houses water supply issues.

There is a spigot in the shower room beneath the cold water supply intended for filling buckets and tubs. Since the fundi from the Children’s Village came down that spigot flows water, cold water. Logically the shower should too but it doesn’t. No matter.. we have a bucket. The dribbling outfall of scalding hot from the shower falls just six inches from the bucket fill spigot. Perfect! One bucket to blend then pour over your head.

Nearly heaven in an instant. Silly, but so very true.

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Hilda is head to toe drying up sores. Those mosquito bites got infected. Then she reacted to the antibiotic. All swelling is down. She is nearly off all meds. She took only part of one day to rest. She is amazing.

I am thankful that the computer died at just the right time for her NOT to be on it all the time while sick. She couldn’t work at home. That is except for observing classrooms and going to meetings here at Silverleaf Academy where the house is.

She could borrow a computer up at the Children’s Village and work lesson plans and dialogues for translation up there. So that she did, around meetings there whenever she was there. Which is whenever she isn’t here. Yes busy..

Basically, it’s complicated, three NGO’s(two mature one just forming up) the churches, several families, lots of dear ones have us at their disposal and believe it or not are glad for it. God is. God does. Us lucky ones get to see.

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I am ashamed to admit that we have help with the house. Heriheti has less English than I have Swahili. My brain is miserably slow yet I am eternally thankful for every miserly word it holds on to. I get to ask about her children and how she is too. She answers but never stops moving.

One of the grown ones aged like our children insisted we get help from Heriheti. That dear one who sent us Heriheti was right. She comes starting this week 2 times a week on the days Hilda is scheduled to be on campus where the house is. We thought she was coming to help with laundry, an old school process of tubs of suds and hands, but she also moves and mops and makes certain everything is spotless. She also finds and brings us good fresh eggs, free range of course.

Later we learned that we are the reason her children are now in school. The help is huge. The result for a young family bursts me.

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This week while up at the Children’s Village a young indispensable teacher came to find me reading scripture in a quiet place. He was very glad to find me reading scripture. He sat with me and then with a huge smile said he needed to tell me something.

He wanted to tell me what the people in the community had decided. Decided, that is, after seeing me at funerals of both Lutherans and Catholics. Decided, after seeing me driving Pastors in their vehicles, driving pastors vehicles. Decided, after me walking and daring to greet glances with what few words and kind gestures I can muster.

He wanted to tell me that the folks, of the mountain on which The Children’s Village is built, have decided that I am good to have around. That I have come not to be a problem but instead to be a help. This quiet, capable, teacher bubbled as he told me.

Like most he calls me Babu(grandfather). He knows and doesn’t care that I am a Christian. This indispensable one who calls me grandfather is not a Christian but Islamic.

Scripture is as scripture does? Or, is The Spirit ever stirring among any who long to talk with God and serve his littles, even the grown ones. Maybe both?

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YES! Your praying efforts show! I pray I can let you see through mere words..

Thankfulness for what you have read thus far –

Thankfulness for Visa’s granted, without us visiting the office, by the head of office before leaving on vacation, certified in writing by the head of office in his own hand, a hand all others including local police know and pay attention too, certified by head of office with a portion of the cost waived –

Thankfulness for Our Children who served and are serving in the Armed Forces who gave us a Navy Federal Account. Thankful that Navy Federal has gotten some money shifted from the U.S. to Tanzania for us –

Thankful for the wheels those shillings will bring to us, hopefully this next week –

Thankfulness for Heriheti –

Thankfulness for Hilda –

For our children and grandchildren who miss us.. we miss them too –

For our children’s helps.. you mean the world to us –

For the Army family moving assignment from Georgia to Colorado in this winter -

For everyone everywhere with winter –

We pray you have some of our heat –

We are thankful for the rain –

Thankfulness for teachers who care more for people than religious barriers –

Thankfulness for busy-ness –

For Makumira Lutheran Secondary school and her students, teachers and helpers –

For Silverleaf Academy and her students, teachers and helpers -

For The Children’s Village, her many faces, hands and hearts –

For whatever is on your hearts and minds for us -

For each and every one of you –

Each and every one of your prayers too -

Thank you, Thank You, Thank You.. Prayers, your prayer, 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,

17 January 2022

Writing this even without internet.

Without internet but pleased to report that after the first night in Hilda’s house left her mosquito bitten to a fair-the-well that the local big young ones who have claimed us as their own appeared with mosquito net and frame for last night and sleeping was good.

Hilda’s house is on the campus of Usa(pronounced ooosa) River Academy. This campus is being used by a local NGO for their growing English medium / language Primary School. Silver Leaf Academy has both day students and boarding students.

About 30 of the littles in care at the Children’s Village travel by bus down each morning now to Silver Leaf Academy for school. Hilda and I just had our second morning ride with that same bus back up the hill to the Children’s Village collecting staff and local preschool littles for a day of preschool there.

Yesterday our work kept us at the Children’s Village until time to collect the Children’s Village Students down at Usa River and that is how we get back to where our trunks are now empty. Trunks empty, refrigerator with pictures of two of our grandchildren so far and when we obtain more magnets or tape.. those precious pictures of all of them, their parents and even some of their artwork we were able to bring along.

It is a blessing to be cooking for ourselves. It is a blessing to use furniture others chose and gathered for us. It is a blessing to be far back off the road at the back of the campus where we hear moving water, a thriving population of frogs, birds, and other nocturnal and early morning throats we have yet to identify.

Today we left the key to the house at the entry gate as we left. I was told that they wanted to get the hot water working. Vulnerable once again it seems as those most precious few things that are now out of the trunks and have helped us have our connections close in familiar ways once more are not under our control while away.

Also not under our control anywhere is how The Word is preached. Swahili Preaching is known for its fire, its rapid pace, its dogmatic approach to defining faith through observable behaviors. Naming things sin, that which separates us from each other and from our creator, and letting that naming come out hard repetitiously and definitively.

The sweetest kindest person will be listening to fire and brimstone preaching while they go about their day. In the context here there is some good in this style of delivery.

Whether it is like alcoholics making fun of the one or two “friends” they keep around who are known to fall over drunk or pass out, I don’t know. That has always seemed ugly to me, using others overt physical problems with alcohol abuse to crutch and justify ones’ own abuse that may show less overt physical problems.

However honesty demands that with regards sin, those things that separate us from each other and from our creator, we are all failed and broken. We are all falling down, passed out disconnected from what could be a best for us as exemplified by the life of Jesus recorded for us in The Word. Recorded for us about God throughout the entirety of scripture.

If the alcoholic analogy is too much to take, consider that the alcoholic needs healthy relationship. The alcoholic needs connection based upon something in common but turned around. Something in common and turned around in hope of something better. Hence the twelve step program. One step for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. One step for each of the twelve apostles.

Sometimes we forget that at the earliest times Christians built hospitals first. We built places where the diseased and broken could find healing because bodies distracted by disease and trauma are most often matched with minds equally unable to focus on hope for something better, something connecting to what can be best.

So lives here in this place are lives lived within the hardness of want. There is no escaping it as there are no resources to enable that escape. So if living is hard and The Word comes preached as hard, then perhaps that is what it takes. That is what it takes for The Word to be heard and felt in the midst of hardness as real and relevant to those sweet kind hearts living in the hardness of deep want like we in “the western world” most predominantly no longer do.

Dear cherished interested ones, there is an engine brake inside me. You know those noisy exhaust throbbing things that class eight trucks use to slow down in addition to the friction brakes?

Only I can hear my engine brake though.

I hear it whenever even the best intended developed world opinion or description of the state of things here is uttered in hope of doing something today to make tomorrow better. I heard it recently again about the local practices of preaching the word. I heard it from an amazingly loving and living outside himself European here to strive like Hilda and I to make a difference.

Go into deeply impoverished North America and listen to how The Word is preached. It’s just not nice enough for the rest of us who can afford to seek comfort and self-actualized self-worth first. Well here those who can afford comfort are the rarest most deeply catered to minority. We come presuming we know what The Word should sound like in order to be what we need.

We don’t know hard. We may think we do but hard living left most of us and our families a good couple generations ago. I remember just a touch of hard.

I remember a time in High School while still growing and sacrifice for the sake of the church oil tank left us eating not the cow planned but a greatly reduced caloric intake of small portions of fish. We had many in college. It was winter. The farm took more calories than we were choosing to consume. It was a very long winter and I remember my belt getting longer and longer and always being so hungry.

My parents were doing everything they could to keep those educations going and taking turns with other families keeping the church from freezing up. I could never admit to those who had survived the depression and WW2 that I was hungry. I watched them and learned. I listened to their stories of their times and learned.

Thanks to these precious ones here and now, I am still learning.

That engine brake throbbing away inside whenever it seems that my thinking, my guiding whisper, that still small voice may be adversely affected. Adversely affected by some self-assured, even huge hearted, well intentioned voice that may be speaking well yet like my own voice may be here. Speaking well, yet, out of context.

Seeing the presumption in one style of proclamation over another. Seeing the presumption in what sounds and is hard. Rather than holding on to the likelihood that any presumption lies with those who can afford to have them.

I have dared to walk alongside local pastors. Their hearts are not hard. Their times and places are. The Word comes out hard so it can cut through to give meaning, some value, where survival speaks even harder.

Is there room for other types of proclamation? Yes. Perhaps that is part of why we are here.

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1/19/22.. No hot water yet.. no internet yet.. we are well.

Time for something that sounds like a North American joke?

8 people went for a trip to see animals in their wild environment:

3 Tanzanians

1 Kenyan

4 Africans

2 Italians

1 Argentinian

2 from the U.K.

1 from Canada

4 from the U.S.

1 Dane

1 German

2 Dutch

6+ teachers

2+ preachers

4+ farmers

1 logger

1 truck driver

1 born Muslim

2 Catholic

2 ordained presbyterian deacons

3 Lutheran

4 Christian

2 Jews

1 Jewish Cantor

2 Christian worship leaders

1 Evangelist

7 working through NGO’s as well as their faith

Love led the way .. All had a wonderful day -

After 11 weeks we were taken so Hilda could finally see deeper African Bush, elephants, ostrich, lioness, mongoose, wildebeest, cape buffalo, dik dik, impala, eland, water buck, giraffe, zebra, too many more to mention.. Now back to work.

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What to pray for:

Whatever is on your heart and mind for us –

That rains continue –

Gratitude for the rains that have come –

Visas –

Pieces to reveal themselves and come together regarding my education –

Thankfulness for local pastors and inclusion –

Thankfulness for inclusion in purposes outside the church that cherish life and point unrelentingly to God, our Savior, and The Holy Spirits endless prompting and empowerment –

Thankfulness for a house –

Thankfulness for a bed –

Thankfulness for a mosquito net –

Thankfulness for running/dribbling water –

Thankfulness for intermittent Power –

The hope of internet at the house -

Thankfulness for Hilda –

For our children and grandchildren missing us –

We miss them too –

Makumira Secondary School –

The Children’s Village –

Silverleaf Academy –

Too much good stuff to list..

Thankfulness for each one of you –

Thankfulness for each one of your prayers –

Thank you, Thank You, Thank You.. Prayers, your prayer, 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,

I make the claim that your Praying efforts make all the difference.

They do.

The plan was for us to be in Hilda’s house by the 3rd. Our plan, thankfully, was changed through the house not yet being ready.

Instead of laying down after moving on the 3rd, I laid down right where we have been laying down each evening since arriving in TZ but, after blooming a fever, chills, and other symptoms.

Thanks to yet another precious someone arriving literally two days before from Europe, we were given a Covid test kit. I tested positive for Covid Tuesday evening. Hilda did not test positive at that time but by Thursday evening developed symptomology parallel to my own.

Thankfully, I have been getting better as she has been taken ill so we have been able to trade places with me hovering and getting food from downstairs. Mrs. Ndosi’s staff have been checking on us. Mrs. Ndosi has been checking on us. All those amazing connections, including the new one arriving with test kits in her bags, you prayed us among have been checking on us.

So, it was not the right time for us to be setting up house in a different area just a few kilometers away with new neighbors.

We are supposed to be ill. We are supposed to be ill right now and right here so something good can be demonstrated through our need and vulnerability.

I remember watching my parents interact with medical professionals over the years I had them. Nearly every interaction included them using some of that time with the medical professional, time they would never have gotten were it not for some illness or injury in the family, to evaluate and invest listening and care into the life of that same medical professional.

That is part of why we all seem to face illnesses and traumas. So we can be given just a second or two here or there around our problem to address the fundamental precious humanity of those who dedicate at least a piece of their lives to serve us. Sometimes those seconds turn into minutes. I have experienced even longer times of use in the lives of care-givers who have let trust grow through my need and vulnerability into something deeper for them as well.

The blame seeking Jesus confronts in John Chapter 9 still blows through our relationships with each other and with our Creator. Blame seeking is a waste of time and energy, we are called to seek after the precious that God is doing in our many shortcomings.

Look out! Love might be shown, healing of things we might not have known were in need of healing might just start or rush to completion in an instant. Love might be shown and healing given not just to patient through care-giver but to care-giver through patient.

As much as I despise being weakened away from my plans, there may be more important plans afoot for us and those around us. Let God be God. Then point it out so that any of my baby boomer whininess can collapse and be as nothing under the beauty of it all.

The beauty of God living in the care-giving hearts of others. The beauty of God living in the care-giving hearts of ourselves. Let it out because the exercise of those things in and among weakness and vulnerability builds strengths that outlast our here and now. It builds relationships that are strong for our work together in this precious here and now too. Paul in both of his Corinthian Letters shares profoundly about weakness for us to follow.

The weakness chosen by our Creator and Savior birthed by human mother, crucified by mere human authorities that are now millennia dust.

The endless strength in the vulnerability remains.

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I promised our son that I would try to write about some of the amazing people your praying has pulled and kept us among. I believe the concern he now shares with many who love us has to do with our ability to find a path for returning physical health.

Well firstly we are blessed to have each other. We have an each other that we both actually like and are comfortable being uncomfortable in. Knowing that even if the rest of humanity were swept home to God before the end of this sentence, If we were either two or one of us left here, even then we would not be alone.

Tanzania is not America. There are some freedoms here that have been destroyed by a legal system at home that is required to measure losses and assign blames.

Without the oppressive liability avoidance scheming birthed from our system, we have found a local Tanzanian pharmacist who sells you nothing.

Nothing, that is, without first knowing and understanding your medical background, current symptomology, what you have already done with and for your symptoms, and your own level of ability, and of those around you, to monitor and care for your illness.

Only then comes prescribing, dispensing, and directing the use of medications all provided by a pharmacist who seems to have instantaneous recall of every article of medical information, every pharmacological catalogue, every medical or pharmacological periodical either historical or from the very mornings eager study.

We are blessed. This pharmacist would be wasted in America as exercising the gift present in that empathetic brilliance for the sake of others would be denied there.

Tanzania has too few resources to tie a pharmacist’s hands like we do so many of our well trained and gifted folks at home. This is a type of freedom I remember living among yet realize my children may only know our current system.

So, no, we do not have to go to a medical doctor to find a pathway way back to physical health if we demonstrate self-awareness, knowledge, and competence in what confronts us. So far we have and do.

Where medical doctors are few and exceedingly pressed with caseload our personal responsibility for ourselves is required to allow them to care where self-care cannot suffice. This too is a freedom I remember living yet realize my children likely do not.

This un-denied freedom of self-responsibility which we have found here is so community minded that ones’ responsibility for oneself flows seamlessly into ones’ responsibility for family, friend, neighbor, tribe, nation, guest, stranger all predicated upon ones’ ability and inclination.

This too is familiar..

Here it can be seen in Pastors who remove young women from trafficking situations.

Pastors who turn out their pockets quietly out of sight of the world for something to give the infirmed, widowed, alone driven to their door. Strangers who empty their purses of what little was therein for others unknown to them.

Ministries started, food taken, risks lived.

Risks lived all free from knowing the fear of having to check to see if our churches insurance policy is up to date and covers our activities.. activities often demanded in the moment..

I remember the freedom to walk into the horror another person is facing. We did that working in the woods for anyone else there. Even if they hated us out of the woods, we were all they had when things went wrong in the woods.

That is what Jesus does for me.. That familiar, that close, that risky.

No wonder those who can call. No wonder they approach, even without masks, some throwing their arms around us.

They are gifted and capable. Young and old alike they have lived uninsulated from hardship pain and want, know what those things are, and have never known the fear of being wealthy enough to avoid consequences.

Consequences that none could afford to pay. That economy, that bargain, that gamble, does not exist in any meaningful way here.

I’m stuck. Everything points to God and Jesus. Jesus, who pays the consequences for all our consequences. Even those consequences we can’t take to a medical doctor or buy insurance for.

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What to Pray..

Whatever is on your heart and mind for us –

Our prior requests –

Gratitude and Grace for and from all I may offend with my imperfect mirror –

For each of you in your situations –

Gratitude for you too –

Thank you, Thank You, Thank You.. Prayers, your prayer, 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 -