Beautiful Voices...

This morning during fellowship I had some thoughts that I'd like to share with you. As I was standing there singing to our Father, I realized something. It was that the sound of our voices all together wasn't all that pleasing to the human ear. But it was so beautiful because no one cared that there wasn't any harmony or that we all sounded great together. They all just wanted to praise our Father and make a joyful noise to Him. You wouldn't get that in America where you worry about everyone around you thinking you sound horrible so you don't sing very loud and that's if you do take the risk to sing a little. Many won't even sing at all because they are so self conscious. But the great thing about our Dad is that He doesn't care what we sound like it is still beautiful to Him. And so why should we care what others around us think?!? We shouldn't! We aren't here on this earth for them anyway, we are here to bring glory to our Father and what better way to bring Him glory than by praising Him through song, singing out joyfully, only caring that our heart is right with Him and we are there to worship Him! I don't think there is a better place to be. Who do you want thinking great things of you? People here on earth that will disappoint you or will fail you because they aren't perfect or our Father who is absolutely perfect and will never leave nor forsake you? Sorry guys and gals, but I think , no I know, I will choose our Father!
Oh and happy day! Tomorrow I leave for Zanzibar for a little likizo! I'm off to pack for a bit!

Honorary (or is it ornery?) Scotsman

Last night I experienced my first ever Scottish kaylee (spelling? we're unsure of). It was great! We learned a few dances, got some exercise and spent some great time with some great people. Oh and of course we had some awesome food. Little sausages, great chicken, chips and wonderful chocolate desserts. And people thought that I would struggle with the food...that's crazy. So we learned 4 dances I think. I only danced 3 of them. But I got some pictures and watched the chaos because basically that is what it was...chaos. All these Americans and Brits trying to dance Scottish, learning from the lone Scotsman and his wife, it was pretty funny if you ask me. And there were definite times of us just going around in circles because we couldn't understand what we were suppose to do exactly. We did have a great time though! And we got to hear the Scotsman play the bagpipes. It was awesome! He played a Farewell to Laura Lee, for that's why we had the kaylee, a send off even though she still has a month left. It sounded a bit like Amazing Grace though...haha.

I feel at home...

Well I've been in Dar for a month now and I'm loving it. There was a time when I wanted to come home but God brought me through it and I was able to persevere. The Lord blessed me with a bit of a hard passage, but it helped. I've been journeying through the Old Testament and I'm currently in 2 Samuel.
Well I had just started 2 Samuel and David is finding out that Saul and Jonathan were killed in battle. And his reaction, "Then David took hold of his clothes and tore them, and so did all the men who were with him. And they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan his son and for the people of the Lord and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword...And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and Jonathan his son..." (2 Sam 1:11-12, 17)
And this took me a back a little bit. For David mourned over his enemy. I mean he grieved over the man who sought after him and continually pursued him in hopes that he would find him and kill him. It was quite unfathomable to me. I began to think how I was just wanting to go home because I wanted to be with my friends and family. How could I do that? David is sitting here mourning someone who wanted him killed and I'm sitting here wanting to go home because it's hard to be away from everything familiar. I knew that if the Lord gave David a heart to grieve his enemy, He would provide me with strength to endure the hard times. And so the Lord gave me the ability to persevere through that night and the next day and here I am. The other day as I was driving a stick shift on the wrong side of the road in a third world country, I realized how much I feel at home here. It's now second nature to drive on the left side of the road and to be driving a stick shift. It's now second nature to be listening to conversations in Swahili and be able to understand what is going on. Language is still a challenge but it's getting better. I don't feel completely lost.
Praises:
I feel at home in Dar now
God has provided an accountability partner
I'm able to understand the language most of the time

Prayer Requests:
That I would continue to draw close to the Lord as I have plenty of time to do it with the students being at home during break.
We are going on a mission trip with some of the university students next week-for the teenagers that we will be sharing with, for the students as they prepare to share the stories in the Bible, and for God to show us His salvation.
That God would continue to prepare relationships for me as I won't totally start my specific ministry until Sept.

3 is a Magical Number

So the magical number for rainy days is three. Yup, it rained here for three straight days and it's not rainy season here. After three days of the sky looking like this...

I was so thankful to walk out of school today and see the sun...

I guess God was reminding me of the theme of my life the last few months...He wanted to remind me that I may not see the sun but it is there because He is faithful. And there may be times in my life where I don't feel the presence of the Lord or I don't see Him working but He is there with me and He is working all around me. This is His world and He is being glorified throughout in many different ways. It is a reminder that even though He has called me to be here in Dar and to minister to the students here, He came before me and He will be here after I leave. I am just one of the tools He is using to spread His name through the nations.

Today is the day...

that Charity and Travis come back from likizo. Yippee! By the way they are my supervisors and they've been gone for too long if you ask me. It's about time that they come home. They've been gone for half the time that I've been here. I don't know what I'm going to do when they have to go stateside for 6 months starting in December. I realized on Sunday that I was definitely ready for them to come back and here it is. Of course I'm not sure when I'll actually get to see them, but it's possible that I can. I do hope they enjoyed their vacation though and I look forward to hearing about it. This is them...

The Theater and stuff...

I had my first experience at the only theater in Tanzania. And that is something I can say for only a few more months because there is another one being built right across the street from my house. Of course the other theater is located about 5 minutes down the road. Don't ask why, it's Africa. So the only two theaters in Tanzania are in the same area of the country. It's crazy I know. And to true African form, the electricity cut off right at the end of the movie (by the way we saw Poseidon). It's a good thing we saw them get out and they weren't still stuck in a vent or what not (sorry if I've ruined the movie for you, but hey I'm in Africa and you should have seen the movie already if you wanted to see it). We just missed like the last two minutes of the movie. But of course we still hung around for a bit just to make sure and sure enough the power came back on and we saw the ending. It didn't matter though because we had already seen the ending. I think we were just hoping there was something more to it. Oh and by the way they have assigned seating, it's nice I think. And now for a picture of my ticket...

And today we decided to go to the Salvation Army girls' home. My roommates have started to clean out some of their closets and so we took some of the clothes to them. It was so much fun to hang out with the girls there. We sang and danced and played games. It was great! A good way to spend a Sunday afternoon. In fact it is one place I would love to go back to again especially after I've had some more language acquisition and I feel more comfortable speaking it. I was able to understand what was going on for the most part. But there weren't a whole lot of opportunities to converse with them because of all the singing and dancing. It was so great! Have I said that yet? It was awesome!

And lastly I would just like to say Happy Father's Day, Daddy! I miss you and I miss being able to just sit and hang out. I love you so much and I hope you are enjoying your day!

Habari za Tanzania?

Nzuri! Habari yangu? Nzuri. Habari za marafiki zangu na Marecani? Sijui. I haven't heard from many of them in a while. (Translated: How is Tanzania? Good. How am I? Good. How are my friends in America? I don't know.)
So these days I'm in language school and it has been going pretty well. I should be conversing with people more often but I haven't. I'm not exactly sure why. I have been around some Tanzanians and they speak Swahili and I get the jist of the conversation but I don't really ask questions or converse back. This is because I've been with my housemates each time. Speaking of...here is a picture of us (at least the housemates who are on the university team with me, I don't have any pictures of the other housemate)...

Anyway...We've been learning a lot about the grammar and some of it can be difficult. Like there are a lot of rules about possession. In English we have my, yours, ours, etc, and they have that too but with different nouns you use them differently. For example, I said marafiki zangu above, but if it's singular you say rafiki yangu and if you have a husband it's mume wangu and if you say my name it's jina langu and all of those are for my. It's a bit too much. Then you use negatives differently for the different tenses. It's all pretty crazy if you ask me. But enough about that...now a picture of where I spend my mornings Monday through Friday...

The other day I was driving down the road and because I enjoy science I began to think about erosion. Why you ask? Well it rained practically non-stop for two days recently (strange it seems though since it's not rainy season) and well the roads here aren't the best. So I began to think about the process and how pot holes get bigger because tires going through them speeds up the process. The rain came and softened up the dirt, the tires went through them and picked up the sediment and made the holes bigger. It's crazy to actually see the process in action, you don't get to see it much in America. I hope you can tell what is in the picture below...one evidence of the erosion process, I just wish I had a picture of the before because there was definitely not a drop off like there is now.

The Aminals...

Thursday and Friday I had the opportunity to go on safari with the volunteer team. It was so awesome! We had so much fun gazing at God's creation and it is so beautiful here, who could expect anything less when God created it! We took a 4 hour drive to Mikumi making a few pit stops along the way. One being for my driver's license which I didn't get that day because of waits. Oh well. We finally made it to Mikumi, separated into our cabins and settled in. The pictures below are from the way there and of our place. The cabin I was in had 3 twin beds and a double (which Lindsey and I volunteered for) and they all came equipped with mosquito nets. It also had a little back porch where we could sit and take in the sights.

Then we headed out to see the aminals. We got to see some elephants and zebras and giraffes and impalas and baboons and wildebeasts and cape buffalo and birds and hippos. We were hoping for some lions but the lazy bums didn't come out for us. And we got to see the most beautiful sunset and a great sunrise. God is faithful even when we don't get to see the sunrise or set because of rain, the sun is still there, shining!

Then we headed back to Dar, but along the way we decided to stop again to try for my license. A true African experience if you ever need one. We (Charity and I) had to go to the traffic office to get a form and we had to wait for him to get there. But he finally showed up (about an hour later) only to tell us that I needed to get an eye exam. So we thought we were done, but luckily Charity remembered where a clinic was so we stopped to get one. It was the best eye exam I've ever had, a little form filled out, a signature, and I was on my way. It's a good thing I could read the bottom line anyway. Then we were on our way back to the traffic office for the form. In the mean time the rest of the team decided to pile in one can to head back...poor kids all jammed together...I'm sure it was like a pack of sardines. So we got back to the traffic office, cut in line in true Tanzanian style, got the form filled out and headed to the place where they would put another little form in a little booklet called my license. But while we were there we had to go upstairs to see a mama who would stamp the first form. We went back downstairs got the little form in the little booklet and we were on our way back to the traffic office to get the final approval so that I could drive. What an experience! As Charity would say we felt like we were on the Amazing Race just for a license. But I'm just saying that I think we would have won if we really had been on the show. All of this took about two and a half hours, although it seemed like a lot longer. Then we headed back to Dar and met the rest of the team for dinner at the most wonderful Indian place. It was great, a good way to end the day and celebrate me getting my license. I'm not going to lie, I did a little dance when I got home (Amber, you know the one).

Oh the Goodbyes...

So I had to say more goodbyes tonight. You would think with only two weeks to get to know a group of people, saying goodbye to them would be pretty easy. And well it would have been if the group of people hadn't been so stinkin "AMAZING". "I AIN'T GONNA LIE" it was pretty hard to say goodbye to those kiddos. And they were "HARD CORE" men and women of God and that's what brought us together so quickly...the Lord! It's "amazing" to think how the Lord blesses us each day and how He ordains the time and how being of a likemind, wanting to bring glory to God, draws us together. The Lord is "amazing", "I'M JUST SAYIN". And now they are gone and it's time for me to "ROCK N ROLL" with Jesus, spreading His name throughout campus and making some solid relationships. (Ok, I think I got most of Josh's sayings in)
So my pray for you all, Lindsey, Alaina, Chris, Josh and Douglas is that the Lord would bless you and keep you and that He would make His face shine upon you. That you remember that "light shines in darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it (John 1:5)" so go out and be bold wherever God has placed you because you are the light shining in this dark world and Christ in you cannot be overcome! And that you would always "Taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him! (Psalm 34:8)" Each of you has done a great thing here in Dar and I can't thank you enough for all that you did to jump start my time here. It was a blessing to be able to start off with a team and have that encouragement behind me. God has blessed me by this probably more than you will ever know!