April Newsletter

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The Miracle of Rain of Stones

The long rains have begun. Last Tuesday it was a deluge. We have not seen it rain any harder than that. Just when the rain was heaviest we heard “ping! ping! ping!” – the sound of hail hurtling against our steel roof. With a look out the window we could see it beginning to accumulate on the grass. It was a little larger than pea-sized. Only 40 minutes after the rain started, it was over and the sun was back in full force. In no time all the hail was gone and it was just as hot as before.

Soon after it stopped the neighborhood kids came by the house. I asked if they had seen the hail. Yes, they had, and they were quite excited about it. Most exciting of all – they ate some. It was “nzuri” (good) and “baridi!” (cold!)

Later we talked about the hail in our Swahili lesson. “Mvua ya mawe” – rain of stones – is its Swahili name. Such a thing happens here maybe once a year our teacher said.

Our favorite and very enthusiastic taxi driver had seen it too. “God did a miracle today,” he declared. “He made ice fall from the sky.”

Chapel

March 4, 2009. For months we have been attending chapel services before the beginning of work each day. The health clinic holds chapel at the facility where Peggy works, and the national office where Gordon works holds its own chapel in a nearby building. Most days I (Gordon) feel great about the chapel if I can find the Bible passage and read along in my English/Swahili New Testament. All the better if I know the tune of the hymn and can sing along in my Swahili song book – even if I can’t understand most of the words of the hymn. But the messages and the prayers in Swahili go by too fast for me to catch any more than a few words here and there.

Yesterday’s chapel followed the typical pattern until the end, when I was surprised by a request that I lead the chapel this morning! My friend Mr. Byemero encouraged me to go ahead and do it, even if I only knew two Swahili words. So I accepted the request and later made my preparations.

I spoke from 2 Cor. 5:15-6:1 about reconciliation (upatanisho) – the restoration of people back into a good and right relationship with God like that which existed before it was destroyed by sin. Through Christ’s death believers are made right with God. For this reason, believers no longer consider anyone in the same worldly way they did before.

First, Christ has reconciled each believer to God and has made each believer a new creation. God no longer counts our sins against us. Therefore, we must view ourselves as believers in the same way that God views us. We will make mistakes. But because we know God does not count them against us, we should not either. Instead, as co-workers with Christ we must seek to reconcile and restore whatever has been broken by our sin.

Second, believers now also view unbelievers in a different way. Because God loves them so much that Christ died for them while they are still sinners, so must we love those who don't believe. We have been appointed by Christ as his ambassadors (mabalozi) to carry the message of reconciliation with God. Some ambassadors are sent by their king to take a declaration of war, but not the ambassadors of Christ. We go with a message of peace and reconciliation.

Finally, we should not receive God’s grace in vain. In other words, we should not let God’s grace be wasted. Instead, we should do what we can each day to promote reconciliation and restoration of the world through the work of God’s grace.

My two Swahili words? Mabalozi wa upatanisho. Ambassadors of reconciliation. Big words.

Serengeti!

Serengeti! What mission to Tanzania would be complete without a safari to the Serengeti? The name means endless plain in the Maasai language. And the endless plain is home to countless animals. We excitedly watched a herd of 36 elephants walk around our car. A lone cheetah, spotted in the morning mist on the distant horizon, slowly strolled closer and closer until it crossed the road in front of us and lay down to rest in the shade of a tree not 30 meters from our car. We looked eye-to-eye with a male lion and his entire family group – and understood why it is called his pride.

We didn’t see all the animals of the Serengeti, but we saw enough to make us marvel at the variety of God’s creation. The zebra has his stripes, the giraffe her astonishing neck, and the hippos soak in the pool all day long. Each animal equipped in some special way for life in this marvelous place.

Of course, the birds hold a very special interest for us. Our guide, a most friendly Tanzanian named Ben, was able to show us not only lions, cheetahs, leopards, serval, African wild cat, and a myriad of hoofed animals, but also well more than a hundred bird species. Most of them so new to us that we struggled to find them in the bird book. Often so many appeared at once that we had to look first, and hope we could identify them in the book later. African ground hornbills, lilac-breasted rollers, white-crowned shrikes, fawn-colored lark, cinnamon-breasted bunting, and on and on. Secretary birds that somehow do not remind me of the office. Starlings so striking they are named “superb” – astonishingly beautiful to our American eyes so used to seeing only the boringly drab Eurasian starling. What fun it was!

Two days in the Serengeti makes me want to rush right back. Next time, maybe the wildebeest migration will be in the northwest part of the park where we can reach it easily from Mwanza. Or maybe the cheetah will show off his speed. Or maybe the leopard will change his spots. Or maybe not. Whatever we see the next time, it is sure to be very, very special.

Peggy's Day At The Makongoro Clinic

I volunteer daily at the Africa Inland Church of Tanzania’s Makongoro Health Clinic in Mwanza. It consists of an out-patient clinic, an in-patient hospital with 29 beds, a mother/baby clinic, and an HIV counseling and testing clinic. My supervisor is Matron Jovina Machia.



Our day starts out with a 20 minute staff devotional time. Along with all the health clinic staff, we sing praise songs, read from the Bible and hear a 10 minute sermon, all in Kiswahili. After devotions are finished we attend the morning meeting with the doctors, the heads from the lab and finance departments, and the 2 matrons (head nurses). We hear the night report, and discuss any concerns that have come up, again, all in Kiswahili. Then Monica and I dispense any medications that are needed that shift for both the out-patient clinic and the in-patient hospital.

When the meds are finished, Monica (the other Christian Reformed World Relief Committee nurse volunteer from Canada) and I usually go to work in the hopsital wards. Soon one of the doctors comes by to do rounds. We go as a group from bed to bed while the doctor speaks with each patient about how they are doing. Still, all in Kiswahili. Then the doctor makes the orders for that day, but now in English! All the patient charting is in English, and the written orders are, too. So the Tanzanian nurses love to have us do the writing in the Rounds Book, because it has to be in English!

For the rest of the shift, we work alongside Tanzanian nurses. We often dispense medications, usually intravenous quinine for the treatment of malaria. And we admit new patients, again usually with a diagnosis of malaria.

In the hospital there are three large rooms or wards, one a children’s ward, the second the women’s ward, and the third a men’s ward. There is also one “private” room with 2 beds and a private toilet. The rest of the patients share common bathrooms (one for the men, one for the women and one shower).

The hospital is on the same compound that we live on, so it is only a 2 minute walk to work. Except that on the way we must greet every person we meet. Near or far, we must ask “Harbari za asubuhi?” (“News of your morning?”), and “news of your home,” and “your family,” and “your work,” and “Mama (or Baba) hajambo?” (“Mama has no problems?”). And then we walk on until the next person we see and go through the greetings again. It is a very fun ritual, but it slows down our walk a lot. Fortunately, even our boss understands that being late sometimes cannot be helped!

Gordon's Work at AICT

This year Africa Inland Church of Tanzania (AICT) is celebrating its 100th year. It was started in 1909 by missionaries from America, called the Africa Inland Mission (AIM), which is still active in Africa today. Sixty years after its founding, the AIM turned over the ownership and supervision of the Tanzanian church to local leaders, and AICT was formed. The two organizations have been operating in partnership in Tanzania ever since.

The AICT church has about 1,000,000 members. They are spread across Tanzania, but concentrated in the northwestern part of the country where the church began. I (Gordon) am volunteering at the national headquarters under the direction of General Secretary Joseph Gisayi. I have my own office, which I share with a couple geckos and a few cabinets full of records. Lately I have been reviewing five-year plans. First the strategic plan for the entire national church. Next the strategic plan for the health department. The plans are written in English, so I am able to offer many editorial suggestions to help clarify the text and intent of the plans. Soon I will be reviewing plans for other departments of the church, like the publishing department, the finance department, and others. The health department plan is already finished; all of the others are presently drafts, or not yet even written. The church is in the midst of an intense planning process to focus its strategy and operations in accordance with its vision and mission. In summary, AICT’s mission is to spread the Gospel of Jesus to all people and to promote holistic human development to help the poor achieve major improvements in their mental, physical, and spiritual growth and development.

The five-year plans of the church are impressive, as are its existing operations. It already operates a theological college, two successful secondary schools, a nursing school, two large hospitals, two health centers with small inpatient wards (about 30 beds each), and 18 smaller health dispensaries, along with many other programs. But with much still needed to be accomplished in Africa, its five-year plans focus on improving and expanding its operations, not only to increase spiritual care, but also to contribute towards sustainable and affordable access to quality social and economic services (health, education, agriculture) for the people of Tanzania, with particular focus on the poorest communities and those affected by disasters. Among the goals AICT seeks are improvements in access to safe water, increased education for village children, HIV/AIDS counseling and education, improved agricultural practices, and greater justice and gender equality for women. Interestingly, it has chosen significant reductions in national infant and maternal mortality rates as the primary indicators of success for many of its food, health, and sanitation goals. The church recognizes that it cannot accomplish such significant changes by itself, so it expressly states that it plans to contribute to the work of the national government and other churches and NGOs in achieving these goals.

I still have much trouble understanding Swahilli, but it did not take me long to understand, even in Swahili, that the church in Tanzania believes in the power of prayer. If you will, please pray with me that the plans and work of the AICT will, along with that of its partners, be effective to improve the spiritual, mental, and physical condition of Africans in Tanzania, both now and for many years to come. As they say in Swahili, tuombe -- let us pray.

Lunch

Several days a week we share lunch with a Tanzanian family in their home. We start by washing our hands in warm water poured from a pitcher into a bowl by one of the children. After prayers we are invited to eat a simple, but well-prepared meal. The staple of the lunch is ugali, (a thick corn meal) or rice. Also there is a cooked green and a bit of meat -- kuku (chicken), n'gombe (beef) or samaki (fish) -- cooked in a sauce. The ugali is dipped into the sauce and eaten by hand. Our inexperienced fingers have some difficulty getting the ugali to our mouths without it crumbling to bits and without the sauce dripping down our chins. We enjoy the tasty food and, especially, the experience of sharing the meal with the children of our host family. Our attempts at Swahili conversation with the children and our host are sometimes very amusing. Like the day Peggy tried to tell the mama the food was good by saying "chakula ndege," which translates as "bird food" instead of "good food." Another day Gordon was taking a picture of the family and got them all to smile by loudly saying "chapati" (it means "chapati"), which made them all laugh. Now when the kids see Gordon across the grounds they wave and shout out "Chapati!" And that makes him smile.