Lessons Learned

One week since I left East Africa. Leaving was hard- but seeing family and friends has been wonderful. It is hard to reconcile my life at home with my life this summer- they feel like 2 completely different worlds! The readjusting process is harder than I expected, but I have brought home so many lessons and new perspectives. 

~

sunrise in the Masai Mara

It helps now and then to step back and take the long view.

The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificant enterprise that is God's work.

Nothing we do is complete. Which is another way of saying that the Kingdom lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.

No prayer fully expresses our faith.

No confession brings perfection.

No pastoral visit brings wholeness.

No program accomplishes the churches mission.

No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

That is what we are about.

We plant seeds that one day will grow.

We water seeds already planted knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further deveolpment.

We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We can not do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.

This enables us to do something and do it very well.

It may be incomplete but it is a beginning.

A step along the way.

An opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and his worker.

We are workers not master builders.

Ministers not messiahs.

We are prohphets of a future not our own.

~

The Long View by Oscar Romero

One of my favorite parts of this experience has been being a “big sister” to 20 of the girls who live at City of Hope. There are almost 50 girls who live here, and they are split into 3 rooms. My room houses 20 girls, including all of the youngest! Mary, Alice, and I go down to the rooms on weekend nights to play, dance, read, and tuck the girls in. Now that the girls have figured out that this is a weekly occurrence, they wait at the door to the children’s home starting around 8, and the minute they see our headlamps bobbing through the darkness, they run screaming to grab our hands and drag us to their rooms.

During the day, the girls will run up and ask, “Laceee, you come to the room tonight? Bring computer bring computer!”

They LOVE to look at pictures. One night I gathered some of my favorite pictures of friends and family into a folder and made a little slideshow, and they played it over and over. They especially loved the pictures of me when I was a baby- couldn’t stop laughing.

During our trip to Nairobi, we bought each girl a KitKat bar, and last Sunday we brought the treats down to the rooms and each played a movie on our computers. I have never seen my girls sit so still. They didn’t move for over an hour, and were so anxious to see the screen that some of them stood, until I convinced them that it was a long movie so they might want to be comfortable. I have also never seen a 7 year old take 45 minutes to eat a KitKat bar! I finally turned the movie off after some of the little ones fell asleep in the middle! They were fighting to stay awake so they wouldn’t miss a second. We went back tonight to finish the movies, and the excitement had not diminished a bit. Despite the pouring rain on the tin roof, they crowded against the computer or were content to just watch the pictures from their bunk beds. As I went around to the crowded bunk beds to tuck each girl in, every one said “thank you lace!”

love these girls

before dinner playtime

playtime in the room

Alice's girls mesmerized by the movie 

Mary watching Tangled with her girls 

I am going to miss each and every one of these girls so much. They are some of the sweetest, goofiest, brightest children I have ever met. I never would have thought that sitting in the dirt while 4 girls braid every piece of my hair into 10 little braids, playing endless games of “double double this this” and “concentration”, or tucking in 20 little ones in a crowded room half the size of mine at home would become some of my favorite summer memories. I am grateful for the small amount of time that I have been able to spend with these girls, and hope that above all else they will remember the signs that now hang in their room:

You are smart.

You are kind.

You are important.

Cooking Lessons!

A little insight into the favorite cultural dishes of Tanzania: fried carbs

Unanimously, the favorite foods here are chapati, mandazi, and chai tea. I have really become addicted to all three, and morning or afternoon activities are halted anytime word gets around that chapatis or mandazis are freshly made. Fresh chai from the little chai house at COH is perfect in the mornings when it is still cool out, and the fact that we all have a running tab at the chai house is a problem. However, the conversion rate for dollars to shillings means that my 2 months of frequent chai, chapatis, and mandazis is going to come in at a whopping $3. While chai and chapatis originated in India, they have been a part of the culture of east Africa for a long time.

Mary, Alice, and I decided that we need to learn how to make chapatis and mandazis before we leave Tanzania, so we set up some lessons this week. On Sunday, we watched 2 of the older girls make mandazi. We missed the dough making part of the process, but it sounds like the main ingredients are flour, sugar, salt, yeast, and maybe baking powder. The girls had already prepared a big container of dough, so we watched them roll it out on a table, cut it into strips, and heat up oil and fry everything up!

They are so good, especially fresh from the oil. So healthy, too! Then we decided to fill a few with cinnamon sugar before frying them… even better. Mandazis are the best dessert, given that there is no chocolate cake readily available here.

Yesterday we helped roll out some chapatis for dinner. Given the time it takes to make them and the work involved, we haven’t had them for dinner too often. However, there was a birthday yesterday so lots of chapati was made! Again, we missed the dough making process, but I am pretty sure it is mostly flour, water, salt, oil, and a pinch of sugar. They are rolled into thin circles, brushed with oil, rolled into logs and twisted into circles, and then rolled back out into thin circles before being brushed with oil and cooked on a small pan. They are chewier and flakier than regular tortillas, and taste good with anything or by themselves.

Mary, Alice, and I are looking forward to attempting to recreate these recipes at home. I’m sure they won’t be as good as they are here, but they have definitely become our favorite Tanzanian specialties.