CoD V.1.5.6- Orientation, and my team!

Having received several cross looks, a few stern reprimands and one death threat regarding the paucity of my recent blogging activity, I thought it might be in my best interests to finally update this blog, so here I am at last! In my defense, it has been a crazy couple of weeks, I have accomplished much and learned much.
In the last couple of weeks I had my Africa Inland Mission Candidate Week, which was an orientation into AIM, and had a terrific time. I spent the week with people who'd invested their lives in the pursuit of God's glory and the increase of His kingdom, who've served everywhere from Kenya to Tanzania to Chad to the Central African Republic, to the Congo, etc, etc, etc; as well as with people who, like me, were about to go. It was a greatly encouraging and thought-provoking time.
I learned lots as well- for example, in a session on leaving and grieving I learned about my need to grieve. It turns out that- possibly because I've been leaving all my life (haha, no pun there!)- I might have built up defenses and might not be grieving enough. Apparently patting my sister on the back and saying 'there, there...' when she cries isn't enough. I should weep too! So i'm going to go meet a counsellor about my lack of grievances. Maybe she'll slap me till I cry and that'll open the floodgates... or something. But it's healthy for me to grieve and to allow others whom I leave behind to grieve and then to get over the loss of me. My mom's been grieving for a couple of months already, so she might be over the loss of me before I actually leave... that'd be interesting.
Then there was a session on getting to know myself (same counsellor), where I learned that as a teenager, being a Myers-Briggs ENFP type, I was a big flake (my personality type has the subtitle 'Giving life an extra squeeze', and my type's characteristic prayer is "God, help me to keep my mind on one th-Look a bird!-ing at a time" because we apparently have lots of energy and many interests). Thankfully, I've been toning down since leaving my teens (or else I wouldn't have been able to stand myself).
Had several sessions on cross-cultural communications, a couple of sessions on the history, directives and vision of AIM, a session on AIDS, which is ravaging Africa horribly, etc. Also had a session on Risk Assessment, where I learned that contrary to my expectations of persecution and death, the chances of my dieing for what i believe aren't even in my top 5 most likely ways to die. Apparently, I'm most likely going to die of because of traffic accidents or something related to the traffic in Tanz which apparently is very disorganized; but hey, i've driven in India with the trucks, cars, bikes, bicycles, pedestrians, cows, goats, etc, etc (and as I remember, in that crazy tapestry, the biggest threat was MY driving); and besides, I'm going to be living out in a village in a hut, so really! Second most likely way I'm going to die is because of bandit activity, or some other circumstance related to armed robbery. Third most likely cause of death is disease (which is an improvement, cos a hundred years ago disease probably killed over 85% of missionaries). Fourth most likely cause is poisonous creatures (snakes, spiders, other insects, who knows?), I can't actually remember number 5... ah well.
(Just a reminder, my DVD collection has already been claimed, as has my beautiful, lovely, very fast road-bike, and some of my books; but I still have an xbox, a computer, some books, etc, so if you want to get in on my Will, let me know soon!)
All in all though, it was a terrific time- a week off work is always great, but a week off work spent prepping is even better, haha. Oh, I also met two of my team-members! Which reminds me that I never did post anything about my team, so let me tell you a bit about them:
The '07 Zaramo TIMO Team is to be led by Tim and Emily Tanner, who along with their new baby, Caleb, can be seen in the picture below (I apologise- the quality of the picture might not be the greatest, but while trying to save it as a jpeg file it dithered, and nothing I did seemed able to prevent that). Tim is actually the youngest of 6 kids born to missionary parents in Tanzania (4 of those kids are back on the mission-field with AIM). The Senior Tanners moved back to the US for the kids' University education, but after graduating with a degree in programming and working for a couple of years, Tim felt God calling him back to East Africa, where he felt drawn to long-term ministry amongst unreached peoples. Emily, by contrast, grew up in various large metropolitan suburbs around the US, and then grew up some more in Florida. While studying Education in college she went on a summer missions trip to Kenya; where, while working in a Masaai village, she felt God calling her to return to Africa to serve as a missionary. While in Africa, her missionary 'neighbours' happened to be Tim's older brother and sister in law, which is how the Tanners met in 2000. They were married in 2002, and added baby Caleb to their family in 2006.
Next on the team we have Duane and Tanya Couch, and their two boys, Caleb (7ish) and Jacob (5ish) (this is the pic from their prayer-card that I scanned).Duane and Tanya are the couple I met at Orientation- they came by to share some of their support-raising experiences with us, and they seem great too! Duane is from BC (if I'm not mistaken). He's a licensed mechanic and has worked as a draftsman and a logging truck driver. For some reason I'm under the impression that Tanya's from Ottawa, although I may be wrong. She currently works as an administrative assistant, but has also worked as a youth/assistant pastor all over Canada. The boys will be homeschooled when we're in Mzenga (which is the area we'll be in).

Next we have Keith and Tammy Kerr, originally from Missouri and Ohio respectively, but they met in Indiana and now live in Colorado. Keith is a systems engineer (my knowledge of engineering being less than encyclopaedic, i have no idea what that is- he works with a telecommunications company), and Tammy is a homemaker and a teacher to their two boys- Justin (6) and Caden (4) whom they also hope to homeschool in Mzenga.

Next we have Monica Miller, who's an ICU nurse and ex-volleyball player from Dallas, Texas, who's been on several Short Term Missions trips before, and feels possibly called to Africa long-term. Apparently, she also does pull-ups at the drop of a hat, and is very fond of animals- she leaves behind two dogs.

Then there's Paulina Johnson, who was born and grew up in Orange County, CA, but now lives in Georgia. She's had lots of experience with missions in Latin America, and thought she was going to be working there long-term, but was surprised to find God calling her to Africa instead (she's been to Kenya and Namibia short-term). She also likes to dance, sing, watch Star Wars and Steel Magnolias (that's a movie apparently, not a metallic flower. I haven't heard of it...).

The last of the three single women is Jen Heidtbrink, who's an ER nurse. She grew up in a farm in Nebraska, and through University developed a passion for ministering to African American kids and to international students. She's been to Ethiopia with the Jesus film, which I guess is when she fell in love with Africa.

And then there's the guys! Let's start with Jeremy Hill of British Columbia. He's been waiting for this team since the summer of '05, which makes my wait seem very trivial. He currently works in the logging industry, but has experience in carpentry, welding and all kinds of other work, as well as two years of Bible College under his belt. We haven't met, but I saw a picture of his while at orientation and he certainly looks tough! He's a couple of years younger than I am.

There's also Tal Stimson who fascinates me- he grew up in Conneticut, in a family of 17 (including 14 brothers!) whose dad is a pastor. He currently has 9 nieces and 9 nephews, but I'd imagine the number is pretty fluid. Tal's been on several short-term missions trips all over, including one to Kenya. He's big into sports and soccer's his favourite sport (yay!). So he grew up in the farm, raising animals and working the farm, and he is also a hunter. I've never met a hunter-gatherer before (I had a roomate in University who was a farmer, who used to wake up every morning at 7, put on this Irish Pub Songs CD and go shower, leaving me to try and sleep through Irishmen singin about how whisky was the devil, but Tal seems a lot more intense). Can't wait to meet him!

Then there's Kulolo Mandago, the Tanzanian member of our team, but no one's heard from him and I don't have a email address for him, so I can't tell you much there.

And lastly, there's me (you can see me below examining the contents of my ear- following Shrek's example, I've been trying to save up enough wax to construct a candle) (also, I didn't have much hair at that time, I think I shaved it for a race, it's grown back since, but I think i might shave it again before I leave).

And there it is, the twelve people (and 5 kids) I'll be spending the next two years worshipping and serving God with. They all sound great- it just seems like so long before I meet them though :(.

Just before I end, another noteworthy thing I did at Orientation was to start considering where I would go to after the Zaramo TIMO project. Our aim, of course, is to establish a healthy, growing church within the Zaramo. Chances are though that at the end of the two years, we'll still be the only mature Christians in the world who speak KiZaramo, so some of us might decide to go back for a while and help the local church leadership mature. So there's that possibility, which is dependent on where the church is, and who else decides to return.

Another possibility is to go to Northern Mozambique. The inland portions of Northern Mozambique are completely unreached, there is much need and few workers, and I already speak Portuguese, and the cool Portuguese too (apparently Mozambicans think Brazillian Portuguese is cool, whereas an European Portuguese accent is not so cool), so I have that headstart.

The last of the possibilities I'm currently considering is North Africa. I've been reading a lot about Muslims and Islam lately, and my love and passion for muslim peoples has been increasing (which is cool, cos the Zaramo are 98% folk Muslim). North Africa/the Middle East has been very resistant to the Gospel. There are also more risks involved. Piper, in his book 'Let the Nations be Glad', writes that possibly one of the main reasons why Christianity has had so little inroad with regards to Islam is the unwillingness of Christians to suffer and ultimately give up everything for their message (John 12:23-26); but if anyone was able, it'd be me- I'm single, I have no kids, no responsibilities or commitments, and nothing to lose that I'm not willing to part with, and there is great need.

So i need wisdom in making this decision, although I still have plenty of time. Nonetheless, I would appreciate your prayers for this also.

And hopefully you'll hear from me again soon, without having to resort to any threats, quips, or other forms of verbal (or brutally physical) coaxing! Until then, be with God!