CoD V.2.1: At Last...!
Gosh it's been a long time since I've last updated this blog. How does one get back into the swing of things after so many months? My first contrite instinct was to berate myself for a good paragraph or two, but i didn't really want to waste too much space, seeing as there's so much more to come, so I'd ask you to trust me when I say that I certainly am repentant.
The fact is that there's only so much I can really summarize of the last (several!) months if i ever hope to move on to the present. Snakes have been killed, cats have been raised, friends have been made, laughter has been laughed, pain has been... hurt? experienced? Whatever it is that pain does, it has been done. Instead of concentrating on the details though, I'll try and give you a synopsis of the things that are more relevant to the now:
There certainly has been much happening here- village life's still been good, but one of the couples in my team, the Couches from Cobourg, ON, had to leave for a variety of different reasons. That was kinda heart-wrenching, like losing a part of your family, but it was for their best I believe. As a result of that though, we got to move into their home, which is a cement-floored, cement-block house; so even though we never clean, this home is a heck of a lot cleaner than our mud home which was always cracking and flaking and chipping. Also, the Couches had installed a solar panel in their home, which we inherited, so we now have electric lights! We have a bulb in every room, and one power plug (just one in the house), so we take turns charging our computers here, provided it's not cloudy, which is really cool. Between the cats and the cement house, the mouse problem has all but disappeared. The only mice we see nowadays are actively being consumed.
On the evangelism side, Dullah, Tim's friend who'd decided to follow Christ, has been growing.
As a result of his testimony and joy, his wife and his two best friends Rama (Ramadhani), and Chawa, have also started Biblical narrations with Tim, but it's been a crazy few months, and they had to break for a while, just as they were getting to Christ. They're really excited about the stories, and remember them with uncannily good memories as they tell them back to Tim the next week after they hear them. I'm going to start joining them at the narrations soon, just to get a better feel for them. Prayer request though- even though they've been excited, they haven't restarted the narrations yet since the break. They were supposed to meet again a few weeks ago, but the guys come by and say they'll come, and seem excited, but on a couple of occasions already they haven't showed up. So please pray for that, apparently things keep coming up, and Tim doesn't want to push them, but we're praying that God would move in their hearts and renew their hunger for His Word.
Jer is also narrating to his good friend, Mr Kombo, but that's been in English (Mr Kombo has been to college, and worked with the railways till he retired, so he speaks Eng), Jer got off easy :). Mr Kombo's been really open though, and has been thinking about Jer's stories, asking questions, etc. So please pray that this may not just become dry knowledge, but that he may become excited, be convicted, and turn to Christ!
Jer with Mr Kombo and some of his family.
Meanwhile Paulina has also kinda started narrating to her friend Mama Teddy, who has a huge hunger for God's word. It's not quite story-narrations, but they'll read together from a Swahili Bible the verses from which the narration stories have been drawn up, and then Mama T will explain to Paulina in Kizaramo what she got from them, so what the story was in fact about. She's loving the Bible, and getting a lot of it.
Work has already begun (not by us, but by real translators) on a Zaramo translation of the Bible. They were putting together a Zaramo team over the last few months, and should have started the work recently hopefully. So God willing we'll have a Zaramo Bible in a few years, please pray for that too! For now though, we're stuck to Swahili, which in general the men speak better than the women.
Meanwhile, having been here just over an year, we've been looking at different ministry projects we're hoping to accomplish before we leave. The team's dividing for these, according to our interests, so some of us are going to be continuing the well-digging work that Tim has started- he trained a local crew to dig deeper, concrete-lined all-year-long wells for the surrounding villages. We're also hoping to make these bio-sand filters which will clean the water of particles and turbidity as well as parasites and bacteria, so some of us are working on making that feasible, and then getting the spiel ready for telling people here about them, and training them in the usage of these filters. Our neighbours have generally been contemptuous of previous attempts by other travelling organizations to teach them methods of cleaning out their water, but lots of people still fall sick with stomach issues, belhartsia (spelling?), etc, and many infants die of stomach-related issues.
The kind of wells Tim's been building.
We're also hoping to get this brick-making machine that compresses bricks - so it uses a lot less cement than normal bricks - and makes interlocking bricks (kinda like Lego), so they don't need mortar either. That'll make it a lot easier and much cheaper for people to build more durable homes, and the first building we're hoping to build is a community center/preschool, which some of us are interested in getting started, so that's something else we have in the works. Monica, one of my teammembers, is pretty sure she's coming back here longer-term after TIMO, and she's one of the ones who's interested in this (more the pre-school than the contruction work actually).
Lastly, Tim my team-leader and I along with a couple of others part-time are working on translating the God-man Biblical narration story outlines into Kizaramo, which is certainly keeping me occupied, and hopefully will be a good resource for the emerging church to use in the further evangelization of Zaramo-land. I'm really pumped about this, and with the help of my friend Mr Lucas, have already translated two stories (the first being about a few characteristics of God as seen in Gen. 1:1, and the second being about the creation of the angels and Satan's rebellion).
These translations are really exciting, there's so much opportunity for me to improve my vocabulary and grammar, so please pray for that as well. Once i finish a story with Lucas, i try to check it with two or three of my friends (to make sure it's all understandable), which in practice entails me explaining the story to them (narrating) with the Kizaramo vocabulary. So as they help me verify my translation they hear God's story - please pray for that as well! Open hearts, understanding, and conviction!
In fact over the last few weeks, seeing as this is the Evangelism and Discipleship unit of TIMO, we've had a lot of discussions on evangelism. We'd also been listening to a series of sermons by Ray Comfort, who's quite good and I recommend (check him out online), and has a huge passion for sharing the Gospel in any situation, following in the tradition of Charles Finney and Charles Spurgeon (and many other greats, some named Charles and some not), starting with the law to bring about conviction of sin, and then introducing grace through Christ. So i've been really challenged to be more purposeful in my conversations, steering them towards God. Well, i have been, or at least tried, over the last little while, and as a result have had some interesting conversations with some of my friends- a few that stand out are-
Mr Mtukwao. He had polio as a child, so he has one bent and shrivelled leg (the healing of which i think would be a powerful testimony, something to pray for), and hobbles around with a thick leaning/walking stick. Well, i've been hanging out at his dukka (sorry, do you know what a dukka is? It's a little shop) lately, and so just in the flow of conversations, i've kinda steered it to God and sin several times. Every time i do though, and i'll ask him a couple of questions, he'll answer one or two, but then really obviously changes the subject. So i'm not sure how interested he is, and haven't pushed it, but there's this other guy who hangs out at his dukka who has a cool moustache, but whose name i can never remember although he's told me it several times. Anyways, Mr Moustachio seems to listen a lot more intently, and seems a lot more interested, but he's quieter and shier than Mtukwao, so when Mtu changes the subject, Moustachio looses out. So please pray, if you would, for these two men, that God may give me wisdom in speaking and give them a hunger for His message!
Then there's my neighbour, Bibi Idaya (Grandma of Idaya). She's a sweet lady who's been very nice to us, she'll bring us fruit sometimes, and gives us cassava and pumpkin stew when she cooks it, etc. Anyways, a few days ago i saw her sitting outside her house not really doing anything, so i went over and sat with her. We started talking about all kinds of things, from the cats who came out and sat by us to life in general, and then the conversation moved to Ramadhan and whether she was fasting, and from there to what it takes to please God, and from there to man's depravity, and the evil in his heart, and how he needs a saviour because he cannot please God by his actions. So i told her about Christ, God come down who died for us. But i'm thinking i either didn't communicate something well (my vocabulary is still rather limited), or she wasn't ready to hear, because at the end she was like 'oh yeah, your religion and ours are very similar...'. Anyways, please pray for her heart, and that as seeds are planted, they may be watered and nurtured by the Holy Spirit, and grow to bear fruit!
Moi, my good friend, has sadly been in Dar most of the last couple of weeks helping his brother-in-law with his charcoal business, so he's missing out. However i went by his dukka the other day and Rajabu, his little brother, was tending it, so i sat with him for maybe an hour-and-a-half, and started talking to him as well about Ramadhan and earning favour with God, and how could a Holy God be pleased by anything we sinful men are doing? So please pray for him as well, he could be anywhere between 12 and 15 yrs old- he's short (as is everyone else, very hobbit-like), but he's pretty self-assured, so it's difficult to tell.
Some of Moi's family, including (L-R) Rajabu, Moi, Moi's wife Zaina, and Moi's cousin Usna.
And then there's my other good friend Mr Lucas (his real name is Hulka, which is pronounced Huruca or Huluca in Kizaramo- Rs and Ls are interchangeable, and no one can make the 'er' sound at the end of peter, it sounds like 'elll' when they try- anyways everyone calls him Luca, or Lucas). So over the last couple of weeks we've had some really great talks, one being about the nature of the trinity, and how Christians really worship 1 God, not 2 or 3. Another was about God being a righteous and holy judge, and how if a human judge, had he been a good man, would not let a mass-murderer walk free but would put him away for the benefit of society, even if he claimed to be repentant; then how could we expect a holy, just and incorruptible God to let sinners go free just because they did something good to offset their sins, or tried to appease Him? So please pray that as we have some good conversations, and as he hears and reads and thinks about God's word and character in helping me translate these narrations, that God may open his heart to understand what he comes accross, be convicted of his sin, and turn to Christ!
My friend Hulka at his dukka.
Well, so on the major and important ministry-related things, that would be my catch-up post. If there's anything that needs explaining for something else to make sense in the weeks to come, I'll try and give you the backstory as we go along and the need arises. Once again, so sorry it's been so long, but hopefully that'll change now. (Ha! Like you haven't heard that before! Luke 17:3-4).
Please keep praying!
The fact is that there's only so much I can really summarize of the last (several!) months if i ever hope to move on to the present. Snakes have been killed, cats have been raised, friends have been made, laughter has been laughed, pain has been... hurt? experienced? Whatever it is that pain does, it has been done. Instead of concentrating on the details though, I'll try and give you a synopsis of the things that are more relevant to the now:
There certainly has been much happening here- village life's still been good, but one of the couples in my team, the Couches from Cobourg, ON, had to leave for a variety of different reasons. That was kinda heart-wrenching, like losing a part of your family, but it was for their best I believe. As a result of that though, we got to move into their home, which is a cement-floored, cement-block house; so even though we never clean, this home is a heck of a lot cleaner than our mud home which was always cracking and flaking and chipping. Also, the Couches had installed a solar panel in their home, which we inherited, so we now have electric lights! We have a bulb in every room, and one power plug (just one in the house), so we take turns charging our computers here, provided it's not cloudy, which is really cool. Between the cats and the cement house, the mouse problem has all but disappeared. The only mice we see nowadays are actively being consumed.
On the evangelism side, Dullah, Tim's friend who'd decided to follow Christ, has been growing.
As a result of his testimony and joy, his wife and his two best friends Rama (Ramadhani), and Chawa, have also started Biblical narrations with Tim, but it's been a crazy few months, and they had to break for a while, just as they were getting to Christ. They're really excited about the stories, and remember them with uncannily good memories as they tell them back to Tim the next week after they hear them. I'm going to start joining them at the narrations soon, just to get a better feel for them. Prayer request though- even though they've been excited, they haven't restarted the narrations yet since the break. They were supposed to meet again a few weeks ago, but the guys come by and say they'll come, and seem excited, but on a couple of occasions already they haven't showed up. So please pray for that, apparently things keep coming up, and Tim doesn't want to push them, but we're praying that God would move in their hearts and renew their hunger for His Word.
Jer is also narrating to his good friend, Mr Kombo, but that's been in English (Mr Kombo has been to college, and worked with the railways till he retired, so he speaks Eng), Jer got off easy :). Mr Kombo's been really open though, and has been thinking about Jer's stories, asking questions, etc. So please pray that this may not just become dry knowledge, but that he may become excited, be convicted, and turn to Christ!
Jer with Mr Kombo and some of his family.
Meanwhile Paulina has also kinda started narrating to her friend Mama Teddy, who has a huge hunger for God's word. It's not quite story-narrations, but they'll read together from a Swahili Bible the verses from which the narration stories have been drawn up, and then Mama T will explain to Paulina in Kizaramo what she got from them, so what the story was in fact about. She's loving the Bible, and getting a lot of it.
Work has already begun (not by us, but by real translators) on a Zaramo translation of the Bible. They were putting together a Zaramo team over the last few months, and should have started the work recently hopefully. So God willing we'll have a Zaramo Bible in a few years, please pray for that too! For now though, we're stuck to Swahili, which in general the men speak better than the women.
Meanwhile, having been here just over an year, we've been looking at different ministry projects we're hoping to accomplish before we leave. The team's dividing for these, according to our interests, so some of us are going to be continuing the well-digging work that Tim has started- he trained a local crew to dig deeper, concrete-lined all-year-long wells for the surrounding villages. We're also hoping to make these bio-sand filters which will clean the water of particles and turbidity as well as parasites and bacteria, so some of us are working on making that feasible, and then getting the spiel ready for telling people here about them, and training them in the usage of these filters. Our neighbours have generally been contemptuous of previous attempts by other travelling organizations to teach them methods of cleaning out their water, but lots of people still fall sick with stomach issues, belhartsia (spelling?), etc, and many infants die of stomach-related issues.
The kind of wells Tim's been building.
We're also hoping to get this brick-making machine that compresses bricks - so it uses a lot less cement than normal bricks - and makes interlocking bricks (kinda like Lego), so they don't need mortar either. That'll make it a lot easier and much cheaper for people to build more durable homes, and the first building we're hoping to build is a community center/preschool, which some of us are interested in getting started, so that's something else we have in the works. Monica, one of my teammembers, is pretty sure she's coming back here longer-term after TIMO, and she's one of the ones who's interested in this (more the pre-school than the contruction work actually).
Lastly, Tim my team-leader and I along with a couple of others part-time are working on translating the God-man Biblical narration story outlines into Kizaramo, which is certainly keeping me occupied, and hopefully will be a good resource for the emerging church to use in the further evangelization of Zaramo-land. I'm really pumped about this, and with the help of my friend Mr Lucas, have already translated two stories (the first being about a few characteristics of God as seen in Gen. 1:1, and the second being about the creation of the angels and Satan's rebellion).
These translations are really exciting, there's so much opportunity for me to improve my vocabulary and grammar, so please pray for that as well. Once i finish a story with Lucas, i try to check it with two or three of my friends (to make sure it's all understandable), which in practice entails me explaining the story to them (narrating) with the Kizaramo vocabulary. So as they help me verify my translation they hear God's story - please pray for that as well! Open hearts, understanding, and conviction!
In fact over the last few weeks, seeing as this is the Evangelism and Discipleship unit of TIMO, we've had a lot of discussions on evangelism. We'd also been listening to a series of sermons by Ray Comfort, who's quite good and I recommend (check him out online), and has a huge passion for sharing the Gospel in any situation, following in the tradition of Charles Finney and Charles Spurgeon (and many other greats, some named Charles and some not), starting with the law to bring about conviction of sin, and then introducing grace through Christ. So i've been really challenged to be more purposeful in my conversations, steering them towards God. Well, i have been, or at least tried, over the last little while, and as a result have had some interesting conversations with some of my friends- a few that stand out are-
Mr Mtukwao. He had polio as a child, so he has one bent and shrivelled leg (the healing of which i think would be a powerful testimony, something to pray for), and hobbles around with a thick leaning/walking stick. Well, i've been hanging out at his dukka (sorry, do you know what a dukka is? It's a little shop) lately, and so just in the flow of conversations, i've kinda steered it to God and sin several times. Every time i do though, and i'll ask him a couple of questions, he'll answer one or two, but then really obviously changes the subject. So i'm not sure how interested he is, and haven't pushed it, but there's this other guy who hangs out at his dukka who has a cool moustache, but whose name i can never remember although he's told me it several times. Anyways, Mr Moustachio seems to listen a lot more intently, and seems a lot more interested, but he's quieter and shier than Mtukwao, so when Mtu changes the subject, Moustachio looses out. So please pray, if you would, for these two men, that God may give me wisdom in speaking and give them a hunger for His message!
Then there's my neighbour, Bibi Idaya (Grandma of Idaya). She's a sweet lady who's been very nice to us, she'll bring us fruit sometimes, and gives us cassava and pumpkin stew when she cooks it, etc. Anyways, a few days ago i saw her sitting outside her house not really doing anything, so i went over and sat with her. We started talking about all kinds of things, from the cats who came out and sat by us to life in general, and then the conversation moved to Ramadhan and whether she was fasting, and from there to what it takes to please God, and from there to man's depravity, and the evil in his heart, and how he needs a saviour because he cannot please God by his actions. So i told her about Christ, God come down who died for us. But i'm thinking i either didn't communicate something well (my vocabulary is still rather limited), or she wasn't ready to hear, because at the end she was like 'oh yeah, your religion and ours are very similar...'. Anyways, please pray for her heart, and that as seeds are planted, they may be watered and nurtured by the Holy Spirit, and grow to bear fruit!
Moi, my good friend, has sadly been in Dar most of the last couple of weeks helping his brother-in-law with his charcoal business, so he's missing out. However i went by his dukka the other day and Rajabu, his little brother, was tending it, so i sat with him for maybe an hour-and-a-half, and started talking to him as well about Ramadhan and earning favour with God, and how could a Holy God be pleased by anything we sinful men are doing? So please pray for him as well, he could be anywhere between 12 and 15 yrs old- he's short (as is everyone else, very hobbit-like), but he's pretty self-assured, so it's difficult to tell.
Some of Moi's family, including (L-R) Rajabu, Moi, Moi's wife Zaina, and Moi's cousin Usna.
And then there's my other good friend Mr Lucas (his real name is Hulka, which is pronounced Huruca or Huluca in Kizaramo- Rs and Ls are interchangeable, and no one can make the 'er' sound at the end of peter, it sounds like 'elll' when they try- anyways everyone calls him Luca, or Lucas). So over the last couple of weeks we've had some really great talks, one being about the nature of the trinity, and how Christians really worship 1 God, not 2 or 3. Another was about God being a righteous and holy judge, and how if a human judge, had he been a good man, would not let a mass-murderer walk free but would put him away for the benefit of society, even if he claimed to be repentant; then how could we expect a holy, just and incorruptible God to let sinners go free just because they did something good to offset their sins, or tried to appease Him? So please pray that as we have some good conversations, and as he hears and reads and thinks about God's word and character in helping me translate these narrations, that God may open his heart to understand what he comes accross, be convicted of his sin, and turn to Christ!
My friend Hulka at his dukka.
Well, so on the major and important ministry-related things, that would be my catch-up post. If there's anything that needs explaining for something else to make sense in the weeks to come, I'll try and give you the backstory as we go along and the need arises. Once again, so sorry it's been so long, but hopefully that'll change now. (Ha! Like you haven't heard that before! Luke 17:3-4).
Please keep praying!
posted by dan at 10/01/2008 04:51:00 p.m.
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