BTCP Graduation in Ukunda, Kenya

Dennis clapping for the graduates

James graduated with some men from Word of Life Church

Why was the trip to Kenya so good?
1) Fresh Eyes: I got to see the work we are doing in Ukunda, and even the place and people there with new eyes. Some eyes were fresh, some were wise, and my own were opened. Luke, a friend from language school who accompanied me on the trip brought the fresh eyes. John and Alan, the wise eyes. And through them seeing where I live and work, and the purpose and vision of Serve, mine were opened a bit more than before. I cannot tell you how valuable this was and is to me.
2) Home is People: Home is not a place nor things. Over Christmas I received a package full of wonderful things that reminded me of home: gum, granola bars (I have two left still), and other things like that. They reminded me of home, which is great, but they are not home. I visited some friends in the Middle East over Christmas. It was home there in the Middle East. John was home and we were in East Africa. Home is people. It was wonderful to spend time with John Brown and Alan Chamberlain to be guided, encouraged, and spiritually directed by them. As I reflect on this, I realize also that if home is people, then in time (not a short time, but in time) Kenya might just be home as well. That's an encouraging thought while in such a long transition.

Malaria, Initiation to African Mission Work

Some would say that during this month, I have been initiated into African missionary work. Malaria. Praise the Lord, that he preserved me from this sickness until after my trip to Kenya for the BTCP graduation and a wonderfully encouraging time with John Brown, one of the missions staff with Denton Bible, and Alan Chamberlain, a Denton Bible elder. God knew that I needed that time in so many ways. Two days after returning to Morogoro, malaria kicked in. I'm glad for the experience in many ways, although I do not want to repeat it. The unknown is usually more scary than something you've already experienced. Now I know what it's like (the vomiting, the aching, the fever, the extreme weakness), and I no longer need to fear it :). I thought it was funny that on the fifth day after I had completed my medicine and was feeling better that I tried to sweep my room and had to take a break in the middle of it because I was too tired! My room is seriously very small. After about a week I was fully recovered and getting back into Swahili. Praise the Lord for my new friends here who took very good care of me.

Two Moons Ago: Swahili time

Two moons ago I arrived in Tanzania. I remember just before I left Mombasa (Ukunda), I went swimming in my favorite spot on the beach, the one where there are almost no beach boys, where there is soft sand in the water and no rocks and sea urchins to step on, where there are the best waves at high tide. Full moon and high tide, waves that violently slam into your body and twirl you around like a squirrel in the mouth of a dog, except less biting.

It is a full moon right now (as I write this around the end of March), and although I have calendars everywhere that tell me I have been here two months, I'm reminded of the passing of time through the Swahili word for moon and month. "Mwezi". It is the same word.

I'm really enjoying the Swahili way of telling time.

7am is 'saa moja', 1:00, the first hour of the day. Think Biblically and you got the Swahili way of telling time. Hour one, saa mbili (2), hour three, saa nne (4) hour five, saa sita (6), time for lunch ... and so on. I have set my watch this way to help me think in Swahili more. By the time 4 or 5pm arrives, I feel like I have accomplished much because I've been up and actively doing things for 10 or 11 hours! By 7pm, it is the first hour of the night and the sun is shedding its last bit of light for the day.

If you get into more remote tribal peoples, they might tell years by counting rainy seasons. 10 seasons ago, 5 seasons ago, etc. I was reading a book by a Massai, the most well-known African traditional tribes located in Tanzania and Kenya. The author was relating his story about when he went off to boarding school. When he returned home for break, his father took a rope and tied thirty knots in the rope. He ordered his son to untie one knot every morning and when three were left, they would travel back to the school. This was back in the 70's, and life has changed rapidly even for traditional tribes like the Massai.

Right now I'm in my first rainy season. I've experienced 5 moons in Kenya and 2 here in Tanzania. As I write this, it is the 9th hour of the day, on the Thursday before Easter, the day that commemorates Jesus' institution of the Lord's Supper, our symbol of hope, forgiveness, and union / communion in Christ. In Christ. In Christ and He in us. Jesus spoke these words that very night:

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. ~ John 17:20-23

Morogoro, Tanzania

Baba yetu uliye mbinguni,

jina lako litukuzwe.
Ufalmo wako uje.
Mapenzi yako yatimizwe
hapa duniani kama huko mbinguni
utupe leo riziki yetu. Utusamehe makosa yetu kama sisi tunavyowasamehe waliotukosea. Usitutie majaribuni, lakini utuokoe na yule mwavu. Kwa kuwa ufalme ni wako na nguvu na utukufu hata milele. Amin.

‘Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
‘Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
‘Give us this day our daily bread. ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. ‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’

We say this every morning before class during a short devotional time. This is the Lord's Prayer in Swahili and in English. About a month ago I asked you to pray that I would have friends here at the language school. I remember worrying so much about going off to Tanzania alone. A country I had never been before going to a school I'd never seen to be in class with people I'd never met for four months. What if I didn't make any friends? Will I be completely and terribly alone? "Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen." ~ Ephesians 3:20-21

God has answered your prayers abundantly. The community here is incredible. It is so diverse, loving, and encouraging. We have Catholic priests (Joby, Jackson, Prijo, and Shaju the Indian Fathers, Gideon from Ghana, and Michael from Indonesia) and sisters (Prerna from Northern India who I call 'Sista P!' and Cecilia from Nigeria), Lutherans from Iowa (Liz, Lu, and Kristen) and Finland (Leena & Erne), a family from Arkansas with Pioneer Bible Translators (Ben, Jennifer, Charis, Levi, Luke), and Presbyterian Koreans planting a church in a very small town in Western Tanzania (Qyn Hwan [Paul], Kim Sol Jeong [Jean], and David their son). Today actually was the first day I was able to find more information about the Koreans through conversing in Swahili since they do not know much English. It was exciting to get to know them a little after a month of just smiling. I'm also getting to know some of the teaching assistants, especially two Massai guys named Lemsanya & Kadeghe.

Our Massai guides and Swahili teachers up in the clouds: Kadeghe & Lemsanya

This is the other Ben from Arkansas.

So why did I worry? Why do you worry about things? Utupe leo riziki yetu - Give us today our daily sustenance, daily bread. Do not give us tomorrow's bread today, please don't do that! It will spoil. Just today. On Sunday I was joining Erne in an old sauna that some Finnish missionary built here at the school 20 years ago. Apparently saunas are a really big deal in Finland and they find it even necessary in a hot climate like Tanzania. Anyway, there I was sweating until my fingers were pruny with Erne, the Finnish Lutheran, and we were talking about how we shouldn't plan or worry about tomorrow because today's trouble is enough on its own. Then I suddenly thought, "If that were something I believed, wouldn't the most worry-free time of the day be the evening?" The day is over and there is nothing more to worry about since tomorrow has not arrived. Lord, give us the grace to live this way. I know I need that because my mind so easily moves toward the future.

Swahili has been great. I feel I've improved a lot and can carry on a very simple conversation as well as read kids books with the help of a dictionary. For some reason I really enjoy languages and even grammar...oops did I say that? Over the last week I read a story called, "Pilipili Hoho", which is about a boy who grows green bell pepper for a competition at school. One of the bell peppers, or pilipili hoho, grows to be the size of a watermelon and for some reason has legs. It's my first official book to be completed in Swahili and a delightful story. I got 80 new words from it that I'm now working on memorizing. My favorite verb is 'kutekenya' which means 'to tickle.'

Blessings to you. Thank you for praying and for allowing me the privilege of learning Swahili in such a beautiful place and with such beautiful people.

The mountain side is filled with villages and farms at a steep slope.

Prayer:

1. Pray for continued diligence in my studies of Swahili.
   
2. Pray for the seminars, conferences, and BTCP graduation that is happening in Kenya this month. I will be traveling next week for the graduation on the 13th as long as I have my passport. I gave it to the language school office when I arrived for visa purposes and haven't seen it yet. When I told the head teacher about that today, he seemed surprised. So pray I get my passport back and if I do, pray for safe travels.
3. Pray for the student Bible study Ben and I started - for the gospel to be evident.
   

A Kick in the Pants from D.A. Carson

"There are preachers who so loudly declare their love of preaching that it is unclear whether it is their own performance and their love of power that has captured them or their desire to minister to the men and women who listen to them. A church organist may buck every suggestion that a young, new musician be permitted to serve in this way, and pretty soon the reason becomes clear: the organist's self-identity is so bound up with the public performance of music that any thought of serving people has been suppressed, to the point that the thought of being replaced is intolerable.

As someone who has taught seminary students for more than fifteen years, I worry about the rising number of seminarians who, when asked where and how they think they might best serve, respond with something like this: "Well, I think I would like to teach somewhere. Every time I have taught, people have told me I have done a pretty good job. I get a tremendous sense of fulfillment out of teaching the Bible. I think I could be satisfied teaching Scripture."

How pathetic. I know pagans who find satisfaction and fulfillment by teaching nuclear physics. In any Christian view of life, self-fulfillment must never be permitted to become the controlling issue. The issue is service, the service of real people. The question is, How can I be most useful?, not How can I feel most useful? The goal is, How can I best glorify God by serving his people?, not, How can I feel most comfortable and appreciated while engaging in some acceptable form of Christian ministry? The assumption is, How shall the Christian service to which God calls me be enhanced by my daily death, by my principled commitment to take up my cross daily and die?, not, How shall the form of service I am considering enhance my career? This is not to deny that Christians may derive joy from work honestly offered to God, whether that work is vocational ministry or research into the properties of quarks. But it is one thing to find joy in the work to which we have been called, and another to make joy the goal of life, the fundamental criterion that controls our choices. It is one thing to weigh a Christian leader's evaluation of our gifts, and another so to focus on our perception of our gifts that self-worship has crept in through the back door. It is one thing to think of people as a live audience that will appreciate our displays of homiletical prowess, and another that passionately shapes each sermon to convey the truth to God's people for their good...

In short, Paul not only wants to be with [the Thessalonians], he wants to be with them for their good. And that is a demonstration of elementary Christianity. Christ Jesus came to us, choosing to be with us - and this for our good. He chose the path of self-denial, dying in excruciating shame and degradation so that others might live. He calls us to serve the same way, not by lording it over others but by open-eyed death to self-interest, for the good of others. This stance is not a mask to be donned as a disguise at religious conventions, but the hallmark of Christian living. Paul understood the point and lived it out. His prayers for believers are nothing more than an extension of the same love that he bore them."