Fellowship & Feet

Our first ever Ladies' Night was a smashing success!  We met together for pedicures, testimonies, and food (what better combo?!).  

Us white girls found out that we are really the "washamba"--people of the fields--as we scraped at our callouses, while our African friends, who walk barefoot most of the time, produced these soft, clean feet (much to our dismay).  As it turns out, they are faithful with their "foot rock" they keep in the shower for rubbing off the rough spots daily, and their feet really didn't need much extra attention.  We painted toenails, then fingernails.......on one hand.....and then they insisted that one was enough, the other one being used for eating, and "what if I put my hand into my ugali and as I bring it to my mouth it smells like nail polish?!"  Hmmmm, I guess I had never thought about that.  

Our two guests, Lisa and Shawn, gave their testimonies after that--their main emphasis being God's goodness in hard times, and our commission to love God and love one another.  It was a sweet time of fellowship, and when the testimonies were done, Neema said, "We have learned tonight more about how to depend on God, so we will sing a song about depending on him."  We lifted our voices in praise with our Tanzanian sisters.  What a blessing! 

(l to r, back row first) Me, Lauren, Neema, Lisa, Eliza, Shawn,
Milka and baby Ada, Zayanabu, Pendo, Bethany, Baseki and Alicia

Celebrating Jesus, and His gift of Lauren

Sunday was a celebration of Jesus' resurrection all over the world, and our family had the additional blessing of celebrating a sweet little blonde girl who was born into our family nine years ago.  Lauren was SO excited to share her birthday with Easter!

carrying benches in to the church, cooking smoke behind

the decorated church, children reciting memory verses up front

 We headed for church at ten in the morning, the service starting at 11.

Megan, with the best seat in the house; storm coming!

the baptismal, filled with water carried in many buckets, on many heads!

 Each choir, of the many that were there, were only allowed to sing two songs! 

the ladies cooking for several hundred people

 Then the different Sunday Schools came forward and shared their memory verses--one group had 30 verses they recited!

cooking fires

At 2:30 one of the pastors started preaching.

At about 4:00 we finally left, before the baptisms or "lunch."  

It was a long day, but a blessing to have several churches together, 13 people accept Christ and 60 people baptized!

Lauren, a treasure!

We celebrated Lauren at dinner and then opened our final empty Easter egg that tells the Easter story.

A perfect day!

Death by Python

the python sheds

          It is not uncommon, in the present humanitarian trend, to hear comments such as, “Why don’t you leave the Africans alone?  They are happy the way they are!”  Hmmm.  Yes, the Tanzanians are in general some of the “happiest” and friendliest people I have met, hospitable and welcoming.  However, they are also steeped in traditions and superstitions that keep them constantly fearful.

Last week the kids heard that there was a python in a neighboring village that had eaten a goat and a chicken, so (naturally!) they all went to check it out.  It was a friends’ neighbor’s goat.  On the way there, as the terrain was looking familiar, they asked if it was at the witch doctor’s house.  “Oh, no, no.”  And then they were led...

…..to the witch doctor’s house.

at the witch doctor's house

 (I cannot tell you how often these things happen—thinking one thing and happening upon quite another).  Since they were there, they asked to see the python.  The witch doctor was gone at the moment but the relatives said, “It is not a SNAKE, it is a RELATIVE.  It is an ancestor that has come to visit and we feed it milk and flour and we just gave it a goat and a chicken.”  They weren’t sure about letting anybody see it, though, as it might be “cranky, or happy, it’s hard to tell.”  They also made sure to let them know that if anyone killed the snake, the witch doctor herself (yes, it is a woman) would die.  She was very convinced of this, which is partly why she was taking such good care of it.

Not being a big fan of all of our children visiting the local witch doctor, I was happy to have them home.  While we would never purposefully take them there, it was also a stark reality for them of the power of Satan in people’s lives.  Is it freeing to be feeding a snake milk and flour every day when most CHILDREN in our village don’t have milk because it is too expensive?  How about a GOAT and a CHICKEN in a year with no harvest and prices going through the roof?  Does some humanitarian want to call that freedom?  Can we really believe that there is hope for Africa in condom distribution and free money meant for water and roads that never makes it to its designated project?  Can corruption and bribery be changed without a change of heart?  And if we want to see a change of heart, can we teach others to look out for their neighbor apart from following God’s higher laws of justice and love?

Is there hope for Africa apart from Jesus Christ?  Hope for any of us without Him?

A while back I asked some of our staff guys about local midwives.  I was wondering who they were in our village and if the women called them or tried to make it to the little clinic to deliver.  They said that there were some midwives, but usually the women wouldn’t call them, they would call a relative instead.  “Why?  Don’t those women know a lot about delivering babies?”  For some reason they thought that was funny.  I still didn’t know why.  “Becky, they might be a wizard or something (that is what they call a witch doctor who is ‘undercover’—and they suspect many older people of being so).”  “Well, what if they are?  What would they do delivering a baby?”  They thought that was a weird question. “They would kill the baby after they deliver it.  Becky, don’t you know about wizards?  They always just want to kill.”  Well, no, I don’t know very much about witch doctors and wizards.  But I know enough now to know that when Jesus said that Satan came to steal and kill and destroy
(Jn. 10:10), he wasn’t understating the intent. 

The witch doctor with the python guest has attended the church near her ("and mom, she even took community," says Lauren.  Evidently that doesn’t seem to be a problem to her—going to church and also being a witch doctor.  That is the confusion of dualism—Christians who still go to the witch doctor when they are desperate for an answer, power.  That is a challenge to our fellow brothers and sisters here, an often-preached message of resisting the temptation to run to something other than the Lord with our problems.  Pray for our local body of believers!  Pray that they will stay strong and not give in to superstitions!  Pray that they will see the power of Jesus to overcome the Evil One.

  

No more slaughtering a chicken to pour its blood out around the boundary of the yard, keeping the curses out.  No more searching for someone other than the midwife, just in case she really is a wizard.  No more running to the witch doctor to be healed because God isn’t listening.  

“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full!”
 (Jn. 10:10)

Hannah's python has a bat snack.
Don't worry, it doesn't get to hang around the house for too much longer!