Sermon: Who do you say that I am?

A week ago, I preached a sermon that drew heavily on our Africa experiences, and thought I would post it here, just in case anyone wants to read it. (Cross-posted from my blog, the thin paper vault.)

Peace,
Melissa

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Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah. (Matthew 16:13-20)
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It happened to us twice. Two different times, sitting in two different mud-walled churches with tin roofs, two different Maasai choirs singing worship from deep in their souls, clothed in red and blue plaid and their fanciest beadwork. It happened to us twice, in two different Maasai churches, as part of a time set aside for the formal exchange of lengthy greetings, filtered through two layers of translation. It happened to us twice, while we were sharing and learning about life in the Tanzanian bush and in suburban America.

It happened to us twice: a raised hand on the far side of the church, and a Maasai man or woman standing to ask us questions about our faith and culture. Twice, we were posed the question “Are you Christ followers?” And then the follow-up question, “How does that make your life different?”

More than wanting to know what Christianity is like in a different land, more than wanting to know what the church is like across an ocean that none of them would ever see, these men and women wanted to know who Christ was to us, on a deeply personal level. They wanted to know that believing in Christ had changed our lives. They wanted to know that our faith and discipleship mattered - really mattered - in our lives.

For these communities of faith, gathered out in the dust under the shade of thorny acacia trees, following Jesus was nothing other than a life-changing commitment. Christ following meant abandoning some long-standing tribal and cultural practices and adopting a new worldview where all humans, male and female, are equal in God’s eyes. They expected nothing less from us. They wanted to know that our experience with Christ was just as personal, just as powerful, and just as life-changing as the Christ that they had come to know.

“Are you a Christ follower?” the asked. And, “How does that transform your life?” Or, in other words, “Who do you say that Christ is?”

* * *

Jesus arrived at Caesarea Philippi. This Jesus was the one who even before birth was called “Immanuel,” God-with-us, the one who will “save his people from their sins.” This Jesus has already taught, healed, and performed wonder after wonder, and yet been asked, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

Jesus arrived at Caesarea Philippi, a political threat and a curious figure to the villages. And so he asked his disciples about all the rumors that were flying about him, and about the Son of Man, the Messiah that the whole world was hoping for. He asked them, “Who do people think the Son of Man is?” The disciples told him, ‘Some think John the Baptist, some think it’s Elijah, there are a few who think it might be Jeremiah, or maybe one of the other prophets.”

Jesus pressed the disciples, asking more pointedly, “What about you? Who do you say I am?” And Simon Peter, always first to run off his mouth, confidently declared, “You are the Christ. The Messiah. The Son of the living God!” And Jesus said, “Blessed are you.”

* * *

A quick trip to Google is all it takes for us, in our current day and age, to answer Jesus’ first question, “Who do people say I am?”

• Author Geza Vermes says that Jesus is, “an unsurpassed master of the art of laying bare the inmost core of spiritual truth.”
• Martin Luther King, Jr. says, “Jesus Christ was an extremist for love, truth and goodness.”
• Mikhail Gorbachev says, “Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind.”
• Camille Paglia says, “Jesus was a brilliant Jewish stand-up comedian, a phenomenal improviser. His parables are great one-liners.”
• And John Lennon, in his infamous quote about the Beatles, says, “We're more popular than Jesus Christ now. I don't know which will go first; rock and roll or Christianity.”

Google, television, radio, and any quantity of books, interviews and articles can tell you a lot about Jesus. But they can only get you so far. They can only answer that first question Jesus asks, “Who do people say that I am?”

But the question that Jesus really wants to know the answer to is the second question, the personal question: “Who do you say that I am?” It’s not good enough for us to know what other people believe about Jesus. The life of faith begun at baptism is a life of discerning the answer to the question, “What do I believe?” It’s the point of our Christian education and confirmation ministries. It’s the purpose of sharing the Word together in worship and in personal devotion. It’s the goal of meeting Christ at the table in bread and wine.

When Peter speaks up and proclaims, “Jesus, you are the Christ,” Jesus turns around and says “Blessed are you.” I don’t think he says this because Peter said the “right” answer. Jesus tells Peter that he is blessed for having proclaimed his own faith, rather than regurgitating any secondary sources. “Blessed are you,” Jesus says, “for believing in me, and not just in stories and second-hand reports about me. Blessed are you because you felt God’s grace stirring in your soul and have come to believe in me, the one whom he has sent. Blessed are you because you have seen me - really seen me! - and believed.”

* * *

Sitting on those narrow benches, kicking the dust under our feet and smelling the breeze at it blew in through the cracks where the tin roof met the mud walls of the churches, our group looked at each other quietly, trying to come up with a simple answer to a question that seemed so complicated: What does following Christ really mean to you?

Whether they knew it or not, the eager Maasai women and men who posed the questions were asking us to disregard what everybody else thinks about Jesus. They were asking us to disregard what we’ve read or studied. They were challenging us to disregard all of the good answers that we could quote other believers and other theologians. They were pushing us to resist talking about Christianity in the third-person.

I wish I could tell you that we stood up and shared with them glowing testimonies of the ways that each of us have experienced Jesus in our lives and come to be transformed by him. And I wish that I could tell you that we shared story after story about how Christ was using us to bring real change to our communities here at home. But we were quiet. Maybe it was too big of a question. Maybe it was too complicated to explain through two layers of language barriers. Maybe we were shy, or just out of practice when it comes to talking about the personal side of our faith.

All I know is that those moments of quiet and stammered half-answers about Christianity in America sparked in me a new desire to draw closer to Jesus, so that I, too, can talk in easy, concrete, faithful terms about my relationship with Jesus, just like the members of the congregations who hosted us did. I want to be able to say, confidently, things such as “God is the one who brings the rain. Jesus is the one who brings equality. My faith liberates and empowers me from the cultural hardships of being a woman. Jesus is the shepherd of my soul.” Or, in the words of Peter, “Jesus, you are the Christ, the Messiah, the one sent by God to redeem the world.”

The good news for me, for you, for our group of Tanzania travelers is that we can keep looking for the thin places in our lives where we encounter Christ in transforming ways, and we can keep practicing our lines so that we speak in a vocabulary of faith. The good news is that God opens up safe spaces where we can search our hearts to discern where God is really working in our lives. And maybe, in this moment right here and now, the best news of all is that we come together week after week and practice our faith in this community or other worshiping communities like this. We pray prayers that help us find our words. We sing songs that help us expand our imaginations and our vocabularies. And, week by week, we stand up together, our voices supporting and being supported by the whole people of God, and we practice again the words of our faith every time we begin the Creed with the words “I believe.”

I would invite you right now to reach forward and grab a red hymnal. Turn to page 229 in the front, which is part of the rite of Holy Baptism.

As I ask each question and we respond, I invite you do think about the words you are saying, perhaps more deeply that you’ve ever considered them before. Think about the words that communicate the faith of the deepest parts of your heart. Think about the words that challenge you, or the words that are hard for you to agree with. Think about what it really means to you to say the words “I believe.” And consider this your way, today, to answer the question posed to us by Jesus: “Who do you say that I am?”

Do you believe in God the Father?

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God?

I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

Do you believe in God the Holy Spirit?

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.

Amen.

Psalm 121, annotated

A few weeks ago, I spent an afternoon where, amongst other agenda items, two key things happened: I had the chance to share my Tanzania experiences with friends, and we all read Psalm 121 together. Talking about Tanzania had put a lens on my hearing of the Psalm (if that odd metaphor makes any sense) that made me understand exactly why the Maasai understand the Bible in such a close, personal way.

Psalm 121
I lift up my eyes to the hills —
from where will my help come?

There we were, far into the dusty bush, hills rising up around us, following a man on a motorcycle to where he thought Dr. Friberg's clinic was. Out there, it felt empty, unprotected. The mountains protected us, perhaps, but also cut us off from the village we had left behind.

My help comes from the LORD,
who made heaven and earth.

All life happens according to the turn of the seasons. Work happens during the daylight, herding and farming happens according to the rainy and the dry seasons. God is creator and more than creator: God is the one who brings the rain.

He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
He who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

We slept out under the stars one night, outside in the dust, away from the shelter and meager protection of our tents, open to the world around us. It was only then that I realized that our campfire stayed lit all night. And the Maasai warriors who just seemed to be hanging around with us and our guides? They sat there, by the fire, all night. They talked and drank chai, and watched over us. Not just that night when we slept outside, but every night that we camped. That is the life of the bush: warriors keeping guard at night, staying awake, ready to fend off whatever might approach the camp.

The LORD is your keeper;
the LORD is your shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.

Northern Tanzania is near the equator, the sun rising and setting at predictable times, diving the day cleanly into twelve hours of light and twelve hours of dark. During the hottest parts of the day - noon until around four - the difference in temperature between sun and shade is remarkable. In the sun, you feel your skin burning. In the shade, you feel remarkably refreshed. And at night, more stars than you've ever seen before. In the darkness, I can see our group huddled around Carole's stargazing app, swiping the phone across the sky and tracing constellations - seeing the Southern Cross, and looking at the Big Dipper upside-down. But also in the darkness, so much uncertainty. So dark you couldn't see the thorny acacia limbs that reached out to snag your hair, and even a flashlight couldn't give you a full sense of where you were or what was ahead.

The LORD will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.

I saw a young toddler with AIDS and a heart defect, an old man so ill and frail and in peril because he was refusing to eat. We shared conversation and faith with a Maasai choir who, upon our departure, told us "We hope that you will be able to come to us again, but if it is not meant that we should cross paths again in this life, we look forward to meeting you anew in heaven." Life and death are real. I think about the drought and famine in Horn of Africa, and can only imagine the life or death prayers being raised up to God, the one who brings the rain.

The LORD will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time on and forevermore.

"There won't be as many men as usual," Dr. Friberg told us as we were driving out to the Maasa choir rehearsal, "because the men are traveling, finding pastures and water for the herds in this dry time." They were on the move, leaving the thorny protection of their bomas, going forth, and hoping to return home safely when their journey was done. Later that weekend, we walked to worship at a different small church in the bush, and on the way back to our camp, we walked in the company of many Maasai children, who accompanied us on our journey as we all headed back to the safety of our homes.

In many and various ways, this is indeed the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

Peace,
Melissa

Copied from my journal: Home visits with Mama Sara

I wrote pages and pages in my journal while we were in Tanzania, which was time consuming, a little tedious....and now, two months later, unspeakably valuable to me as I try to hold onto as many details and memories as I can of our trip. This blog post is an excerpt from my journal reflecting on Monday, June 28, which was our first workday with the Fribergs after our first night at the hostel in Mto wa Mbu.
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28 June 2011
It is hard to think about where to begin telling today's story. My heart is full to overflowing, and it's hard to find the right words.

The easy things: I slept better in my tent [here in Mto wa Mbu] than I did in any of the hotel beds [during our first three nights]. Quite peaceful, save the avocados falling from trees that sounded far more like baboons falling out of trees! So loud!

We began the day with devotions with the clinic staff. We met some of Dr. Steve's nurses and other staff. I loved watching him really in his element. We all shared hymnals and did our best to join in singing...our Swahili is more than a little, well, underdeveloped.

Mama Sara and Bethany Friberg

For the morning, I was part of one group that went into the village to do home visits to AIDS patients. We went with Mama Sara (Maya Lomayani) who is this amazing woman - schoolteacher and pastor's wife, a beautiful, happy, graceful woman with a huge heart. We wandered with her toward town, learning some Swahili vocabulary, watching the baboons along the side of the road, fending off vendors, crossing the aqueduct along the side of the road via a narrow, rickety bridge, and trying our best to keep from stepping on sleeping dogs and the chickens that were constantly underfoot.

Our first visit was to a young woman named Rukia, who lived with her mother, Zubeta, in a small, two-room mud house. Zubeta greeted us and ushered us in, pushing us back into the bedroom, saying, "Sit on my bed," and finding an array of stools and seats so that we could all sit and visit together. Mama Sara told us about just how sick Rukia had been, and how thin she had been before she finally was tested for AIDS. She told us how improved she was now that she was on medication. So surreal: here I am, sitting on a bed, squashed into a tiny, dark, dusty bedroom, sitting between Matt and lovely Rukia, being cared for by two women who have next to nothing, who were quiet but absolutely pleased and grateful for our presence. There was a surprising lack of cultural divide.

Visiting Rukia (red bandana) and Zubeta (purple headcovering)

Our group outside of Rukia and Zubeta's house

Our next visit was to Agnes, a 20 year old woman, HIV-positive, with twin 2-year olds: Hamisi, who has both HIV and heart problems, and Hassani, who is healthy. They lived in a tiny hut, built by her neighbors and on their land (at Mama Sara's urging) after her husband had died. This was a quiet visit for us. Agnes was heppy we wer there, certainly, and happy just to watch us as we stuck stickers all over Hassani, as he sat in Sara's lap and played with her necklace. He was also fascinated by Mike's watch and Matt's ring.

Agnes and Hamisi

Mama Sara and Hassani

From there, we walked to our last stop, all the while trying to have Sara help us bolster our Swahili vocabulary. She was very good and patient with us! She also, throughout our walking, encouraged us in our looking and question-asking.

Walking with Mama Sara

Our last stop was to a woman named Mariam, who lived with her son, Abdallah, and her father. Abdallah is nine, in second grade, adorable and polite, and was proud to show Jan all of his schoolwork and the high marks he was receiving in school. Mariam is HIV positive, but Abdallah is not. She was the most talkative of all the people we visited. She told us of how she was diagnosed with HIV after Abdallah was born, and how she moved back here with her family when she learned the news. Her father himself is quite sick - typhoid or malaria, probably. We went in to visit him, and in a horrible and awkward moment, we accidentally broke his already-rickety bedframe. We quickly took up a collection among our little group to pay for the repairs. He barely noticed, he was so frail. He hasn't been eating, and refused to speak, and it was heart-wrenching to leave him.

Leaving Mariam's house - Abdallah is the kid in the white shirt, clinging to Mama Sara

Truly Sara does amazing work - part nurse, part community organizer, part pastoral care. An amazing woman.

She took the other half of our group on visits after lunch, and then joined us for dinner. She thanked us deeply for coming, and for the work that we are doing. As is the custom, we offered our own words of thanks back to her before giving her some serious hugs she left.

The afternoon group - hopefully they will post some of their own stories soon!

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I wonder if I will ever see Mama Sara again. Since our trip, she has emailed our group, updating us on some of the people we visited and asking for our continued support. Hopefully we can find meaningful ways to continue to partner with her, even from the other side of the world!

Peace,
Melissa

Make a joyful noise

If you asked any member of our traveling group to share some highlights from our trip, every single one of us would include one particular event in our various short lists: our mid-week visit to a Maasai church to watch their choir rehearse.

We drove from the clinic, which was at the edge Mto wa Mbu, a poor but busy and thriving town, out into the dusty bush. We left the paved highway for a gravel road out into the dry wilderness, and then left that gravel road for a road of pure dust. We passed giant termite mounds, some dry bushes, the occasional dry acacia tree, and Maasai bomas, which are circular homesteads fenced in with thorny branches, containing 8 or 10 circular mud huts. And then, out in the middle of nowhere, with dust at our tires and mountains in the distance, a small church building came into view.

The Maasai are a large tribe who live in Tanzania and Kenya, and who are, historically, herdsmen and nomads. They wear red and blue garments (plaid is the most traditional fabric), wear lots of beaded jewelry, shave their heads, and walk around in sandals made from motorcycle tires. The men carry spears and machetes, and even the youngest boys have herds of goats and cattle to manage.

Maasai Christianity is a fairly new venture - in the last decade or so. Christianity has had an enormous impact on Maasai communities that have chosen to adopt it. In traditional Maasai culture, women are viewed as property and often beaten, polygamy is the norm, young women are married off to men an entire generation older than them. Christianity, however, teaches that everyone - men, women, children, slaves - are all equal in God's eyes. Christianity has offered women the opportunity to have a voice and has helped women gain respect and dignity. Moreover, the Maasai, herdsmen and nomads, feel a special kinship with the Bible, believing that the book must have been written just for them, with all of its references to Jesus as a shepherd and with all of the stories of the wandering Israelites.

As we all sat on one side of the church, watching the choir rehearse, I think that we all felt transported to somewhere entirely new in time and space. The music was ancient, their voices primal. Watching them, wearing the same garb as Maasai men and women have worn for generations, we felt like we were someplace far off in the past. Except that there was an exuberance and a freshness to their faith that made us feel so very much in God's here and now. It was a mix of very old and very new; very primal and very alive; very poor and yet so very rich.

There are so many words that could yet be said about this evening - maybe others from the group will share their thoughts - but I think that I have said plenty, and I need to shut up and let you watch and listen to some of what we experienced!



Peace,
Melissa

Where the doctors are (and are not!)

Today, Matt and Kristi, friends of ours from college, posted the following image from worldmapper.org. It shows the relative number of doctors across nations of the world.  I thought it was worth sharing:

Territory size shows the proportion of all physicians (doctors) that work in that territory.

To quote Matt and Kristi, "Where are the doctors in Africa??"

If you ever needed some visual proof that people like Dr. Friberg are much needed - and that they need our ongoing support! - this map might just be the proof you were looking for.

Peace,
Melissa

The Blue Sweater

Driving to church this morning, I caught an interview on NPR with a woman name Jacqueline Novogratz. She is the author of the book The Blue Sweater and founder of the Acumen Fund, a philanthropic organization that invests in targeted, grass-roots entrepreneurial ventures that seek to battle poverty across the world from the ground-up rather than the top-down.

During our week at Mto wa Mbu, Matt had many good conversations with Bethany Friberg about poverty, economics, aid efforts, and technology. I thought of him while I listened to Jacqueline Novogratz talk about the ways that traditional aid, though well-intentioned, often fails to create sustainable results.

Jacqueline has given a number of different TED Talks about new ways of offering aid to poverty-stricken areas of our world, valuing integrity and sustainability in those efforts. (Visit her TED profile to learn more.) In the following TED Talk from 2009, she offers up her thoughts on a "third way" to offer aid, apart from traditional financial investments and traditional charitable giving.



She mentions the importance of relationships and patience, as well as real connections and partnerships. I think that Steve and Bethany Friberg have really internalized these values in their ministry. They build relationships, they listen carefully to the needs of those in their communities and address those needs in culturally-sensitive and appropriate ways, they choose to invest time and money in merchants and services that they know they can truly help, and they have the grace and patience to help their communities from the ground-up.

I'm excited to hunker down and watch Jacqueline's other TED Talks, and to keep learning what I can about how we can best offer aid to places like Tanzania, in significant, ground-up, sustainable ways.

Peace,
Melissa

Of Maasai and Mountains

Sometime this morning, in the half-sleep between snooze button smacks before truly waking, I had a dream about an old friend from college. An indecipherable dream. I remember none of it, other than waking up and wondering exactly how my brain and memory had colluded to unearth the face and name of someone from nearly a decade in my past.

Late this afternoon, curious and hitting a lull in my work, I decided to look him up on Facebook and send him a quick "thought of you this morning and hope you are well" message. No luck. He's not on Facebook. Admirable, really.

But still curious, and a tiny bit bored, I threw his name into Google to see if I could find out whether he was still teaching, still doing some of the same stuff he was doing the last time I had crossed paths with him.

Lo and behold, one of the first things that popped up (and the only link I bothered to follow) was a newsletter from the school where he used to teach, where he and a group of 20 students were highlighted for their travels to Tanzania!

I read through the snippets that he and the students wrote, and looked at the pictures of their travels. Any one of us could have written those snippets, our experiences were so similar. Singing together as a group in response to the Maasai choirs that sang for us, throwing frisbees with Maasai elders, standing up in the Land Rovers as we rode through endless land and sky...

And when I looked through the pictures, it was amazing to me that I recognized the Ngorongoro Crater before I had even read the caption.

One part of me easily could have interpreted all these similarities as discouraging, as if there were nothing unique to be experienced and felt in Tanzania, no matter how new and exciting our adventures were. But instead of feeling devalued or deflated, I felt excited and proud.

I felt privileged to be part of a small inner circle of people who have felt and experienced these things. I wanted to call up everybody in that newsletter and tell them, excitedly, that WE had just tossed frisbees and visited the Serengeti and poked our heads out of the tops of Land Rovers and slept in tents in the Tanzanian wilderness.

This past weekend was full of Tanzanian reflections for me. Three worship services, all dedicated to the telling of our travel stories. A visit from out-of-town relatives and the chance to share 800 pictures' worth of stories. Mini-reunions with members of our own traveling group as we sold beadwork and looked at each others' pictures.

But as fun as it is to tell all of our stories to new ears, I suspect that each of us, in our own way, wants to stumble across someone else who has been to Tanzania - someone who can see the landscape as we recount it, someone who understands our stories without any extra explanation, someone who has felt what we have felt, and someone who just knows what we're talking about.

It is the way of trips like this, I imagine. You experience something that can never be fully explained and described. I want to tell everyone that I know everything about the trip. But I get sad when I realize my words will never fully describe the pictures and thoughts in my head. I am slowly letting myself off the hook - giving myself permission to accept that there are things about this trip that will only ever be fully understood and appreciated by our traveling group, or perhaps by others who have also traveled there.

I will keep telling stories, most certainly. And I will do what I can to bring others into my experience. But I will also keep my membership card to this little secret club, this inner circle, and be grateful for the memories in my mind and heart that no words will ever communicate.

Peace,
Melissa

The gospel according to Crystal Light

God, in the silly little details.

I was cleaning up some clothes in the bedroom yesterday morning when I found a package of individual-serving drink mix packets. You know, the little packets like the one in the picture, that you can dump into a water bottle to turn water into lemonade, or orange drink, or iced tea, or a whole range of other flavors? The box had slid underneath the bed during our Tanzania packing, and for no apparent reason, when I saw it this morning, I threw it in my purse and brought it to work with me.

I went to put it in my desk drawer at work (the drawer I reserve for food and candy stuff), only to find that I already have a whole mug filled with little packets of drink mix. I'm set for a while. No one needs to buy me any, ok?  It was a hot and thirsty day, so I  filled up my water bottle twice (hydration is good!). Both times, since they were on my mind, I added in a packet of drink mix. First lemonade. Then orange.

As I was ripping the top of the second packet, I flashed back to Tanzania. We brought with an impressive amount of drink mix. Every fruit flavor imaginable. Iced tea. Packets of Starbucks Via instant coffee: the hot version, the iced version, AND flavored versions. And as soon as Dr. Friberg caught a glimpse of all of these packets, he made a special announcement to our group, asking us to save our used packets throughout the week, because he likes to use them to distribute pills. They work better than trying to fold paper around the pills, he told us.

We drank a lot during our work week in Mto wa Mbu. Via with breakfast, or maybe some chai. Filling our water bottles with treated water, and adding mix to make it fruity. Taking a late-morning break from work to drink more chai, or more Via, or more lemonade. Relaxing after dinner with more chai, more Via, hot chocolate, tea, and even more fruity water.

One photographic regret for me is that I never thought to take a picture of all of our used packets, nestled into a basket or a mug, waiting to do good in the world thanks to the resourcefulness of Dr. Friberg.

I'm not sure if this is a story of resourcefulness, of a strangely useful culture clash, or of a work crew that had to use the bathroom a lot.  But I DO know that this is a story of doing good in the world, and a story of how stupid simple things like little foil packets can be resurrected as useful, meaningful, and life-giving objects. And it's a story of being humbled. We thought we knew all the ways that we could blow through Mto wa Mbu and be useful. We thought we knew what gifts we had to offer. But who would have thought that one of the most practical ways we could help out was to simply drink our coffee and remember to throw our Via packet into the basket on the table rather than the garbage can in the corner. Humbling. Small things can make a world of difference.

At least for me, this was the sort of detail that elevated our experiences beyond what we expected a mission trip to Tanzania to feel like. It is in those silly but crucial everyday details that you really see God's love at work.

Peace,
Melissa

Being "Mchungaji"

In Swahili, they word for pastor is "mchungaji." Quite literally, the word means goat-herder or shepherd. Similar to the way that the English words "pastor" and "pastoral" are related to shepherds and pastures, so also does the word "mchungaji" connect the idea of pastor with the idea of tending a flock.

A common sight during our travels was of young Maasai boys herding goats and cattle along the sides of the road. The Maasai are herdsmen and warriors, and Maasai Christians feel a special kinship with all the characters in the Bible who are themselves herders and nomads, and especially with the idea of Jesus as the good shepherd. After seeing so many herds of goats being ushered through the dust, and after hearing the testimonies of exuberant Maasai Christians, I consider it a special privilege to have been called "mchungaji," a goat-herder of souls.

Being "mchungaji" meant many things to me during my time in Tanzania. It meant bringing greetings to the congregations we visited, in the name of the God who is Lord of us all. It meant being ushered up to the front of a Maasai tribal Lutheran worship service during the first hymn, so that I could sit alongside the pastor and worship leaders of the church. It meant signing church guestbooks and receiving many handshakes.

Being "mchungaji" was something fascinating to a gaggle of pre-teen girls who stood and gawked and giggled nearby me while standing outside a church in Moshi. Being "mchungaji" was something exciting and worth applause at the Maasai church choir rehearsal we visited mid-week. Being "mchungaji" was something respected so deeply by one of our guides that he called me by no other name or title. Being "mchungaji" was something curious and beautiful to families and children in a Maasai boma as they watched me try on a stole covered in traditional beadwork.

Being "mchungaji" was a strange and humbling experience for me. As with any of us who profess faith in Jesus Christ, we embody humility in faith and lead through humble service. It is jarring (in a good way, I think!) to be in a place where having a faith-calling was both respected and celebrated.

While I may have been the official "mchungaji," I saw plenty of other "mchungaji" around me:

• Steve Friberg, who spends his time tending nine clinics that provide healthcare to some of the poorest people in the country, and who carries himself quietly and humbly, drinking his chai and loving the people he works with and cares for.
• Bethany Friberg, who has a passion for the plight of women, and who oversees the Naapok Bead Project, a collective of women who make and sell traditional Maasai beadwork so that they have a small income with which to support their families.
• Mama Sara, the graceful and lovely woman who led us out from the clinic into the village of Mto wa Mbu to accompany her on home visits to AIDS patients, where she filled the role of nurse, spiritual caregiver, and community organizer.
• Simon and Ezekiel, two evangelists who tend and lead churches out in the bush, serving their communities of faith while the regional pastors travel among all of their member churches.
• The poorest members of the church congregations, who have no money to bring up for the offering but instead bring up chickens, sugar cane, fruit, and gourds filled with milk or yogurt that will be auctioned off after church and the money given as their offering.
• The servant leaders from St. Timothy Lutheran, St. Paul Lutheran, and Community Presbyterian who painted buildings and poured cement, befriended the clinic staff, cared for one another, and threw themselves headlong into living and loving Tanzania.

Talk to any of our group members who traveled to Africa this summer, and you'll hear story after story about seeing God in the people we served, in the communities who welcomed us, in the congregations who opened their doors to us, and in the wide and wild beauty of God's amazing creation. It is a blessing to have been "mchungaji" in and among this faithful and compassionate group of travelers.

Stars

Last night, as I enjoyed an evening by an outside fire with friends, I couldn't help but think about how there weren't nearly as many stars out in Chicago as there were in Tanzania.

Picture

A grey headed kingfisher!

A day in the life of Tanzania weather

With all the heat in Chicagoland these days, and with all the talk that's been going on about the weather, it seems a fitting time to recall our group's daily experience with the weather in Tanzania. Keep in mind that northern Tanzania is near the equator, so the sun rises at about 6:30am, and sets at about 6:30pm. Also, many of the places we visited were at some altitude.

6:30am: Wake up FREEZING. Snuggle under blankets for a while, then get ready for the day, being sure to grab a long-sleeved shirt or sweatshirt.

9:00am: Still sort of hazy. Still sort of cool. Maybe it'll be a cool day?

11:00am: STILL sort of hazy. And still relatively cool. Feel pretty confident that it's going to be a wonderful, 75-degree day.

12:00pm: Hrm. The clouds are gone and the sun is pretty intense. Getting warmer. Ah, but it's noon at the equator. It's supposed to be hot now. Figure that it'll be hottest now at noon, and cool to the end of the day.

2:00pm: Wow. That sun is HOT. My skin feels like it's burning, and I'm pretty sweaty. Turned out to be a hot day after all.

4:00pm: Holy hot sun. This must be what hell is like.

6:00pm: Well, now that the sun is starting to set, the day is feeling pretty nice.

8:00pm: Ahhh...nice and cool. Hrm. It cooled off pretty quick. I wonder if this means that tomorrow is going to be a bit cooler than today.

Sometime in the middle of the night: WOW I'm COLD! Where did I stash my socks and sweatshirt?

Repeat this pattern EVERY SINGLE DAY. You'd think that we would have learned. But every day, right around 10:30 or 11am, we would be CONVINCED that the cool morning meant a cool day. Ha.

However, on all of these hot humid days here in Chicago, I think I'd much prefer the cool mornings and even the hot afternoons to this 24-hour hot, humid stuff we're dealing with right now...

Peace,
Melissa

Camels

A happy camel, supplied by the Heifer Project, at a boma near Ketumbeine

I was doing some reading online today about the Naapok Bead Project, and ended up stumbling into a blog post about the camel project that we visited on our second Sunday in Tanzania.  Here is an excerpt from a blog post called "The Camel Project" from the blog Asante's Alaskan in Tanzania:

A couple of years ago, women from a boma in the Ketumbeine area wanted to join with NAAPOK bead group. Since the group already had 56 women, they had to be turned down. Bethany's husband, Steve (the missionary doctor) knew something of Project Heifer's camels, so he investigated that project. The result was that the women were selected to participate in an experimental camel project. They received 30 camels, which had been walked down from Kenya. The Maasai community was, at first, reluctant to embrace the idea. Then came the terrible drought of 2009. During that drought, many of the goats and cows died; children had nothing to eat except for thin corn based gruel -- no goats meant no milk. The camels, however, not only thrived, but calved healthy calfs. A total of 16 calves have been born. During the drought, the camels continued to produce milk for the children of that boma, and provided milk for the women to sell.

After that drought, the camels were embraced as a good project! Bethany is hoping to see more bomas and Maasai communities participate in camel projects. One of the provisions of Project Heifer is that 1/2 the calves must be given away when they are old enough -- so many new women will receive camels and training. Camels make such good sense -- they are well adapted to the arid, scrubby conditions; they continue to give milk in droughts; and they are more environmentally responsible. And if you have never been up close and personal with a camel, they are huge! I wasn't prepared for them to be so big; and their eyelashes are so long; and the calves are adorable!

Home sweet home

It is official.  Our time in Tanzania has ended and we are now safely back home, ready to sleep in our own beds, trying to beat the heat as we remember what it was like to fall asleep to cool breezes and wake up chilly (and then get all hot and sweaty when the sun blazed down at noon, since we were near the equator!).

Now is the time to watch the blog!  Pictures, stories, thoughts, memories - this is one of the places where we will share our experiences and remember our time together halfway across the world.  Tomorrow, when I'm awake and a little refreshed, I hope to start posting a few favorite pictures and stories, so stay tuned!

Peace,
Melissa

Arrived at Kilimanjaro National Park

We left the KIA Lodge this morning and went to the town of Moshe.  There we attended church at the Lutheran Seminary Chapel at Maramaku Universary.  We were introduced to the congregation and smiled and nodded because we did not understand a word of what was being said. Pastor Melissa was embarassed to be asked to explain what we were doing there.  She represented us well, so I don't think she needed to be embarassed at all.  The offering was very different than anything with which we are familiar.  During the service, people came forward with their offereing and placed it in one of several baskets.  We were told later that each basket represented the area where they lived.  People gave whatever they could.  After the service, there was an auction of 2 chickens, 3 liters of cows' milk, assorted vegetables, bags of mangos, avadacos and stalks of sugar cane.  Many of the people greeted us warmly after the service.

 

After church we came to the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro and checked into our hotel where we had lunch.  After lunch, we went on a great hike where we were shown how many local families live.  They have small plots of land, so they grow corn, bananas, coffee, avacados, sunflowers for oil and everything they need mixed all together.  There is no space to leave rows between the plants.  The hike ended at a waterfall.  It was a fun afternoon and it really did feel good to get out and hike after spending much of the past 3 days sitting in one form or another.  Tomorrow we head for Mto wa Mbu (Mosquito Town).

 

We've been thinking of our friends Jan, Chelsea and Tracy who have been unable to join us yet.  One flight was cancelled in Chicago and another was canceled in Amsterdam.  Hopefully they will catch up with us tomorrow.

 

Carole and Steve

Prayers, please!

Jan, Chelsea, and Tracy were supposed to leave Chicago yesterday afternoon and arrive here tonight, but due to a mechanical issue with their plane, their flight was canceled and rebooked for the next day.  Prayers for safe travel for them as they leave a day late and join us Sunday night.

Peace,
Melissa

Kilimanjaro in the distance

WE SAW THE MOUNTAIN!!

Great first day in Africa, transitioning from Chicago to KIA Lodge near Arusha, Tanzania.  Van trip to the market in Arusha provided a chance to practice bargaining skills. Back at the lodge caught a glimpse of Kili (aka Mt Kilimanjaro)--made our day.

Steve & Ruth Sweetser

A few pictures to tide you over

A relaxing day around our hotel means a good time to show you a few pictures of what we're up to at the Kia Lodge!

We arrived at the Kilimanjaro airport in this GIANT plane!

Beds at the Kia Lodge, complete with pretty flowers

Matt and Melissa after a long day of travel

Breakfast together

Our huts!

The pool

Pretty flower!

Are we there yet? YES!

Now we've seen the Greek Isles, the Mediterranean Sea and the Sahara Desert, at least from 30,000 feet! The flight was on time and it was fun meeting up with the rest of the group.

We are really in Tanzania! The birdsong is beautiful. No traffic. No TV. It is very overcast today so we have not seen Kilimanjaro yet. Other mountains are visible in the distance. The landscape is more arid than we imagined. Didn't expect as many cacti and dry grasses.

Each hut pictured is two rooms. When we arrived last night, the bed was turned down with flowers on the pillows. The bath has a nice shower and large sink. It's not very hot, but it is humid.

Carole and Steve

Be yourself, everyone else is already taken. -Oscar Wilde

We Are In Africa!

It is currently 10:30pm Tanzania time, and we are happy to report that the first twelve of us arrived in Kilimanjaro this evening, right on time.  Flights were smooth and on time, and luggage made it unscathed.  It feels great to be at a gorgeous hotel right now, having eaten a delicious dinner, sitting outside on the patio by a bonfire.  16+ hours on airplanes makes you grateful for solid ground, fresh air, and a nice bed to sleep on.

The first of us met up at O'Hare yesterday afternoon, and met the rest of the first round of travelers in Amsterdam.  We did some serious wandering around the Amsterdam airport before getting back on a plane and heading down to Kilimanjaro.  Everybody is feeling good, though tired, and we will all be grateful for a good night's sleep.  Tomorrow should be a relaxing day around what appears to be a beautiful pool (with a view of Kilimanjaro!) - swimming, games, and general relaxing while we wait for our last three group members to join us tomorrow night.

Thanks for all of the safe travel prayers, and we'll check in again soon!

Love,

Matt, Stephanie, and Melissa

Thoughts from our first night

The first group has arrived in the Arusha area.  We have just now settled in the Kia Lodge, enjoying dinner.  Not that we really needed to eat, as we were given 2 meals and snack on each flight.  KLM does provide for its passengers very well in the area of food!  Everyone made it through customs, even Mark, who failed to procure his visa ahead of time. :)  All the people we have met have been very friendly and happy to see us.  It's interesting that the power occasionally goes out, and when it does, it is REALLY dark.  We are looking forward to seeing the area in the daylight and will now sign off and try sleeping lying down instead of sitting up in an airplane seat.

Jambo!
Judy

Relaxing at the airport

LET'S GO

I am ready, my stuff is packed, and my hair is the shortest it has
ever been. Let's go to Africa!

-- MTB

all packed as well

I, too have just finished packing. Yes, Melissa and I have matching luggage but that was NOT planned. I'm wondering how hers looks so small, while mine looks so giant. Perhaps we'll do a little Johnson/Bills luggage evening out. I'm glad to be all done and ready to take a deep breath and hopefully get a good night's sleep. I'll see you all in Amsterdam (or Africa)

All packed!

Now all that's left is cleaning up the apartment.  I can't believe we leave TOMORROW!

Peace,
Melissa

Greetings from Amsterdam!

We've safely arrived in Amsterdam. Our flight was almost 2 hours late leaving Chicago, but otherwise uneventful. Our room isn't ready yet, so we are going out to see the city. See you on Friday!

Carole and Steve

What's in a name?

At the end of Friday night's Bon Voyage Pig Roast, members of our traveling group were all saying goodbye and goodnight to one another.  We realized something that evening:  for some of us, we would not be seeing one another again until we meet up in the KIA Lodge on Saturday night...IN AFRICA!

Every day has been a "goodbye" day since then.  Friday night, I bid farewell to members of our group who I wouldn't see in worship this weekend: "See you in Africa!"  Saturday night, I said goodbye to other group members after evening worship: "See you in Africa!"  Sunday, I said goodbye and good afternoon to other members of our group after morning worship: "See you in Africa!"

The truth is that I will meet up with some of our group at the airport in Chicago, and we'll all travel together beginning Thursday afternoon.  And we will hook up with other members of our group in Amsterdam on Friday, and fly the rest of the way to Tanzania together.  And then we will wait eagerly to meet up with the rest of our group in Tanzania on Saturday.

But it is much more fun just to say, "See you in Africa!"  So hopefully, this blog will be your way to join us - to fly with us and experience Tanzania with us and meet up with us (at least in the virtual world) as often as we can manage it.

And so we say to you what we've been saying to one another these past few days: "See you in Africa!"

Peace,
Melissa

getting ready

      I wish i were as organized as i should be.....i'm still "getting there".  It won't be real until the plane takes off.  I'm looking forward to being able to participate in and experience a sense of the mission work that the Friberg's and other missionaries like them are doing.  Also, anticipating seeing some lions and cheetahs and other wildlife in their natural habitat.  Thanks to everyone for your prayers for safe travel and a good experience.
Jan

Getting Out of Here

We’re crazy busy too trying to get everything packed and ready to go.  We’re watching our grandkids today and they are running through piles of clothes, vitamins, shoes, etc. on the floor of the living room and dining room.   Tomorrow is my last day at work, so it will be hectic. 

 

Compared to Melissa, we had not identified Tanzania as a “must see” destination.  But we have wanted to travel and see as much of the world as we could.  The opportunity to help others combined with going on safari was too good an opportunity to pass up.  We have a wonderful group of travelers, and I treasure the opportunity to get to know them much better.

 

Carole and Steve

Getting Started

Our apartment is a crazy mess right now.

Somehow, packing for a 17-day trip to Africa means turning the whole house upside down, tracking down work gloves and flashlights, travel-size shampoo containers and extra shoes, water bottles and duct tape. I have my big bag mostly packed, and a backpack ready to be stuffed with everything I might want during two eight-hour flights (one from Chicago to Amsterdam, one from Amsterdam to Kilimanjaro).

Yes, crunch time has arrived. I have three days left after today to cross as much off of my work to-do list as possible, to finish packing, to restore some semblance of order to our home, and to finish packing so that I can ship myself across the ocean on Thursday.

This trip that has seemed so far off is now so very near. I've been wanting to travel to Tanzania for close to ten years now, and I'm now only three days away. This is going to be huge. And life-changing. And I can't wait!

Peace,
Melissa