One of those days

Not every day is like this, but neither are such days so very unusual!

It was a Friday. The day started well, with an early-morning run with a Swiss man who occasionally visits Mbeya as part of a clean water project. While his pace was somewhat slower than my norm, it made a pleasant change to have company while running. A shower and some breakfast later, I headed to the office. It was there that things started to feel like ‘one of those days’. It started with the risograph – the machine we use for printing books in local languages. On Thursday it refused to work, so Baraka, who does all our book printing, called out the mechanic who duly arrived and carefully inspected the machine. It turned out that a mouse had made its home in the machine for a while, where some foam in the machine must have made a cosy place to sleep. But when it was time to leave its home and head out into the big wide world, it had chewed its way through numerous wires. The mechanic duly took the risograph away to repair. Did this have to happen while we were in the process of trying to print calendars for distribution before the end of the year?!

Then it turned out that one of my department had seen a mouse in his corner of the office, but hadn’t done anything about it. I was somewhat annoyed to discover this. On hearing of the damage the mouse had done, he cleared and swept his corner of the office, only to discover a dead bird behind a small cabinet! I wondered how long that had been there!

This Friday was also the day to say goodbye to a colleague, Stephen – he and his family had been close friends of mine in recent years. Although I already knew that they had decided not to return to Tanzania, having an official little goodbye for him at the office brought to the surface the sadness I felt over their decision, especially because I had no idea when I would get to see them again. His wife and children hadn’t come with him – they had all evacuated to their home in the States due to Corona and he had come back alone to close up their house. When we all evacuated, I didn’t know that they wouldn’t be coming back.

And then there was the music (if it could be called that) coming from the college next door to our offices. They were celebrating the end of term, and the extra loud base made the windows of our office vibrate and made it very hard for me to focus on my work. And there was the heat – the rains still hadn’t started, the thunder rumbled and the skies looked ominous, but no rain came and so the air remained heavy.

One of those days.

But on the bright side (and thankfully there were plenty of bright spots in the day), there were lovely chats with colleagues at coffee break and lunch time and while watching colleagues play volleyball (in case you were wondering, they don’t play volleyball every day – but Stephen had chosen this way to say goodbye, so people were given some time off work to play together). Also, having a lunchtime at all, with time to chat, was a pleasant change from three weeks of short, late lunch-breaks, due to teaching at Moorlands College. (With the time difference between England and Tanzania, I would take my lunch breaks while they had their coffee breaks, giving me about 15 minutes to have a breather from Zoom and eat my sandwiches.) And then there was shopping at the market, where I couldn’t help but enjoy the fact that I could buy a good pile of carrots and tomatoes and a few lemons, all for less than a pound.

Whatever a day has been like, there’s always tomorrow, a new day, and this truth will remain unchanged:

“The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22

 

Expecting the unexpected - a trip to Umalila

Expecting the unexpected and prepared to go with the flow, I set off on Wednesday morning to the beautiful rural countryside of Umalila, where the Malila people live. As I drove, I enjoyed the views over rolling hills and patchwork fields, but I did not enjoy the road! Most of it was rocky and rough, such that I never went above 30mph and often was going much slower than that. However, this area is not far from Mbeya, so after just an hour and a half of driving, I had already arrived at the village of Jojo, where my colleague, Majaliwa Mwangwale, lives and where he was waiting for me at his little office. Mwangwale is a delight to work with, with an almost unceasingly cheerful countenance, a cheeky smile, an open and honest approach in communication and a real ability to teach. Unusually for a Tanzanian, he also likes to be on time, so after greetings, some discussion about plans and a quick lesson in how to read Malila for two youths who came to the office, we set off to the main town of the region, Ilembo, to visit the Church of God Bible college, arriving over an hour before we were scheduled to teach. This meant that we arrived in time to have lunch with them before we began – a mountain of rice and a substantial bowl of beans.

There were just under 20 students (all men bar two) and a couple of members of staff. The students came from five different language areas, all of which we work with, so it was a great opportunity to show them the materials available in their languages, including New Testaments for three out of the five, which have been, or will be, launched this year. We discussed with them the benefits of using local languages in ministry, and how to use these languages side-by-side with the national language of Swahili when in a multilingual context, as well as teaching them the basics of reading their languages.

We returned to Jojo, and after a short walk (in which I was followed much of the way by a curious group of giggling children), we had dinner. The food had been prepared at lunchtime, but was still lukewarm on account of being kept in hot pots (these work on the same priniciple as a thermos flask, but are for food), so I enjoyed my plate of ugali and greens, with a banana.

The plan for the evening was to show the Jesus Film in the Malila language, so once we had finished dinner (by which time it was already dark) we headed to the centre of Jojo with all the equipment I had brought with me from the office. What I hadn’t realised was that we would be showing the film outside! We ran an extension cable from a nearby café and set up the projector and my laptop on a table in the middle of a clearing, to project onto the white wall of a building. My poor laptop got covered in dust, but it was worth it to see the crowd of over 100 people (including many children) avidly watching the story of the life of Jesus, even though it meant standing for about 2 hours. Thankfully, despite my lack of technological ability, all the equipment worked a treat, and everyone could hear it in their Malila language. I could hear youths in the crowd discussing what some of the words meant – although they all speak Malila they have started to mix many Swahili words in with their Malila, so some of the Malila words used, though known by older generations, were not understood by the young adults. Of course, I couldn’t really understand any of it, but as I have seen the film before and know the gospels well, I could guess most of what was being said!

By the time we finished it was about 10.30pm and we headed home – I was staying at Mwangwale’s house, where I had a comfy bed and a room to myself. The pillow was like a rock, but at least there was a pillow, and though the toilet involved a little walk across the courtyard, at least there was outside lighting. All in all a very comfortable situation, and I was well taken care of, with water to bathe morning and evening, if I wanted it. For this, they prepared a bowl of warm water, which they put in the toilet room, so that as you washed, the water could drain away down the long drop toilet. Their bathroom was the nicest that I experienced while there, being in a cement outhouse, with a ceramic basin for standing on (as opposed to dodgy wooden planks over a big pit) – not unlike the long drop toilets I remember using in France on a school trip!

However, though the plan had been to stay at his house for the duration of the trip, this was not to be. The second night we stayed at the home of the pastor to who’s church visited to conduct a Bible seminar. Mwangwale had tried to say that we already had plans for me to stay at his home (particularly because I had already explained to him about my special dietary requirements), but the pastor insisted and rather than risk damaging the relationship, we went along with the plan.

So, on Thursday morning I repacked my rucksack and off we went, to the village of Itizi, about a 20 minute drive away, back in the direction of Mbeya. To get to the church itself, we turned off the main road down a path, which the Land Cruiser could just about pass along, though at one point Mwangwale had to get out and move a goat happily eating grass on one side of the path, while tied to a stump on the other side of the path!

My goal through the seminar was to help people understand the book of
Ephesians, especially the idea of being in Christ, clothed with his righteousness, and therefore saved by grace alone. Knowing that my audience would be mostly church members, with maybe one or two pastors, and people with an oral learning preference (as opposed to a literary learning preference based on reading and linear thinking), I had tried to prepare my teaching in a way that would communicate into such a context, by weaving a story to put Ephesians in context (rather than just listing a set of facts about the author and context) and by using illustrations and drama as well as using the Malila language as much as possible. Although I taught in Swahili, all Scripture passages were read in Malila and my colleague translated key teaching points into Malila. I had also hoped to include some group discussion based on reading a few verses and thinking abou relevant questions, but I realised that this wouldn’t work, as hardly anyone had a Bible, and although we gave them Malila Scriptures to use, reading was a struggle for most of them and they weren’t used to answering comprehension questions. As well as unpacking grace, my hope was that I could also share a few principles for careful reading of Scripture, so as we went I also shared tidbits like the importance of reading Scripture in context, or that when you see a ‘therefore’ you should look at what comes before or if a word is repeated regularly then this can give you a clue as to what the theme of the passage is about. We also taught them how to read Malila (for those who were already literate in Swahili) and explained about how to use footnotes, introductions and pictures, to help them understand what they were reading.

The seminar was two days long, and there were about 15 people present, mostly ladies, as well as there being a number of children popping in and out. It was the first time I’d tried to do something quite like this, and I shall continue to ponder on whether this is something worth doing more of. I certainly enjoyed it, and it was a real privilege to explore grace with them. The thing that seemed to touch people most was the drama, which centred around a woman without a child and how her friend was able to comfort her by talking about who she was in Christ and the hope we have in Him. When we asked people what they learned through the drama, here is what a couple of ladies said:

“Through the drama I have learned that going to a witch doctor will not help. We need to depend on God and be patient.”

“Sometimes in ministry, if we meet someone who doesn’t have a child, we say, ‘You’ll get one!’. But we shouldn’t say something will happen that we ourselves can’t give. Rather we should remind them of the blessings they have in Christ, our salvation, everything we have in Christ. We can’t do anything.” 

For lunch, everyone returned to their homes. We went to the pastor’s home, where I continued to experience warm Malila hospitality. On the first day, lunch was ugali and chicken, with honey on the comb for dessert. While people may not eat meat on a day-to-day basis in most rural areas, they will nearly always provide meat for a guest, and usually chicken. Knowing this to be the case, and that provision of fruit and vegetables is often scarce, I had a secret stash of carrots and raisins with me, which I consumed at various opportunities! The second day it was ugali with fish, pork and eggs, and a cup of something like soured milk or yogurt (which I had to decline, as I am lactose intolerant). I’ve never before been provided with such an abundance of protein within one meal here in Tanzania! I thought I took a good big lump of ugali, but they still tried to encourage me to eat more – I don’t know how they put away so much food in one sitting! I also got to try some local seeds, just bigger than a 2p piece, that we put on the hot charcoal that we warming ourselves with, until the seed started to crack open. You could then split it open and eat the centre, a bit like eating a chestnut – it was delicious. I was given a bag of the seeds to take home. I will have to experiment with baking them in the oven, as I don’t have a charcoal stove! In the evening we were given rice and fish, and the next morning’s breakfast was cold, leftover rice (it’s very common here for breakfast to be the previous evening’s leftovers) and wholemeal bread, with a steaming mug of sweet, black tea.

At the end of the first day’s seminar, we returned to the pastor’s home, to find that one of the people at the seminar had gone into labour. She had been in labour pains all afternoon and a motorbike had just arrived to take her to the nearest clinic so a midwife could help with the birth. I tried to imagine being in the last stages of labour, trying to balance on the back of a motorbike going over very rough roads, and failed! Instead, I ran back to the church, where I’d left the Land Cruiser, and I took her in that, accompanied by three other ladies. Within half an hour of arriving, the baby was born, a little boy. 

I found out later that apparently the clinic staff had thought we were coming to do an inspection, because of the car and the white person! So they got particularly good service, no questions asked about things they hadn’t brought that they should have done, and no charge. It was such a small thing for me to help in this way, but they were so thankful, honouring me by saying they would name the baby after my dad, Michael, and giving me a gift of local cloth.

We had planned to show the Jesus Film in the church in the evening, but there was a powercut so this didn’t take place. Instead, we sat and chatted around the pot of charcoal, with the room lit by phone torches. I had a whole double bed to myself for the night, while the pastor’s wife slept in a little single bed at the side, with her youngest child. I have no idea where everyone else slept, as the pastor had 11 children, as well as guests! Once again, I was overwhelmed by their hospitality and kindness. I was relieved I didn’t need the toilet in the night, as it would have been a slightly hairy trip in the dark round the back of the house to the long drop, where a pile of leaves sat by the hole to use as toilet paper.

On Friday morning I was determined to get some exercise, so I set off for a walk along the road – I enjoyed the beautiful views and seeing people at work on their fields in the early morning sunlight. The only downside was the dust every time a vehicle passed by and the stares of the people I passed, not used to seeing a white person in their midst, and especially one walking so fast. I then bathed, balancing on the rocky floor of the outhouse, before having breakfast and heading back to the church to continue the seminar. We were able to cover all the material I had planned for the time and I pray that what they have learned will help them understand God’s amazing grace and love better, as well as encourage and enabled them to read the Malila Scriptures. We left, with many kind words said, phone numbers exchanged and a warm invite to return.

As we drove back home the skies were a picture – the sun sank as a big red ball below the soft blue mountains in the distance. I found myself singing, “Oh Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the works Thy hands hath made”. Arriving back in Jojo, everything was in darkness as there was a powercut. I had had a headache all day, so spending the evening reading and chatting by the light of a candle didn’t help, as I strained to see in the dim light. Mwangwale’s wife wasn’t there – she’d had to leave urgently with her younger sister to go to hospital, as her sister had given birth prematurely. Sadly the child died a couple of days later. As she wasn’t around, this meant no food had been prepared. Mwangwale gathered some ingredients and his children (they have four, ranging in age from 6 to 21) prepared dinner, which we finally ate about 9pm. This was to be the pattern for the rest of my time there. (Incidentally, one evening we ate fish, and I discovered that if it’s the right kind of fish, the whole head can be eaten and, to my surprise, it tasted good.)

No work was planned for Saturday morning, so I anticipated some time of rest. I set off early for a walk, missing a turn on my way home so it ended up being a bit longer than planned (nearly 5 miles), but it was beautiful. I bathed and then found out that we were to go to a wedding! Mwangwale’s brother’s son was getting married in a nearby village, close to the village where we would be doing a seminar in the afternoon. So I banished thoughts of reading and catching up on emails, and instead headed to the home of his relatives. Ladies were busy at work cooking food and around me people were chatting away in their languages. Two guests had come from a neighbouring area where they speak the Nyakyusa language, so I played them a portion of the audio Scriptures in Nyakyusa, which they enjoyed listening to. I also had the opportunity to ask about marriage customs. They have the custom of a bride price – when a union is agreed, the groom’s family will have to give the bride’s family whatever they have asked for, which may be something like a cow and some blankets. If I understood rightly, they may then sell the cow in order to buy things for the bride to take to her new home. Before heading to the church, we were served with a bowl of rice, some fried chicken and a soda (all this before noon). Once at the church, we sat on wooden benches at the back, for which I was thankful as even there the music was so loud that you couldn’t hear yourself think. The church had been decorated with cloth, and looked very festive. Everyone was dancing as they waited for the bride and groom to arrive. Once they had entered the church we had to leave in order to go to the afternoon seminar.

We arrived at the pastor’s home not long after 2pm, which was when the seminar was supposed to have started. We actually started nearer 4pm. The pastor hadn’t got home yet from the building site of a new church that they were working on. As we waited, I was plied with another soda, which I couldn’t refuse, so I dread to think how much sugar I consumed in total that day! As we waited I flicked through a child’s math’s textbook that was on the table, reminding me of primary school mathematics and proving an interesting Swahili exercise for me too.

We finally headed to the church, were we ended up with about 20 participants, including the host pastor and the pastor of another church. Apparently some popped out at one point and told others that “God is here today” and encouraged them to come! We again used the book of Ephesians, and though time was limited we still managed to unpack the concept of grace and briefly teach them to read Malila. We returned to the pastor’s home as the sun was setting, and were once again blessed with incredible Malila hospitality as they gave us a sack of potatoes, a bag of rice and some eggs to take away with us.

Sunday morning we were due to visit a church, where we would be given time to teach. Before we headed off, I had time for a very quick leg-stretch and breakfast – this was boiled eggs (the ones we had been given as a gift), with boiled potatoes and a banana – a surprisingly yummy combo. It took us about 40 minutes to get to the church, and it proved to be a somewhat hairy journey. At one piont we caught up with a little pickup truck going very slowly, so I beeped my horn a few times and carefully pulled round it – there wasn’t a lot of space to overtake, and the sides of the road slope away quite steeply. Next thing I knew there was a bang – the truck had caught the rear end of our vehicle! We were fine and the Land Cruiser was only slightly damaged, but it gave me a shock. Further along we came to a slight rise, where a lorry was parked in the middle of the road. I slowly and carefully made my way to the side of the road to go round it, trying not to end up in the ditch, and the lorry started to move down the slope. A couple of guys jumped up into the cab, and in my horror I realised that the lorry didn’t have a driver – it had started moving on its own and was coming towards us! Those guys swerved it away just in time and we passed safely.

Surprisingly, the church service actually started on time at 10am. They sang one song and then things were handed over to Mwangwale, which also surprised me, as at the church I usually attend there is at least an hour and a half of singing and notices before we get to the sermon! I shared for a few minutes about our organisation and the importance of reading God’s Word and, encouraged by Mwangwale to do so, taught them the song (in Swahili), “Read your Bible, pray every day”. He then went on to teach, reading the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness in both Malila and Swahili, before doing a great job of teaching them from this story. While I couldn’t understand much of what was being said, I could see that everyone was really engaged – a good testimony to how well he was teaching and what a difference it makes when you teach in the local language. (By the way, in the Malila language area, Malila is used by everyone, young and old, men and woman, with Swahili only being used in more formal settings. I see stronger use of Malila than of any other language in the other areas that we work with, so using Malila Scriptures and teaching in Malila are particularly important).

After the service, we were invited into the old church, right next to the newer bigger one, for a lunch of rice, chicken and beans. We ate with the pastor and the retired pastor, both of whom seemed to recognise the need for using Malila in church ministry. Indeed, both the pastor and his wife bought Malila New Testaments, saying that they needed one each so that they wouldn’t argue over who would use it!

And so my time drew to an end. We returned to Jojo, said our goodbyes, and I began the journey home, picking up a lady on the way who was obviously needing a lift, so I was able to enjoy her company (plus that of the chicken she was carrying) as I traversed the rough roads home. The trip had definitely been full of the unexpected, but I rarely felt stressed or anxious, a testimony to how many people were praying for me. Through it I realised that I could cope with and even enjoy staying with a Tanzanian family for several days, adapting to changes of plans and teaching in circumstances very unlike a formal college or workshop setting. Will I do more of this? I don’t know. May God open the door for me, at the right time, if this is indeed something I can and should be doing more of. For the praise of His glory.

“And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.”
Ephesians 2:6-8

It’s okay to smile

I saw bluebells today,

The first of the season,

Mingled with stitchwort,

Adorning the banks

Of the lanes as I pass.

There were lambs in the fields,

Playing games in the sun,

As their mothers grazed

On the lush green grass

And rooks wheeled in the wind.

Some little grey wagtails

Bobbed at the canal side,

And tree reflections

Graced the still waters

As a swan glided by.

Surrounded by beauty,

The work of a Master,

A smile tugs my lips,

But my heart questions,

And I wonder, “Why me?”

Why should I enjoy this

While others are broken,

Trapped by a virus,

Or ravished by war,

Or confined to a prison?

How can I relish spring

While others face winter?

A season of pain

And greater darkness

Than I will ever know.

All creation is groaning,

Redemption seems far off,

The ‘last days’ linger,

Winter is endless,

My smile doesn’t form.

Is beauty mocking me,

Making a nonsense of

The faith I profess?

Why should I be blessed

While faithful ones suffer?

Or is it God’s goodness –

A sign He still cares,

A reminder of

What God intended

When He first made the world?

He made it to dazzle,

A place of perfection,

A garden of joy –

God present with us,

Enjoying each other.

Our damaged world today

Is humanity’s fault.

Glimpses of beauty

Are signs of God’s grace,

That we’re not forgotten.

I can let my smile out

Without feeling guilty;

My heart can rejoice

That God is still good –

As it was, it will be.

The flowers of today

Speak hope for tomorrow,

Of all things renewed,

Restored and redeemed,

In all of creation.

By Katherine O’Donnell

 

He always took the first step

The triune God is complete; the three are perfectly united in one, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They have everything they need in each other, they have perfect love and perfect unity, and they have no need for anything or anyone else. But amazingly they want to extend that love beyond themselves and draw others in. They didn’t need us, but they chose us; they chose to make us in their image and draw us into their love, even though they knew, from the beginning, the cost this would involve.

Because their desire from the moment we were created has been for us to draw near, they have always taken the initiative in this. They have always taken the first step to make this possible. It started with creation itself, when they formed a perfect place for us to walk and talk together with them. Though they didn’t need us, they kept drawing us in to participate in their love and perfection. And as we are made in God’s image, we are also made with the capacity to love and the need for relationship. So God made Eve. And ever since humans have needed to be together; as we are discovering at this time of lockdown, we were not made to be in isolation.

I don’t need to dwell on how we messed all of that up, or describe all the first, second and multiple other steps God took, throughout the history of Israel, to bring about reconciliation, to draw us back into relationship with them. As this is Easter weekend, I am thinking especially about how Jesus took the initiative each step of the way in his journey to the cross. So great is his desire to do his Father’s will and to draw us into their love, to make a way for us to draw near despite how we have turned our backs on God, that he steps out resolutely to walk towards his own death; he runs to, not from the cross.

We glimpse this in so many details of the last hours of Jesus’ life. There is the moment when Jesus tells Judas, “What you are about to do, do quickly” (John 13:27), and off Judas goes. To do what? To betray him! I think Judas would have done it anyhow, in his own time, but we see Jesus doesn’t wait for others to force him to his death, but he takes the first step at each stage of the journey of bringing about our reconciliation, through his death. (A side note, he was specifically orchestrating it to happen at the time of the Passover, to declare that he is the fulfilment of the Passover, the Passover lamb).

Then there is the arrest in the garden of Gethsemane. Even though Jesus is fraught with grief, he wakes his disciples up from their slumber and takes another step towards his death, saying, “Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!” (Mark 14:42). He heads towards his betrayer, not away! Now you would expect that those sent to arrest him would be the ones to identify him, interrogate him and force him to come with them. But instead, Jesus again takes the first step. He asks them, “Who is it you want?” He tells them that he is the one they are looking for, and when they fail to do anything, he initiates his own arrest by asking them again, “Who is it you want?” (John 18:4-8). He could have taken their delayed reaction as a chance to flee, to prolong his life, to put off the inevitable, to leave it to human chance and timing, but he doesn’t, he doesn’t back away but hands himself over.

(A side note, in handing himself over he was protecting his disciples (John 18:8-9), and so we see not just God’s general love for the whole world, but his specific and personal love for each individual in their unique circumstances. Here Jesus was concerned for his friends even at this time of great trial. We see this same characteristic of God’s love at the cross as he asks John to take care of his mother (John 19:26-27). In his time of greatest pain and anguish, which he suffered because of his love for the whole world, Jesus also showed love and concern for the individual.)

And we shouldn’t think for a second that any of this was easy for Jesus because he was God. Far from it! He was also fully human, and so the pain of parting from his friends was just as great as it would be for us, he experienced genuine heartache knowing that one of his friends would betray him and another deny him and real distress over the sadness he would cause his friends by his death. As any human would, he had a very strong desire to avoid the cruel death ahead of him (Mark 14:35-36).

What great love. Jesus, the Son of God, who doesn’t need us, chose to love us and took the initiative at every step to ensure that we can draw near to God, that we can be enfolded in His perfect love and one day be right there with him, in a renewed world, everything as it was always intended to be. When Jesus died, this reality was symbolised powerfully in the tearing of the temple curtain, from top to bottom – the barrier between man and a holy God torn away (John 15:37-38). Jesus is the curtain (Hebrews 10:20) and our high priest (10:21), so we can draw near (10:22) with confidence (4:14-16).

Can I really comprehend the magnitude of this love, of our Creator for his created beings, of Jesus for his friends? Jesus was willing to go through the ultimate agony of a painful, shameful death and of feeling forsaken by his Father (that one with whom he was in complete and perfect unity and love) so that we, who have taken all the first steps, all the initiative in ignoring, rejecting or even mocking God, should be able to draw near to God once again. Unfathomable love.

(Acknowledgements: Some thoughts were inspired by meditations from Pastor James Tydeman, The Lees Chapel, Lapworth. Images taken from the LUMO project - www.LumoProject.com)

Out of place

I love a sunny spring in England! I went for a long run this morning, something I would never do in Mbeya (too hilly, too hard due to the altitude, too many people staring). It felt so good to pace around the country lanes, the sun on my face, daffodils bobbing in the breeze, pale yellow primroses and carpets of celandines gracing lush green banks, shy cowslips hidden in a corner and leafless hedgerows now dressing themselves in dainty white blossom. I’d been wanting to enjoy a British spring for a while, I’d even booked a holiday to the UK for the end of May to at least get the end of it and enjoy long summer evenings and celebrate mum’s significant birthday with the family. But it all feels a bit like a dream. Maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up and find myself back in my bed in Mbeya. Because I wasn’t supposed to be here.

Tanzania is such a peaceful country that evacuation has never felt like a serious possibility. But it’s happened, and our leadership had their reasons for making that decision. So now I am here, delighted by the English spring and yet also confused and feeling out of place. The thing is, normally when I am in England I am here on furlough – I am here with the specific purpose of catching up with friends, visiting churches, sharing about the work in Tanzania and teaching. In order to do this well and really connect with people, I usually disconnect from my life in Tanzania to a significant extent. I stay loosely in touch with friends and support my colleagues there when needed, but my main focus is on people and life in England. When I am in Tanzania the opposite is true (though to a slightly lesser extent, as I am away from England for much longer periods and so I invest more time in communication in order to maintain the relationships). But now these two largely separate communities are no longer in their usual compartments in my life. I am in England but not on furlough – I am physically here but I am working as if in Mbeya. 

Suddenly separated from colleagues and friends, this isn’t a time to be staying ‘loosely in touch’, we want to stay closely connected, because we are a community continuing to serve Tanzanian communities, even if we are currently scattered across Europe, America and Tanzania. However, as I am now physically located in England the natural desire is also to engage with my church family here and friends around the country. The additional challenge is that all of this has to be done virtually (except for with my parents), which means that all those little daily interactions with individuals or groups can now only happen when you are intentional about it. When you are trying to do that with so many people it’s pretty intense and generally involves more one-to-one online conversations, rather than group times, which of course means it takes more time to stay connected with all the people in your community. So I feel torn – how do I stay adequately connected with everyone? I miss my colleagues and friends in Tanzania and want to know what’s going on in their lives as we unexpectedly find ourselves far apart, but psychologically it’s hard to do that as much as I would like, because of what I shared above and because sadly the adage “out of sight, out of mind” also plays into the situation. And even if I didn’t plan to be in England right now, I am, and so I also want to spend (virtual) time with my family and friends here. So if you are reading this, please be patient with me if I seem distant, it’s going to take some working out!

I have so much to be thankful for, besides the spring – a place to stay, the companionship of my parents, plentiful food, good health, good internet connection. So I need to accept that this is where I am and seek to make the most of this unique situation that we find ourselves in. What new ways may I discover for supporting the work in Tanzania? How can I use my skills and gifts from a distance? (Ideas of Bible teaching by correspondence for my colleagues are already floating around my mind). I have also been meditating a lot on Psalm 46 in recent days. Particular phrases stand out to me at this time: “ever-present help” (v1, NIV) – constant, always there, eternal; “the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved” (v4-5, ESV) – that’s our ultimate home, with God, a certain home that won’t be moved; “The LORD Almighty is with us” (v7 & 11) – at the beginning of the year I felt God gave me the phrase “I am with you”, which crops up so many times in Scripture, as my motto for the year, and it looks like He gave it me with good reason, maybe for such a time as this! In the midst of the confusion, God’s constant presence and the hope of our eternal home with him is the rock on which we can stand in this storm, it’s the truth that we can trust when everything is uncertain and it’s the reality that can give us peace even when we feel unsettled and out of place. 

You know you’re back in Africa when…

…it is announced that your plane is ready for boarding so you get on the bus and merrily make your way to the plane, only to arrive and find the bus promptly loops around and takes you right back to where you started and you are all told to return inside. After an hour or so of waiting, with no information, it seems (though you don’t hear an announcement) that you can try again. So you all traipse down the stairs to go to the waiting bus, only to find that in the meantime the heavens have opened. You make a mad dash to the bus, flip-flopped feet getting a good soaking in the inch-deep lake between you and the bus. You arrive once again at the plane and everyone boards, only to be told there are technical difficulties and so you wait another good while before eventually the plane heads to the runway. Total delay just over two hours.

…you find the inside of your freezer is a sticky mess because the power tripped in a thunderstorm when your housemate was away on holiday, and with no-one there to notice and turn it back on, everything in your freezer defrosted. Juices from fruit and veg seeped out the bags and made that delightful mess. Among other things, you have to throw away the lovely smoked ham you’d bought yourself as a treat from a local expat butcher, who sometimes prepares such yummy meat delights that we buy from the freezer-filled garage at his home.

…you get up late after the exhaustion of travel, looking forward to a bowl of porridge, only to find your oats full of weevils. You proceed to sieve the weevils out, trying to prevent them all from crawling away before you’ve had a chance to dispose of them, and then put the oats in the freezer to kill any remaining bugs. You are not going to throw away precious oats, but you will keep them for next time you bake flapjack, where they’ll not be noticeable, rather than using them for porridge.

…you find your toilet won’t flush, because the piece of wire you had carefully twisted around lever and tube to fix toilet pieces that wouldn’t connect, were no longer holding. You do some careful realigning and twisting, and it flushes a treat.

It felt good to be back, in the land of crazy things that you just have to laugh over because that’s just how life is. After all, it adds interest to life, gives you things to talk about, prevents you from striving for the perfect home and makes a good blog! Okay, so on a bad day those things might make me want to cry, but it wasn’t a bad day. I was happy to be home, the land transformed into a beautiful, lush green landscape by the rainy season and with actual sunshine (a rare sighting while I was in England) warming my skin.

Now I’ve been back a few days, and the emotions are a bit more mixed, not helped by wakeful nights as my body fails to adjust to the different time zone (even though it’s only a few hours). Back in the office there seems to be an endless stream of emails that I can’t quite get on top of, managerial things to sort out and a toilet that doesn’t flush properly. Dreams of discussing new plans with my colleagues, which could give me more opportunity to get out and teach, get put to the bottom of the to-do list (though I very much intend to make sure they don’t stay there), and instead I am going over quarterly reports, looking at the budget, attending a leadership meeting, meeting with my mentee and so on and so forth. Actually, I don’t mind most of those things, it’s just when they take up all your time and you get to the end of the day and it’s hard to say what you’ve actually done, that it becomes a little less enjoyable. But that’s how it always is when you’ve been away from your desk for a while, isn’t it? Nothing out of the ordinary. There’s just a few little extra challenges thrown in here, like trying to operate in another language and cross-culturally.

And it is lovely to be reunited with my housemate and to see other friends and to be back at our Thursday evening Bible study, with good food and the loud but lovely kids eagerly participating (every other week is directed more at the kids). But there is also a slight pang, of feeling far from my family once again, of wondering who I am as I feel like a different person in each place, not feeling very British when I’m in Britain, but feeling very British when I’m in a group without a single other Brit. But that is why God reminded me as I entered this year about His promise to be with us. In all the fun and frustrations, the times with friends close by and the missing of those far away, the possibilities and problems, the sunshine and rain, God is with us and He will sustain us as we walk with Him through it all.

Pictures: From chilly Lapworth walks with my mum (bottom pic) to sweaty Mbeya runs (middle pic, where I'm standing by our house, the one on the right with my Prado parked in front and the mountain I've just been running on in the background, on an overcast Saturday morning).