An Eventful Week in Tanzania!

Christy, Snag and Isa in Sokoni One.
We think Isa is wearing the same shirt from last summer!

Christy washing clothes!

Church

Steph and Christy with new friends Erin and Jennifer enjoying a yummy lunch!

We started out on a good note with going to church and making 5 new friends who we have plans to hang out with this weekend! The church is Vineyard Church and is an international church, i.e. lead in English. It was a wonderful worship, not quite the same sound system of Buckhead Church but the words were on a screen! After worship there was a sharing time, then everyone took time to visit with each other for about 10 minutes over coffee, tea and snacks before the sermon. The sermon was about believing the God of The Bible exists today as there are still people persecuted daily for their Christian faith and He still performs miracles. The pastor shared a story about a 14 year old girl who witnessed a stillborn baby be brought back to life after crying out to God and prayer over the baby. It was an unbelievably touching story of faith. It made me think about how blessed we are in America. God performs medical miracles daily and we often give the majority of the credit to the doctors. Rather than realizing that really it was God performing a miracle through that doctor. It’s amazing that it takes such an extreme story or experience to realize how blessed we are.

We started the workweek with our normal schedule of 9 -1:30 and an evening 2-hour shift on Monday and Tuesday. Benny, one of the 3 yr old boys, joined us for our volunteer meeting with Davona, the director of CoL. He was being punished for peepee-ing in Simon’s shoes. Boys will be boys, even in Africa! Sweet little Joshua has given us new names, Pepanie and Kisstina, but his favorite is Allie for Hallie. If he says her name once he says it a 100 times! We have been blessed to have healthy babies so far. Medically we’ve really only had to deal with a ringworm breakout, which we’re treating with some sort of cream. Over all the babies are all doing wonderfully!

Wednesday was a BIG day. We had the day off from CoL. So we went to Sokoni 1 for the day. This is the neighborhood where we worked last summer with Young Life. We were able to see the Community Center, where we helped lay the foundation. It looks amazing! We also got to see several of the children we meet last summer. Jeff is still teaching everyone the kicking game. He is so tall and smart as ever! We also saw sweet Isa just before we left. Don’t worry Conway we got a picture for you!!! The highlight of the day was going into the village and getting to cook and eat with one of the families. It was amazing to watch the mamas prepare the meal. Christy and I went to different homes. For some reason, my mama decided I was the one who would do all the cooking. Which would normally be fine, but I’m use to cooking in an indoor kitchen with counter space. Not African style, out side over an open fire. She “prepared the kitchen” by starting the fire on the small metal burner. Once it was lit and burning, she picked it up with her bare hands and walked it around to the front so we could gather and talk while cooking. I really have no idea how her hands aren’t burnt. Once everything got going our meal of ugali, beef, and veggies was actually pretty simple to fix. It just took 3 hours to cook before we were finally able to enjoy it! Christy had the opportunity also to learn how to do laundry with 2 tubs of water and some soap. Lucky for her sweet Hannah offered to wash our clothes for us this week, so she’s off the hook until next week!!! Haha! I have to say it was such a blessing to have the opportunity to be apart of their lives and see how they live daily.

Tonight is big night, we are going out on the town!!! Well we’re heading to a mzungu place with several friends. But, we’re all so excited to get dressed up and hang out with friends!

We love and miss you all! Please email us with updates from home we love hearing from you!