Mom-er-if-ic!

She's a foreign lady! She's an artist in residence! No, she's my mother!

My mom is visiting Musoma for the month, experiencing my house, work, and life here. She's trying out Swahili, eating local foods, and navigating the town solo.

...And yes, she is making me dinner tonight. That's just one of the ways she's been helping out. The kids LOVE to see her work with clay, our current focus in art. It's pretty special to have such an artist to observe and be inspired by.

Boggle Cup Challenge

At a recent missionary potluck I saw this cup... If you're familiar with the game Boggle you'll have an idea of how I strung words together from letters that my eye could connect. How many words can you find?!

Keeping in touch with family far away is important... and I love how we do it creatively (e.g. Skype tattoo or pretzel-making sessions). Latest breaking group activity: Boggle Cup Challenge (via email)!

Lindsay: I wonder what it means that the first word I saw was: brie.

Gabriel: Pie!

Olivia: glib, fief, miel for honey in french and if you read j's backwards. 

Mom (most thorough award): 24 “legitimate” words: brie, nib, tine, brief, tie, jet, pet, rift, fit, net, kin, bin, ken, pen, nifty (if it’s really a “y” and not a “v”), mine, brine, mite, fie, tin, ten, kit, rife, mine. 28 “exotic flow” or foreign words: pie, miel, glib, fief, grin, grim, lien, grief, time, wet, ire, glib, kiln, few, rip, pin, dine, lie, dim, mire, met, fire, lire, lift, met, tire, lei, drift, pine.

Then Olivia raised the ante to writing POEMS with the words!

Michael:

mine brie & miel tin,

dine time!

lift tine...

lift grief, lift ire!

grin, drift, lie... :)

pie.

Ronit (honorary family member), doing haiku:

Mine nifty pet tie

met few glib mite (drift lift rift)

ten pine, ken mine, brine

Sarah:

Ode to an Airplane Dessert

Mine pie, fire met...

dine I, in a jet.

Olivia:

The brie was brief and full of brine.  

Baked in a kiln with fire of pine,

we ate it off of a tin tine

we left our grim and our grief to dine!

 by the dim fire, Sarah played her lire

we felt our mire lift drift and tire.

Fie! rife broke out over the jet pen nib, what a fit! Mine mine mine!

the tie of kin fixed the rift

and it was time to dine dine dine

Window into the Literacy Department

Yes, there is a literal window... but figuratively, here's a look into the literacy department at our SIL office in Musoma. They literacy team has been printing four small books in the Simbiti and Ikoma languages, with upcoming plans for other languages. The small books contain short stories about counting, animals, from the Bible, et cetera. 

Small books are an accessible way for people to start reading in their mother tongue. As they gain fluency they will be able to read bigger books (like Scripture).

Lenten Seder

It started out wishing that there was a time like advent leading up to Easter, where people gather to reflect and anticipate. Then I remembered Lent. I remembered how we gathered for Lenten soup and bread suppers at my church growing up. I thought, "We could to that here in our house."

My lovely housemate, Ronit, agreed and added on something from her background: the messianic Seder... where you go through the Jewish retelling of God redeeming Isreal from Egypt, and look at how that story foreshadowed the redemption Christ brought at Easter.

So we began. Night number one Ronit braided up a slew of Challah (pictured above) and I concocted a couple pots of soup. We took out the couch and threw down the cushions, transforming our living room into a middle eastern haven. Friends came. We reflected on the Cup of Redemption (kadesh=קדש), part one of the Seder. Then we shared soup and bread and good company.

And so we continue, each Friday reflecting on a portion of the Seder and sharing soup, bread, and good company, until the celebration of His resurrection on Easter Sunday.

Ticket to Ride

I can now drive legally  in Tanzania. Isn't it pretty? (The psychedelic parts only show up with flash photography.)

Probably I won't be on the road often, but now I can help out on long drives or whenever else it's helpful.

My housemate was my instructor. Here are the rules of the road per Ronit:

• Stay on the left side of the road.
• Actually, stay in the middle of the road unless there's an oncoming car: less chance of hitting pedestrians.
• Honk often.

That's about it. So far they've served me well.

Help Wanted

Please share this with anyone you think might be interested!

Lake Victoria Learning Center in Musoma, Tanzania is in urgent need of an elementary teacher to join their team.

If you are a certified teacher with at least one year of experience, then this is a great opportunity to work in a unique, multi-level, non-traditional setting which enables many missionary families to continue their work in Tanzania. 

If God is calling you to this ministry, we’d love to explore the options with you. We would like to have you in country by January 2016, with a commitment of at least 18 months.

Please contact Toby Mak in the Uganda-Tanzania Branch’s Human Resources Department at recruitment_utb@sil.org.

Please pray that that God would call the right person to this position.

Sandawe News

I just read a neat article written by our branch communications person, telling about effects of the Sandawe translation project. The Sandawe people live in central Tanzania and speak a unique language. It's unique because it is a click language... Which most people have only heard in The Gods Must be Crazy!

Here's the article: The Sandawe people of Tanzania now have Luke's gospel in their language. We partnered with The Jesus Film Project to create a new dialogue track using mother tongue speakers. When our copy of the film was ready, we visited five Sandawe villages to show it.

In one village, a young mother named Amina came to see the film, carrying her 4-year-old disabled daughter on her back. After the film, she asked us to pray for her daughter. We did, and also gave her the name of the nearest evangelical pastor. We later heard that she hiked to his village with her husband (of a different faith), and they had a good conversation about Jesus.

Please, pray with us for Amina, her daughter and husband, and the many others who have seen the Jesus Film in Sandawe. Ask God to speak to them through the several complete books of the Bible they now have in their heart language.

For more informations and stories about the Sandawe translation team visit: http://www.thetask.net/sandawe/