Thank you to those who made it possible for me to do this work, and to those who are praying for me. On Monday (June 27^th) I paid for 20 more hour-long Swahili lessons, and once they are done, I will be done with Swahili school. I am feeling thankful for how much Swahili I have learned already (the title means “Thank you”). In about a month, we will begin working with some churches to start the finance and development groups. Until then, I hope to observe many churches that already have such groups, and I will spend quite a bit of time with the people who will be the members of these groups.

It’s wild that some of you would find some time in your day and talk to God about my day, that from your soul, you would talk to God about my soul. It makes me smile, a smile linked to the deeper parts of myself. Thank you.

As for prayer requests, I’ve mentioned that I struggle with wanting to be a hero. Lately, this has been hindering my ability to connect with the folks I am working with, as I catch myself thinking about being a hero, rather than being free to be present with them. I know I have said this before as well, but it does seem that if God’s love was more real, more vivid to me, I would become more in love with God and less obsessed with myself, and therefore, freer to be present with the people here.

Shortly before I left, a good friend, Carson Williford, asked me, “How do you think life will be different now that you aren’t in an academic setting anymore?” Part of my answer was something like, “The reason I started studying philosophy was so that I could better answer all these everyday questions about how to live a good life. So when I am working in Tanzania, I won’t be writing essays, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be doing even more philosophy.”

For the first five weeks, this has been true. Some of the new everyday questions (the title is the Swahili word for “questions”) that don’t have an easy answer:

Some Tanzanians (though not all) charge higher prices when they perceive that someone can pay more. Some of this comes from the same greed that we all struggle with, but also, it really makes sense to them. Why shouldn’t you pay more if you can afford more? If the people who have more money do pay more, then the store owners can charge less for those who don’t have as much, and can still break even. How to respond? Should I give a deep, genuine smile and pay the higher price? Or should I haggle, so that people and churches that sponsor me will need to give less and can therefore support more good causes? I promised to spend money only on necessities. Is this a necessity?

There is a scene in my fave movie, Gandhi, where a British friend asks how he can help. Gandhi declines the offer, saying, “I have to be sure, they have to be sure, that what we do can be done by Indians alone.”(Gandhi, 1982) At the same time, it seems obviously unloving not to help those who are having a hard time, especially if they specifically ask for your help. Well, that question itself is nothing new. The new question is about my role as I begin working with these communities in the next few weeks. Where exactly should I be in the process of helping churches and communities to evaluate their strengths, goals, and resources in order to create a plan to improve things? It would be best to give the church and community as much responsibility as possible. What does “as much responsibility as possible” look like in the mess of momentary decisions though? When do I say something, when should I be silent? How often should I meet with them? Surely I shouldn’t correct everything that seems like a mistake to me. At what point does hands-off become negligence though?

There is a view of our relationship to God, often called the “Prosperity Gospel” that says that if someone is faithful to God, God will improve their material well-being. Well, I’ve always told people this view is false and have never had a second thought about it. When my Tanzanian friends tell me they see it this way though, I don’t know what to say. (It’s happened three times already!) These folks generally aren’t hoping to be millionaires like Joel Osteen but rather, to be able to consistently provide for a family. In one of these conversations, I replied that praying and worshiping God does not mean more money, but instead, that we will learn how to love. My friend Simon replied,

“So you think God gives us love?”

“Yeah!”

“But not money?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

Simon responded with some genuine laughter, and I didn’t know what to say next. It’s awkward that the one comfortable believing that God does not give us money is the one who also doesn’t have nearly as much reason to be worried about money.

Gandhi. Dir. Richard Attenborough. Perf. Ben Kingsley. Columbia, 1982. DVD.

Hello friends, both those I know well and those I wish I knew better! I appreciate how many of you have let me know you really care about what is going on over here. Over the last 2 weeks, I have gotten to be friends with several Tanzanians, some of them being Simon, our gardener; Daniel, our security guard; Shija, the woman who keeps our house; Stefano, Mpina, Rogers, and Frederick, pikipiki drivers who drive me to school; and Saida and Devota, who go to the same school as I do, though they are learning English.

I have also learned how to make the local staple ugali, and quite a bit of Swahili (the title means “meeting at Ingrichini”). The thing most worth sharing about though, is the meeting of the community leaders last Friday. Leaders from several of the new churches in the area met at the building for the church at Ingrichini. One of the leaders at the meeting was Jacobo, a pastor from Ingrichini who has provided quite a bit of leadership to the budding churches in the Mara region. It made me happy to see how happy he was to see me again. Another leader was Parmao, a Tanzanian who has studied development at the university level, and who I am looking forward to working with quite a bit. I was also thankful to meet again with Frances, a community leader from Gamasara who welcomed me into his house for lunch on one Sunday last summer.

Jacobo, pastor and community leader from Ingrichini

Parmao, a Tanzanian development worker, who I enjoy working with.

This is where the meeting took place

At the meeting, (graciously translated by Eric) they discussed one of their first projects, which was caring for several beehives each at five of the churches in the area. They then discussed which other projects they want to add in the coming year. Parmao suggested that they should agree on several focuses that would help them decide which projects to begin. After quite a bit of discussion, they agreed on

-Agriculture

-Women

-Youth

-Education (more informal community type education than formal)

-Improving on the community’s understanding of what development looks like and how it is carried out

I really enjoyed seeing these folks work together to figure out how their communities could take a step forward. Attending the meeting has been my biggest motivation to learn Swahili faster, as it really strengthened my hunger to begin working with them as soon as possible.

I feel so thankful to those of you who have made it possible for me to be here in Tanzania. Someone has generously given every dollar that I said I needed for these next seven months. It makes me happy that you would care so much about me and the folks here in the Mara region, that you would care enough to give your own money to make this possible!

I am renting a room from someone named Sue Kelly, who is doing research in Tanzania for her Ph. D in Anthropology, and I have gotten to meet our nighttime security guard, Daniel. We cannot speak much though, because I do not know very much Swahili.

Right now, learning Swahili is my number one priority; my teacher is named Mama Salala. (My opening quote roughly means, “What news, my friends”) I will be spending most of my time on this for awhile. I am also spending some time getting up to speed on the basics of economic empowerment work, via books and resources that Eric has recommended to me from his grad program (currently reading an excellent work called The Poor and Their Money, by Stuart Rutherford).

I was thankful to meet with Eric on Tuesday and discuss what I will be doing for these seven months, as well as what my more long-term role might be. He suggested that the first three  months will be spent on learning the language, culture, and basics of what economic empowerment looks like, and in the following four months, I will begin visiting the communities in the Mara quite often, meeting with the people, and making plans for programs that will meet the needs of each community. Eric suggested that we will be mainly preparing for a big launch next spring, where we will work with most of the communities that we have connections with to start programs that will fit each of the communities.

I feel so thankful that some of you are praying for me. That’s pretty wild that you might think about me at some point in your day, and then talk to God about me. Thank you.

I will begin working in Tanzania 3 weeks from today.

I feel deeply thankful to all who have given to make it possible for me to work with Liz and Eric in Tanzania. As of today, $9,313 of the $9,706 has been given.

I wanted to share some thoughts I had the other day, which reveal a place in me that needs prayer.

I was listening to a missionary speaking about some of the work they had been doing in Ghana, and he said something like, “We are thankful to have more Ghanaians on staff at the hospital now…”

I winced.

Then, I asked myself, “Wait, why would you wince at that? That is wonderful news!”

I thought about it, and realized that I am worried by the fact that many struggling nations are increasing in ability to address their own problems. I am worried, because if they do not need me, I will lose my easy ticket to being thought of as a saint.

Normally, to be considered a saint, you have to be a good person in the day-in, day-out mess of personal interactions. You have to develop habits of charity, wisdom, humility, and courage. That means consistently being a little more giving than you were the day before, a little more humble than you were the day before, etc. It is so hard that I often think it will never happen.

Unfortunately, some part of me thinks I have found a loophole. It’s like I have said, “Wait, look! If I just go serve those who are suffering in a country far away, people will think I am a saint! And they won’t see my everyday life, so it won’t matter too much if I have actually done the hard work of developing virtue!”

It is pretty disturbing to see this going on inside of me. If this motive continues to grow, it will overpower my more noble desire to help those who are suffering, and then any good I do will be only a by-product of my self-glorification scheme. I am not afflicted by false modesty here. Knowing myself, I see that this really could happen. Therefore I titled this post, “Thank you to those who are praying for me”. If I was more deeply aware of God’s love for me, it seems that I would be less hungry for the praise of others, and less driven to prove to them that I am a saint. Thank you, to any who might pray that I would be more deeply aware of God’s love for me.

I feel deeply grateful that some of you said you might pray for me. That is so kind of you, it touches my heart a little. My only prayer request for now is as follows:

Last summer Eric Soard said he met with a long-time missionary for advice on how to persevere in long-term service in Tanzania. The long-time missionary responded, “You have to stay in love with the people.”

I am not yet engaged in long-term service, but this seems to be what I need as well. Could you pray that God’s love would become more real to me? It seems that if God’s love is more real to me, I will have more love to give, and therefore, I will be able to stay in love with the people I am serving.