People

In my last blog I talked about how unsettled life can feel here, particularly due to the comings and goings of people. While it is hard to go through these constant changes, I also think it’s a great privilege to meet so many different kinds of people and get to know them to a greater or lesser degree. I just wish I could remember everyone’s names – I have an incredibly bad memory for names, which is very embarrassing in this relational culture. I find comfort in the fact that Tanzanians also mix up non-Africans, even those they have know for a long time, confusing our names and faces.

One thing I love about Tanzanian culture is how easy it is to talk to people (at least, on the surface it is, but getting to know people deeper isn’t so easy). Here’s some recent random encounters:

- Down at the market I popped into one little shop to buy some eggs and ended up in conversation with the shop owner, discussing deep questions like, “How do you see Tanzania versus England? What advice do you have for us? Why don’t we make progress?” These questions aren’t uncommon. I always start my reply with what I value about Tanzanian culture – people’s hospitality and focus on relationships.

- On the way home from church I stopped to buy some samosas from two ladies on the street corner. We got chatting about religion, and I shared the reason for my faith – that through Jesus Christ alone can we have a certain hope for the future.

- As I left church a couple of weeks ago, a voice called out, “Subiri” (“wait”) – it was a lady from church heading the same way. She knew my name (as most people do at church) but I didn’t know hers (as is usually the case!) and I learned about her family and I visited her market stall (where she sells tomatoes and lemons) and her home.

Of course, there are also the less pleasant encounters, such as people calling out ‘mzungu’ as I pass by and staring at me, and there are the encounters that you just have to laugh at, such as children saying, “Tell me my name” – they obviously haven’t quite grasped how English possessive pronouns work!

God certainly made each person unique, and He also made us to be relational beings. I find myself more and more seeing the value and importance of relationships and friendships and spending time with people. And if we are made in God’s image, doesn’t this need for relationship also reflect something of how God wants to be in relationship with us? Does it also teach us something about how God is more interested in us spending time with Him than He is in all the things that we might seek to do for Him (just like with Mary & Martha)?

I am looking forward to all the chances I will get to spend with people over the next few weeks – chances to see old friends and deepen new friendships, and most excitingly, the chance to welcome my parents to Mbeya! Karibuni sana!

Photo: Some of the people I have recently had the privilege to encounter - Sunday school teachers at a workshop in one of the language areas where we work.

Unsettled

Since the beginning of June there have been an amazing number of comings and goings in our project in Mbeya…

• Two ladies leave for furlough
• Two new ladies arrive to serve as linguists
• Another lady arrives to work with me for two months in SU, and is staying in my home
• A couple get married and leave on honeymoon and won’t be returning to our project
• Seven or eight Tanzanians leave for two months for studies in Kenya
• Two couples return from furlough

Each going is much more than just an item on the team meeting minutes, it’s goodbyes to friends and colleagues (some whom I have know for many years), whether for a short while or permanently, and it’s a change in work responsibilities and team dynamics. Each coming is more than just another name on the pigeon holes, it’s people to be welcomed to a new place and trained and potential for new friendships to be built.

Add to all of this the fact that the market from the centre of town has been demolished and shifted so that I don’t know where to find anything, and I am left feeling as if I have moved house without having packed a single suitcase!

With so many things changing around me, it is hard not to feel a bit unsettled, to feel a little unsure of where I fit in. How do you feel when you move house? Can you imagine how it might feel to stay in the same place, but have everything else around you moving, and on a fairly regular basis? What things give you a sense of stability in the midst of it all? I’d like to hear your thoughts!

Reading the Bible and praying is a source of peace for me in these days. One phrase keeps cropping up as I read through the Psalms which is ‘steadfast love’. ‘Steadfast’ to me means constant, unchanging, faithful… all the things that life here is unable to offer! But that’s what God has for us, a constant, unchanging and faithful love, that will endure through all the changes in life, through all the ups and downs we face, through all the questions and insecurities as well as the joys and happiness.

“Great is your steadfast love towards me” Psalm 86:13

From plane to daladala

For the first two weeks of this month I was excited to welcome guests to Tanzania – my first guests from home in four years! My aim was to give them as real a picture of life here as is possible in such a short time. So these two weeks saw them experiencing various extremes – from planes to daladalas (local overcrowded, uncomfortable and poorly maintained public transport), from luxury lodges to a Tanzanian friend’s home, from exquisite Zanzibarian cuisine to rice and stew (which also tastes good!).

Ever since returning to Tanzania in January I had been looking forward to their visit and had fun making the guest room nice and making plans. It’s hard to explain just how or why having guests is so significant. Have you ever found yourself retelling a funny incident to someone, but the other person just doesn’t laugh because you just had to be there?! Well, multiply that feeling a million times over. Guests are so significant because “you just had to be there” to have realised what life is like for us here.

As well as living in my home for a few days (meeting my friends and colleagues, visiting my work place, climbing the mountain behind my house, attending a dedication ceremony for some books that have been translated in one of the language areas and going to the church I attend) we also enjoyed some of the tourist delights of Tanzania – a safari in Ruaha National Park and several days on the island of spices (with lots of rain and sun and great food). To see some pictures click here.

Now they have gone, and it has taken me a while to adjust to my empty house. I find myself very much missing friends and family back home. However, at the same time, I am very aware that God is with me and I find comfort and strength from His Word. (I’m trying to read the Bible in a year and though there’s lots I don’t understand there’s also lots to challenge and encourage me. Reading Joshua now). Sometimes day to day life here can be emotionally tiring just because of how much we stand out – as we walk down the street, as we sit in meetings (and find it hard to follow the quick Swahili discussions), as we work with people whose cultures and attitudes are often very different from our own. But the Lord is our Shepherd, and He will lead us and bring us to find rest in Him, if we will give Him space in our lives to do so!