The Eads to Tanzania

Brown-skin friends/ Peach-skin friends

Jana again.

Missionary kids can be fascinating. I often wonder how our experiences here are going to shape Grace and Silas' thinking.

When we were planning to move here, we would often have dialogues with Grace about what she could expect would be different. She often said, "When we move to Tanzania we're going to get brown skin!" We laughed at this and explained to her several times that her skin was going to stay peach and that we would look different from most people here.

This morning as I was fixing Grace's hair, I explained to her that today we are going to visit some other Americans that live in Tanzania like us. She responded with, "Do they have peach skin?" When I said yes, she asked "Do they have a little brown skin?" When I inquired further she said, "Like my friend Ciara! Do they have a little brown skin?" 

Ciara Wilkinson, one of Grace's best buds, the adopted daughter of Dennis and Mistin Wilkinson (associate pastor at our home church- PLBC) has light brown skin. I have a feeling that Grace will feel a little extra comfortable around "brown-skinned" Americans when we return for furloughs! :D

Thanksgiving Week

This is Jana. I thought I'd give a brief update. I also put a few more pictures in the family album.

This week we are enjoying our first Thanksgiving in Tanzania. We will be meeting some other Americans in the area to celebrate this American holiday. I am excited for the kids to have an opportunity to be with more Americans friends.

Dan and Rob had a hunting trip scheduled for the first part of this week that was canceled last minute. Other than running some errands for the orphanage, this week has been declared 'a vacation week'. We have been baking apple pie, popping popcorn, playing in the yard, decorating the Christmas tree, and celebrating our 2-month landmark in Tanzania. Much has been accomplished, by God's grace, and we have MUCH to be thankful for this Thanksgiving season.

May yours be blessed as well!

The "7-week" mark

Jana here.

Before I elaborate on the title of this post, let me introduce you to Beth Roark. 

Beth (otherwise known as "Mama Eliza" by the orphans) is a single woman that is fast becoming a good friend of ours here at our new home in Mwanza. She is here to help the Howells in administrating at Tumaini children's home amoung many other things. Beth has already proven to be a huge help to the Howells and to us. 

When we arrived here in September, Beth had been here for 7 weeks. Before we came I was encouraged by the fact that I would have a friend going through the adjustment process and maybe even some 'culture shock' with me. Our first full day in Tanzania, I accompanied Beth in town to run some errands. Frazzled and overwhelmed as I was, I remember telling Beth "you handle yourself so calmly. Wow, you really have learned a lot of Swahili-- you're using what you can very well! I'm so glad I'm tagging along behind you and not running errands all by myself!", and inwardly I was wondering will I ever be there? In just seven weeks?

Well, this week the 7-week mark came and went. It has been a good landmark for me to take note and observe what God has accomplished in such a seemingly short period of time. Most of the time I still feel like I have a very limited grasp of the language, but I can say that I truly feel like God has brought me through MANY break-throughs.

I am not intimidated to explore our neighborhood or go to the local market (just a few blocks away) anymore. In fact, I really am enjoying it. Believe it or not, I am getting comfortable with the fact that I am a foreigner here.

I have consistently been able to comfortably converse with a Tanzanian for up to an hour's time.

Grace and Silas have learned some Swahili and are enjoying playing with other Tanzanian kids more and more (generally speaking).

I feel at home here in many ways that, 7 weeks ago, I couldn't have imagined that I would. 

Lukas

My day in town began in a Swahili language school classroom, and it ended in the social services office.

I rode into town this morning by daladala (update: max. count- 18), and got to language school at 8:00 AM. After two hours of class, I had a hodge podge of errands to run, one that was not on my list at the beginning of the day.

Rob called me, apologetically, while I was in class to tell me that there was another child at the social services office to bring to Tumaini today. I told him that I could be there by 11:30.

I entered the office to see a couple of workers huddled over their cluttered desks, chatting away as they shuffled the papers. I also saw a little boy sitting on a bench against the wall, quietly crying. The workers introduced me to him. His name is Lukas, they don't know his last name, and they think that he is about five years-old. Apparently, he was found wandering around late at night, by the police, in a ward outside the city. He did not know his father's or mother's names, where he lived, or where he went to school. After over a month and a half of waiting for the parents to find him, the police finally turned him over to the district social services office. Whether it is a case of abandonment or a lost boy who wandered too far for his parents to find him, they don't know. They placed the call to us, asking Tumaini to take him in.

After waiting for about 1.5 hours, the paperwork was done, and Lukas and I headed to Tumaini by taxi. I tried to do my best to help him feel comfortable around me, but it was evidently going to take time. He was obviously frightened, shown by his timidity and anxious glances here and there. But he got lunch when he arrived and was already starting to show some responsiveness to the workers. Pray for Lukas, that he would begin to feel comfortable in this new place and that his time at Tumaini would be a ministry for his soul and not just his body.

Some Firsts

Well, this is the first time that I have been able to be on the internet long enough to post. We are having some electrical problems between our house and the Howell's house, and so that has meant that internet times have been somewhat erratic.

We went to our first Tanzania wedding.

We bought our first car in Tanzania (hopefully our last for quite a while).

We got our first mail.

That's it for now. As we are able, we will keep you posted. Also, we put some pictures in the Family Album. 

A Room Full of Americans

It almost sounds like I am getting ready to tell some joke. "So there was this room full of Americans . . ."

But today, I was in the unusual circumstance to be one of a number of Americans gathered in a conference room at the New Mwanza Hotel.The US Embassy sent a representative to Mwanza today to assist any expatriates in the area with passport related issues. I went to add pages to each of our passports. A missionary's passport can get so full of the stamps issued when crossing borders (the visas issued to enter a new country), that there is no more room for anymore. No room for stamps, no travel.

Because of this great favor from the American government, I was able to get pages added to our passports without having to pay for an expensive trip to Dar es Salaam to do it later. I was also able to sit in on some of the election watch party that was a part of the whole event. They projected up on the wall CNN's coverage of the election results and President Elect Obama's acceptance speech. I was able to meet some Americans who are working in the area, which is a helpful thing for the future. But what struck me was that I was able to have the (now) unusual experience of being in a room of people that spoke my language, and that this felt comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time.

The Weekend in Nyakaliro

Saturday morning after breakfast, Rob and I headed out to Nyakaliro to participate in the weekend of ministry. Jana, Grace and Silas stayed back to hold down the fort this time.

After a ferry ride and 1.5 hours of some rough roads, we were in the village of Nyakaliro and with the Bible Institute students at the church building. I sat in to listen to the students from this congregation deliver their monthly sermons as Rob provided them with instruction and critique. It was a stretch to my Swahili ability to try to follow during the three hours of preaching, and, while there was much that I didn't understand, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I did. I talked with two of the students afterward for about a hour, trying to seize the opportunity for Swahili conversation and relationship building. Then, they offered to take me around to see the village. We walked throughout the village, visiting the market and the beach and stopping all along the way to introductions and invitations to the church on Sunday. I got back to Pastor Elias' house by dark (7:30 PM). I listened in on Rob and Elias' discussion (all in Swahili), and then I attempted to explain to Elias (in Swahili) what I had done throughout the day. Sometimes, I am struck by how torturously slow I have to speak, but I am convinced that if I just keep on struggling through, my fluency will develop. We ate supper at around 9:30 PM, and then Rob and I set up the tent to go to bed.

We woke up Sunday morning to get ready for the day, pack up the Land Cruiser, have chai and viazi (tea and kind of fried potato biscuit) with Pastor Elias. The worship began at 8:00 AM, and after the service and some conversation, we were back on the road at 10:00. We ended getting back by 12:30 PM.

Throughout Saturday night and all Sunday, I was not feeling well, so we laid it low for the rest of the day. By mid-day today, I was feeling better, and we spent the rest of our day off around the house, getting ready for another big week ahead.