The Eads to Tanzania

Moving to Shadi

As many of you know, since being here in Tanzania we have lived in a village called Sweya. I have done the majority of my pastoral internship so far with Paulo, the pastor of the Sweya church. We have come to feel very at home in Sweya over the last 10 months and love greeting familiar faces along the road during the week.

Every Saturday, we try to go together as a family to Shadi, a neighboring village about a 20 minute drive from home (when the roads are good). Shadi is the location of Tumaini Children's Home, the Bible Institute, and a third church, led by Pastor Samsoni Madoshi.

We're excited to tell you that we are moving there. The properties that we live on now have been sold. The supplies for the construction of our new homes are being purchased, and we hope that, in the next three months, construction will be complete.  So, we (our family, the Howells, and Beth) will be living in our current location until late October or early November.

Some reasons we are excited about the move:

• It will open up more ministry opportunities for our entire family (i.e. Jana and the kids can be much more involved in the Tumaini children's ministry). 
• We will become acquainted and a part of a new village. 
• We will become acquainted and a part of another church. 
• It consolidates costs by allowing us to only maintain one property instead of two.
• It will minimize travel costs between our current home and Tumaini. 
• We have been discussing this possibility as a team since our first day in Tanzania last September. We were on board with it then, and we are eagerly anticipating it now as it has become a reality.

Grace's Little Friend

Grace was playing outside with Kaylee Howell today and we were very surprised to see her proudly carrying this little lizard. 

Ecclesiastes 9:4-6

This was the text of Scripture for Abeli's sermon at the church in Sweya this morning. Have you read it lately?

4 But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. 5 For the living know that they will die, but  the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for  the memory of them is forgotten. 6 Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun. 

I have heard this mentioned in sermons before (only here in Tanzania), but I have not heard a whole sermon on it. I thought that it so clearly addressed some of the main issues in spiritual ministry here that I will attempt to make a rough summary of Abeli's sermon today.

He began by recalling a man who had once owned almost 300 cows (a very nice herd). Over time, some were stolen, some died of disease, others ran away and were lost. In the end, he was left with less than 20 cows. He started to question why the numbers of his large herd had dwindled away so quickly. He came to the conclusion that he must not had a right relationship with his ancestors, those who had died before him, so he went to a witchdoctor to find out how to appease them.

He said that this man wasn't alone in believing that the problems of his life resulted from his relationship to the ancestors. He said that almost every Tanzanian believes this way. A mother who has just given birth, after naming the baby, will wonder if an ancestor is angry with the choice of name if the baby constantly cries. They will bring the baby to the witchdoctor, and he will probably advise them to instead give the baby the name of the ancestor who is angry in order to appease him.

He then relayed a personal experience. You may remember that I blogged here about going to the funeral of Abeli's grandmother's brother. The day after that funeral, he shared, his extended family decided that they would go together to the grave to clean it up and pay their final respects before return to their home villages. When they arrived, his relatives began to dance and pray to their ancestors, asking for blessings from them. He said they got out locally brewed beer and began taking turns spitting it on to the grave (a kind of sacrifice that is offered on behalf of the ancestors). When he saw this beginning, he immediately went back to the house along with his aunt (who also is a believer), not wishing to participate. Later, when all of the family returned back, they began questioning him, demanding him to join them. Mocking him, they said if he did not do this, the ancestors would be angry with him, he would be cursed, he would fail to get a wife (Abeli is still a younger bachelor). Yet, Abeli said that it was Ecclesiastes 9:4-6 that reminded him not to fear.  He did not have to fear the displeasure of those who have died before him, something that had once consumed him before, because of the truth of the Bible.

This text teaches that once someone dies, he no longer has any influence in the realm of the living. What was the lament of Solomon is the comfort to the Tanzanian Christian. The falsehood of the traditional religion leads people to fear, fear that they have displeased their ancestors and will come to ruin because of it. Yet, the truth that the dead have no control or influence over the living dispels fear. All trials that come our way (crop failures, family deaths, sickness, etc.) are for our spiritual benefit. They will test our faith, producing steadfastness. And that steadfastness leads to our sanctification (James 1:2-4).

So, Abeli's conclusion was that the believer must not doubt, but believe the truths of God's word. When he is tempted to fear, he should remember God is in control, not the dead, and God is accomplishing his great purposes through all that comes our way. And to the believer who is seeking to deal with a person still entrenched in the fear of the traditional religions, Abeli reminded him that he needs to pray and be patient. It is God who changes the heart, he said, but he does it as an answer to prayer and it often takes time.

Mourning, Marriage, and More

All this week, I have been ramping up my culture studies and have officially begun the rough draft of a paper that I will be writing on the Sukuma people of Mwanza. Numbering over 5 million people, the Sukuma tribe is the largest of the 127 tribes in Tanzania and the people that we will be working among here in Mwanza region. My studies include more of the same (home visits, informal interviews, LOTS of new vocabulary), but now I am also spending more time at the computer, trying to take the things that I am learning and formulate them into a paper that will hopefully be of help in introducing this culture to others.

So, this week, I have sat with a fisherman at his house, a shopkeeper outside his store, a farmer in his cow pen. I sat in to observe a meeting that took place to divide an old man's property who had recently died near our house. This public/family meeting (those lines are not as clearly drawn here as they are in the States) was a part of the funeral proceedings. Today I returned to that same house and had a lengthy conversation with two old men about traditional marriage customs of the Sukuma. All the while, I have my notebook, scribbling down little snippets of the conversation to remind myself later.

I am also trying now to learn a little more of the Sukuma language. It will not become a focus of my language learning (most everyone but the oldest know and use the national language of Swahili), but the Sukuma enjoy using it among themselves. Rather than just sit and ignore what I cannot understand, I have been trying to write down what words I can make out and get help with a definition later. So far, I have learned the various greetings for the different times of the day, and I have started to learn how to conjugate verbs. Swahili is the language for commerce, for education, for church, for almost every facet of life. But, my neighbors light up when I give a try at what Sukuma I know, so as I have opportunity, I will learn what I can over come months and years.

Culture Learning as Art

I came to Tanzania with a somewhat skewed view of culture learning. I came preparing myself to learn a new set of cultural rules that I would need to live here. In my mind, it went something like this:

"Yes, do this when someone greets you, no, don't do that or you will offend someone, remember to say this if you see that kind of person, and never, ever do that in public." 

Over time, I am come to believe that culture learning is less similar to learning a set of rules, and more similar to learning an art. It is less like passing the driver's test, and it is more like learning how to paint with watercolor. It is the difference between, "You must come to a complete stop before crossing that set of railroad tracks," and "How about I put a little more red over there?"

When we first got here, I tried to learn rules (mind you, this is a fine place to start). The problem was that after I learned some of them, I would often see my Tanzanian friends breaking them. "Hey, he can't do that. It is against the rules!" I would think.

I was looking for a set of laws to abide by, and what I learned was that they were more like guidelines. Learning to interact within a new culture is to develop a sensitivity to new cultural cues and to know how to respond appropriately. I would say correctly, but that may lead you to believe that there is grade-book precision in judging what to do, or what not to do, in a given circumstance. 

In America, you and I can (or we should be able) to recognize when it is appropriate to strike up conversation with a stranger or when it is not (on public transportation vs. at a PTA meeting), or how loud we should be talking in certain public places (at a football stadium vs. in the elevator). But there are always exceptions to the rule. 

Having the sensitivity to know what is appropriate and when it is appropriate is where the art comes in.

The Unadventurous Type

This is Jana.

A few weeks ago when we were enjoying our family vacation in Zanzibar, I had some thoughts that I thought worthy of a short blog post. Now that I have found opportunity, I will form these thoughts into writing, for what they’re worth.

My thoughts, in summary, were something like this: “God is so amazing to take a completely unadventurous person (like myself) and let me experience so many wonderful things in life that I, of my own volition, wouldn’t.”

This thought struck me again as I got into a small dugout sailboat with Dan to go snorkeling one afternoon. As I sat in the boat overlooking the aquas and bright blues of the ocean and the fascinating construction and operation of the boat we were riding in, I thought, “How did I get here? And WHY am I going snorkeling in the Indian Ocean? I’ve never even wanted to go snorkeling. Even if I were here on a vacation, I wouldn’t have the initiative to plan this….”. And, of course, on the ride home all I could think about was the WONDER of what Dan and I had just done together—getting to see an entire vast world of God’s creation that many people never see. I even silently prayed for more opportunities to go snorkeling again!

I have always admired friends that crave adventure and don’t let a single boring day pass by. While appreciating people like this, though, I realize that there is nothing necessarily more spiritual about being proactive vs. passive, or adventurous vs. content with routine and quiet occupations. So far, my conclusions have led me to believe that God has simply made us all unique and for unique purposes to bring glory to Him, and He would rather we not be preoccupied excessively with wanting to be somebody different than we are.

The last two years have brought some unique challenges, and often I have felt like I am not capable of handling them or that I would even think to choose them. Deputation with a one and two year-old was one of them. Sleeping in a new place every night, meeting and talking for hours with new people, being asked to spontaneously speak or be questioned in front of groups. All of them I would not have chosen from a list of multiple options.

Then I was to get rid of or store all our belongings to head off to a foreign country. Again, something that I would have thought out of my league. Now, I have taken on the task of randomly walking around our village looking for people to laugh at me while I try to learn their language. Not something that would typically fit my mold.

That said, it would be easy for a person like me to think that missions, or for that matter marrying a man like my husband (where with him, new, strange, scary, exciting, or exotic experiences are always around the corner), was not a good career/life choice. Nonetheless, I have seen God take a completely unlikely-for-the-task kind of person (myself) and teach me and change me in many ways, and also allow me to experience so many joys through it. It is in moments like the above mentioned that I stop and recount the undeserved favor (namely, GRACE) of my loving God.

Car Repair and Newspapers

I have spent almost 9 hours at the auto mechanic yesterday and the day before. Waiting for things to be fixed, waiting to find out when they will be fixed, going home because they are not done yet. After getting all of the Swahili conversation that I could out of the workers and the other customers waiting for their cars, and all of the vocabulary from the signs on the wall, I bought a Swahili newspaper and, starting from the beginning, worked through each of the articles circling any word that I didn't know. I was excited to see how much more that I understood from just a month ago, but with every story comes its vocabulary. Some stories it seemed that I circled every third or fourth word.

What I thought humorous were all of the curious looks I got from the man that sat next to me, reading the same newspaper. I tried to transport myself into his shoes, imagining what it would be like sitting next to a foreigner that was busy scrambling from article to article, circling a bunch of random words in the newspaper. I saw him trying very subtly to look at my paper, then to his paper, then back to mine, searching for some clue as to what was different. The look on his face betrayed his thoughts as he starred, puzzled at just what I was doing.

Crazy foreigner.

For all of his curiosity, he never asked me, and I didn't tell him. : )

Goodbye Dad and Mom

We brought my dad and mom to the airport after a great two-week stay. It was great to get to show them more about our way of life here, and get to introduce to them firsthand the many people that we regularly mention here on the blog. They were a real encouragement to us, and we eagerly await our next time together. We were very sad to see them go, but we are rejoicing in the time that God gave us together.

We love you, Dad and Mom!

Now, we will be turning our attention back full-force to our language learning in the coming days. But first, there is a miscellanea of tasks that I will be trying to get done in the next two days in order to clean my desk off and get my sights clear.

Hunting Trip

Dad and I went hunting on behalf of the orphanage on Wednesday and Thursday. 

  Dad shot an Eland (we think that it was over 800 lbs).

  I shot a Thompson Gazelle. 

It worked out great. The orphanage gets great meat, and we got the opportunity to hunt together. If you are interested in seeing pictures of what we got, send me a line.

Shadi Nightlife

I am going to reproduce a post by my co-worker, Rob, here today. The original post can be found here.

Last night at 1:30 am Ferdinand called me from Shadi. He was hiding in the bulrushes with the Tumaini children and staff. A gang of armed thieves were roaming Shadi and reaking havoc. Our night watchman alerted him of the danger, and he decided the best course of action was to hide with the children. So Dan and I drove out there to see if we could help. Apparently the thieves had been going from house to house and, as is usually the case, those with the least means were attacked first and hardest (no means = no security). According to our watchman they attempted to enter the Tumaini property but were run off by the dog, the now-stirring villagers, and the headlights of my car.

After Ferdinand heard that we had arrived he came out of hiding. The local people, too, came out of hiding. Five people were seriously injured: two with gunshot wounds to the leg and three with deep machete wounds. The worst case was a huge cut in the back of the head. We loaded them up in the LandCruiser and made our way to the hospital. They were moaning in pain the whole way.

One thing disturbed me about the trip. Before taking them to the hospital we had to stop by the police station to complete a police report. Not only did we have to wake the police up, but we also had to light a fire under them so they would complete the report before the poor man with the head wound died.

This is the fourth time in four years that we've seen an attempted robbery in Shadi. Theft is a common occurence and, sadly, those hurt the most are often those with the least means to protect themselves, local folks living in exposed homes. In each case in Shadi, we've never seen anyone connected with Tumaini injured. We have a secure fence, a dog, and a watchman that gives those inside adequate time to properly react. But still, at the end of the day, our security is in God's hands.