This Is What Hope Looks Like

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On December 14, 2015

In Other

What do you think would happen, if on the next 4th of July, the U.S. president cancelled all official Independence Day celebrations and instead told everyone to pick up a trash bag and start cleaning their cities?

That’s exactly what happened last week.  When we went out our gate on Independence Day, the smoke from a thousand trash fires filled the air.  (Okay, so not exactly great for the lungs, but great for the city!)

Just six weeks into his presidency, Magufuli got out on the streets and picked up trash.

photo source here

But that’s not all.

Dr. John Pombe Magufuli was declared Tanzania’s fifth president on October 30th.  Just a few days later, he made a surprise visit to the National Hospital in Dar es Salaam.  Finding patients lying in the hallways, he sacked the hospital chief and broke up the board of governors, on the spot.

He then proceeded to cut the $100,000 budget set aside for his inauguration day down to $7000, and sent the remainder of the money to the hospital.  Within a few days, scores of new beds had been purchased, and the broken MRI machine had been repaired.

And with that, Magufuli began his run as one of the most hard-working, honest, and forthright presidents this continent has ever seen.  

He immediately, boldly took on the business tycoons who have bribed their way out of millions of dollars of import taxes.

When traveling to the capital for parliament meetings, he refused to fly and drove instead.

No longer are parliament ministers allowed expensive foreign trips abroad.  Instead, they are encouraged to visit rural areas of Tanzania.  No longer are government meetings allowed to be held in expensive hotels.

Traffic has gotten worse, because government officials are actually showing up for work.   When he cancelled the Independence Day celebrations for a clean-up day instead, he re-routed the party money into road construction.

Hope is surging throughout his country.  Everywhere, everyone is talking about it.  For a continent that has been plagued by corruption, civil war, and horrendous tyrants in leadership, Magufuli’s Tanzania is soaring.

It’s a great time to live in Tanzania!  Even America’s president could learn a few lessons.  Pray with us that this is only the beginning of real, lasting change.

My Favorite Kids, August ’till December

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On December 13, 2015

In Other

The emphasis around here lately has been on Johnny….but here’s a look into my other sweethearts’ lives.  

First Day of School
My first grader is lucky enough to have her brother’s teacher from last year
Josiah’s 2nd grade teacher
Grace’s 4th Grade Teacher (and soccer coach!)
Pamoja Week (like Spirit Week)  Photo credit:  Rebecca Laarman
Math Detectives for Math Week.  We actually bought the hats from someone who was selling them on the side of the road.  Because, apparently, these are the kind of hats Math Detectives wear.  Now you know.

Grace is emerging as a fantastic soccer player….thanks her to hard work and her Daddy’s instruction.

First grade assembly…Lily was the “prop girl” holding the water…she took the job very seriously.
Post-assembly love.
4th Grade Assembly

This Was My Life the Past Eight Days

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On December 10, 2015

In Other

Facebook sends me helpful reminders when I haven’t posted anything recently.  I sincerely apologize to the 548 people who have had nothing better to do than anxiously await my next post.  

Just so you know I’m not a slacker, this post is all about what I’ve been doing the last 8 days that I have not been blogging.  I’ve also not been cooking, reading, sleeping, or controlling my stress levels very well either.  Instead, my entire life has been consumed by Haven of Peace Academy’s Christmas Family Fun Day.

It’s kind of ironic, actually, that I’m even writing about this event since I was insistent, for months, that I was not going to lead it.  But then I volunteered to lead the Parent Association for the elementary school, along with Heidi, who volunteered to lead it for the secondary school.  By the time October rolled around, we realized that it was either going to be us or no one taking on the Christmas Family Fun Day.  

Reluctantly, we decided it would be us.  

Thus, for the past two months, this event has occupied a great deal of my brain space.  And in the last week or so, it occupied pretty much everything in all my spaces. 

But finally December 9th came and went, and now I can breathe again.  And clear out my brain.  

Thankfully, it was smashing success.  We had the biggest attendance ever, we raised over $10,000 for HOPAC’s new library, and no one actually melted (even though that was a strong possibility in the sweltering tropical sun).  

So, whether or not you care about all of this, I figured I would post pictures anyway, just in case you really have been sitting around, wondering what I have been up to.

photo credit:  Rebecca Laarman

Josiah spent all of his game tickets on human foosball.  No surprise there. 

photo credit:  Rebecca Laarman

Of course, we couldn’t have done any of it without Shelley, Beth, Doris, Rebecca and her seniors, Adrian and Student Council, Melissa (on the left) and especially Nisha (in the middle)….who single-handedly solicited thousands of dollars of raffle prizes.  
….and Heidi, my co-leader, partner in crime, and raffle announcer extraordinaire.

(And Amy Ellis, you better get yourself back to Tanzania, because I am not doing this again next year!  No comments about how I said that last year too.)

Giving Tuesday: Here’s a Great Way to Support Orphans!

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On December 1, 2015

In Other

The best part about Forever Angels Baby Home is not the tidy lines of toothbrushes, even though that  part is pretty cool.

It’s not the brightly painted walls, the nourishing food, or the gazillions of diapers which are hand-washed every day.

It’s not even the caregivers who whole-heartedly love the children, or even the scads of volunteers who make the orphanage a happy place for kids who have lost almost everything.

No.

The best part about Forever Angels is that they don’t just love children, they love families.  

It seems like a no-brainer, but this is something that many, many orphanages get wrong.  Often, orphanages are only focused on the children.  Honestly, it is a lot easier that way.  Orphans are cute.  They are, in many ways, pathetically cute.  Their pathetic-ness just makes them cuter.  Am I right or am I right?

But often orphanage workers, and ourselves, forget that children in orphanages often come from families who are broken, but still very much alive.  It’s much messier, and not so cute, to engage with families that are poor and hurting.  It would be much easier to just take care of their cute kids.

This is where Forever Angels shines.  First and foremost, FA desires to get kids back with families.  When a baby shows up whose mother died in childbirth, they keep the child only until she is strong enough to go home.  When a starving toddler arrives, they get the little one healthy again, but also supply his mother with capital so that she can start a small business.  When an albino child needed protection during the election season, FA admitted the child, but also gave his mom a job at the orphanage so she could see him daily.

Forever Angels helps HIV patients (parents and children) get on ARV medication.  They provide temporary housing to families who need to get on their feet, and sometimes permanent housing when it’s really needed.  They train orphaned (often homeless) teenagers in job and life skills.  They seek out pregnant girls living on the street, in hopes of preemptively helping them to keep and care for their babies.

And then, of course, there’s adoption.  Two of our kids came from Forever Angels, which is how we became acquainted with it.  Not very many children are adopted in Tanzania each year, but most of them that are come from Forever Angels, because it’s easy to recognize what a great place it is.  Forever Angels loves adoption, but only as a last resort.  Which is exactly how it should be.  

This Giving Tuesday, if you have a heart for African orphans, remember that the best place to start is by helping their families.  Supporting Forever Angels is a outstanding way to do that.

Click hereto support their December fundraising campaign.

Click hereto read their wonderful stories of re-building families.  (Some pages will need the password of “Tanzania.”)

Click hereto read about their volunteer program.

I could write about a lot of great causes you could support today, but this is one I especially love.  We happily support Forever Angels.  I hope you will too.

Confessions of a Good Girl

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On November 29, 2015

In What I'm Learning

Seen outside a Tanzanian church.  Source here



Growing up, I was the poster child for Good Christian Girls.

Straight-A student?  Check.

Never listen to Madonna or watch 90210?  Check, check.

Don’t drink, smoke, or chew, or go with boys who do?  Check, check, check.

I tutored inner-city kids.  I helped to lead a Bible club for disabled teens.  My ambition was to become a missionary, for crying out loud.  I was oozing with goodness.

I’ve always liked rules.  Following them gives me a sense of control, a feeling of success, and eliminates pesky guilt.  Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.  I follow the speed limit.  I recycle.  I stay off the grass.  And for a long time, following the rules is how I tried to live out Christianity.

Until I started to realize that it really was just a big show.  I could be very good at putting on that happy, cheerful, servant-leadership face, while all the while I had a selfish spirit, sense of superiority, and sometimes downright hate snarling around in my heart.  Mix that together with a strong fear of people’s opinions and a good dose of anxiety, and you don’t have a very pretty picture.  To my horror, sometimes these attitudes even slipped out for other people to see.

There’s nothing worse for a Good Girl to realize than that she’s really not all that good after all.  There’s not a lot of options at that point.  What was I supposed to do?  Hide it?  Try harder?  Suppress the guilt?  Do penance?  None of those things are very satisfying.  And they certainly don’t fix the problem.

And no, I didn’t have a harsh upbringing, and I didn’t attend a legalistic church.  I actually grew up as a pretty happy person.  I just knew that there was a big disconnect between the person I showed to the world, and who I actually was.

Thankfully, the truth of Grace swept into my life in college.  It was something I had known all my life; it had been staring me right in the face, but I had looked in a thousand other directions before I fell deeply into it’s glory.

And oh!  What a blessed relief, what a glorious rest, to slowly come to the realization that I was not only saved by grace, but sustained by grace, and held by grace.  Following the rules may have spared me a lot of heartache, but they did not, could not, change my heart.

I’m glad I came to this understanding before getting married, because being a wife and a mom has just reinforced what a wretchedly awful person I am capable of being.  At the beginning, I desperately yearned for a checklist of rules that would make me a good wife and mom, but as time went on, I was really glad there wasn’t.  I would have failed miserably.

Readers have often commented to me that they are thankful…surprised, maybe?…at my honesty about my weaknesses and failings.  But the truth is, I am tired of being seen as the Good Girl.  Been there, done that.  It’s impossible, and it’s exhausting.  I would much, much rather live in grace.

Living in grace means that when I screw up, I’m not only forgiven, but I have the power to change.   It means reveling in the joy of knowing that I never have to earn God’s favor–I already have it.  It’s means that when I do something right, it’s all because of Him.  If there’s anything good that comes out of me, it’s because I have first breathed in His grace.

So why then should I be afraid of being open about who I really am?  I, in myself, am nothing.  I, on my own, am just a show.  I would not, could not, ever have been good enough.  There’s something deeply vulnerable about blogging, about putting myself out there for anyone to see….and criticize.  But I remind myself that if anyone does think negatively about me, well, it’s probably true anyway.  If I am living in grace, I have nothing to fear.

If I let you think I’m that Good Girl, then it is only Amy Medina who gets the attention.  I’m just another really great, religious rule-follower who makes the rest of humanity feel bad about themselves.  No wonder the world would mock me if I fell.  But if I let you see who I really am, then–and only then–can you see the gospel at work in my life.  Only then can you possibly see Jesus.

And that’s pretty much what grace is all about.  What I’m all about.

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