How It All Started

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On April 7, 2015

In Other

My parents are passionate about prayer, and the prayers of my parents have shaped my life.  Sometimes even when they didn’t realize that the subject of their prayers was me.

In the mid-90’s, my Dad was missions chairman of Hillside Church.  He had a vision for our church to partner with a team serving an unreached people group.  He prayed God would show him the country and the team, and it turned out to be a Reach Global group working in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

The partnership began in 1996, and Hillside began sending out teams to Tanzania (over 20 teams in a decade!).  My Dad led Team #1.*

My parents prayed that God would build and grow and train His Church in Dar es Salaam.  They prayed that God would shine His light on those communities that had never heard the gospel.  They prayed that God would send a Hillside member to be a full-time worker in Tanzania.

During that first exploratory trip, one of the things my Dad did was prayer-walk on the coconut plantation which was later to become Haven of Peace Academy’s campus.  He stood by the giant baobab tree which bisected nothing but rows of coconut trees, and prayed for God’s blessing on the fledgling school that had a vision of expansion.

In 1998, I was on Hillside Team #5 with three other college students.  We came to provide English camps for a group serving the Indian community in Dar.  We were also introduced to Haven of Peace Academy.  I always knew I wanted to be a missionary teacher, but when I found out about HOPAC, I was hooked.

My parents never, ever pressured Gil or me about any major life decisions–and they never intentionally planted the idea of serving in Tanzania in our heads.  They never prayed that Gil and I would be the answer to their prayers.

Yet in 2001, God led us to Tanzania.  He led Gil to join the team serving the Indian Community that I had joined on Team #5.  He led me to HOPAC–and later, Gil too.  And now God is using us to train His Church in Dar.

And it all started with my parents’ prayers.

My parents were here visiting the last two weeks, and the time was filled with card games and water balloons and sight-seeing and long talks after the kids went to bed.  I am blessed that my parents are some of my best friends and my biggest cheerleaders.  I am incredibly thankful for their lives of service, sacrifice, and passion.

But today, I am mostly thankful that they pray.

*Special note for other RG and/or Hillside folks:  Ironically, for those of you who know him, Kevin Kompelien–the pastor of Hillside–was also on that first Tanzania team.  Kevin later became the Reach Global director for Africa and is now the candidate for president of the Evangelical Free Church of America.   Seems like my parents’ prayers affected more than just us.

Term 2: Book Week Mice, Farms, and Medieval Princesses

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On March 29, 2015

In Other

Another peek into the lives of our crazy kids at their amazing school.


Book Week

You can’t tell parents, “Take pictures of your kids reading in unusual places,” and not expect Gil to go all out.  

 

Yes, we really do have a glow-in-the-dark bathroom….and they are reading in it.

 Book Character Day:  We’ve got Despereaux, King Peter, and Angelina Ballerina.  We tried hard for Josiah to be Reepicheep, so that they would all be mice, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

Masai Day in First Grade

Kindergarten’s Trip to the Farm

Learning to milk a cow

Poetry Recital in Third Grade

Medieval Day in Third Grade

Football!


Gil coached after-school primary football this term, and Grace and Josiah both participated.  He organized an intramural tournament at the culmination, and Grace’s team ended up defeating Josiah’s team.  Oh, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat!

GOAL!!!

Celebrating their victory!

Service Emphasis Week

SEW is one of the best things about HOPAC!   This is Grace’s class (and some Big Kids) off to visit a local orphanage.  

Sporting their SEW Week shirts

Enchanted?  This incredible school still has staff openings for the next school year!  

Witchdoctors, Football, and Understanding Africa

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On March 24, 2015

In African Worldview

Recently an electrician (who is also our good friend) was working on our fuse box.

I was in the next room, and suddenly I heard him cry out in pain.  Thinking he had shocked himself, I quickly asked him what was wrong.

He chuckled a bit.  He held out both his hands for me to see.  One was dramatically more swollen than the other.

Our friend is a leader in his church.  He’s in his late 30’s, and he’s a strong guy.  “Well, in church on Sunday, there was this woman with a lot of problems,” he explained.  “She had a demon.  Before I knew it, she pushed back my hand so hard that it swelled up like this.”  He casually added, “It took 5 men to hold her down.”  Three days later, his hand was still swollen.

Just an ordinary Sunday in a Tanzanian church.  Our friend isn’t even Pentecostal.

A couple of weeks ago, Gil went to a football game at the national stadium with one of our former students.  The game was between two rival club teams, and almost all of the 60,000 seats were filled.  Tension was high.  This game was a very big deal.

The buzz was that a lot of witchcraft had been performed before this game.  And, apparently, during the game.  This is not a team mascot or an over-zealous fan.  This is a witchdoctor.

The teams took this very seriously.  One team was so nervous about this that they made a large banner for protection–their own talisman.  The goal keeper tried to hang it in his goal until the officials made him take it down.

So what do we do with this notion that there are supernatural spirits out there who can influence a person’s health, a person’s safety, or even the outcome of a football game?  That these spirits can inhabit a person’s body and make her stronger than 5 grown men?  

For those of us from the western world, fully indoctrinated in empiricism and rationalism, we simply don’t know what to make of this.  I’m from the “non-charismatic” side of Christianity.  I also am, by nature, an extremely skeptical person. So….are we going to claim that it’s all in their heads?  That this is all a joke?  That they just need to be educated?  

Spend a few years in Africa, and even the most rational among you may be convinced otherwise.  

Meet our friends Mark and Alyssa, who had 17 snakes appear in their house, out of nowhere.  Or spend some time at an African mission hospital, where they have “prayer doctors” for those patients who are ill with sicknesses that defy modern medicine.  Or talk to our friend “Mary,” who lost two sons at exactly 9 months old for unknown reasons, until she renounced her witchdoctor mother and turned to Jesus.  Or meet a Tanzanian albino, who daily fears for his life because (wealthy, educated) people are willing to pay thousands of dollars for his body parts.  

You cannot understand Africa until you understand this worldview.  You cannot understand African politics, African poverty, African culture, and even the African Church until you understand animism.  

In the same way, you can’t understand American culture until you understand that we are equally locked in empiricism and rationalism.  Seeing is believing.  Nothing is fact unless it can be proved by “science.”  Anything else is shoved up in the category of “values” and is therefore personal, irrational, and undependable.  This is the very philosophy that seeks to destroy Christianity in America.  But haven’t we, as Christians, even allowed it to seep into our own thinking?  Sure, Satan is real.  Demons are real.  But they aren’t actually going to manifest themselves, right?  

I understand that there needs to be balance.  I’m not saying that everyone with problems needs to be exorcised, or that there’s a demon in the sound system when it doesn’t work.  The African Church needs to root out the superstition and Prosperity Gospel that seeks to permeate it; the American Church needs to root out it’s unequivocal trust in science and medicine. 

Let us learn from one another.  And remember that our struggle is not against flesh and blood.

When You Became Mine

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On March 18, 2015

In Adoption

On the day you were born, your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you wrapped in cloths.  No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you.  Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised.  (Ezekiel 16:4-5)

I find it interesting that so many people are shocked that some African women would dump their newborns into a pit latrine.

My last post quickly shot up into my #1 most-read post, with over 7000 hits.  (I realize that’s small potatoes in the blog world, but it’s a lot for my tiny corner of the internet.)

It certainly was not my most inspired piece of writing.  So all I can figure is that it was sensational enough to shock people into reading and sharing.

But why?

Why is it so shocking that women in Africa leave their newborns to die?

Is dumping a baby into a toilet more barbaric than jabbing a scalpel into a baby’s neck, suctioning out her brains, and crushing her skull?  Or simply vacuuming her life away, piece by piece, as she struggles to get away?

After all, that’s what happened to over a million babies in America last year.  Legally.

At least Tanzania has the sense to make child murder illegal.

In Tanzania, there’s not a lot of hope for unwanted babies, when adoption is so culturally unacceptable.  But in America, there’s tens of thousands of couples who wait months….years….for the phone call that there’s a baby waiting for them.  Yet still, we throw away a million babies a year.

Listen.  My heart breaks for these mamas.  I can’t imagine the despair, the hopelessness, the fear, that compels a mama to dump her newborn into a toilet pit.  Or to pay money for someone to suck out her baby’s brains.  I think of the 17-year-old who is terrified she’ll be kicked out of school.  Or the prostitute who doesn’t see a way out.  Or the desperate mama who just doesn’t know how she’ll feed one more child.

It goes against a woman’s deepest instinct to turn her back on her child.  The heartache that leads her to that point must be unfathomable.  Yes, Christians, let’s be known for advocating for the babies.  But let’s be known for advocating for the mamas too.

But don’t just weep for the African babies who are thrown away.  Weep for the American ones too–and those all over the world, for that matter.  (Ironically, one of the few (only?) similarities between the United States and North Korea is that they both permit abortions past 20 weeks–two of only seven countries in the entire world that allow them.)

Yet

There is redemption for a baby lifted out of a toilet pit and given life and love.

There is redemption for the adoptive mother when that child fills empty spaces in her heart.

There is redemption for the birth mother who sacrificially gives her child a chance at life.  And there’s even redemption available for the one who doesn’t.

Because in that picture, there is the reminder that we all are in the toilet pit, until the Day when we are lifted out and made Sons or Daughters.

Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, “Live!”  I made you grow like a plant of the field….I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign Lord, and you became mine. (Ezekiel 16:6, 8)

The Grim Reality of Bathroom Door Locks

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On March 15, 2015

In Other

Last week, Alyssa and I visited Lucy’s home, where we were treated like royalty.  Lucy continues to impress me with her love for Jesus and people, which was even more evident in her home and neighborhood.  And her incredible sense of humor makes her a fantastic Kiswahili teacher.  

But it was no laughing matter when she explained to us why there’s a lock on the outside of her bathroom door.  It seemed strange–after all, there’s nothing worth stealing inside.  

Most people in Tanzania have pit toilets, and Lucy’s house is no exception.  She explained that the government tells people to lock their bathrooms, so that women will not abandon their newborn babies to the depths of the pit.  

What a horrifying reality.  In fact, I know two such children–now adopted (but not by us)–who were rescued on their birth days from such a nightmare.

Whenever I talk about adoption with my Tanzanian friends, every single one can tell me of an instance when they came across an abandoned baby.  Though not always alive.

For most, they are found too late to rescue.  And those that are, live their entire lives on the streets or in an orphanage.  There are over 2 million orphans in Tanzania, and maybe only a couple dozen get adopted every year.

Which is why it makes me mad when UNICEF and other such organizations are so anti-international adoption, and anti-orphanage, and are heavily influencing developing countries (including Tanzania) to be the same way.  YES, let’s work at family reunification whenever possible.  YES, let’s work at getting corruption out of the adoption process.  And by all means, tell people to put a lock on their bathroom doors.

For many children, there is no family to be reunified with.  Let’s at least redeem their stories by helping them find a new one.

March 19:  Follow-up to this post here:  When You Became Mine.   Why is it so shocking that women in Africa leave their newborns to die?  Is dumping a baby into a toilet more barbaric than jabbing a scalpel into a baby’s neck, suctioning out her brains, and crushing her skull?  Or simply vacuuming her life away, piece by piece, as she struggles to get away?

Additional note added in 2016:  Since I wrote this post, I now have many more mixed feelings on the issue of international adoption.  Please read this series I wrote:  I Wish It Wasn’t True:  The Dark Side of International Adoption.

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