Tag: FAQ’s About Missionary Life and Tanzania Page 1 of 3

The Medinas in Tanzania: A Primer

On April 6, 2017

Whenever we visit the States, there’s always that awkward moment in the church foyer when someone we know runs into us and says, “Hey, welcome back! So….how’s it going…..over there?”

And it’s pretty obvious that they really don’t remember where we live or what we are doing.

If this is you, first of all, don’t worry. While you are frantically trying to remember the details about us, we are frantically trying to remember the details about you. After all, you might have sent us your Christmas letter, but we didn’t memorize it. We don’t expect you memorize everything we write about either.

So since we’ll be seeing many of you soon, here’s a summary to bring you up to speed. If you want to send one to me as well, I would love to read it!

Where are you living?

source

We’ve lived in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania for 13 of the last 16 years. Dar es Salaam is coastal and near the equator, which means that it is hot and very humid most of the year. It never gets cold. (My kids start shivering at about 80 degrees.) Lots of palm trees. Just minutes from the ocean.

Dar es Salaam is the largest city in Tanzania. It has about 6 million residents and is rapidly growing. We live in the northern part of the city, about five minutes from Haven of Peace Academy.

What is your life like?

We rent a three bedroom house which has electricity and plumbing (though using totally different systems than what you would be used to). We have air conditioning in our bedroom. I have a gas stove. We own a generator. We have one car.

During the years we have been here, our standard of living has continued to improve. We have a supermarket ten minutes away and we even have Pizza Hut. Internet has continued to massively speed up, and this year, we’ve even been able to stream American TV shows. We lack a lot of the conveniences of the States, but we are not suffering. But maybe living thirteen years in a developing country has changed our perspective on what suffering is.

Are there lions?

Yes! Tanzania has some of the world’s most amazing and beautiful game parks, including the Serengeti. (Gil took that picture!) The closest reserve is about 5 hours drive away from us, so no, we don’t see wildlife on a regular basis, unless you include goats, chickens, and large lizards. Oh, and hedgehogs. And that snake that appeared in Lily’s bed. But that was only once.

What is your ministry?

During the last three years, we have been partnering with Mark and Alyssa Dunker to establish Reach Tanzania Bible School, a theological training program for Tanzanian pastors and church leaders. Students take 10 classes during one year, with each class lasting one week. Students go back to their churches and ministries in between classes and apply what they have learned.

Gil also does a variety of training sessions in different churches and ministry programs.

Where do your kids go to school?

Just the best school in the entire world. But I guess I’m biased, considering Gil and I served there for 10 years before we joined Reach Tanzania, and in August I’ll be going back on staff as Elementary Principal.

By the way, HOPAC is still recruiting teachers for next year, so if you know a teacher looking for the best job in the entire world, point him or her in my direction.

What are your kids’ names again?

Grace is eleven and in fifth grade. She loves playing soccer and basketball, crafting and creating, and reading (her current favorites are the Percy Jackson series). She is a total social butterfly and makes friends quickly.

Josiah is nine and in third grade. He is a sports maniac. His favorite is soccer and he can talk for hours about British Premier League soccer, but he is pretty much interested in any kind of competitive sport.

Lily is eight and in second grade. She loves dolls and drawing and nurturing small children.

Johnny is five and will be starting kindergarten in August. He is fascinated by vehicles of any kind but also loves puzzles and anything his siblings are doing.

How long will you be in the States?

Four months, until the beginning of August. We will be all over California.

Anything else you want to know? Ask away!

10 Myths About Africa Many Americans Believe

By Amy Medina

On February 7, 2017

In Other

1. Africa is a country.

Geography is a lost subject from where I come from, so let me just remind everyone that Africa is a continent. A large continent, in fact, as you can see from the diagram below.

Source: Kal Krause, “The True Size of Africa”

Africa is also an incredibly diverse continent, made up of 54 countries. Those countries north of the Sahara tend to be more Arab, those south of the Sahara tend to be more “Bantu” (what you would traditionally picture as African), and those on the Horn (Ethiopia, Somalia, etc) tend to be a fascinating mixture. But even then, I am being incredibly general, as there are thousands of African tribes and ethnicities that are as diverse as as a European would be from an Asian or South American.

I am going to debunk the following myths with what I have learned by living in Tanzania, since that is the country I am most familiar with. However, keep in mind that I will be speaking broadly, and knowingly countering the stereotypes about Africa with more stereotypes (albeit, hopefully more accurate stereotypes). In any culture or country, people live along a spectrum, and it’s important that we don’t ever lump an entire group (or continent) of people under any particular label. My main goal is to use what I have learned in Tanzania to change the mental picture many Westerners have of Africa.

2. Africans are all poor.

Yes, poverty is a huge problem in many African countries. (Of the 25 poorest countries in the world, only 4 are not African.) But that doesn’t mean there aren’t any middle-class or rich people. Even though Tanzania is one of the poorest countries in the world, there are many rich people here. Economic class distinctions are huge, and since the concept of equality is not valued the way it is in the West, rich people are usually treated better and with far more respect and privilege than poor people.

3. Africa is not clean.

It’s true that public areas in Tanzania are often trash-filled and untended. However, that says more about a lack of infrastructure than the character of your average Tanzanian. Tanzanian homes, vehicles, and businesses tend to be very clean–much cleaner than what I have often seen in America.

4. Africans do not have access to clothes or shoes.

Maybe that was true in the past. Maybe it still is true in some war-torn countries. But in Tanzania, it is absolutely not true. Fabric is locally designed and printed and plentiful. Hundreds of tons of cast-offs from American and European thrift stores are shipped over and sold in the local markets. I buy most of our clothes here now. There is no lack of clothing–and therefore, no need for you to send over your shoes or clothing. If you are supporting an organization that needs clothes, send money instead and support the local economy.

5. Africans dress in rags.

I have found that Tanzanians dress far more professionally and formally than those from my home state of “casual” California–and this is regardless of their economic status. Women hardly ever wear shorts in public, and you rarely find a woman in the supermarket wearing the equivalent of yoga pants with unkempt hair. Dry cleaners and salons are everywhere and people regularly have their clothes individually tailored. Even those who work manual labor dress professionally for the bus ride and change into work clothes when they arrive at their job. In social situations, I often feel under-dressed.

6. Africans all live in villages.

Like most of the world, Tanzania is rapidly becoming urbanized. We live in a fast-growing city of five million people, and it is predicted to reach 20 million in the next 30 years.

7. Village life would be perfect if white people weren’t messing it up.

So I’m not going to get into the complicated mess of colonialism, but let’s just say that yes, I agree that white people have done a lot of messing up in Africa (to put it mildly). But let’s not swing in the other direction and assume that village life was or is peaceful and idyllic. Of course, beauty can be found anywhere, but female circumcision, child marriages, polygamy, alcoholism, albino murders, women who walk miles to find water, illiterate children, lack of basic health care and high infant and maternal death rates are not to be sugarcoated by some convoluted notion of the “noble savage.”

8. All Africans are black.

If all Africans are black, then all Americans are Native American. Colonialism happened on both continents. However, European diseases managed to wipe out most Native American populations, and African diseases managed to wipe out most European settlers….and the rest is history. South Africa probably has the most well-known white population, but I also have white African friends from Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Tanzania, whose families have lived here for generations. There are also hundreds of thousands of Indian (Asian) families who have been East African citizens for over 100 years.

An Indian (Hindu) wedding ceremony in Tanzania.

9. Poverty is Africa’s biggest problem.

Absolutely, poverty is a huge problem. But I am convinced that worldview is a bigger problem, and specifically how that plays out in governmental corruption. Which is why sending “aid” to Africa (in its many forms) is really just sticking band-aids on a cancerous tumor….and why the gospel offers real hope.

10. Africa has been evangelized.

Northern Africa? Definitely not. Sub-Saharan Africa? Partially. There are still thousands of villages in Tanzania without a church. There are still dozens of languages in Tanzania that don’t have a Bible translation. However, it is true that Christianity has spread like wildfire throughout sub-Saharan Africa in recent decades. Unfortunately, it’s often a version of the Prosperity Gospel.

Missions has most definitely changed in Africa in recent years. Gone are the days of pith-helmet-clad white men tromping through the jungle to preach the gospel to remote villages. In fact, there are far fewer white missionaries who are engaged in church planting and evangelism. Instead, western missionaries are narrowing their focus to equipping and training Africans to do the job themselves. I don’t have statistics, but I’m quite confident there are many more African missionaries in Africa than there are western missionaries. And that’s how it should be.

So….What are you doing this year?

By Amy Medina

On October 2, 2013

In Other

We’re getting that question a lot. Here’s the answer.

We are not on vacation.

We are not even on sabbatical.

When I was a kid, it used to be called furlough. Most mission agencies don’t call it that anymore because furlough means a leave of absence or vacation. Which it is not.

Instead, we call it Home Assignment.

First of all: Why are we staying a whole year?

Our mission requires us to be in the States about 20% of our time. In the past 8 years, we’ve been in the States approximately 7 months. So we’re kind of making up for lost time. There was never a good time to take a Home Assignment while we were at HOPAC. Since we are between ministries now, it works.

Secondly: What exactly are you doing if you are not on vacation?

Let me start by saying this:

We all talk about the Body of Christ. But as missionaries, we are more keenly aware of our need for it than we would otherwise recognize.

We cannot do what we do without the Body of Christ.

I’m not just stating that figuratively. We cannot.

We are an extension of the Church in America, and specifically five congregations in California, so we need to be connected to them.

That does not easily happen when we are 10,000 miles away. It’s been 8 years. A lot has changed in your lives; a lot has changed in our lives. So many people are new in these churches that they don’t even know who we are.

So it is important that we spend time in the States so that we can continue that personal connection. Because if we don’t have the Body behind us, there is no use in us going.

So what are we doing this year?

Sharing our vision for ministry with any small group or individuals who want to hear about it.

Preaching in churches (well, Gil is, anyway!)

Serving our supporting churches in any way possible. We will especially be helping out at our sending church here in So. Cal. We told FCC to consider us as part of their staff…and put us to work!

And most importantly, doing everything we can to make connections with people. We will be having people over for dinner once or twice a week; we will be attending whatever social activities we can manage at our five supporting churches….for example, this month Gil is attending two different Men’s Retreats at two different churches!

We were offered a rent-free, full-sized house about an hour away from here that we could have lived in all year. We turned it down for two-bedroom apartment, because we wanted to be close to FCC. If the whole point of us being here is to connect with the Church, then we’d better be nearby.

We’ll be doing other things as well–Gil will be studying and preparing curriculum for his upcoming new ministry, we all will be deepening our level of Swahili, and we will be spending lots of time with grandparents.

So if you attend one of our supporting churches, I hope you’ll see us a lot. If we invite you over for dinner, it’s because we want to get to know you (again). We love you; we need you. And we hope that we will live up to our calling to be your extension of the Body of Christ in Tanzania.

Why Not Homeschool? (The Importance of MK Schools)

By Amy Medina

On March 18, 2010

In Other

MKs from Switzerland

Imagine this scenario:

You are a mega-super-homeschooling mom with years of experience and training. Then you are dropped in the middle of a third world city. You are expected to learn a new language, figure out how to cook, drive, shop, and keep house in an entirely new way. You have no home school co-op. You have no mom’s Bible study at church. Electricity and internet are unreliable. Your children must adjust to making friends with the national children, who speak a different language. In fact, your children often have a hard time finding friends (especially girls) because children as young as 5 and 6 are expected to work and take care of younger children. Sound difficult?

We are passionate about the ministry of Haven of Peace Academy. And as we’ve been traveling around, speaking about our passion, sometimes we get the question of why MK schools are so important. In the age of homeschooling, why put so much money and so many people into MK education? It’s a very good question.

In some countries, missionaries can send their children to local schools. In Africa, this is really not an option. For example, in Tanzania, here are the school options:

• Public schools: Consist of 200 children in one classroom. No books, no crayons. Just a teacher with a chalkboard and a switch.
• Private schools: Almost always devoutly Muslim or Hindu. All children must comply to religious rituals. Curriculum would not prepare your child for university in the west.
• The diplomat school. Very secular, but excellent western-style curriculum. However, minimum cost is $15,000 per year. Imagine raising support for that.

So then there is the option of homeschooling. I am a big advocate for homeschooling, and if we were living in the States, we would seriously consider it. But some moms just aren’t gifted for homeschooling (and that doesn’t make them bad moms). But like the picture I painted above, even if you are a homeschooling-mom-extraordinaire, the conditions for homeschooling are significantly harder overseas. Now, indeed there are many missionary families where homeschooling is their only option. But it’s often really, really hard on that mom.

Do you see why MK schools are so important? They don’t exist simply because missionaries are picky and want Christian education for their kids. They exist because they are vital to missionaries staying overseas. Vital to allow moms to have the time and energy necessary to learn the language, survive in the culture, and make local friends. Vital to allow MKs to still have enough connection to their home culture that they’ll be able to adjust back to their home country someday.

Of course, one of the reasons we chose HOPAC is because of its diversity. We love that there are 30% Tanzanian kids at the school, and another 30% from the business community. We love that there are Hindu and Muslim kids in our classes. But ultimately, we chose it because we believe in the importance of MK education. We believe that if Africa is going to be reached with the gospel, MK schools like HOPAC must exist as well.

MKs from Korea

MKs from the States

MKs from Ireland

MKs from Madagascar

Does the Church Still Need to Send Out American Missionaries? Can’t the Nationals Do it Better?

By Amy Medina

On February 16, 2009

In Other

You want to get me on a soapbox? Ask me this question.

Maybe some of you didn’t even know that Christians are asking this question. Depends on the church you attend, probably. But there are some churches who aren’t even supporting long-term missionaries any more. They have consciously decided to only support national workers and short-term missionaries.

These are the reasons:
1. National missionaries already know the language.
2. National missionaries already know the culture.
3. National missionaries are significantly cheaper than western missionaries.

Agreed. No problem agreeing there.

But these arguments leave out other important factors:
1. There are many, many people groups in the world who have yet to have one believer in their midst. Who will reach them?
2. There are many, many people groups in the world who do have an established church, but they have no missionary mindset to try to reach other groups.
3. There are many, many national believers who would love to share the gospel but have no training, often not even a high school diploma, let alone Bible training. Often they don’t even own a Bible. In Africa, often a pastor of a church won’t even own an entire Bible. Or maybe one for the entire congregation. And it probably won’t be translated into their heart language.

Missions in general is undergoing a huge shift in priorities. This is a very, very good thing. I totally agree that missions in the past was often very influenced by imperialism and ethnocentrism. Not good; not biblical–even though they did accomplish much good.

The attitude used to be: We come in; we do the work; we build it up; you depend on us.

Now, the attitude is increasingly more: We come in; we teach you to do the work; you build it up; you depend on God.

Much better.

However, short-term teams, with all of their advantages, cannot do this. Not even in a year. Or two years, depending on the country, especially if language learning is a part. Maybe more like 10 years…or longer.

And yes, the idea is for the nationals to do it. We agree that often they can do the work much better than us. One of the reasons we love teaching at HOPAC is because 40% of the kids are Tanzanian. From upper-class families. These are the kids who will go on to be the politicians, the lawyers, the movers-and-shakers. They really do have a chance to make a difference in their country and for the Kingdom. And this is the reason that one day Gil would love to be involved with training African pastors.

I love that our mission organization is not interested in just planting churches. They are interested in church planting movements. Planting churches that then plant more churches that then plant more.

Another thing to remember is that Jesus said, “Go.” Even to the ends of the earth. All believers fall into this category. All churches should be sending missionaries, not just money. I love to see this at work here in Dar es Salaam. The missionaries here are definitely not all American! We know Danish families who publish and distribute Christian literature throughout Tanzania. We know Australian families who are working on Bible translation. We know a Spanish family who is working with drug addicts. And we know Korean, Finnish, and British families who are planting churches. All of these families send their kids to HOPAC.

Did you know some of these countries are even sending missionaries to the U.S.? That’s how it should be. All churches should be senders. All nationals (including American nationals) should be missionaries.

I could go on, but I will stop after one more thought.

Missions is popular these days. Almost every Christian under the age of 30 (and many above 30) have been on at least one short-term missions trip. And there are many who are commiting to serve for a few months, even a year. This is great.

But do you know what is not popular? Career missions. The number of people who want to give their lives to career overseas missons has stagnated. It shouldn’t be this way. John Piper says that every year he takes some time to evaluate his life and ask God if He wants him overseas. What would happen if every Christian did that?