The Update of September 22

The update of September 22:
Last weekend, I had the opportunity to go to a Tanzanian wedding of one of my colleagues at Haven of Peace. It quite different from American weddings! It is tradition here that the bride is supposed to look sad and forlorn because she is leaving her father's house, so throughout the whole wedding, the bride did not smile! The people around the bride, however, were dancing, singing, shouting, clapping- think of a sound of rejoicing and it was probably there. The rejoicing was made complete by the women of the groom's tribe rolling around on the floor in front of the bride and groom after the completion of the wedding to signify their respect and excitement for the couple! It was definitely a cultural experience! I tried to post pictures of it a million times tonight to absolutely no avail. I'll try to post some more pictures soon!

On Sunday, my friends Laura, Cathleen, and I were invited to attend Hopac's Tanzanian secretary's church. Now, there is necessary background information here. When we said that we would love to attend, she told us that the service is usually in Swahili but the sermon would be preached in English. While we were not fans of the church changing its language for us, we just accepted it. Well, the day following our invite, we got a note from the secretary, Cecilia, asking us which one of us was intending to preach. You see, in African culture, it's not uncommon for traditional churches to ask their guests to preach the message. Anyway, we decided that we would all preach for 20 minutes (since the total length was supposed to be an hour out of the 3.5 hour service). After this decision was made and we all felt peace about our role in the service, Friday came around and so did another request- could we please lead a song or two as well? :-) So, needless to say, we spent Sunday leading worship and the Holy Spirit, in His usual good form, provided us with a wonderful topic to preach about who God is, who we are, and why it matters for our life today! This experience was made complete by the fact that we took a daladala there (the common form of African public transportation) and enjoyed the bliss that is wall to wall people in a 90 degree climate. :-) It was ALL GREAT!!!! Now, we're back to the grind of a school week, but somehow Friday has managed to arrive already! I feel like the time goes by even more rapidly here. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that I get up at 6:15 and am ready for bed by 9:30 most nights. :-)

School is going well and more and more students are being added to my timetable everyday. Currently, I am pulling 10+ kids out of classes, helping in three grade levels one hour per week, and working one-on-one with two secondary students as well. In addition to school, I keep myself busy with 4 hours of Swahili lessons a week (now 2 of those hours with a non-Christian teacher so please pray that she would see the light of Christ in us!), staff meetings, and school prep work.

On the fun side, our HOPAC staff is taking a boat to a nearby island to go snorkeling on Saturday. Don't worry friends and supporters. I don't spend all my time basking in the sun and swimming with the dolphins.

One last thing- If any of you feel inspired, I could certainly use a small package from the US for my special needs kids. I am in need of thin markers of any and all sizes, magnetic letters, tile letters (like scrabble tiles), and wiki sticks. I'm also very much in need of manila folders. No pressure--- just if you feel led! :-)