22 baptisms on the 22nd :)

NOTE: From NOW ON I am going to refer to Pastor Hafermann as PH!!!! :)

Ohhh what a day!!! I did not get very much sleep last night and now I am especially feeling it after the day is over :(

I got up about 6:30am to shower so I could wake up and went to breakfast (which I am thouroughly enjoying going to)! I had today’s morning devotion again at 7:45 so I talked about John 15:1-5. I Love John 15…excellent chapter!!! Verse 5 always rocks me: “Apart from me you can do nothing.” Yes, just last Friday in my devotion I talked about relying on God always…but sometimes, I do not WANT to…and that’s my selfish/prideful/ independent fallen humanity side coming out wanting to be a branch that breaks off from the vine and go off on it’s own…but apart from the TRUE VINE (Jesus) we can do nothing… maybe for a while we will survive or think we are doing something…and we may even bear fruit….but according to Jesus…not fruit that will LAST… Are we bearing fruit that will Last?!?!

Then I had a break from 8-8:40 before we had to leave for another village. Remember, time in Africa is never “on time exactly” so I forget that when Pastor H says we will leave at 8:30am it’s more like 9am!! So today it was PH, LeeAnn, myself, and mimi mwalimu (my teacher) that came along! Therefore, for the first hour or so I was able to continue in my lessons! However, the last 30 minutes or so we ended up picking up 5 more people!!! (At least 3 were evangelists I believe). So there were 3 in the back, 4 squished in the middle and PH and LeeAnn up front!! PH was definitely not lying yesterday when he said “oh don’t worry, we’ll just pick up more passengers.” Sometimes I do not know where everyone comes from! But it is always exciting!
We only had to drive about 20 minutes on a secondary/tertiary road to get to this small village today!! (Unfortunately we had to go through MANY scratchy trees/bushes…and we didn’t even take a wrong “turn” this time)!
We arrived about 11:10am…pretty early! Todays service and an all day “coffee (tea) fellowship” BEFORE the service took place under a Large Tamarind tree (yes, there is a juice called Tamarindo juice that this tree has a part in somehow)! There is no church built here yet. So, for about an hour LeeAnn, myself and PH sat on some chairs and chatted in English, and PH would talk to the other men (about 4 Maasai men and like 10 others- most Evangelists I guess) in Swahili of course. Then everyone gathered around a small wooden table to have chai (the SAME delicious chai we had in last Friday’s village with the ground up ginger) oh, do the Maasai know how to make tea!!! We also had Maadazi with the tea!! (my favorite food in Tanzania…I’ve mentioned it previously)!
Finally, about 12:30??! PH decides it’s “time” to start registering for baptisms…so he and a couple Evangelists take the Baptism cards and go under a smaller tree and people start showing up… I remember PH saying there was a family that needed to be baptized here, but remember, with Christianity being recent in the past few years in these villages many of these families are HUGE still, with one man having many wives and children… For the next 2 hours, LeeAnn and I had a wonderful conversation about life and the church and seminary and about my family’s sponsorship of my Tanzanian sister, Selina and her home congregation in Virginia! (We took a 10 minute break early on to walk to the land rover to get some water and as I walked around back to my side my right eye came straight into contact with a branch sticking straight out at my level… So I couldn’t open my eye for a couple minutes, but Moreto (my teacher) and my favorite tall Evangelist friend (whom I talked about and met on Friday showed up here at this village as well) helped look at my eye and I put some eye drops in it to flush it out!! Moreto helped me study for a few minutes as well… then LeeAnn and I went back to our conversastion. It really was so peaceful sitting under the tree as it was much cooler and breezier and we were out of the sun and 4-5 men were just singing Swahili hymns softly in different harmonies and the other men were chatting. Note: there are only 2 wooden chairs (which we had) and like 3-4 other plastic chairs…then there are maybe 6 tiny stools a few inches off the ground…nothing else!
As we talked about struggles in finding out exactly one’s calling and what one is supposed to do with there life, and about trusting God to reveal in small amounts…she reminded me of how humbling it is to be here because it puts life in perspective… as I worry daily about what I’m supposed to do with my life ( how can I live both lives…truly live what I believe without constantly feeling like a hypocrite? When in reality…we are all hypocrites…) there are people here worrying simply worrying about HOW to live… and then there’s another part of the spectrum…the part that is so easy to fall into and I will take the first blame for it…about wondering what in the world am I going to wear, or what I’m going to do this weekend… but living simply so far has been great!! Simple outfits, and no make-up (granted, one always looks better w/a tan!), and only some gel for my hair…it saves time in the morning, so I can sleep, or get my journaling done!!!
Anyway…the registering is done, and somehow an area is organized into a sanctuary as some chairs are set up one side (and since we were the guests, LeeAnn and I each got one) and the little table is used as an altar and of course, PH’s 2-3 cushion kneelers… then PH asks me what time it is and I say, about 2:50pm and he said, oh my we better begin…I took Luka’s place today in telling him what time it was, and LeeAnn took Luka’s place as co-pilot to be PH’s pair of second eyes!!
So, the service began, with the men on one side (we were honorary men today…well, come to think of it whenever we eat we are honorary men!) and the women and children sitting on mats or the dirt ground on the other side of the tree. The service is always good and goes by fast…although it’s well over 2 hours and I never look at my watch! I love to sing the Swahili hymns, and today one of the Evangelists who has a super loud voice shared his hymnal and Swahili Bible with me~ it was great!! Also, more organized like the first village on Friday that we visited, they had some songs “prepared,” so many of the men- the Evangelists and Bible School students (or soon to be) formed a line and did some songs…I love it because to keep the beat they bob their bodies and do a sort of grunt-hum and stamp…it’s hard to describe…it’s a bob, or a bouncing action maybe, or a wave?! Good thing I took some pictures today…and a video!!!
It makes me laugh…as well as the Maasai men, to watch :) (but because it’s so fun) Today we had 2 pastors up front, as a native pastor joined PH so there were basically 2 sermons, communion, offering, and of course the baptisms….
There was only 1 on Friday and then on Sunday there were many but it was so crowded and since there were so many of us wazungus(white people) I didn’t want to feel even More like a tourist, so I didn’t take any pictures really, and I couldn’t see. (I always struggle with picture taking here…especially of people, and the services, even though it’s completely okay. I just don’t want to come across as exploitative, but no matter what, some villages there are probably always going to be a few that feel that way…) Today, in fact, a couple of the Evangelists literally told LeeAnn and I to go to the front to take pictures…it was pretty incredible. I mean, it’s one thing to see pictures of PH doing this all the time, but experiencing it is a whole other feeling!!! It was mostly children and then some mothers and a couple very small children… the children included some young girls, 8-15 and then 6 young 15 year old Maasai young warrior boys. They definitely do not look 15!!!!
There was indeed 22 in all!!! :) What a perfect day to have 22 baptisms…on the 22nd!!! My favorite number of course!!! I love watching PH…when the men sang and “bounced” some more later on, he was just sitting happy as a lark in his chair up front, smiling giddily and bobbing his head and mouthing some words along with the men!!! It made me laugh :) He also is incredibly captivating to watch and listen too when he gives a sermon (even if I understand practically zero of what he is saying). He has a way of reaching out and keeping everyone’s attention, from the children to the adults, to the elders… then again, that’s why He’s here, in Tanzania using his gifts…and has been for 45 years!!! *I found out that of the 13000 people he works with…there is 113 villages, and 70 evangelists…he does services 4 days a week: Tues, Wed, Fri, and Sun!!
Anyway…after the service since we can’t obviously file out the “back” at all, we do the wonderful shaking hands line in a half circle around the tree….I am near the end and happen to look over to my left, where there is a woman on the ground looking like she is having a seizure and an Evangelist trying to help- he had his hand behind her neck/head…well then we finished the prayer and as people were dispersing a bit, this woman just went absolutely crazy- shaking uncontrollably and waving her arms back and forth and yelling/groaning and then there were like 4 Evangelists, trying to get her to sit still, and then the 2 Pastors came over, and they kept praying over her…well, when she was still (after the evil spirit had left her) she said she wanted to be baptized, so there was one more baptism after the service today… her husband told the Pastor’s, Yes, please baptize her, this evil spirit has been torturing her and our family for years and I can’t take it anymore… *NOTE: the women (and therefore children I believe) have to have permission from their husband’s to be baptized
PH said they gave her the Christian name~ Magdalena: “one whom Jesus has cast seven spirits out of!”

More of the story came out when PH came over to us and said she was completely fine and free of this spirit… supposedly she is 36 and went to a traditional medicine man or similar years ago when she was giving birth…well, that’s when she received a necklace to wear in which the spirit resides… it is “supposed to” help with pain, and problems giving birth-fetal issues so of course many women are desperate for something. Well, how these traditional “healers” keep getting money and keep existing is because the women have to go back to them so they can “put the spirit to sleep.”
Turns out, this same woman had just come from doing that and was walking back but didn’t make it in time for the service, but the first Evangelist I saw with this woman saw her coming and as soon as she got to the area she started convulsing and so he put her on the mat and immediately noticed the necklace and took it off of her… (this is when I saw)…then you know the rest! Praying in Jesus’ name is Powerful…because He IS all-powerful and greater than any work of darkness…
So, that was my first live demon possession…

My goodness I’ve had a lot to take in the past few days of my first village visits!

Well, it was about 5:20pm by this time, and there were dark storm clouds rolling in, so food was brought to us!! The pastors and LeeAnn and I sat around the table and guess what?! We got spoons to use!!!! No eating with my right hand…I couldn’t believe it!!! And we got glass bottles of Pepsi even too!!! This was the best village visit yet ;)
Unfortunately, the rain came in so fast that we had maybe 10-15 minutes to eat, while we saw an amazing rainbow, then it started raining, and so we quickly (all 9 of us) went to the car to leave by about 5:45-5:50pm…then the other Pastor biked ahead of us to lead us to a place where we could get back onto the tertiary road…it was Pouring by this time and he was soaked!!! I was worried, as the “roads” were already getting soggy…so we were fine for a while and going in the right direction, but then the men in the car were confused, as it was tough to see too, and we had to turn around a couple times before we finally got on the Secondary Road then right to Primary Road for the rest of the way!! The last hour or so Moreto and I worked on another lesson!! He’s very gentle, and patient, and I appreciate that as I was tired and couldn’t think very well!!!

It was a great day!!! I was so happy to see my tall Evangelist friend and finally find out his name, Manuel! I didn’t get a picture with him :( But I shall see him again I’d assume!!!!

Tomorrow, we go yet again to another village!!! I am already exhausted, but tomorrow is my last village visit for at least a week, as PH and Luka have to go a village super far way ALL weekend- from Friday to Sunday :( But, this will force me to rest, at least on Friday and Sunday as I am climbing the mountain on Saturday!!! Hopefully I can upload pictures this weekend too!!!!

Well, I need to get some rest!!!!

Happy Reading!

In awe,
Alana :)