Explanation: the church amongst the Maasai
this is where we held the church service (2-8-08)
back: Luka (another evangelist), Yohane (evangelist), Malaki (pastor)front: Daniel (pastor), ??? (pastor), a man that was cut out-an older pastor or evengelist
Friday February 9th
I was waiting for today ALL week as my heart was aching to go to another village where there will be maybe 50 or so people. Last Sunday was good but very long and crowded with 500+people in the church and outside (I can only handle so many Swahili-speakers around me at one time)!! :)
After breakfast I went to morning devotion and then I went to class for about 35 minutes so I could finish my exercise practice page and start fresh with lesson 32 on Monday with a new teacher! I was going to try and check my e-mail in the office as that is the only place around here that has had internet for the past 2 days however it was busy and Chuma said that the Fundi (repairman) was coming to fix the internet today. I was hoping to be able to post online when I returned after dinner tonight however the power had went out for about an hour because guess what? Another storm came through for an hour!! The power came back on about 7 though and internet still isn’t working though!! It was fine earlier in the week but this last half I have been more frustrated because I have wanted to put up my posts instead of having them all saved! Oh well~ not much I can do about the unreliable infrastructure :)
Anyway, PH said we would leave about 9am… so I was ready to go however PH had a meeting from 7:30-9 with the Roach's and so I had another half hour. Luka came by and I needed his help to change the light bulb in my room because I was not tall enough J and then we tried to fix a 3-ring-binder (my 2nd “book” of lessons) as it wouldn’t close. Neither of us was successful. We went to the car and waited for PH to come and we eventually left about 9:40am! Hakuna shida (no problem)! It was the first time it was just PH, Luka and myself…but of course we would pick up people- that’s always a given now :)
On the drive we stopped to buy a couple Tanzanian newspapers (one in English and one in Swahili) because I never know what’s happening in the country!! And I believe it was Wednesday that the Prime Minister turned in his letter of resignation to the President as well as other members of parliament. I don’t know a whole lot…but Friday a new Prime Minister was already chosen.
Also, on the crisis in Kenya: 1000 people have been killed, thousands injured, and about 300,000 have been left homeless…due to this ethnic rivalry between the two largest tribes− the Kikuyus and Luos. Nicole who was at the language school during January and was working on Mombasa, Kenya had said that she knows there are refugee camps in Northern Tanzania for those that have fled the violence.
About halfway into the drive we pick up our first extra passenger: Luka (who is either an evangelist or another pastor). Then we pick up Yohane (an evangelist), another man, and eventually 3 of the 12 pastors that were ordained in the big celebration this past Sunday!!!! (Malaki, Daniel, and one more whose name I forget)!
I have decided that I really need to be keeping a notebook actually OUT with me all of the time because so many things happen that I need to write down right away- or PH just has the funniest stories/comments sometimes and I think I will remember them, but throughout the course of a day so much information is coming in and out that there is an overload of knowledge to take in and absorb, but even though I am typically good at memorizing I just cannot remember it all! Yesterday PH asks me (the only woman in the car of course) if I was going to be able to handle being with all these clergymen, because add Pastor H and Luka (evangelist) up front to all the passengers and that’s a lot of clergy!! :) He also was telling Luka that he would probably be good at herding cattle too (as he is obviously a great builder and good at most everything he does)…and that when he owns 100 cattle someday that Luka can be in charge of herding them!! I said, PH just where are you planning on getting 100 cattle?! (I probably shouldn’t have asked as PH could probably easily get them…)! He said, “well- I will get 20 for you!!”
Hahaha- such is the humor of Pastor Herb Hafermann…more to come in subsequent posts!
We arrive around 11:30am I believe. It was a beautiful location with a small mountain close by… sometimes I get mad at myself when I return because I didn’t take more pictures, but again- it’s just so touristy to take pictures and one never knows the reactions they will get when brining out a camera. Sometimes the kids will never stop bugging you to take their picture and I feel that most mamas generally just don’t like it… I don’t want to be disrespectful in any way…just my presence is usually foreign enough and I always manage to make at least one small baby howl.
Most of the men in the car went in the church and chatted on some benches…I brought my newspaper with and “sat” (more like leaned against) on the cement “window.” Soon I had about 3 young Maasai men (teenagers) on my right and about 4 little boys on my left looking at the paper with me. Yohane came over to talk to me and asked me some questions in Swahili (turns out he knows English pretty well and I believe also speaks kiiMaasai)! Also- his name is pronounced just like mine! Johane and Alana… Yohane is actually “John” in English!
The rest of the afternoon flew by as Luka came over to sit by me and we really worked on my Swahili! I struggled, but I worked on forming some sentences! I also helped him with some English words. PH came over and told me I have a new Swahili teacher! :) I also asked him if he had been outside of Tanzania (never) and if he wants to go anywhere else maybe… he said, America. Turns out, he tried to come in the Winter/Spring of ’06 because he was going to work with Habitat for Humanity on building homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast… he applied for a 3-month Visa but they denied him because he did not have a wife! They didn’t want him finding an American wife and then staying in America…
Then, Yohane took Luka’s place and he was talking to most of the children- showing them a Bible translated into kiiMaasai. Yohane asked me if I wanted to try reading kiiMaasai and I laughed and he gave me the Bible and so for the next few minutes I had children around me as I am sitting in the window REALLY struggling to read this incredibly hard tribal language. Yohane told me I couldn’t speak any kiiIngereza (English) the rest of the day! haha
Well, then I showed him some verses in Jeremiah in the kiiMaasai Bible and he looked them up in the kiiSwahili Bible. Then we switched and he picked a couple passages and had me read them in kiiSwahili. It was such a relief to see kiiSwahili after trying to read kiiMaasai- I was thankful for something that I could pronounce!! :) Just a wonderful, surreal experience again…
Before I knew it time had flown and it was about 2:15-2:30. Mama’s had slowly been filing in with their children for the past hour and we were ready to begin. I sat on a bench in the back between Yohane and Luka! The service was wonderful (one of my favorites so far)! There was a nice cool breeze flowing in and up front there was a couple steps of concrete so the pastors were raised up a little bit (therefore I could see easily)! And it was neat to see 4 pastors up front (the other 3 new pastors took turns splitting up the service to get more familiar with it)!! There was a “men’s choir-“so about 5 guys (including Yohane and a couple of the pastors) and then many of the young girls/women sang songs as well! I almost knew all of the pages to turn to for the liturgy- but it was wonderful because Luka translated some of PH’s sermon and during introductions and Yohane had a kiiSwahili Bible so I could follow along with the scripture reading!Friday February 9th
I was waiting for today ALL week as my heart was aching to go to another village where there will be maybe 50 or so people. Last Sunday was good but very long and crowded with 500+people in the church and outside (I can only handle so many Swahili-speakers around me at one time)!! :)
After breakfast I went to morning devotion and then I went to class for about 35 minutes so I could finish my exercise practice page and start fresh with lesson 32 on Monday with a new teacher! I was going to try and check my e-mail in the office as that is the only place around here that has had internet for the past 2 days however it was busy and Chuma said that the Fundi (repairman) was coming to fix the internet today. I was hoping to be able to post online when I returned after dinner tonight however the power had went out for about an hour because guess what? Another storm came through for an hour!! The power came back on about 7 though and internet still isn’t working though!! It was fine earlier in the week but this last half I have been more frustrated because I have wanted to put up my posts instead of having them all saved! Oh well~ not much I can do about the unreliable infrastructure :)
Anyway, PH said we would leave about 9am… so I was ready to go however PH had a meeting from 7:30-9 with the Roach's and so I had another half hour. Luka came by and I needed his help to change the light bulb in my room because I was not tall enough J and then we tried to fix a 3-ring-binder (my 2nd “book” of lessons) as it wouldn’t close. Neither of us was successful. We went to the car and waited for PH to come and we eventually left about 9:40am! Hakuna shida (no problem)! It was the first time it was just PH, Luka and myself…but of course we would pick up people- that’s always a given now :)
On the drive we stopped to buy a couple Tanzanian newspapers (one in English and one in Swahili) because I never know what’s happening in the country!! And I believe it was Wednesday that the Prime Minister turned in his letter of resignation to the President as well as other members of parliament. I don’t know a whole lot…but Friday a new Prime Minister was already chosen.
Also, on the crisis in Kenya: 1000 people have been killed, thousands injured, and about 300,000 have been left homeless…due to this ethnic rivalry between the two largest tribes− the Kikuyus and Luos. Nicole who was at the language school during January and was working on Mombasa, Kenya had said that she knows there are refugee camps in Northern Tanzania for those that have fled the violence.
About halfway into the drive we pick up our first extra passenger: Luka (who is either an evangelist or another pastor). Then we pick up Yohane (an evangelist), another man, and eventually 3 of the 12 pastors that were ordained in the big celebration this past Sunday!!!! (Malaki, Daniel, and one more whose name I forget)!
I have decided that I really need to be keeping a notebook actually OUT with me all of the time because so many things happen that I need to write down right away- or PH just has the funniest stories/comments sometimes and I think I will remember them, but throughout the course of a day so much information is coming in and out that there is an overload of knowledge to take in and absorb, but even though I am typically good at memorizing I just cannot remember it all! Yesterday PH asks me (the only woman in the car of course) if I was going to be able to handle being with all these clergymen, because add Pastor H and Luka (evangelist) up front to all the passengers and that’s a lot of clergy!! :) He also was telling Luka that he would probably be good at herding cattle too (as he is obviously a great builder and good at most everything he does)…and that when he owns 100 cattle someday that Luka can be in charge of herding them!! I said, PH just where are you planning on getting 100 cattle?! (I probably shouldn’t have asked as PH could probably easily get them…)! He said, “well- I will get 20 for you!!”
Hahaha- such is the humor of Pastor Herb Hafermann…more to come in subsequent posts!
We arrive around 11:30am I believe. It was a beautiful location with a small mountain close by… sometimes I get mad at myself when I return because I didn’t take more pictures, but again- it’s just so touristy to take pictures and one never knows the reactions they will get when brining out a camera. Sometimes the kids will never stop bugging you to take their picture and I feel that most mamas generally just don’t like it… I don’t want to be disrespectful in any way…just my presence is usually foreign enough and I always manage to make at least one small baby howl.
Most of the men in the car went in the church and chatted on some benches…I brought my newspaper with and “sat” (more like leaned against) on the cement “window.” Soon I had about 3 young Maasai men (teenagers) on my right and about 4 little boys on my left looking at the paper with me. Yohane came over to talk to me and asked me some questions in Swahili (turns out he knows English pretty well and I believe also speaks kiiMaasai)! Also- his name is pronounced just like mine! Johane and Alana… Yohane is actually “John” in English!
The rest of the afternoon flew by as Luka came over to sit by me and we really worked on my Swahili! I struggled, but I worked on forming some sentences! I also helped him with some English words. PH came over and told me I have a new Swahili teacher! :) I also asked him if he had been outside of Tanzania (never) and if he wants to go anywhere else maybe… he said, America. Turns out, he tried to come in the Winter/Spring of ’06 because he was going to work with Habitat for Humanity on building homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast… he applied for a 3-month Visa but they denied him because he did not have a wife! They didn’t want him finding an American wife and then staying in America…
Then, Yohane took Luka’s place and he was talking to most of the children- showing them a Bible translated into kiiMaasai. Yohane asked me if I wanted to try reading kiiMaasai and I laughed and he gave me the Bible and so for the next few minutes I had children around me as I am sitting in the window REALLY struggling to read this incredibly hard tribal language. Yohane told me I couldn’t speak any kiiIngereza (English) the rest of the day! haha
Well, then I showed him some verses in Jeremiah in the kiiMaasai Bible and he looked them up in the kiiSwahili Bible. Then we switched and he picked a couple passages and had me read them in kiiSwahili. It was such a relief to see kiiSwahili after trying to read kiiMaasai- I was thankful for something that I could pronounce!! :) Just a wonderful, surreal experience again…
And the very end of the service just made my heart overflow with joy as we sang Wimbo # 317 (my favorite, and in English it’s called: My Hope is Built on Nothing Less). As the pastors walked out PH looked over and smiled at me because I told him a couple days ago how much I love to sing that song as everyone files out to shake hands in a circle!!! :) I have the chorus memorized already! I will have to try and take a video of this to show you all. I have many videos that I will also try posting later on as well!!
After the service was over the clergy disperses to clean up and Yohane and I hang out by all of these children around us. Well, he is chatting with many of them, and they make some comments about me I’m sure- but they loved to feel my hair again…and a couple young girls (including mothers) about 17 or so came over and just liked to look at the white girl. They seemed to be pretty curious about my bangs as they pushed them to the side, only to see them fall just above my eyes again! :) Yohane was great to have around! He has such a jovial, friendly spirit about him (like Immanuel and Mliga- the other evangelists I’ve mentioned how much I like), and the difference is that he actually knows English too which is always a big help (when people know both kiiSwahili and English).
About 4:15pm we (the men, and me as the typical “honorary man” in the villages) sat on a few benches outside. One Maasai man sitting next to me asked me (in kiiSwahili of course) my name and where I am from, but then the problem comes when they go further and say another sentence and then I am like, shoot, and I sit there helpless as the other men laugh :) Anyway, food is served…we each had an individual bowl of rice with some kind of greens on top and a SPOON!! No meat, as supposedly some people didn’t get the word that Pastor was coming to do a service today…I however, was just fine with that!
We left at about 4:45pm and it was a good thing as there was a large dark wall of clouds rolling in. We get out of the tough tertiary road and had just dropped off one of the Pastors at his home when the rain started… oh did it rain. It was a bad storm (with some small hail and lightning). We had to drive real slow as it was practically torrential rain. We even stopped alongside the road for about 10-15minutes. The ditches were already rivers so it was a good thing we were back on paved Primary road! The next Pastor we drop off has to first roll up his pant legs and take off his shoes and socks and put sandals on and then we watch him run across the road down through the water-filled ditch to a hut with an over-hang. This pastor, Daniel, was sitting next to me in the car and he was reading my newspaper. He also knows English and so he asked me a few questions- and I showed him pictures from Mikumi National Park as I had pictures and videos of giraffes (plenty)! On the way back, I forgot to mention, we drove by a “farm.” A rich Arab owns a few camels (we didn’t see them) and ostriches and also zonkeys! (a cross between a donkey and a zebra… the legs were striped! A wartburg student coined the name a couple years ago supposedly)!
We continued to drop people off and eventually get back to the school by 6:45pm. I had an apple and a granola bar for dinner as once again, on village days I eat breakfast at 7:00-7:30am, then lunch at 4-5:30pm in the village and that is usually it! It was raining hard here as well though and guess what? The storm had knocked the power out of course, so even though the Fundi had come to fix the internet I still wasn’t able to use it!!
I can never start writing right away as sometimes, the way that God breaks me is to reflect and to cry. Most times I come back from villages and the day goes by so fast and then I’m sitting in my room and it’s overwhelming and it is such a release to listen to music (usually Jeremy Camp, who writes songs exactly how I feel and is very reflective) and to pray and just think. It’s like this sudden rush of emotion hits me when I am suddenly back. During this time yesterday evening the word “Alive” came to me as I thought about the church service that afternoon and all my previous experiences…I’m almost half-way through my experience already and my first 3 weeks of village visits are practically a blur…with what pictures I do have I can remember, but what I will take back with me are experiences and thoughts and emotions that I cannot put onto film, or even fully describe. Yes, I kick myself when I return sometimes, but certain villages I just don’t have this need to take any pictures…I only want to just simply “BE.” To be present. What I will remember and take back with me will forever be on my heart.
The church is SO ALIVE in the Maasai people, and those that are working with them- such as Pastor Hafermann and all of the Evangelists and other pastors that I have met (and those many that I have not)… The ordination of those 12 pastors last weekend was Huge! And I know I keep saying that, but again, I know that I still don’t realize how huge it was/is and probably never will…but Pastor LeeAnn (from my first week) was right: We are living and breathing the early church… I feel like I am walking through one of the Gospels. I started thinking about how I have worshipped with many Maasai in a variety of different places…under a large Tamarind tree, near some smaller bush-like trees, in a typical Maasai hut made of mud/cow dung/thatched roof, in an open-air church made of sticks and a thatched roof, and inside a church made with cement walls... I began to wonder about the hearts of the Maasai and what they really think about Jesus and Christianity and for me, I’m all about meaning… (maybe that’s why God gave me the gift to FEEL so much through music and not the gift of an incredible singing voice)… but this spread of Christianity is still pretty recent in the Maasai villages. It brings me such joy to see these people coming together in one place though, and just singing their hearts out (maybe with some actions too)! And I thought about worshipping under a tree and how it really was a fine place to worship but what is SO great about building at least a cement block church is that these people have some place to gather for a service, and not only that, but do you think that maybe the Maasai are in awe that people would CARE that much about them (about their hearts, their souls, and their culture) to come drive all the way out to them, and then to build a church there. Wow. That is why God made us relational people at our core…and why Umoja ni Nguvu…why unity truly is strength. To build a church it costs $5000, which is a lot, and yet not very much at the same time…
Well, I am glad that the power was restored about 10pm last night, so I was able to put up my other posts from the week!! It is still taking a long time to upload pictures… today’s pictures are 2 of maybe only 4 that I took!
Blessings for the weekend!!
unified through Him,
Alana :)
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