Tom and Sally Roach: the ELCA global missionary reps that we had dinner with (Thursday Feb 7th)! 
Sister Paulette, me, Sister Aileen- eating ice cream to celebrate all of us making it to Swahili Book # 2 as well as my half-birthday (Monday Feb 4th)!THESE PICTURES: Feb 1 Village visit!
Godfrey teaching me for about 20 minutes!
kind of blurry, but right when the rain started before communion! 
PH and me~ soaking wet! but happy :)
me and nicole
me and PH with some Maasai warriors! 
Nicole, myself, Godfrey eating/drinking more chai after the rainy service!
with the first man that wanted a picture :)Thursday February 14th
Happy LOVE Day!!! (wait…shouldn’t EVERY day be Love day??!!!)
Godfrey gave quite the morning devotion this morning. Aside from having us turn to our neighbor’s and tell them “Happy Valentine’s Day he talked for quite some time about Daniel 3: 24-30 (I believe). I think others were hoping that he would just finish talking, but I thoroughly enjoyed it as he talks about what the passage means for us… he talks slowly and confidently- challenging us to think. He has great poise and confidence in the way he holds himself and knows how to draw people in and captivate their attention. He discussed the faith of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendego…how they were willing to be thrown in a firey furnace for their faith. Godfrey posed the question to us: “Do we have a faith like that?” Harold, a delightful German man that joined us this week, was the first to raise his hand and admit “I don’t!”
Class was good all day~ I studied after lunch as I had a test after my break. My teacher, Gloria, is 20 and she finished From 6 last year and is actually in her first year at the University in Moshi (northern Tanzania) studying accounting. She is teaching here at the school during her holiday break for 3 weeks! She is actually very young it seems to be at the University already- compared to “most” Tanzanian students. I learned the colors- which are quite difficult to remember and some have prefixes. Then we got into a discussion about gender after she figured out that my favorite color was blue (she said she noticed I had a lot of it!) :) She said that when someone has a baby and they want to give a gift, pink is given for girls and blue for boys- nothing different there! We also got into a discussion about stereotypes and movies when she asked about cheerleaders- although she didn’t know the name! She loves movies and asked me about Mean Girls (with Lindsay Lohan) and said she likes movies with Lindsay, Hilary Duff, and Kirsten Dunst! I was able to bring a couple movies and so I lent her one of my favorite “chick flicks” called Center Stage! (She liked it so much she said she was going to watch it again Friday night)!
After dinner on Thursday, one of my roommates had informed me that Luke Menard made it into the Top 24 for the seventh season of American Idol!! He is from the wonderful a cappella group: Chapter 6!! I met them when they came to Wartburg my freshman year, and then again my sophomore year where I was one of two girls serenaded on stage by Luke and another member!! They also came this past fall to Wartburg again but I was unable to see them :( He’s a wonderful guy and I was very excited to “know” someone so I went to the American Idol website for a while to look up some info!
Friday February 15th
Jacob gave the morning devotion on 1 Corinthians 13 (the Love chapter)…and he read us a cross-cultural worker version of this chapter produced by the ELCA maybe?! I will get a copy of it and write it sometime soon!! It was just excellent!! Class was great today! However, 5 minutes before noon the rain decided to come…it poured for about 25 minutes so we had to watch from the indoor classroom. Then, our usual walking path (on the red soil) back to the blocks/dining hall was a river, so we went the long way around-through the school (which had large puddles of water here and there due to leaks). However, 1 hour later the sun is out and the ground is already almost hard again!! After class at 4 I went to town with the Koreans: MeeHa and the South Korean couple who have their own vehicle! It was fun walking around with them…the poor man- he had to tag around and watch us ladies looking at kitenge (skirt material) shops!! So sometimes MeeHa would speak in Korean to them, and then tell me in English so I wouldn’t feel left out- then we would speak Swahili to the shop owners to ask them questions! I felt SO much more confident going to town this time and I could tell that I had improved since going to town on Monday the 4th- almost two weeks more of lessons really helped my vocabulary and confidence! I am getting more and more comfortable with where things are located in the market or other stores, and also with my greetings! Tanzanians are very friendly and most of the time they will always greet you with something…but now, I’ve decided to try and be the first one to greet others and I love to walk away seeing smiles cross their faces and their heads perk up at this pale-skinned girl crossing the communication barrier first! :) We found so many more shops with beautiful material and so I will be going back of course!! The last place we stopped was Pira’s- the infamous grocery store on the corner that is one of the best in town so we park by it every time! I had to pick up some things for Sister Annette and Carol, and also myself! I bought more apples as they were down to 600 shillings (60 cents)! And I splurged on cereal- but the cheapest kind, so it was 5,200 shillings… but well worth it if it helps my digestive system!! :) We arrived back just in time for dinner at 6pm and the rest of the night I spent doing a little studying and caught up somewhat on my posts!!!
Saturday February 16th
I got up and went to breakfast at 7am, and then came back to sleep some more! However…I really should have learned by now that it’s better if I go to bed early and never take naps because usually the workers are always doing something-but really, the loudest ones are the children that are running around by 8:30am playing outside…and the two little Norwegian children that live by me are not very well-behaved… So I do not feel very rested but hopefully tonight I will sleep well! I spent most of the day on the Bread for the World website- it’s a wonderful Christian domestic/world hunger fighting organization and the hunger awareness group at Wartburg, called Manna, that I have been a part of works with this organization!! Well, then I got all excited just for God’s plans for me and what I hope to be doing occupation-wise, etc and so I read a couple of the introductions, are parts of other books that I brought….they have been sitting on my bookshelf untouched and I want so badly to read them but right now I still have more Swahili to be studying and more writing to be doing…but it excited me about being here as well as going home and just about being the church…being part of Jesus’ great commission- knowing that the Kingdom of God is not just meant for later, but for now- here on EARTH as it is in Heaven…and what we can be doing- at home and/or abroad to stand up for truth and fight for justice!!
I sat outside for about 30-45 minutes working on some writing...but I can’t do much more than that because the past two days, I have noticed that after sitting in the sun for 10 minutes I am already drowning in a pool of sweat!! But the actual air temperature is so nice, and so I really enjoy the warmth of the sun! Megan has coined the word “sweat bath” when she sees me sitting in my blue chair! :) I did a nice work out before showering and heading to dinner at 6:10! Tonight I have much e-mailing catch up to do, and hopefully some of these pictures from the past couple of weeks will decide to work! I am in dire need of washing more clothes so hopefully that happens as well…as far as studying goes- well, that may have to wait until after I return from the village tomorrow night! Goodness~ time just keeps flying!! My parents will be here in less than a month now!
**If anyone also has any news on the shootings in Illinois please let me know~ it is hard to find out much here!! This really hits home as the Stubb family (Randy and Carol and kids) who teach music at the University in northern Tanzania are from Illinois and went to the school-they both have taught in the same auditorium… small world, huh?!
In my thoughts and prayers…
Lala salaama (sleep well)!
with sorrow and love,
Alana :)
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