Africa Journal: Part 3

7.15.08:

I am now on a flight from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania to Dubai, UAE. This is the first leg of our three-part journey back home. I didn’t get to journal as much as I had hoped. I have been extremely busy on this trip, and sitting down to type out my thoughts was kinda low on the priority list.

Here’s what has happened in the last week:
-We had a very successful VBS at HOPAC
-Robbie broke his arm at VBS while playing tag with a couple kids.
-I got to spend time with kids from all over the globe again.
-Our team met with many of the missionaries who serve in Dar es Salaam in order to hear about their work. We spent an afternoon with Steve and Carole Lyons and dinner with Merle Weins.
-We went on a two-day safari at Mikumi National Park. Almost everyone on our team got sick from some bad curry we ate at a hole in the wall restaurant in rural Tanzania.
-We had a debrief meeting with Gil and Amy Medina.

Now that I’ve caught up with the details of the last week, I want to comment on our opportunity to meet with each missionary. In particular, meeting with the Lyons was eye opening. We met at their house for a few hours. Their house is in the middle of a very poor neighborhood in Dar. I can’t remember the name of this community, but many of them are poor H and M’s and live on less than two dollars a day. Imagine the most pitiful World Vision video you’ve ever seen; that is this neighborhood. As with any traveling within Dar, our group of white Americans stuck our like a sore white thumb in the middle of urban Africa. After weaving in between rows of concrete form houses in this dense neighborhood, we arrived at a gate. When the security guard let us through, we found a regular Tanzanian house in the middle of this intensely impoverished community. It was like an island in a sea of poverty. Just outside of the Lyons’ living room window was a loudspeaker that blasted the call to prayer four or five times a day. We talked with the Lyons for a couple hours about their ministry. Here’s the highlights:

-They are trying to reach this community through English teaching, Bible studies, and narrative worldview classes.
-They are developing a program to train Christian nationals to teach in local villages. This is a way for someone to enter a specific community and begin helping the local people and introduce the people to Jesus.
-They are developing a missionary training program. The structure is to take a group of people that will stick together for two years. In this time, they will take language classes, meet once a week of prayer, worship, and team building, they will write papers, they will read books, and they will also interact with the community they want to reach.

Our team also had an opportunity to meet with K and her interns for an evening. They are working as teachers, youth camp leaders, and neighbors of H’s and M’s in Dar. This group was great. We already had an opportunity to spend time with them at Bamba, so this was simply a continuation of our orientation.

Lastly, we met with Merle Weins who is the Area Director for ReachGlobal Africa. He is the one in charge on the ground in Africa under my dad. He is such a great guy. Whenever I see him, I just want to spend more time learning about what he does and who he is. Merle is truly a marvelous and personable guy.

Before I sign off for now, I want to make a short list of the unique things I will miss about Dar es Salaam:

-Soda in a glass bottle for 300 Tanzanian Shillings (25 cents)
-The delicious curry (even though is gave me a stomach ache most of the time)
-Traveling by taxi. Imagine New York taxi drivers to the max.
-The intense amount of pedestrians on the road at all times of the day.
-Driving on the left
-The warm Indian Ocean
-Going with the flow
-Swahili

Actually, I have one more thing to write about. After doing the camp at Bamba, the VBS at HOPAC, learning about all the different ministries in Dar, and experiencing the culture of Tanzania, I was initially not feeling the urge to want to dive deeper into a ministry like this. Not that I didn’t have a great time serving and living in Dar for three weeks, I just simply didn’t feel called to pursue this ministry as a long term thing. But now that I’ve left, I miss it. I miss the kids from HOPAC. I miss Gil, Amy, and Grace. I miss the different culture and great people. I’m not sure what this means because I still think God is calling me into pastoral ministry in the United States. But I miss Dar already. Maybe it is just a temporary feeling, but it something. I will have to pray about it more. I know that God will make it clear to Sarah and me how we are best suited to serve God and pursue the Kingdom. I will write more later.

7.16.08

I am now on the second leg of my flight. It feels like the same day, but technically it is now Wednesday, July 16, 2008 where we are in the air. However, it is still Tuesday in San Jose. I thought of something to write now after I watched the movie Juno.

I have recently been having problems dealing with committees, vision statements, and theological learning. So much of my time has been spent trying to figure out what ministry I should be involved in or what theological issues I can pick out of a Sunday’s sermon. In this movie, a 16 year old girl gets pregnant and decides not to have an abortion. She finds a family that wants to adopt her baby. The story depicts her struggles dealing with the father of her baby, her parents, the other kids at school, and the adoption parents.

After watching the struggle and bravery in this situation, I felt empowered to help people like her. It’s time we stop pointing the finger at teenage moms and instead lend a hand. Instead of Christians legislating a pro-life agenda, we need to embrace the mother and child with loving arms because that’s what they need.

I’m learning that life isn’t so easy. No one has made all the right decisions. Jesus died so that we could live; not so that we can pretend like we have it all together while pointing that finger at those sinners. We can’t keep neglecting people who are hurting and need love.

7.16.08 (Part 2)

I’m now on the last leg of the trip home. We had a very long layover in New York. Our plane from Dubai to NY arrived at 8:00am and our flight to the Bay Area left at 6:00pm. We are flying jetBlue for the this last part of the journey and they have sweet TV screens on the back of the seats, much like Emirates Airlines. According to the live map, we are somewhere over central Utah, cruising at 509 mph at 38,158 ft.

I have spent most of this flight trying to stay awake by drinking authentic NY Dunkin Donuts’ coffee, reading, listening to music, and watching Family Guy on the built-in TV. Sarah has literally been asleep from the moment we left the ground. I’m glad she is getting some rest and it helps her deal with her usual battle with airsickness.

Now that this trip is officially coming to an end, this will be the last bit of writing I will do before I write some reflections in a few days or weeks.

As I have pondered the events of this trip more thoroughly and prayed about where God is calling me to serve at this time, I have a few comments to make. As I wrote before, I think I’m still leaning toward seminary and pastoral ministry in the United States. I still feel a burden for the American church. I long for an opportunity to teach others about God, shepherd a community of believers, and reach out the my home culture. I’m not ruling out overseas missions, or other options within the United States either. I guess I just feel “it”. You know, that feeling of longing, burden, and calling. I feel God calling me to be a local church pastor.

Additionally, I have recently desired to spend more time with my family. My grandparents aren’t getting any younger, I don’t want to compromise my relationship with my parents, now is the best time to hang out with my brothers before they settle down, and my sister is due to birth my nephew or niece in January (saying that way sound pretty selfish, but its kinda fun to say it that way). I just want to take advantage of all the opportunities I can to savor the relationships I have with family and friends.

I guess that’s all for now.

Africa Journal: Part 2

7.06.08:

We just got back from the 3rd annual International Youth Camp at Bamba Beach on Friday. It is now Sunday and I have had a couple days to recover. I enjoyed getting to know kids from all over the world. Here’s the names of a few of the kids I got to know:

Valient – An Irish-American living in Dar es Salaam with two younger siblings: Janae and Benji
Alli – A Asian-Indian living in Dar es Salaam
Lucy – A British girl living in Dar es Salaam
Savanna – A British girl living in Dar
Josh – An Irish boy living with his missionary parents in Dar
Heung Muk – A Korean boy living with his parents in Dar.
Josiah – An Australian boy living in Dar
Robert – A half Massai warrior, half Austrian boy living in Dar es Salaam.
Merlin – A half Tanzanian, half American boy who happens to be Jane Goodall’s grandson.

These are just a few of the kids I got to know. It was an amazing experience to learn some Swahili, learn about African and European culture, and learn how to be patient. That is one thing that all of our team has learned. When the schedule was messed up or something didn’t happen on time, these kids were just fine with standing around doing nothing. They were comfortable talking with each other for hours without any structure. Our team knew that we must be flexible, but these kids changed our perspective. We were stressing out, but these kids were so understanding and helpful. Overall it was a successful week. By success, I mean that no one was severely injured and the permanent missionaries here furthered their reputation in the community. Beyond that, we also had great teaching, games, individual discussions, and great singing.

The facilities were interesting. I slowly learned to embrace our trickling shower and steady diet of rice, curry beef, and spinach; realizing that many people don’t have those things. By the end of the week, I didn’t want to leave. I found it difficult to part ways with these amazing kids. They opened my eyes to a larger world beyond with United States. I felt welcomed and comfortable with this diverse community.

PS - I will add pictures of our trip later. The internet connection is too slow.