Mission to Tanzania 6th Letter
Hello Everyone (Jambo Rafiki)-
Warning — this is very long — a lot has happened in the past four days. My advice is to make this a 2-part read, or to at least stop for a break in middle to grab a Coke and a Smile and to check to see if the Middle East has calmed down before coming back to this. Don't say I didn't warn you!
We have returned from our visit to the Kikarara Church near Moshi, Tanzania. We are all safe and healthy. To say that we have had one of those life-altering, faith-defining experiences would be an understatement nearing biblical proportions, so I will simply give you some snapshots of the past four days and let you weave your own emotional tapestry.
First of all, we are a day late in returning to Arusha (and glorious high-speed internet access) because when we arrived at the church they presented us with a schedule that ran through Monday morning. When in Africa...get on African time.
When we arrived in the town of Moshi, we were greeted by a contingent from the church who were waiting for us at a petrol station on the edge of town. This contingent included Pastor Godbless Mamkwe, several of the elders from his church and 10 AIDS orphans carrying handmade flower necklaces (very similar to Hawaiian leis). As soon as the door of the bus opened, the children ran onto the bus and presented each of us with the flowers and greeted us. The hospitality only got better from there.
We then drove the 7KM from the main road up a consistently steep dirt/clay road to Kikarara Church. It was an overcast day with the cloud cover hovering at about 1000ft., so I asked Pastor Mamkwe where Mt. Kilimanjaro was in relation to where we were. His answer was, "You're on it." Much to our surprise, Kikarara Church is literally situated on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. However, the clouds never dissipated so we never saw the peak (or really any) of Africa's highest peak.
When we pulled into the church parking lot, there were about 100 additional children waiting to greet us. Almost all were dressed in blue short/skirts and blue sweaters (the school uniform of a primary school student in Tanzania). As we got off the bus, they sang songs in Swahili and danced. They led us into the church building. I no longer remember what I pictured that this church building would look like as I visualized this moment for the past few months. What I discovered was shocking. To put it simply, it was beautiful. Seating for about 500, tile floors handmade wooden pews, windows everywhere, inlaid wooden ceiling, intricate cross in the center of the chancel, a full sound system — and a 10 piece brass band playing African hymns. It seems that one of Kikarara's "calling cards" is their brass band — trumpets, trombones, french horns, and even electric guitars and bass to liven up the sound. Their music was a cross between American Jazz and African Tribal — absolutely intoxicating. They are the main church musicians — except for the choirs, of which Kikarara has 8, all of whom sing with power.
We were welcomed with formal speeches and prayers, and then shown to our guest quarters. There is a man named Mr. Matee who lives across the street from the church on his family farm containing 2 very nice houses (one his, one his brothers). Mr. Matee open his homes to all ten of us, one a guys house and one a girls house. He arranged full time security guards to patrol the property (so we would feel safe) and hired local women to heat water for us in the mornings and evenings so we "wash ourselves."
The women of the church prepared all our meals, working almost every waking hour over open fires to prepare large quantities of food. Of course, the refused any help. We were joined at every meal by various church elders who told us about their lives and their church. "Passionate" is not a proper word to describe these men and women — they live their lives radically dependent on God and know nothing else.
On Saturday most of the rest of the team met the now 130 AIDS orphans we each longed to meet. They passed out the school bags and supplies that we had packed and carried over with us. They played with balloons, sang songs, learned English and drew some pretty great pictures. Most of all, they let us love them, just for a few brief hours. Some of you will remember that I mentioned in a recent sermon how I longed to hug these children. Well, come to find out that most are so shy and strangely off-put by wazungu (Swahili for "white people") that they shrink back when you try to embrace them. More on that later.
Meanwhile, Pastor Mamkwe, "Montana" Jack Paulson and I went into town to find buy a car. First we had to open a bank account, so Pastor Mamkwe thought the church bank would be a good place to start (The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania owns banks, stores and hotels). However, the church bank could not cash the travellers checks I carried with me to Tanzania, so they sent us to a Bureau de Change (forex exchange). At first, I don't think they believed me when I pulled out 80 $100 US travellers checks and asked for Tanzanian Shillings. But after a 2-minute discussion in Swahili between Pastor Mamkwe and the manager, they agreed to do it. Only one catch — I needed to write my home address and passport number on the back of every one. And the hits just keep on coming...
Nearly an hour later (by the way, "Montana" Jack is our group's answer to the World Bank — he exists to support the local economy — so leaving Jack with an hour to kill within mere ft. of various curio shops was a very dangerous proposition — luckily their were four of us to carry home his treasure), where was I, oh, nearly an hour later, I walked out of the Bureau de Change with 9,865,500 Tanzanian Shillings. Since this currency only comes 10,000 notes and smaller, well, imagine the scene. I am proud to say I walked through the streets of Moshi back to the bank carrying a plastic grocery bag filled with money. Ask Jack — I was completely calm and collected!
Anyway, Pastor Mamkiwe and I opened a bank account with the money, my first in Tanzania. Then we went car shopping. Now, this is a different experience in Tanzania. There are very few car dealerships. If someone wants a new car, they order it and Japan or Germany sends one in 4–6 weeks. If you want a "reconditioned" automobile, you drive around town, stopping at various locations like auto parts stories, small markets and bars and ask if anyone knows of cars for sale. Luckily enough, almost everyone does, and then they whip out their cell phone and call a friend and in a few minutes or so, a car appears. If you like it, you buy it.
By the way, there are more cell phones in Tanzania than there are people, since many now have 2 (one for "work" and one for personal use). You know that movie trailer that runs in theaters that looks like a real movie trailer and then an annoying cell phone goes off and everyone on screen looks at the audience all annoyed and then the words "silence is golden" flash on the screen? That's what it's like to spent time in Tanzania. You are looking at a lion lying in the road in a game park, and a your guide's cell phone starts to ring. You are walking down the street looking at the wonderful cacophony of an African market, and, you guessed it, a cell phone starts to ring. And almost all of them have the same annoying ring as that movie trailer — much too strange for comfort.
We didn't find any cars we liked on Saturday, so we went back to the church. Then we went "visiting." You see, Lutheran are all over Northern Tanzania so almost everyone has a connection to the Lutheran Church. Kikarara is officially a parish in the true sense of the word — it's 2000 or so members come from 4 streets and almost everyone on each of those streets is a part of the church. So Pastor Mamkwe goes visiting by proceeding directly from the church to any of the aforementioned 4 streets and walks (either up or down — remember, we're on a mountain) and greets nearly everyone he sees. He calls out to people and they comes out their homes to talk to him. He hugs children. He talks to people about futbol, he delivers things from one house to another. He is one of the local stars, part of the glue that literally holds the community together.
On this particular round of "visiting," we were invited into the home of a woman named Helen. Actually, we sat on her lawn since there were 7 of us and her house wouldn't fit us all. Helen has AIDS. She is a former teacher who was relieved of her duties when she got sick. The government refused to pay her salary and she was left destitute with a few children still at home. He health got progressively worse until one night when her children summoned Pastor Mamkwe. He came to pray with her on what most thought was her last night on earth. Instead, together they agreed that she should fight and prayed for healing. Well, obviously she didn't die. In fact her T-cell count steadily began to increase. She registers with the Tanzanian government and was granted low-cost access to the "triple cocktail" drugs that are so effective at prolonging life in AIDS patients.
She then proceeded to tell us that this week she is going to Dar Es Salaam (Tanzania's largest city) to register her new NGO (non-governmental organization, basically what we would consider a non-profit) to provide counseling and benefits to other teachers suffering from AIDS. She will be meeting with both the prime minister and the president of the country and will be on covered on the national news for her work to fight AIDS discrimination.
I was amazed — Helen has AIDS, lives in poverty, is still raising children without a husband at home, ans she says that by God's grace she will live long enough to get her NGO off the ground so more teachers don't suffer. You will be happy to know that Bethel Lutheran Church made the first donation to her NGO.
On Sunday we were awakened by church bells at 5:30am — an amazingly disorienting concept until you realize that literally everyone who hears those bells is either 1) already awake, or 2) is a member of the church and will be going there soon so it's no big deal if the church is a major source of noise pollution on Sunday mornings — hey it's THEIR church.
I had the responsibility to preach and lead communion at both services, 7:30am and 10:00am. I was told that the first service would be about an hour and the second would be about 2 hours. Wrong. First of all, and I really like this, the church service does not begin until the pastor(s) decide to walk into the church. So at 7:45am as we were sitting in Pastor Mamkwe's office talking, he suddenly said, "we should go." So we walked over to the church and directly into the back doors. As soon as we entered everyone stood up, the band started playing, people started singing and we were off and running.
When it was time to preach, I got up, Pastor Mamkwe got up, and we went down front to a lectern. I spoke in English — he translated in Swahili. Now, I generally enjoy the sound of the Swahili language — but one thing gets me — sometimes Swahili speakers use approximately 45 words to get across a simple point. So, for example, the bible verse "Jesus wept" would be translated into a Swahili phrase equivalent in length to the Declaration of Independence.
So preaching went like this — I said something, Pastor Mamwke said something much, much longer and with much more theatrics. I liked it.
The first service lasted 2 hours and the second lasted nearly 3. And when the final hymn is finally sung and everyone goes outside, the service is not over. You see, then there are announcements, and then, my absolute favorite part — the auction. You see, some people don't have money to bring for the offering, so they bring whatever they have — eggs, vegetables, nuts, sand, of course, live chickens. And the church elders auction it all off while everyone stands around and watches.
After the second service, we couldn't figure out why one guy was getting everything at the auction and why everyone was laughing. Well, we found out later that he was newly married and they all figured he had no time to work or farm so they thought he and his very tired wife could use some food. That's good, clean fun in Tanzania.
On Sunday we did some more visiting, I accompanied Pastor Mamkwe to his farm about 17km from the church (maybe that explains why a car is desperately needed, if nothing else) and we watched a futbol game between the youth from Kikarara and a neighboring parish. You will be happy to know that Kikarara destroyed the other team 7-0.
Then we were called together for a traditional Chagga honor ceremony. You see, if you haven't got it by now, we were considered honored guests. The church elders brought a table out in front of us, lifted a sheet on said table and revealed a roasted goat. Read that again. A fully cooked but fully articulated, was-alive-earlier-that-day. It's eyes were open and, understandably, it didn't look pleased. Anyway, as the leader of the group being honored, my job was to carve up the goat with very dull knife and present it to my fellow Americans for immediate consumption. Oh, what fun.
Eventually, as we sat around chewing on goat, someone more competent took over the knife and withing 30 minutes, the goat was consumed. Then we had dinner.
This morning (that's Monday), we packed up, said our many goodbyes and stood in a prayer circle. Pastor Mamkwe talked about how many orphans he would put in school with the money we brought, how much our coming meant and how he hoped we would return. Then he presented us with a wooden carving of 2 giraffes intertwined — the intertwining of our 2 churches, he said, with the giraffe being the symbol of peace and unity in Tanzania. As we prepared to leave, he pulled me aside to meet the church elders and told me of the NGO that he and his elders hope to form to support AIDS orphans in the community. Soon they will go to Dar Es Salaam to get the thing officially registered. Thay want me to be on the board of directors. Those of you who know me understand why this was when I finally choked up. Substantial involvement in positive, pro-active change in God's name — that's my dream.
We then got on the bus and left. But wait, there's more. Pastor Mamkwe and I went to that church bank to check on our new account, the Kikarara Orphans Fund. We discovered that the bishop of the diocese had learned of our substantial deposit and had some good ideas on how to spent the money. After all, we had deposited it in the church bank. We will never make that mistake again!
After 3 hours of long discussion in Swahili, confrontations with 2 bank managers and the treasurer of the diocese, we managed to get all the money our of the bank. So, once again I had a plastic bag full of millions in Tanzanian Shillings. We will open a new account far from the eyes of the bishop tomorrow morning. Church politics — even in Africa.
The good news is that we used some of this now readily available cash to purchase a car for Pastor Mamkwe, actually a very nice SUV 4x4 that was being sold by two Australian missionaries who are leaving the country. Great car — good shape, low KM's. And the smile of Godbless' face — absolutely priceless. And now that we have bought a car together, I have been invited to call him by his first name.
You see he has two kids of his own and 5 more "adopted" children, all AIDS orphans rejected by their families. Now he can visit them more than 2 times per week.
So much good has been done in so short a time. Thank you to all who gave money, time and/or prayer to make this thing work. There is no better realization that when it hits you that God is working in and through you. Thank you for helping the 10 of us get to that place.
More later — if you have made it thus far, great job. If not....
Kwahei. Pole Sana.
Pastor Rick, for the other Wazungu in Tanzania
P.S. Tomorrow we head off to Makumira Seminary to do some stuff there. Needless to say, Kikarara will be hard to top.