Video of our trip! :)

We wanted to post a video of our entire trip here so it's easy to find - this includes our time in Dar as well as our time in Arusha and (I feel) it's worth the watch! Hope you enjoy it :)

We will be presenting this as well as stories of our time in Tanzania at Christ Lutheran Church in Alvord on January 13, 2013 at 10:30am - you are welcome to attend and grow in your knowledge and love for the nations! Bring a friend :)

Venturing Home...

As much as I wanted to hurry up and get home to Sarah as soon as we left Neema House, I still cried as we drove away and cried even more when we flew out of Dar to leave Africa on Sunday (Nov.25). We were so blessed to finally, the 4th time we flew over it, see the top of Mount Kilimanjaro as well as the Ngorogoro Crater...

We had a couple more long layovers ahead of us, one in London overnight where we stayed with my old Youth With A Mission friend Sheniz and her family :) then another overnight stay in Chicago where we crashed at a hotel the airport gave us a discount on (fell asleep for the evening at about 5pm...OOPS!). Needless to say, we were too tired to really go see the sights there so maybe we'll return someday.

Of course we couldn't get home easily! Once we landed in Sioux Falls a fire alarm went off in the airport and we were all escorted back out onto the landing pad to stand in the cold and wait to be allowed back in (at this point I'm practically laughing like a mad scientist saying we're NEVER getting out of here!!!! and then we saw a tumbleweed roll by and just died laughing... guess we're home!)

Being away from Sarah for 2 weeks was absolute torture so I'm very thankful that we kept ourselves so busy & were just exhausted by the end of the day so we could both rest and not worry. She stayed with my mom and dad in Alvord the whole time & had a lot of fun spending time with them and getting hooked on 'Dora'. It was nice to talk with her via Skype (online video chat) as well. When I saw my baby at the airport once we were home, you all know I was a mess! I'll never leave her for that long again - she's coming with next time we're gone more than a couple days!!! I just covered her with kisses and gave her a huge hug a didn't want to let go of her EVER! I was SO thankful (at age 2) that she wasn't too mad at us and still gave us hugs and kisses and chatted away with us about... well who knows what, I was just happy to hear her babbling to me! 

Afterward we ate at the pancake house with my parents and then steve and I took her to the washington pavilion in Sioux Falls to see an imax movie (lots of fish, she loved it!) as well as play with all the learning toys, camp out at the awesome water table, and even pet a couple turtles! It took us all about a week or so to figure things out again once we were home - We were so tired and Sarah was desperately clingy and dramatic with us (as I write this we've been home 3 weeks now and everything is wonderful - we have both noticed that she still enjoys giving extra hugs and making sure we sit next to her while she plays or watches a move... which we don't mind at all). All in all this has been a life-changing experience we will never forget!

Neema (Grace) House Baby Orphanage

On Tuesday (Nov.20) we flew from Dar to Arusha in northern Tanzania to stay and serve (until Saturday) at Neema House, which is a baby orphanage started by a retired pastor and his wife (from Texas) along with a young woman from England who has done past volunteer work at a baby orphanage. Their dreams to start their own lined up and Claire is the director while Michael & Dorris split their time between working there and being back home fund-raising. They have over 20 babies under the age of 2 in their care!  The need is great...

Actually many of the babies living at Neema House will eventually go back to their families. In several instances the mother died in childbirth and the father (or whoever else in the family took over their care) simply can not afford the expenses of formula and medical care so they will receive care at Neema until they're walking and eating solids before going back home. Others are there because they've been abandoned... there are babies we cared for and grew to love that were abandoned in such places as the bus station or on the side of the road, but the worst case was of baby Innocent who was found in what we would refer to as an outhouse and once rescued and brought to a hospital they had to remove maggots from his ear, which is an excruciatingly painful process... we know that what satan meant for evil, God will redeem. Our prayer is that he would be adopted into a loving christian home very soon.

We weren't completely sure what we were supposed to do when we got there so we just hopped in and assisted with holding babies, changing their diapers, feeding them, playing with the toddlers, and praying over them all as often as possible. It's a very busy house and they just opened their doors June of 2012 so they haven't had many volunteers yet, but it's pretty self-explanatory what you can help with :) Below is a photo of me with Frida and Steve is holding his new little friend Zawadi (the nannies were shocked that when he picked her up she just instantly stopped crying, guess she's a bit of a handful - Steve was often found holding her - which was hard because she's up for adoption, but it's very difficult for an outsider to adopt here)

We were quite blessed to find we would have our own private room and bathroom - our accommodations have been wonderful on this trip! We even had a beautiful mosquito net that made our room look quite fancy :) but I will say we hardly even noticed the mosquitoes in Arusha compared to Dar = they were horrible in Dar! I suppose because of the humidity there.

I have to say we were blessedly free of sunburn, mosquito bites, and tummy trouble while in Africa! The heat wasn't even unbearable and although the forecast made it appear that it would be raining all the time during our trip, whenever it did it'd only last a few minutes and dry up just as fast! I think I had 1 night I took something for my stomach and on our way home while in London I didn't have much of an appetite but that's nothing compared to what we were expecting to deal with! :) In Dar we seemed to eat more western food because that's all we knew how to cook unless we ate at a restaurant, but in Arusha we didn't need to do much of our own grocery shopping since there is a cook there that makes a late morning snack of chai tea and chipati (kind of like fried flat pancakes) and then in the afternoon made a more traditional meal. Our first experience of this was very tasty: rice, beans, cucumbers, & ugali!

I really can't say that this venture brought us a ton more clarity as to what God has for our family in Africa in the future, but a few things we did learn (& made it all worthwhile) would be:

1. Prayer & quiet-time with God is a must every day
2. We really need to learn Swahili
3. The people there are very passionate & it can be channeled toward good or evil
4. There are over 3 million orphans in Tanzania alone & orphanages provide for only 3,000 children.
5. Giving money isn't as important as giving food - shelter - clothing - a means to work - & God
6. Always be aware of your surroundings there, theft is quite common with so much poverty
7. We still have a heart for the youth (teens), but I still have a huge heart for the little ones as well...
8. Whatever God will use us for there, we need to train for back home (work with these age groups)
9. We only had 1 vaccination instead of the slew recommended and were perfectly fine - just need to be cautious
10. Our heart for adoption has increased dramatically - God showed me a vision while at church in Dar. It was of our small African daughter holding Sarah's hand and running off together to play... I was a puddle of tears & can't wait to meet her someday... I don't think she has been born yet, but will continue to pray for her & her family :)

To learn more about Neema House or to give a tax-deductible gift visit: www.tanzaniaorphanhelp.com 

Sala Sala Kids Club

On Monday (Nov. 19) Steve and I went on on a couple adventures! The first was our desire to check out a cafe that wasn't too far away - we ended up walking quite a ways and thankfully ran into a couple of others from our guest house that were just leaving there so we knew we were going in the right direction! It was actually a very cute little place with a grass roof and friendly, english-speaking staff!

It was also a bit entertaining to order from a menu with prices all in TSH!! $1 is about $1,500 TSH - I had french toast and Steve had a yummy sandwich. They also sold coffee and jewelry and homemade cards there to support the women who made them. We thought it was great they were trying to help others!

Our next big adventure was to make our way to the Indian Ocean! We had about an hour to spare so we thought we'd at least attempt to take some pictures there and stand in it if nothing else :) since it was only a few minutes away and all! We caught a bajaji for a ride to a hotel that supposedly allows ppl to use their beach, but when we got there were told we had to pay (quite it bit for what we wanted to do) so we started to walk back the way we came to find the public (dirty) area we had driven by... it was a bit of a walk and we weren't 100% certain where we were going, but eventually we saw the ocean again and an open beach for us to pass through! It was very dirty and the water was at low-tide so there was sea weed everywhere, but it was still a nice experience! We found it quite interesting watching several people just wade out into the low water all the way to a boat!!!

Even though it wasn't ideal circumstances, we made it to the Indian Ocean - certainly a first for both of us!

It was fun to experience the warm water of the ocean & feel the soft, powdery white sand as we walked across the beach :) really wish we had more time there, but we had to get going to Sala Sala...

Unfortunately, the venture to Sala Sala was THE most frustrating experience of our entire trip :( We started walking back to our guesthouse as we tried calling our Bajaji driver who was supposed to pick us up... we were trying to explain for him to pick us up by the ocean & the white sands hotel instead of our guesthouse, but I guess he didn't understand because nobody came... we walked for quite a ways and I was getting very frustrated before we gave up and had a bajaji driver that we saw take us the rest of the way (we were a LONG ways off yet & should've gotten a ride right away, but we really thought our driver was coming!). Once we got back, 2 friends of our driver were there waiting for us (they didn't look very happy that we had kept them waiting) so I was really bummed to have someone frustrated at us - especially locals! Thankfully we didn't end up being too late to Sala Sala, although I do think they were waiting for us :( The volunteers rounded up and joined together in prayer before we went to the gate to welcome in the kids.

HOPAC stands for Haven of Peace Academy and is a school for missionary kids in Dar. An outreach they do (led by Shaun & Karen Graham) is to invite the kids over that live behind the school in a quarry for bible lessons, crafts, and of course - soccer (or football, as it's known here)! Steve went with the boys and played soccer in flip flops (poor guy!) and although I think he had fun, was pretty sore later :)

Steve also experience 'Sala Sala red' = being covered in the red dirt from playing with the kids! haha

While Steve was off with the guys, I figured it'd make sense to stay with the girls and observe what they do on a regular day at kids club. They started out playing a game with those little square scooters you can sit on a do relay races with. After that we had a bible lesson & crafts (made angels & had fun with glitter).

It was great to see the girls all focusing on what Karen had to say (through a translator) as they learned about Mary - they have been learning about main bible characters, I believe somebody new each week (this age group meets every Monday afternoon). 

After a very long, frustrating day, it was a welcome relief to have Karen walk me out the back gate and show me the quarry behind the school where the children of Sala Sala live. I especially enjoyed seeing some of the young girls that were children of missionaries speaking fluent swahili and interacting with the girls... gave me some perspective on how helpful it'd be for Sarah to start learning now! Karen continued to share a bit more about the history of their program with us and how the kids used to be almost violent when they first came, always fighting and it was a bit organized... but after lots of love, consistency, and time Steve and I were both very impressed to see how great the kids all did!

Before we left I was excited to get a photo of a Baobab tree (like the one Rafiki from the Lion King lived in! lol) and Karen told me this land where the school sat was covered in hippos not long ago & was very dangerous! Guess it makes sense, but was still interesting to hear! :) We were very grateful when Karen offered to just give us a ride back to our guest house in their family van (with the wheel on the wrong side I might add!) since they really didn't live all that far from us! I was actually very sad to say bye to Karen and her sweet family... she seemed like someone I could really get along with & I loved seeing her little cutie pie Benji (about 2 year old son) running around interacting with the kids of Dar... I continue to wonder what God has for our family in Africa :)