This Week's News & Pictures

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I Wanted to share some pictures with you, from this last week! There seems to be so much going on right now that its hard to just do a weekly report and be able to even just skim the surface with the highlights.

Last Tuesday we went to the Nursery school with the Rachels family so that they could say their goodbyes to the children and teachers, and here just a week later it seems like so much more time has passed than just a week. The teachers had prepared a Thank you celebration and lined the kids up outside to sing us some songs and had selected children to present us with special gifts. This is a emotion that can not be described.. Teresa & I both just tried to breathe as we watched our families and children being honored with love and appreciation... Where it was us who felt honored and blessed to be there and to be able to help in any way with all the good that these teachers are already doing! Brent & Forrest both said a few words to the teachers and children about how much we love them all, and I cant tell you how hard it is to leave crying children who are clinging to your skirt as you are heading home.. I know this was harder on the rachels than for us, because we know that we will be back each week. But I have missed seeing them all this week and I am so very excited to be returning to Teach tomorrow morning. We are all going as a family to work together.

Wednesday the Rachels flew home an we returned back to somewhat of a normal routine. George Jensen is teaching an amazing class on the roles in the Christian home on Wednesday nights in Moshi and we are having more in attendance than ever before, touching on a much needed topic in the Lord's church today in East Africa!

Brent has been grading papers, writing quizzes and creating Tests for his Classes at ACSOP, He's teaching Marriage and Family as well and is enjoying teaching the second year students there on Mondays and Fridays. The traveling back and forth is a little rough, but he and George are car pooling when they can to save on gas back and forth. Gas here is running around $4.50+ a gallon... It's just unreal! That is normally our greatest monthly expense. With all the traveling to studies and the smaller congregations in the surrounding villages, we are on the go a lot.

Thursday we had our weekly devotional here in Moshi with the Missionary families and we enjoy so much getting together like this to encourage one another and share in each others weekly plans and stories. The kids play volleyball over at the Jesens and Hang out here at our house all the time. We are more of a family than I would have ever imagined. Luke Jensen is teaching Garrett to play the guitar and Jacob Jensen is helping Emily learn to play the violin. All of the Jensen children are very talented musicians and we are hoping that will wear off on our kids seeing how that is not a strong suit for either of us. Lindsey has Emily wanting to learn how to Yodel and Julia keeps the kids smiling with her hugs... We just love them all so much! John took Garrett with him on his first road trip without Mom & Dad this week. they went to Dar to take the Hinkles to the airport there, and stayed over night before returning home... I am sure Garrett talking helped John to stay awake the whole way home, so it was good for them both! Garrett just thinks John is amazing, and we are so thankful that He and Kelly both have such an amazing friend in John Hall, he's been a great Christian influence on all of our children.

Friday Brent had to teach in Kisongo again, so the kids and I were here at the house alone.. Gave us time to work on school and some misc. projects that we had been wanting to finish. Emily & made a leather Bible cover for her, with some scrap leather we got from the Leather shop downtown, Its not perfect but it will work and she got to design it herself!

Speaking of crafts and projects....Camille Winkler... Pay close attention, you will really like this part. (Camille is the one who invited me over to the house before we left Alabama to teach me how to crochet these plastic purses before we left, and then I turned around and taught Emily, who in turn turned around and taught several friends from church in Arusha, and now we're finding the purses perfected even more). Brent was in town and found a gift for his sweet wife.. It's a version of the Plastic bag purses that we were teaching people to make in Arusha. When he saw them for sale he knew I would absolutely love to have one..... Some-one somewhere has taken it to a whole new level and perfected it even more than we thought possible. Emily is wonderful at making them, and its something that she enjoys teaching to others as well. We just thought how funny to see them being made and sold here in Tanzania!

We were supposed to have dinner with the Mwakabanje family Friday night but several of them have been sick here lately if you can keep them in your prayers. Christopher, CJ, & Anita all came own with Maleria in the last week, all have been treated and all are recovering, but maleria is a serious problem in this area and can do some terrible damage if not treated propperly. When George Jensen went in to take the blood test I think they found 1 ameba (probably not the correct medical terminaolgy) but the test was positive and he caught it early, which was good! Anita's count this last week when they found it was at 44, which is very high and scary! Just keep them in your prayers as they are all recovering. We have all been so blessed with good health, to this point none of us have ever had maleria, and if we ever wonder there is a clinic down on the corner from our house where we can go get tested for about $10 and find out the results in about 10 minutes... Then the treatment costs about $6, so the problem with the wide spread epidemic of maleria in this country is not the illness itself, but the poverty that prevents people for being able to afford the diagnosos and medicine to treat it.

Saturday, awwwww Saturday! We stayed home as a family and played in the yard with the puppies, washed the car, had a water fight with the kids, watched a family movie, an never left the house! It was Wonderful! We had a great day with the kids. We taught Emily & Garrett to play Chess and now they want more than anything to play over and over again to try to beat Dad, so do I! He always wins, but its a great challenge! Gracie took the training wheels off her bike and with Dad's help learned to take off on her own. The kids are all growing up so very fast right before our eyes. We sold our first puppy, there are 5 left now and the kids did better than I expected at getting rid of one of them.

Sunday was the due date of my younger brother, Steven Wear and his wife Jessi's first child, which will be a little girl named Karis... back home in the states. After getting married they moved up to Wisconsin, so we have family there taking great care of them, although it's very hard for me, the big sister that I am to be away from my only brother for this precious part of their lives. So if you will keep them in your prayers as well. No word yet, but I am waiting with phone in hand for the news!

Sunday morning, we went and worshiped with the congregation in Boma Ngombe. To check on the brethren meeting there. Asher Mombassa is the local preacher there and has been there for quite a while. There were 11 in attendance and with us, that bumped it up to 17. I was excited to see a young girl named Heaven-like, who had been baptized during the Moshi campaign there with her Bible and a smile... You always wonder if they will remain faithful when they come in from the smaller towns for the campaigns and return home. But She is and that just made my whole day! to top it off, Asher taught a great lesson in Swahili for Bible class and I was so impressed with all of my children as we were all following along and able to find the scriptures and pick out the words that we knew in order to understand the lesson the best we could. I watched as Emily, Garrett & Kelly all were flipping through their Bibles to find the right verses, ans they were doing great at keeping up. Then Brent amazed me even more, by preaching in swahili. Totally without a translator, and he did amazing! For those of you who know Brent's preaching habits, it was much shorter than normal, but without a translator, that cuts out half of your time here in preaching. I was very impressed. Then Kelly was asked to preside over the Lord's table and Brent translated for him as well. everyone was able to follow along and the few that spoke a little Enlgish said that he did a wonderful job, they were just as excited as I was that a guest was speaking and teaching in their own language! I guess it surprizes me at just how much of the language we have all picked up in this first year here. Even little Gracie can communicate with friends on the playground and greet people she comes in contact with. the only thing I had been a little disappointed in was not seeing Mary there for morning worship after she had been baptized last Sunday.... (But God had it under control...)

Sunday's go by so fast, we barely had time to come home and warm up a few left overs before heading to the 4:00 evening service in Moshi. I was overwhelmed with excitement as we walked up to the building to find little Agape, Mary's daughter running up to me to jump in my arms... THEY WERE HERE in Moshi! She had loaded up all 5 girls: Suzanna, Agape, Lyidia, Dorcus, and Rachel and traveled by dala dala to Moshi for Worship that morning and stayed in town to be there for the evening services as well. All the girls but Dorcus the oldest were dressed in the little school uniforms.. she said they didn't have any dresses but they all wanted to come. They really enjoyed Bible class and the fellowship with other Christians. Abigail took them home with her for lunch and spent the afternoon with them in her home, just down the road from the building. Emily's little heart soared as the two little girls she is sponsoring were there in Church with her and in her arms and by her side Sunday night! It made her all the more excited to come home and wash the dishes to earn the money for them to go to school..... I'm telling you this has been an amazing experience for us all. Dorcus (age 8) and Agape (age 5) are both Mary's biological daughters and then Lyidia (age 5), Rachel (age 4), and Suzanna (Age 3) are all the orphans that Mary is taking care of in her home... Five very little girls, is such a handful for this young Christian mama, who was widowed at a very early age..... I just love her so much! She inspires me to be better, to do more, and to give everything I can to help in every way! Mary asked our family to come to her home tomorrow after working at the nursery school to eat lunch in her home. This is a heart humbling experience that I know will just make me love her even more, seeing where they live, how they live, and the conditions in which they make life work from day to day. Keep Mary and her girls in your prayers as well. My girls and I went through their clothes tonight to take the girls some dresses and clothes tomorrow as gifts wen we are there for lunch.... They will wear them out before outgrowing them like our kids would, so this will be a much better use for them than the back of our closets.

Today we all left early (around 6 AM, the kids just loved that) traveled to Arusha to run errands around town while Brent was teaching at the school. We picked up groceries, shots and medicine for the puppies, made some dentist appointments for the kids, found a bookstore to look for readers in Swahili or the Nursery school which I was thrilled to find they cost about $2 each, So I bought what I could, checked the mail box, got a sweet care package from Nanny & Papa at the post office, and a few cards with encouraging words to make the week even brighter and picked Brent up when he was done teaching to head back home to Moshi. Stopped by our favorite local convience store/grocery store called "Pick & Pay" to see if they had any ~American foods in, which they sometimes do... and you would have thought we found a million dollars as the kids hit the shleves and found One single solitary box of Fruit Roll ups... They were eaten before we left the parking lot! Made the day even sweeter... But I was shocked to see 1 bottle of suave shampoo for $9.00 (you know the 99cent kind at Walmart... ) That made me laugh. Then a box of Cereal that Gracie wanted was around $12.. needless to say we didn't get either of them.

I saw so many crazy things in Arusha today! A mad man trying to bring a dead chicken back to life with spells and witchcraft, a lady selling scoops of rice from a 5 gallon bucket on the street, a man in wheelchair beating up a guy leaning out of his window as he bumped his wheelchair which was in the middle of the road, and he was just sitting there. (Who knows why) A ragged man walking through the streets screaming at the top of his voice, and a lady carrying a couch on her head... as you see these things you shake your head and press on down the road. This is AFRICA!

Tomorrow morning we'll be at the Nursery school again. This will be my actual first day of teaching all day. I will be teaching basic English ~ Alphabet, Numbers and Colors first and then reading some of the new story books we found today. Angie Baker is planning on joining us during the day and bringing her children to play with all the kids, I know she is going to love it too! We look forward to another amazing week in Service to the King! Thank you for everything!

Love from Africa!
Julie Richardson


Brent and Julie and the kids
www.tanzaniamissionreport.com
Phone #: [phone]

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Comments

[kup]

When it comes to the "Kitchens" (Rachels) you just won't find better more dedicated, loving and sweet Christians than that family. Wonderful week! Lovely pictures!! Always a thrill and inspiration to "see" and "hear" of the work that is being done to teach the untaught, love the unloved and offer them hope of an eternal home. God bless all of you in all ways. Please take care of your good selves and be careful on those roads. just ken