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Published: April 13th 2009
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Wednesday, March 18, 2009:
Finally, we actually had a good nights sleep and woke up feeling good!
Wednesday started out like any other day.
We started the day off folding tracts, and making play-dough for the kids. Then we started off for our Bible Studies. Today it was Mom, Paulina, Maddie, Lauren, Sarah, and I. Sarah is a native and goes to church at Usa River. She and Lauren became "Rafiki" (friends).
We went to a house--"Hodi, Hodi" "Karibu" "Asante Sana". Those are the first things that you say, and that's as far as I get in their conversation! :-) Translated: Knock-knock, Come in, Thank You Very Much.
I am learning a little bit. Paulina did have to pull me aside and admonish me, because I would go around saying "Mombo" to adults. That's basically saying, "hey, what's up", like, uh, a teenager would do. Instead, I am suppose to say, "Shi ka mo" which is "I honor you". Lauren is really awesome at Swahili. If you want to hold a real conversation, talk to her.
Anyway, a lady invited us into her house, and she and her husband started studying with us. Later, her son came in, who was in
Hallie and Catherine.
Her mother, Mary, was baptized that day. his early-to-mid twenties, and could speak some English. He answered all the questions, and seemed really interested. I got about half-way through the study and ask if they felt like they had been "saved"in any way.
He answered they had not been saved because they were Muslims. Oh. My. Goodness.
Just the previous day, Janet, Anita and Jane were held hostage by a Muslim who threatened to hack them to pieces. Needless to say, when I heard that information I was a little nervous!
However, nothing happened, and the man said he would like to study again the next day, and he would write all the questions he had down on paper and we could answer them.
We handed out some more tracts and then found a lady at the communal water pump who wanted to study. We went with her to her house and held a study there. She had been sprinkled as an infant, so could see the difference in between her salvation and the Bible's, and she wanted to continue studying Friday. Another young lady came in while we were studying and wanted to participate in it as well.
After those studies, we went back to the
church building and had lunch.
After lunch was the women's Bible studies, where Pam and Mom were speaking. Again Maddie, Lauren and I held the children's classes. Now that we had done it once, we knew a little more about what we were doing.
We started off by singing the songs and played bata bata kuku.
When the older kids came in, we enlisted the help of Jane to translate, and told our story.
I read the story of The Good Samaritan, and acted it out with wooden spoons, which had cloth wrapped around them and painted on faces. You turn the faces around to get the emotions right (sad, happy). I thought it went great.
Then Jane though we should really act it out. Okay.....it was a little impromptu, but it worked.
I was the traveler who got beat up. It seems my destiny in life to always play that man. Lauren and Sarah "beat" me up (beating me lightly with their fists until I fell down and acted dead) and stripped me of my clothes (alright, just shoes). Then Maddie, as the good Samaritan came and bandaged my wounds with cloth and gauze. After that, we handed out
Hello Kitty band-aids to all the kids. They loved it! We played more games and sang the songs again. We had 28 kids that day!
On the way back to Arusha, we stopped by Usa River for another baptism. This time it was a lady named Mary. Praise God!
That night, we had supper at the Coffee Plantation (they grow a lot of coffee around here). It was good, but we had a terrible dark moment. Janet received a call that her mother had passed away. It was a terribly sad time for her, and we all mourned with her. She was able to get tickets to fly home the next night.
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