Birthday Festivities

30 isn't so bad... but turning 30 in rural Tanzania where there are only a handful of westerners and little to no access to shopping?  Now that takes a little getting used to!  Tim and Micaiah did a good job, though, and I am happy to say that I felt properly celebrated and sufficiently embarrassed, and that's the point of a birthday, right? :)

An overview of my day...

Sleeping in!  Yay for an extra hour of sleep!  Tim had already asked what I'd want for breakfast, so we planned ahead for a pineapple-banana-kefir shake topped with my homemade peanut butter granola.  Yum! 

Leisurely morning.  The power went off shortly after Tim made the aforementioned shake, so that slows things down a bit.  Normally our day consists of a full morning of school with some activities carrying over into the afternoon.  Instead, I did about an hour of school with Micaiah and let the non-essentials go for the day.  I also enjoyed a leisurely, hot bath (once the power returned and we were able to use the hot water kettle!).  It sounds mundane, but since we normally take cold showers in the mornings, I assure you that this was quite a treat!

Messages, Messages, Messages.  I'm almost entirely certain that Tim did a bit of work to remind people that it was my birthday and urge friends to post thoughtful, encouraging messages to me.  I got more than a hundred emails and messages on facebook!  Not only that, but many of them were exceptionally meaningful and heartfelt-- I appreciated all who took the time to give me the gift of encouragement on my big day!

Gifts.  Somewhere between the homeschooling and bathing and breakfasting (that's a word, right?), I got gifts.  Micaiah and Tim gave me a metal stand to hang some of my mugs on (yay!), some pringles, some chocolate, and-- the best surprise-- an episode of CHOPPED!!  It's my favorite tv show, and a completely surprise gift.  I'd never have imagined that the internet would have been good enough to download something like this through i-tunes.  Oh, and I may be forgetting two of my favorite gifts-- Micaiah picked out a beautiful bouquet of silk flowers (!) and the shop-owner of our favorite shop in town gave me a musical, light-up birthday card!  It was so sweet!  Nothing like a bit of Tanzanian flare to spice up a birthday. :)  Don't worry, pictures are below...

Food.  Can't be a birthday without more good food!  I already mentioned the shake and granola for breakfast.  For lunch we had beans and rice with our workers and talked about birthday traditions here in Tanzania (which are minimal).  I had made my cake the day before-- a strawberry (read: pink! yuck!) box cake that my friend Jamie gave me, topped with a delicious almond buttercream icing (with REAL butter!) and garnished with chopped dried cherries that I brought all the way from the US.  It was delicious!  Since I'm still not eating a lot of sugar or flour, I've had to limit myself to one piece a day, but it was a nice splurge.  Yesterday I had had enough and cut the remainder into slices and stuck it in the freezer.  That way I can spread out the treat and not go into a sugar coma. :) 

Food (continued).  For dinner I made pizza.  Before you go feeling sorry for me that I had to cook my own birthday meal, remember that I actually like to cook.  And I had saved a few very special things for my birthday meal, including our last package of pepperoni and some mozzarella cheese I managed to find in town!  So I made pizza (pepperoni, onion, ground beef) and garlic breadsticks. 

And now for some pictures:

Can you believe this mosquito?  This is MY pink cake thank you very much!  :)

 The finished product.  I thought after the fact that I should have added some dark chocolate chunks in with the chopped dried cherries... that would have been yummy!

 Cooking up a big birthday dinner. 

The dinner-- two pizzas (I'm not going to waste precious mozzarella on Tim, who doesn't even like it!)

 This card was amazing!  It had an instrumental rendition of the "happy birthday" song and lit up every time I opened it..... Micaiah may have enjoyed it more than I did!  The roses on the front (not pictured) were like this but 3D. :)

This is the lovely (!) bouquet of silk flowers that Micaiah spotted in town and decided I MUST have as part of my birthday present. :) 

Me with my birthday cake.


Quote of the day: "Thank you, Jeana, for making your birthday so special for me!" --Tim. :)

Thanks to all who helped make my 30th birthday special for me, too! 

-JLR

Too Busy To Worry

My apologies for the lack of posts in the past few weeks.  It wasn't because there wasn't anything going on here-- in fact, quite the opposite!  We'd finish each day and just collapse into bed so it could start again the next day.

I've been meditating on the passage from Matthew 6 and particularly this verse: "Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."  Indeed it does!  For the first time in my life, I have actually realized that I am too busy to worry.  Over the course of the last few weeks, I have come to expect that each "tomorrow" will be a challenge.  Not only does worry not accomplish anything positive, but I'm stealing the energy God has given me to deal with each "today."  I'm a natural worrier, so this is a big lesson that God has been teaching me!

Anyway, here's the brief version of the past few weeks to get you caught up:
Oct 9 (when I last posted)-19-- we moved from the guesthouse into the Langs' home.  We stayed there with them and helped them with a number of home-improvement projects such as putting screens on their front and back security doors to keep mosquitoes and flies out.  We (as in both families together) got into routines of cooking, cleaning, securing the house, talking with various fundis ("experts" in various things like plumbing, carpentry, electricity, etc.) to arrange improvements and repairs.  Oh, and many of us got sick with a nasty virus during this stretch, so were out of commission for 2-4 days at a time.  Thankfully Jamie didn't get it and was able to continue preparing food for the gang!

Oct 20-- our friend Jeremy was airlifted from Mpanda to Nairobi for emergency medical treatment.  He had been very sick for the 20 hours or so leading up to his med-evacuation.  Jamie and Lily (their youngest) went with him.

Oct 20-26-- We stayed in Mpanda at the Lang's house with Junio and Annabelle (their two oldest kids).  We had our moments of frustration during this time for sure-- like that Saturday when we had a crew working on the perimeter wall, a crew working on installing 2 western toilets, and the plumber who was overseeing the toilets and also working on other plumbing jobs.  Tim left at several points to get additional plumbing supplies in town and to work on negotiations for our new house.  We somehow kept all this organized along with managing the usual househelper and keeping the kiddos fed and entertained.... I didn't think I'd make it through that day!  But we did.  (ok, so I did break down at least twice during the day, but was better each time after a good cry...)  The downside to having the toilets installed to replace the squatty potties was that the cement needed 4 days to dry and we'd need to use the outhouse during that time!  Bummer!  (btw, it is probably the nicest outhouse I've ever used, but it's still inconvenient to make potty runs outside, especially with three kiddos and when mosquitoes are out late at night!)

Oct 26-- Jamie and Lily returned to Mpanda by a small chartered AIM flight. 

Oct 27-- We woke up to chaos-- the guard outside had chased off three (or more?) thieves.  One had distracted him by throwing rocks at the gate while others hopped over the wall and took some plastic chairs that were outside.  They got away.  We heard later that it was probably young troublemakers who had "hit the neighborhood" and stolen several things from other yards as well.  It took us some time to review our security plan and make sure we were as safe as possible.

Oct 31-- We finished moving things into our new house and spent the first night there.

Since then we have been settling in, unpacking, having fundis come to work on electricity, plumbing, blender repair (a priority so I can have my morning kefir shakes!!), and other various things.  I have been training a new househelper who may or may not work out for us... it depends on how this week (her second week) goes!  We'll just have to wait and see.  But for now things are starting to slow down and we're able to get back into some routines.  Routines keep me sane, after all and bring a much-welcomed structure to my schedule.

Speaking of structure, time to get back to homeschool with Micaiah. :)

-JLR

The Journey from Mbeya to Mpanda

It took us two days to drive from Mbeya to Mpanda with the Lang family.  The first day was Mbeya to Sumbawanga and took about 7 hours and 45 minutes.  But considering the number of potty stops we made, we're estimating driving time was more like 7 hours.  The second day was Sumbawanga to Mpanda and took us about 5 hours total.  Once we (and the big truck!) arrived, then it was time to unload everything and get some sleep. 

Tim and the truck after day 1 of driving.  We don't have pictures of post day 2 of driving that are accessible at the moment, so just imagine double the mud/dirt. 

 

This is the trailer that the Langs were pulling.  It had a number of our suitcases and action packers as well as a bunch of their stuff.  We also had a big Fuso truck (a lorry) that was carrying most of the Lang's furniture as well as our mattresses and large appliances.  But for some reason I didn't take pictures of that... sorry.

 X-- GIRAFFE CROSSING--X  Part of the road from Sumbawanga to Mpanda goes through Katavi National Park.  We were bummed to not see much wildlife until we came across this big group (herd? flock? troop?) of giraffes.  We had to wait until they moved out of the way.  There were also zebras and monkeys in this stretch of road. 

 The Langs were in front and waited for this lone giraffe to leave the road before we went on. :)

 The giraffes continued to watch us as we passed.  You can see a few zebra rear-ends in the back right of the picture, too.

 As we were leaving the park, there is a bridge that crosses over this river.  We said, 

"look, Micaiah, at the hippos!"  

"I don't see any hippos, Mama.  All I see is a bunch of big rocks... WAIT, those ARE hippos!!!!"

Indeed they were hippos!  Lots of them.  We were quite safe on the bridge, but what a sight!!

Now we're in Mpanda looking for a house and just itching to get all unpacked.  We don't have a lot of furniture already, so once we know where we'll be living we'll still have to have that made.  But in the meantime, we've been staying in a nice guesthouse (despite the loud music next door!) and will be moving in with the Langs in a day or two.  They're house is starting to come together and all their un-packing is going well.  We're thankful to have friends here who have made the long journey with us and will continue to journey with us in the coming years as we serve together in Mpanda.

-JLR

Rivervalley Campsite

We stayed at Rivervalley Campsite for about two weeks while we took a Swahili Refresher course.  One of the downfalls of our time there was bad internet connection, so there is a lot to post now.  But I think the pictures tell the stories better than I can...

Micaiah turned 6 1/2!!! I know, I know... it isn't THAT big of a deal except that it was also the 6 month mark since she had her ears pierced, which meant that she could now wear dangly earrings!  We celebrated by letting her wear a pair of my earrings as a special treat. :)

This is a sausage tree.  I was thankful to know enough Swahili to talk with the ladies who wash the laundry at Rivervalley.  They warned us to walk quickly under the tree so we didn't get hit by falling "sausages"!

This is what they look like on the ground-- Micaiah could hardly lift it!

This is Tim and I in class with our teacher, Kiobya.  There was another student (Simon) with us for the majority of our two week refresher course.

This is Micaiah in her Swahili class. :)  She did informal Swahili with one of the caregivers the first week, then the second week she joined some of the other kids (and their tutor!) in a class with a teacher, Joyce.  As you can see, they may have had a bit more fun than us-- they even got to play hangman!

This is Micaiah's class. Laura (the tutor), Luke, Micaiah, Nikki, and Joyce (the Swahili teacher).

This is Joyce (Micaiah's Swahili teacher).

This is Micaiah with Polly.  Polly is the laziest guard-dog known to man. :)

 Micaiah had an accident while we were at Rivervalley.  It gave us a good scare, actually.  She was hopping around on these stumps when she changed directions and slipped and hit her head on one of them.  She had a big bump on her head and-- more frightening-- the symptoms of a concussion.  She was threw up several times, was really sleepy, had somewhat blurry vision, some slurred speech, etc.  But thankfully we were able to get some good medical advice and didn't need to use our emergency evacuation plan!  Micaiah woke up in the morning as if nothing had happened.  Praise God for His protection and for healing our little girl!

This is Harold.  Harold is a very large tortoise that was found at Rivervalley.  The kids were given the big responsibility of taking him food every day-- a job that they loved and took very seriously. 

 These are the three very responsible tortoise-feeders. :)

 

This is Laura.  Laura came to Tanzania to help another family with their homeschool/lessons while the parents were in language school.  Laura (and the other family) graciously agreed to let Micaiah join them for school time and helped supervise Micaiah's modified homeschool assignments while we were in Iringa.  We enjoyed many laughs with Laura and these two especially became very close!  There were some very tearful goodbyes when we left.

Tim on the zipline at a nearby campsite!!! After a decent hike to this part of the river, we enjoyed going across and back on this awesome contraption.  So much better than a bridge!

Micaiah and I went together.  Safety first.  She's quite adventurous and thought this was as good as or better than the roller coasters she went on this summer at Six Flags. :)

Don't worry, this is just a posed picture.  I put her out over the air, but she was only a foot or so from the platform. :)

We really enjoyed our time in Iringa.  It was good to see our friends Will and Amanda again and to get to know their daughter Carrie as well.  It's nice to visit places that we have already been and share those memories together as a family.

-JLR

Ready to Go?

Surely I must be forgetting something.

We have our bags packed and are working on weighing them so they are just under our 50 pound allotment.  We're making sure they're labeled and that there are extra zip ties inside just in case they get search and need to be re-sealed.

But I must be forgetting something.

We leave tomorrow (lord-willing!!) and will spend today saying goodbye to family.  We spent a good portion of this past week traveling around and saying goodbyes to friends, but we're thankful to have almost all of our closest family here in town to visit and to say goodbye tomorrow.

But I still can't shake this nagging feeling that I'm forgetting something.

Our goal was to have some well-protected margin in our last two weeks here in St Louis.  We packed for 4-5 days straight and got a majority of it all done.  These past few days have just been finalizing the details, packing our hand baggage, etc.  It feels strange to have leftover time.  I think they call it "margin," but it's such a new concept to a type A person like me that it feels odd-- like I'm always forgetting something!  Once I'm able to shake this feeling, I'm confident that I will like this approach much better than the rush-around-like-a-chicken-with-my-head-cut-off approach... yeah, that wasn't working for me. :)

But what am I forgetting??

-JLR

Building a RAFT

If you've been around the world of missions for long, you've probably heard the term RAFT in connection with healthy transitions.  We first heard this term in our orientation and were really able to understand it more in reading Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds by David C. Pollock and Ruth E. Van Reken, published by Intercultural Press. The book is an amazing resource if you have TCKs and haven't already read and memorized everything in it!

We've been using the RAFT model during this transition.  RAFT stands for:

Reconciliation

Affirmation

Farewells

Think Destination

I can summarize on my own, but since my own copy of TCK is currently packed in a box in our garage awaiting our journey back to Missouri, I will instead point to this great blog from another Member Care worker in Japan who summarizes each step very well.  

As we've been working through RAFT for this transition, I was most confused by the "Think Destination" step.  I understand that we're leaving Canada and that we need to tie up loose ends here.  But it's hard to think about whether we're preparing ourselves for Missouri or for Tanzania.  Will our RAFT last through 3 (or so) months of transitions?  Or do we build two (or more!) different RAFTs?  We've done a bit of both, but I expect that may be more confusing than it needs to be.  Surely this isn't an uncommon thing, so if anyone has any ideas, we're very open to them!  

Maybe I need to develop a HOUSE-BOAT model...

-JLR

A Tanzania Moment

Today as I was getting a prescription filled at the pharmacy, I asked the pharmacist whether they sold the day-by-day pill containers. You know, the kind that have little compartments for S-M-T-W-Th-F-Sa and are usually only used by old people? Well, my supplements are getting a bit out of control and being the kind of person who needs a little organization in my life, I decided I'd bite the bullet and risk resembling the old person stereotype. Back to the point. The pharmacist there is very friendly and speaks great English but has a strong accent that is hard to place. I'm thinking middle East somewhere, but I can't say for sure. Maybe Egypt? Anyway, I asked him if they carried them and he said, "no, but I will check." Check what? You either sell them or you don't, right? I shook it off and as I was walking out noticed there was a dollar store two stores down in the same strip mall. Do you think he would have just run down and checked for me at the dollar store? Does that sort of thing happen here in Canada? It doesn't happen in the US, but it happened ALL THE TIME in Tanzania! A store owner in TZ would be totally happy to send a kid (or go himself/herself) from store to store on your behalf to find out if anyone carried the item you were looking for! This was relatively easy since all the food stores are on one street, the hardware stores on another street, the sewing dukas/stores in one section of the market, etc.

As we stopped into the dollar store and found the pill containers I was looking for, Tim and I agreed that he probably was planning to check here for us! Especially if he had a lull in business and could just hop over for a quick look! I love that so many cultures around the world are so helpful in this way-- it made me miss Tanzania and the days of the helpful shop clerks and drive through produce stands that tend to make consumers like me just a little bit lazier... and happier, I might add. :)

-JLR

Goodbye

We said goodbye to Tim today-- he's on his way to Tanzania for almost a month. While he's there he'll be joining a language survey and also doing some research for his MA thesis.

I'm not sure if it's fully sunk in yet that he'll be gone for so long. In our 7.5 years of marriage we've only been apart for a maximum of 5 days at a time. I could probably count those separations of 3-5 days apart on one hand! I'm sure some of you think we're wimps or codependent or something, but our family philosophy has always been to do our work together-- that we're BOTH missionaries working on the same team. And Micaiah, too, for that matter. She's a part of our family and we want her to understand why we do what we do.

Yet, there was no way we could justify the expense of us going with Tim, especially considering we'd just spend most of our time in a guesthouse somewhere in Tanzania. We would be in the way on the survey and only distract him from his research. Still, a part of me was so sad seeing Tim get into the queue at the airport knowing I wouldn't be going with him!

Safari njema, Timo. Tutaonana mwezi ujao, Mungu akipenda!

-JLR
ps... I told Tim he could post on here from Tanzania if he wanted and/or was able... just a heads-up to watch for who is writing each post so you're not confused!