Week 2!

It’s been well over a week since I've been in Tanzania working with Pamoja, and I already feel like I’m at home. It’s like one big family here. This isn't a regular family, though; it’s a family that puts Christ at the center of everything. I think that’s what I like most about being here.

I also love the conversations that we have here at Pamoja. We are all pretty opinionated, so it usually leads to great discussion. Jeremy and I talked for like two hours, while the power was out, about how the Orthodox Church hasn't changed a single thing about them for 2,000 years, and how they see certain issues like women in the church and the role of the pastor. It was an awesome discussion and I learned a lot from it. I find that I've been learning a lot since I got here, and I’m happy about that. Paul, Adam, and I, the volunteers, and Natasha, a long-term missionary, will sometimes just sit and talk about life. It’s really cool. We also go on runs. Adam and Natasha somehow got me to go on a run with them a couple of days ago, and it kicked my butt. It was more like a run and a hike combined because we were going up hills and doing all sorts of crazy stuff, and it must have been over four miles! It was really rewarding though because we ended the run stopping to look up at the gigantic and beautiful Mount Kilimanjaro in the distance, the tallest peak in all of Africa. Now that’s a way to end a run!

Last Sunday we went to a church called Vineyard Church, an English speaking church that a lot of missionaries attend. It was really cool to see missionaries from different countries worshiping together. I really liked the worship. It was contemporary, which I prefer, but that wasn't even it. I could really feel God’s presence when we were singing. It was an amazing feeling and I can’t wait to go back tomorrow.

I've been working on the Pamoja Magazine, as I said in the last blog post, and I've also been working on constructing a five to seven part newsletter to send to students who went to the Urbana Missions Conference this past winter that showed interest in volunteering with Pamoja. I am the first Urbana alumni to volunteer with Pamoja, so I was asked to write this newsletter so that more Urbana alum would come to volunteer. I’m really excited to get the newsletter written and sent out, so I can communicate with these college students. One of my main messages in this newsletter is going to be that there is a big difference in accepting the call to missions and actually making it happen. I accepted the call to long-term missions when I was at Urbana, and right when I got home, I made the decision to contact Pamoja and tell them that I was interested in volunteering. God calls us all to be missionaries, whether it is serving in Tanzania, or in your own home, but it’s our job to act upon that call. I’m praying that God speaks to these students through the newsletter, and that they will make the decision to serve Him.

We just finished doing a huge project that will affect a lot of people. A missionary that is leaving Tanzania wrote out a daily devotional in Swahili, and asked Pamoja if they would construct them and send them out. It was a very tedious and time-consuming process, but I knew it was going to impact a lot of people. We made 150 copies, and each copy was around 250 pages. This meant that we had to fold, cut and correlate each page so that they could be bound and glued. Folding and correlating took a long time, but we all worked together and were able to get it done. We even had fun while doing it. Thinking about the people that were going to read the devotion is what really kept me going, though.

There have been some awesome things that have happened to Pamoja, even since I arrived, including a whopping $35,000 donation from a family that has supported Pamoja in the past. The cool thing about it was that Pamoja was just praying for money to buy a piece of land just off the property that day, and then they found out about the donation. It’s really awe-inspiring to see what God can do and I continue to be amazed by his love and power every day.

I’m leaving bright and early on Monday morning (6:00 a.m.) to go to Dar es Salaam, which is a 10 hour bus drive from Arusha (where I am), for a whole week to help promote Kahawa Records, basically Pamoja’s record label. I’m going with three other guys, Jacob, Wilfred and Felis, and I will be shadowing Felis as he gets on different radio stations and promotes for Kahawa Records by playing music by the En-Kata Choir, a Maasai choir that Pamoja goes on tour with, and records music for, as well as other things. I’m really excited for this experience, even though I’m told it is going to be super-hot in Dar es Salaam, and I’m sure that I will have a ton of new stories for my next blog post. Until then, thanks for reading!