Tanzania:Day 3

Had a great day in the Lord today. Woke up at 8 feeling great surprisingly. I thought I’d be dealing with jet lag more. After breakfast we checked out the city of Arusha. Just drove around and didn’t get out of the van much. Once we checked on our lost luggage (KLM was closed for the day, which could mean another day of handwashing. That’s okay, got a system down by now). Second was to check out Peter’s church, local disciple minister of the McFarland’s ministry. Peter wasn’t there BUT…we met Morris, a preschool teacher and her 15 or so students. We could hear them practicing their English alphabet using a repetitive song with objects starting with each letter. Marty interrupted them and introduced us to Morris and the children. I started taking pictures of the kids and letting them see themselves, and before I knew it I had all of them looking at themselves on the digital screen crowded around me in a semi-circle. Jill got a little teary-eyed. She’s got a good heart for the Lord. After leaving, we drove around some more, which was a great opportunity to see the Africans just doing their thing. Markets full of fruits, vegetables, clothes and shoes (everything you could think of) (Steve was right. I saw no new packages of underwear.) People were dressed in their bright tribal clothes, ladies with bananas propped up on their heads, and guys hanging around shooting the breeze. THEN IT HAPPENED! A bird flew in the window of the van, passed Marty’s head, and hitting Jess in the side of hers. We pulled over to let it out, and half us grabbed our cameras to document this event. Cool. Stopped for lunch with whole gang. Steve joined us. Ate at a Chinese restaurant in Africa. Weird but awesome and very delicious. After lunch we headed back to the house and started on the chicken coops. A little slow going to start with. We had to feel our way through the first coop as a group: (oo that rhymed) checking designs, measuring, cutting, nailing, etc. Got framing for 4 walls, and wood cut for roof. The next 3 should go faster. Jill, Jess, and Marty worked on VBS lesson. Decided to go with skit with puppets and section of Jesus video with Jesus calming the sea. More visuals to help kids at VBS understand story better. Should go great. The girls are awesome! Dave and Steve are naturals with the woodworking. Me?? I’m doing my best. While these activities were going on, Mike was working on the blog for the trip. He helped us after the computer work. I rested and talked with Steve awhile, while the ladies got supper ready. Good stuff about what he and Marty are experiencing here in Tanzania. After supper had some time to debrief, pray, and give the McFarlands gifts all of us had bought and brought from the States. It’s now time for lala, Swahili for zzzz…Scripture for the day: Daniel 1, story of “the four” being shipped to a foreign land yet serving God.

Journal Entry by Chuck Simmons

What A Trip!

It was 6AM on Saturday, May 24th when we left the church building (Crossroads). The missions team was there to pray, encourage and give a devotion (thanks Dale). So, after loading the van we were off to the KC airport for a 1:24pm departure heading to Detroit. After a 2 hour layover in Detroit and a lunch we boarded our next flight heading to Amsterdam. The flight took eight hours and I slept for at least 6 of the 8 in the air. The 6 hours of rest really hit the spot. Once we landed in Amsterdam we only had 1 hour to board our next flight. So, we got off the flight from Detroit and our next gate was right across the concourse. This was handy since we only had around an hour to board our last flight heading to Kilimanjaro. Finally we boarded our last flight and right when we were about to take off. When a lady on the blacked out and we had to head back to our original gate. Hope the lady is doing better, but it delayed our flight around an hour and half. After a 8 hour flight and one and half hour delay we arrive in Kilimanjaro airport at 9:30PM.

Once we were done completing our visa’s we headed to the baggage claim to discover, we were missing two bags. Chuck and Jessica’s bags didn’t make it to the baggage claim.  They filled out the necessary paper work and we meet Steve and Marty on the other side of customs. After a great night’s sleep. Monday morning (today) we had orientation and toured the city of Arusha.

All in all the trip has been great! We will keep you posted on any updates written by the team.

Peace, Mike Campbell