Since I've been back home themost frequently asked question has been "Joy, what the heck is next?"
Well, sweet friends and family I now have some news. Lets backtrack a bit...to get the quick version scroll down until you see the first sentence of a paragraph all in bold, okay?
Last July I sat in a living room of a church members house in Eldoret, Kenya watching the new nation of South Sudan come peacefully into existence on their fuzzy television. I was fascinated, drawn in, I couldn't listen to the people around me- here is a country that I have heard about all these years from my church and through Water Is Basic and there we were only a few countries away. Every part of me longed to be there to celebrate with this new nation. History in the making right in front of my very eyes.
This new Republic of South Sudan is full of hope, full of this crazy, incredible, divine potential. YES, the scars are still current from their war-torn history and even in the here and now some new wounds are forming. YET, the Lord has given me His eyes for this nation, to see the indescribable beauty behind what the news plasters on our TV screens: war, death, threats, poverty, lack of clean water, orphans, widows, disease, muslims vs christians, bombs, oil, etc.
Ever since I was young I had a heart for orphans and my parents often remind me of one particular Christmas in high school where I asked for a laptop, a car, or a Russian orphan for my present. I didn't get any of them that Christmas, in case you were wondering...Most importantly I'm still waiting on the orphan that the Lord has for me.
You see, I can't help but sense this amazing potential in children, specifically of South Sudan to change, alter, renew, TRANSFORM the very layout of South Sudan, to rise up, to pour out and deliver a new nation that honors God. I see a nation with leaders that says "NO" to corruption and says "We may have had a long, hard, crappy past, yet we will honor God in this, we believe God in this, and Glory, honor and POWER is your's Lord, never our own, never our own Lord Jesus."
At the end of last September I saw a blog on TWR homepage from a guy that had just gotten off the field and wanted to go to South Sudan, I excitedly commented on it basically saying, "Man, if I was home, I'd be there in a heart beat." Well, turns out he didn't leave at the time becuase funds didn't come through. And, little did I know I would meet later meet this guy, Brian at a conference for racers that just got off the field. When I spoke with him at this conference in early January he cast the vision for me of this Children's Home in Yei, South Sudan he begin to tell me the founder of this orphanage in Yei was discipled by the founder of Adventures In Missions like, you know, the big man on campus- a man that I could honestly, really trust. You may know him, or have heard of him- Seth Barnes. I was at ease when he told me that Seth mentored and discipled this guy named Uche who was from Nigeria but ran this children's home in Yei. Brian began to tell me there was 102 sweet children at Dreamland Childrens Home in Yei, South Sudan ages 5-16 that were sponsored by this church in Indiana but didn't have the people there to pour into them like they needed. These children needed adults to love on them, hear them, bear their burdens with them and parent them.
I was pretty much sold at this point in our conversation. Like I said earlier adoption has been on my heart since a young girl , and the Lord put that in my heart for such a time as this. I don't care if its spiritual or physical adoption, these are the children of our Lord, Jesus and they need someone to care for them. Currently, there is a director at this children's home and they have food, schooling and a bed to sleep in...what they are lacking is a consistent figure in their lives to love, guide, challenge and encourage them that they DO have worth, they DO have value and they CAN and WILL make a difference in the Kingdom of God and in their new nation. I know the Lord has called me into that role.
You know that scene from "The Help" where the maid looks at the little girl, that isn't her own and tells her, "You is kind. You is smart. You is important." Mannnnnnn, that scene gets me every time, I just wanna start bawling. My souls desire is to pour into these children (you can see all 102 children if you click here and here.)
Long story short, my hearts desire is to go to Yei, South Sudan for approximately a year or two to pour into these children and love on them, disciple them well and even counsel them. Our goal and vision as a united team (that we have been forming, and mostly all world race alumni) is to love on all these children and to seek out the older leaders of the children's home and identify men and women in the surrounding community to take the reigns on this all after we leave. This is a very important part, we want to work ourselves out of the role for the change to be in the hand of the locals and to empower change within their own culture. Our ultimate desire is to train, equip and encourage leaders to rise up in this community and to set an example to this generation in Dreamland Children's Home who will be world-changers and shakers!
Here's the thing, my flesh cries out every day to stay here in America, to take a hot shower every night, wake up in a comfortable bed sans bugs and be available for another young single man, to see my family grow and change and see new nieces and nephews being born but my heart cannot simply turn away from this opportunity, to serve and love. What an amazing privilege.
Here's the plan so far, and always subject to change:
My teammate Shannon and I plan to leave for South Sudan for a month April 25th-May 27th to work out logistics with Uche, meet the children and learn more about what it would be like to live there for a couple of years. After this I would return home to tell the stories of these beautiful children and to support raise before I head back out to South Sudan later that year-The date I would head back out will be determined by AIM and how support raising goes.
So, here's where you come in: I need some major prayer, major, crazy prayer, we need prayers for our team for these children, for health, for wisdom in this, for anything and everything you can think of: we need it and I'd be beyond honored if you'd take the time at night at home by yourself or with your children and throughout the day to pray for our team pursuing this opportunity. Let your children know they are praying for other children across the world that are just like them!
Oh, and of course all these things comes a financial part as well. This 1 month long trip is going to cost right around $3,000, The Lord has already incredibly, incredibly provided the plane ticket without me even asking anyone for support-Glory to HIM!!! But, now I must ask, I still need right at $1,300, would you please consider financially supporting me in this? If so, please let me know and here is how you do it:
Step 1: get an envelope and address it to Adventures In Missions, 6000 Wellspring Trail, Gainesville, GA 30506 Attention: Gary Lengkeek
Step 2: Write check and in the memo line, please print Joy Robertson-South Sudan, long term missions.
Step 3: If you wouldn't mind, let me know so I can tell AIM to look for for the check and I make sure every donation comes through.
Step 4: Tell me where I can find you to come give you a big bear hug.
OR, to make it easier there is now online donation through the staff website for me even though I am not a staff member. Just go to this link here and just type in "Joy Robertson, South Sudan, Long term missions in the description line"
If anyone has any questions, about any of this, please let me know, I'd be happy to answer them. Love you guys, thank you SO much in advance for the prayers, and all sorts of support!
This week I have recieved many messages from my friends all over the world-Such a good reminder that this year DID happen, sometimes it seems SO surreal, that it didn't even exist, it was just a blur, a dream, nothing more. These reminers are great and reconnects me to my brothers and sisters across their world, their celebrations and struggles and how to advocate and pray for them.
A few days ago I got an email from our contacts in Kenya to tell me they had their 2nd baby! Congratulations Pastor P and Emmi, and Jeri on the new addition to your sweet family, I'm so excited for you all!
This is Pastor P and I! Now Patrick is a father of 2 children! Whoo-hoo!
Giving Jere a pep talk! Congrats on being a big brother, little guy!
and Emmi (the one in red) now has a 2nd child (pastor p's wife!)
I occasionally get messages from my friends in Ecuador to see how I am doing! And we were there WAY back in February, my goodness. This is Hipolito, a great man of the Lord, always checking in on his sisters across the world!
Nestor and I, another friend from Ecuador that we keep in touch quite frequently (thank goodness for facebook!!)
and then today on facebook I recieved a message from our friends that are from the Phillipines, visiting home. If you haven't heard, SE Asia keeps having horrible floods. Our friends Jong, Christine and Lala spent hours and hours on the roof, here is her message to my teammates and I. I love how full of faith and joy she is even though their family has been through a CRAZY, hard, hard year.
Man, my heart goes out for my brothers and sisters in the Phillipines, they serve parts of SE Asia that desperately need Jesus. This is a couple that are still newlyweds, so not only are they adjusting to married life, they have a sweet daughter that JUST turned one and have been dealing with donor support from around the world, their biggest donor wasn't able to support them this month and they need only $500 USD a month. THATS IT!!
Here are some pictures of the flood that they went through, and how they helped their neighbors. I took these pictures from Jong's facebook (as well as the captions)
so tired and waiting for the daybreak and for the flood to subside.
this guy with them on the roof (the guy in the white sleeveless shirt had no legs) they were helping everyone up to roof, old women, children, and those with disabilities.
old lady, children young and oldand families were on top of this roof and all are safe, but their homes are all washed up
still got a smile on her face despite the situation, the Filipino spirit!
I post these updates and pictures for Jong and Christine to ask for you to pray for them and, if you can please financially support them. We loved our time with Jong and Christine and their sweet daughter, Lala (below)
This sweet family is so incredibly open to the Spirit, so hospitable, so full of faith and love and use their finances so, so wisely. If you feel led please message me and i will get you the financial information to support them. If you have any questions about them, please also let me know.
Jong, Christine, Lala, as brothers and sister in Christ, The World Race community stands in prayer with you as you walk through this incredibly difficult year. We love you and are CONFIDENT the Lord will bring you exactly what you all need.
For our final debrief our squad went to Prum Bayon Hotel in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
Every squad probably does things a little different we would have worship some nights, video's the other nights and some just hanging out to go dancing-which was awesome/ hilarious.
Here's the picture highlights of our final debrief where graduation goggles come on and you see most people in the "im gonna miss you" light :)
Emily and I on a tuk tuk trying to look like westerners by dressing normal and not World Racey
the Squad leaders took team leaders, finance and logistics people out for a dinner to thank us all :)
this is a picture of the team leaders and our beloved squad leaders
finance, logisitcs, team leaders and SQL
the squad surprised us by throwing us a party to thank us for the work this year, we had no idea what was happening when we walked in but we got some sweet party hats!
squad prayers, one thing i already miss :)
one night hailey and i stayed up wayyyy too late (circa 530am) these are our beyond tired faces.
the final day we were there we had a "squad banquet" so we get dress up nice , eat nice food and say nice things. here is jeffe giving a toast
after the nice food we all took pictures and were wayyy too loud in the hotel lobby. WR'ers can't be quiet. this is christopher robin and i:
team wreckonciled girls:
Team Wreckonciled, one last time:
Joelface and I being awk as per usual.
kellen and justin this is how they dressed up real nice for us:
V squad together and hopefully not for the last time:
Each racer knows month 11 is something they have to fight for. It's the end, your body, mind and spirit are beyond EXHAUSTED. After so much travel and so much being "on" its easy to want to shut down, find an air conditioned room and not come out for 2 years straight. Seriously, SE Asia is my favorite, but the sweat factor is craziness. get prepared to sweat 100% of the time and cherish those cold showers :)
Month 11 was a perfect ending for our team, we taught english in the major city of Phnom Penh. It was a different challenge for us and it was easy to be "on" for something we all enjoyed so much. The hours were different too (2-7ppm each day) so our weary bodies could sleep in (like Emily and I did! :))
Each day we rode in on our fancy tuk tuks and the children's class was waiting outside for us yelling at us in their cute, limited and practiced english, "TEACHA!! TEACHA!!!! HOW ARE YOU?" We taught 3 classes per day with the middle one being a conversational class with the higher level students. This is what the day was all about, we were able to hear how the students lived, what their lives were like at home, what they struggled with and how we could pray for them.
For many of the students this free english school is where they met Jesus. They had conversations with volunteers, teachers and friends in English, they asked tough questions, they disagreed, they wrestled, they talked about it, and they were honest about it. The goal was to teach english, and to have authentic conversations with the students, the goal was to never convert, that wasn't our job, many of the students bring up religion, God and Jesus on our own without any prompting. And for so, so many of them they are turning away from Buddhism and leaving absolutely everything behind that they know, their entire belief system and families to turn to Jesus'. It was incredible to see the dedication and love these students had for Jesus, how they talked about it with such zeal and conviction. It was convicting for me to see, thats for sure. I have everything, and a family and supporters and friends who I can talk about this stuff with, that understand and will pray over me. Many of these young students were rejected by their families for their beliefs-I couldn't comprehend that type of rejection and how hard it must be. Yet, these students pray for their families to come to the Lord day after day knowing that the Lord desires even more than they do for their friends and families to know and meet Him.
During our stay in Phnom Penh handfuls of students in this school met Jesus, it was through the Spirits pull on each of the students heart, and it was such a beautiful, and powerful experience to see this all happen within such a short time.
Here are a few pictures of our time at the school and some of my favorite students below:
We had a small class for our first class of of our day, we had a GREAT time with them, especially because throughout the day the classes got bigger and bigger (the last class was often 50-70 students!)
a special day for our team, the last day of ministry on TWR, still hard to believe its OVER!
These are just some of the students we had the privilege of loving on:
little cambodian buddies. don't you just want to adopt ALL of them?!
this is the real group picture :) loved our stay there so much working with these students.
during our classes we'd get to make up games and embarrass them, it was so fun to interact with them and often embarrass ourselves too
see all these moto's? thats just a group of them coming out of a gas station, imagine what the road is like. Oh yea, in cambodia motorcycles can go any direction they want to-its just cars and tuk tuks that have to obey the flow of traffic. crossing the street is a tad terrifying, you'll think your good to go and then a motorcycles starts coming from the opposite direction!
moto's can fit anything on them. I've seen car door's, tv's, 6 people, animals, and so many other things hanging off of motorcyles-they are also used as taxi's in most places.
here's a short little video of the every day things that would happen with the students just goofin around, my favorite type of stuff.
Our time in Laos was the shortest month but the month with the most preparation (since June) We went into this month very aware of the dangers we might face but we didn't fully understand the realities behind the history of this nation or the beauty or what was in store for us in Laos...
Here is a beautiful sunset in Thailand, before we headed across the border.
We took a 14 hour bus ride up a huge mountain (most of the time going up this mountain...hardly any sleep on that windy ride. YIKES! Buses are bumpy outside of Africa too, promise.) The morning we arrived we napped for 2 hours and then went out to see the Plain of Jars, a famous site in Laos. I recommend reading up about this place, very fascinating. I just love this picture below because it shows Lao writing (Incredibly hard alphabet!) 26 vowels and 28 consonants with 6 different tones....sick.
Here is one of the caves at the Plain of Jars (below). Just outside this cave were trenches from the "Secret War" which happened during the Vietnam War. It's honestly highly confusing to me but from my understanding this "secret war" was when the US broke some sort of agreement to attempt communism from going into Vietnam...or something like that. Dear history people: sorry about the lack of hard facts. I read up about it, but I still get confused! If your interested recommend googling it. While the world saw the Vietnam war, they knew little about what was happening in Laos.
One of the saddest things we kept hearing about Laos is the amount of bombs dropped on this breathtakingly beautiful nation.
According to ecotourismlaos.com "Laos holds the sad record of being the most heavily bombed nation, per person, in history. From 1964-1973, a period of 9 years over two million tons of bombs were dropped on Laos, about 20 bombs per square kilometer or two tons of bombs per person. This bombing continues to affect the lives of people in Laos today in the form of deadly unexploded ordnance (UXO) that contaminates large areas of the country. This deadly threat prevents families from using land to grow food and makes it difficult and expensive to build public infrastructure such as schools and hospitals as land has to be cleared of UXO. Every year around 300 people are killed or injured by UXO accidents."
This is us girls in the cave, just one of hundreds in Laos where people hid, slept and tried to stay safe from the war, some were communists hiding from bombs and, some were simply citizens hiding from the danger.
Tiffy and I
This is a site in the Plain of Jars, I thought it was b-e-a-utiful. It's a tiny picture, but it was incredible to see.
The next day we helped teach english with one of our new found friends we met, I thought this was humorous. Is that weed on there? Yes...yes it is.
Its the beauty in the small things.
We left the first location from the Plain of Jars to keep our friends and us safe. Let me explain, our hotel manager at the first hostel was apparently mad because we didn't take his tour guide. Rather, our friend took us to the Plain of Jars. (This is a big no-no that we didn't know about..so just heads up, our translator said they require people to be certified tour guides from the Department of Tourism, he says that they do this so they can feed you certain information and views about the places that you are seeing. Censoring of information...yikes. I stepped into a very different world.)
What happened was our hotel manager called the police after we left for the Plain of Jars and had them come to the P.O.J to ticket our drivers 1 million kip, it was later lowered to 500,000 kip, 250,000 kip per person (8,000 kip=1USD.) With that, it caused our drivers (which happened to be our translators relatives) to get in trouble and for us to officially be on the radar, plus our translator/ fellow believer was also now on the radar. This wasn't good news. We needed to keep our translator and his family safe and decided to change hostels after the first night there. Being around white people for locals can be dangerous: white people in Laos in non tourist-y areas=only one thing: Christians. In certain towns people avoid white people entirely for that reason. They don't want to be associated with Christians, that will get them arrested, harassed, etc. We left the morning after to ensure our translators safety. Plus, there were starting to be Police everywhere. We were initially in a non-touristy spot, it wasn't particularly unsafe, but we wanted to be wise and not push our luck on it. We actually wanted to go to another place but our organization called to ask us not to go since it was reported to be dangerous to foreigners. So, we headed out for another bus ride...this time shorter but still ridiculously windy down the mountain this time.
We ended up this time in a more touristy place, a place we could still pray, do ministry but not stick out like sore thumbs.
This was at one of the night markets
Below was one of the Hmong villages we went to. So many different people groups in Laos, so, so so many unreached people. We saw a man dancing on a table, chanting with a black hood/bag over his head and children from the neighborhood watching. He was worshipping his ancestors. One of the strangest, eeriest things I've seen thus far.
Buddhism is the official religion in Laos. It is said that Laos is a PDR (a Peoples Democratic Republic) but its also communist-this didn't make sense to us. They also say they have "religious freedom" but as long as its not Christianity they seem to be just fine with it. Below are some women monks. Women wear white and men were bright orange. Just to clarify: There are underground Christian churches in Laos and government okayed ones but its all highly regulated and watched with many laws to abide by...
Multitasking. A good drink+helping children! Oh, Laos.
One day in the next city, we floated down a river (I promise, cross my heart it was ministry for many reasons!) Mostly because we couldn't be blatant or evangelize so we did a lot of prayer walks. This was hard for me, I wanted to do things tangibly! But, we do what we can with what we have and I'm starting to understand the spiritual implications of people laying the spiritual foundation for future people-pretty cool stuff.
That day we floated was the end of the Buddhist Lent where they have a TON of boat races on the river to celebrate the end of their lent and to get drunk and go to the disco together. So, we were on the river (on a different part) praying for people to come to the Lord, for the cancellation of these boat races, for this nation to know the Lord, etc, etc. Plus, my teammate Emily has pretty crappy feet and all the walking this month took quite a toll on her...Yikes. This was something she could do without being in pain. You can pray for her feet: look at how adorable she is since her feet weren't hurting:
This is Wreckonciled gals before the cave we floated into. I've never been into any place that dark before-it was beautiful and superrr creepy. Our guide thought it was hilarious to keep making jokes about things being around the corner (not funny!)
Some of the boats:
This was at a buddhist temple They apparently light the boat and decorate it for buddha, and at some point its supposed to catch on fire on the river...
Apparently the children set it on fire too soon and the kind monk came over there and instructed them gently they needed to blow it out! Nice to know kids are same all around the world. I love the Monks face.. "Now, I'm pretty sure this isn't a good thing..."
At the temple
Thank you so much for your prayers for our safety. God definitely answered them. Please also pray for those who guided us through Laos, to protect them we didn't put any pictures of specific people we spent time with or were believers. Please continue to pray for the entire country of Laos, for people to come to Him, for religious freedom, for safety, for so, so many things. And if you want to, you should come to Laos and share the love of our mighty Lord. Laos needs missionaries. Laos needs the love of our Savior!
I've always been intrigued by the underground church and closed countries and this month the girls of Team Wreckonciled are headed out by the grace of God to love on the people of a nation we aren't even allowed to publicly post the name of.
Please be praying for us this month of October as we head out and can only lean on the Lord's voice as we won't be able to us our own.
Here's what we know about the country and how you can be praying for this ministry:
-Communication will be limited to protect ourselves and the people we are with.
-We most likely will not be able to visit any underground churches b/c we may put the locals more at risk, and they are the ones that live there, not us. Pray for discernment for us.
- The people of this nation practice a lot of animistic practices (worship of trees, etc.)
-We were told to not buy instruments/ or any dolls made of wood, and if we walk under things made of bamboo to make sure we pray a cleansing prayer over ourselves b/c we are told they are very spiritual things. It sounds superstitious, right? But, its actually very, very real.
-We are told toalways have passport on us and not leave anything valuable in our room while we are away.
- While showering, make sure door is locked for our safety (that is, if there is a lock)
-No actual "toilets" here, we will be bringing our sarong as a curtain to tinkle behind!
-As usual watch we will watch others backs for border crossing, as people often try to put drugs in peoples bag.
-The roads we will be taking are prone to landslides, especially in the rainy season, pray for protection. If there is a bad road, we were informed we would not be going on it.
-Like any closed country, there is danger for missionaries, please pray for physical safety for us and our bellies that we don't get sick.
-This nation HIGHLY unreached and in 10/40 window.
- We need protection, we need discernment we will not live by fear, but by the wisdom that God gives us. Please, for the next 15 days (it is a short, SHORT month for us) be praying for safety, unity, and that things would break off in this nation, that hearts would be softened and fear would dissipate through the perfect love of Jesus.
Here's us gals of Wreckonciled that will be headed out tomorrow, October 1st for a memorable trip.
*Editors
note: Please know that God called us out of our comforts to not always be safe. I mean, just read anywhere in the Bible! We understand we need to be wise and we are
listening to the Lord's leading but we weren't called to be safe to be
comfortable, you know? We will do everything we can to protect ourselves but the truth is this country is dangerous, and the
truth is any country is
dangerous, Christians are under attack anywhere in the world. It's a
spiritual battle that manifests itself very physically in so many
different parts of the world. It's a truth that should make us uncomfortable that should get under your skin, and its something that should cause compassion, and intercession for things to change.
I
understand the things I posted caused a stir and concern, but before
you worry or call anyone- I'd like to challenge you to PRAY for the
people in these closed countries that deal with these realities day after day after day.
Those people can't escape this, we are blessed enough to be able to
leave or to simply just get kicked out. Pray for true religious freedom
in this nation.
Kibaha was our 9th place we had to say goodbye to. Naturally, some goodbyes are easier than others. This one however wasn't the easiest since we adored our main contact, Nathaniel. He would stay up late and wake up early for us. He even left with us at 4AM on our bus to make sure we made it to the ferry dock safely to head to Zanzibar, he also helped us purchase tickets for the ferry by taking us to the main office. Future WR'ers make sure you take a local with you to not get ripped off, round trip ferry tickets are around $60-65, you will want to buy them in advance.
Future Racers, if you meet this man, Nathaniel make sure you love on him, he's absolutely incredible! We said goodbye to Nathaniel at the gate before we boarded our ferry!
We got to the ferry dock wayyy early and found ourselves a little bored. Pictures ensued. Here's how a little bit of our team dynamics work in picture form. Joel, me and Brent.
The ferry boat is around 2 hours long each way- there is an inside and outside section, we were pretty happy to be on the inside with air conditioning, scary machete movies on the screen and playing dutch blitz at our table!
Welcome to beautiful Zanzibar! Yes you need your passports and yellow fever card (first time they checked it all year!)
We didn't waste anytime in Zanzibar, we checked in as quickly as we could and got a taxi with Hasaan, a worker at the hostel to take us to this beautiful, non-touristy beach :)
Sunset at our beach, photo taken by Emily Tuttle
The next day we woke up early to go snorkeling while Katie our teammate when Scuba diving, we even got to see a ship wreck, twas crazy. We had to wear wet suits b/c of the small jelly fish in the Indian Ocean. It was absolutely breathtaking!
getting back in the boat after our 2nd round of snorkeling!
beautiful ocean!
the next day we hit up a few markets before heading out I have to say I'm a pretty decent bargainer!
After shopping Hasaan and our driver Victor took us to the Ferry and said goodbye to us after we got out exit Zanzibar stamp! Hasaan and Victor sang with us on the way back from the beach one night with us all singing Celine Dion! They also took us to the food market that night to try different Zanzibar food. I made sure to ask everyone for a "Neepatano" which means "high five" in Swahili. It's sure to make the locals young and old giggle.
This is the latest version of Team Wreckonciled on the ferry boat back to Dar Se Laam, Tanzania for a night before we headed back to SE Asia.
Me, on the floor while every other person around me is puking b/c of how large the waves were and how rocky our ferry was...yikes!
Our final country in Africa this past month was dirty, interesting, long, yet at the same time too short, difficult and well, epic if i do say so myself. Here's a run down of the craziness that ensued:
-We had a bit of a cock roach infestation starting our first night in Kibaha, Tanzania and my teammate Emily Tuttle went a little off her rocker trying to kill those suckers. We were all a little less than amused by the infestation. Click on the link above to see her try and get those bad boys. Also, below is my french press one morning. My breakfast plans foiled by those horrid creatures!
- The church in Kibaha is very loving and kind they organized a crusade for people to come and meet Jesus. Kibaha is a town HUNGRY for the Lord. Incredible things happened and people found Jesus for the first time. It's such a different environment from the West where we want and long for explanations, proof, logic, science and every thing to make sense. This just in: God doesn't have to bow to my skepticism, he transcends knowledge and does what HE wants for HIS glory. If it doesn't make sense it doesn't make it not true. Yikes, thats a hard pill to swallow for us Westerners, isn't it? It is for me, thats for sure.
-One of our off days day our team was walking through Dar Se Laam hungry to get some American food and some wi-fi. We had already taken 3 buses and a few hours on our day off to get to our location. After our last bus we got off and began walking to our final destination. Brent and I were in front when we heard Tiffany screaming-we turned around and ran to Tiffany covered in dirt, sitting in the road, her purse gone. Someone had pulled a "snatch and drag" and grabbed her purse and drove off dragging her behind the car. Make sure to read all 4 parts of her blog.
-The most epic part of our time in Tanzania was spent 6 hours away in a rural village where we taught about HIV/AIDS, went to villages where they had NEVER seen white people before-children were screaming in fear of us! The most beautiful thing was we went to Masaii village to encourage and pray for them. It was crazy! They gave us Coca-Cola's and fed us interesting meat and even gave us GAS MONEY since we came. WOW. I wish I could explain how full my heart is simply writing about this experience. Not only that but we spent some time with some incredible widows and beautiful orphans. One night around 150 of these individuals waited for us in the pouring rain to meet us. My teammate and friends who went wrote about this incredible experience be sure to check it out here and here.
Here are some of my favorite pictures from the time in these incredible villages:
This is our home and toilet in the background!
The Masaii people stopped us we were driving and hopped in!
This is quite possibly the most memorable moment of the race where I felt like I was in National Geographic. These are the Masaii Shepherds. We walked towards them initially and they RAN away. Soon though, they became our friends!
One of the Masaii elders:
what a little cutie!
These are some of the women that waited for us in the rain. It was a lotttt colder than it looks, I promise!
Isnt' she just beautiful?
There are estimated over 170,000 Albinos in Tanzania, the highest in any part of Africa. They are hunted by witch doctors for their body parts, they are also thought to be a curse, typically thought to be legally blind and have such sensitive skin in the harsh climate of TZ. PLEASE be praying for these people, that they would be accepted and loved. You can read more about PWA (People with Albinism in TZ here)
Also, I recommend you check out my teammate Tiffanys video of dancing all around Africa, I may or may not make a guest appearance a few times. You're welcome :)
Emily Tuttle and I collaborated on this one! Enjoy the reasons why you want to date us international hotties!
1) Lucky for our future significant others, us WR'ers can talk about our bodily functions for approximately 12 hours a day. We will gladly describe our symptoms in stunning clarity, leaving out absolutely nothing. No detail is too intimate for us to discuss it over a casual dinner. Example: In Ecuador the men on my team had to walk me back home in the dark rainforest so I could take a runny #2 when I was sick. In El Salvador, the water turned off and the one and only toilet for 15 people wouldn't flush-one of my teammates, Joel, got to see some of my..."left overs." Yikes.
2) We will eat anything that you put in front of us. Will we like it? Doubtful. But you'll never know that it was borderline gag-worthy because we will chew, swallow, and affirm your culinary prowess with a hearty burp, a thumbs up, a belly rub, and if you're lucky, a dance move of some sort.
3) We have a certain pleasing aroma with us wherever we go. Ok, maybe it's not so pleasing...the ever so alluring scent of sweat, dirt, bug spray, and moldy clothes from 10 different countries (so far). Picture Pumba in the Lion King...we can sure clear a savanna.
4) We take personal hygiene to a new and exciting level! We forget to brush our teeth, wash our bodies, and shave our legs and armpits. We have a girl who has gone a good 60+ days without taking an actual shower. My question is: now who doesn't want a highly motivated and determined gal like THAT?
5) You'd basically be dating a celebrity. We have signed autographs, given out our email addresses, taken pictures with strangers, and looked up from across the road to see people taking pictures of us. When we walk down the street people shout at us, MZUNGU! GRINGO! The only foreseeable downsides of this are A) By dating us you will be required to forfeit your anonymity and commence entertaining crowds of children and prospective suitors seeking US visas. B) You will be committing to deal with our newly acquired narcissism. It's not like you can expect us to go from being Miss America on a parade float to invisible in a day and not need attention:)
6) We'll save that lucky someone some big bucks! Us WR'ers know how to bargain it up with local vendors and walk away from those trying to overcharge us. Our contact in El Salvador says that whenever he goes to the States he will bargain at Walmart to get better prices. Who is taking that tactic back to the States? This gal! Watch out Forever 21 and Anthropologie, I'm not going to take your high prices without a fight!
7) We can make any place you take us into home within minutes, and in less than a record-breaking 30 seconds we will be christening your toilet and setting up a place to sleep! Can't afford a good place to sleep? NBD (no big deal for you old folks) we can sleep on any floor, any chair, any bus, and smile the whole way through it. Achieving a good REM cycle is one of our best skills! We can turn su casa into mi casa faster than you can go get the tea you offered us. By the time you get back from boiling the water we will be sprawled out on your tile floor cooling down while our teammates usurp your wifi connection. Example: we are currently jacking this internet from a local Thai hospital even though our appointment ended almost an hour ago. Some would call us squatters...we prefer opportunistic.
8) You will never be bored. We can put on quite the show. You're welcome, planet earth for our off-key songs, dancing sans rhythm with the locals, and our impromptu sermons. We live by the Boy Scouts' famous motto: be prepared.
9) We're easy to impress! You have a toilet you can SIT on without thinking something is going to crawl up and bite you?!? WHOA! You have ELECTRICITY? You have a car? Now, your just showin' off!
10) We're handymen and women. We push cars, fix toilets and make bricks. No need to call those so-called 'professionals' when you have one of us! If we can't fix it with a roll of duct tape and a couple REI caribeeners, it's unfixable.
So here I am: Dar Se Laam, Tanzania. (well, in Kibaha...like 2 hours away by bus from Dar Se Laam) We are done with Ugandan ministry and then we went to Jinja for a few days to camp out and so people could raft the nile, then we had our 8 month debrief which was incredible to see the whole squad again. Our first time as a squad to not see each other every month!
I dont have too much to report as of now from Tanzania. We had a few days to rest once we got here, which was ironic b/c we just had debrief. Future world racers: Africans want you to REST and EAT. Well, atleast ours have these past months! We took advantage of those days to adjust to another new culture with new contacts and a new location.
Right now 9 of us are sleeping outside in our tents and the other 4 inside in the rooms. Lets just say theres been a bit of an infestation of bed bugs, cockroaches and other various things. Plus, most of us prefer 4 of our own walls and a place to be by yourself, even if you can hear someone else in their tent a mere 2 inches away.
We have done door to door ministry this month which actually is pretty legit here in Tanzania, there is a lot of love and acceptance from our pastors . I remember in a few other countries there was a lot of disrespect and hatred for other beliefs but our pastors just love whoever they meet and pour into them without condition. Pray that this to spread around the world, loving the people, we aren't fighting against PEOPLE but the prince and principalities of darkness behind them.
Pray for more movement in this town, its a highly islamic area, pray for people to come to the Lord, and please pray for our safety. Tanzania has gotten a bad reputation and we would love your prayers for safety.
This week our team is supposed to be going to a village to camp out that has nothing to work with widows and orphans, please pray for us there and for God to move big time.
Much love! :) Sorry about 3 updates in a row, gotta take advantage of the internet when I have it! :)
