Welcome Davis!!!

Hey,

We have a guest blogger who will be joining us from time to time. Davis Rhodes is a recent Auburn University graduate who is currently with us in Mwanza as a volunteer. He will be working with our economic development programs around the Lake Zone. Here below are some introductory thoughts from him as he gets into his time here in Tanzania and I am sure that more will follow.

My name is Davis Rhodes, and I feel pretty thankful that Liz and Eric have given me the opportunity to serve with them. I have been in Tanzania for 6 weeks now, and have met far too few Tanzanians, due to my limited Swahili, and indeed, the desire to meet more Tanzanians has been the fuel to my fire to learn Swahili as fast as possible. All the same, the highlights so far have been the few Tanzanians that I have met. Parmao is a Tanzanian who also does development work with Eric and Liz. His smile always makes you want to smile, and he does not grow weary of trying to communicate with me, having perpetual patience with my slow, stumbling Swahili. When I went to the youth retreat at Gamasara, I was also thankful to meet the mothers who provided the food. They thoroughly enjoyed helping me learn to dance, and saw no reason that having a baby on one’s back should hinder the movement of one’s feet!

The first six weeks have also prompted some new everyday questions that don’t have an easy answers:

There is a scene in my favorite movie, Gandhi, where a British friend asks how he can help. Gandhi declines the offer, saying, “I have to be sure, they have to be sure, that what we do can be done by Indians alone.”(Gandhi, 1982) At the same time, it seems obviously unloving not to help those who are having a hard time, especially if they specifically ask for your help. Well, that question itself is nothing new. The new question is about my role as I begin working with these communities in the next few weeks. It would be best to give the church and community as much responsibility as possible. What does “as much responsibility as possible” look like in the mess of momentary decisions though? When do I say something, when should I be silent? How often should I meet with them? Surely I shouldn’t correct everything that seems like a mistake to me. At what point does hands-off become negligence though?

I have had two different conversations with Tanzanians who suggested that they ought to seek God as a means to receiving material blessings. I have always told people that this should not be our motive for seeking God, and that we will be disappointed if we do seek God as a means to improving our material well-being. I’ve never had a second thought about it. In these two conversations, I haven’t known what to say though.  It’s pretty awkward that the one with far less to be worried about in the realm of material provision is also the one who is comfortable saying that we should not seek God as a means to material provision. 

Even as I struggle with these questions I am hoping that as I leave language lessons and start work over the next few weeks that I will make more friends and find a few more questions. 

Gandhi. Dir. Richard Attenborough. Perf. Ben Kingsley. Columbia, 1982. DVD.

Choices

It has been a while since I have written anything in this space. Partly I have been busy and partly I have been a little overwhelmed with where life has taken me in the last little while. Pick which ever excuse you like or make one up. I hope that I am back to writing more often and again sharing this life we have chosen in Tanzania with all of you. Appropriately than, the first blog up expresses maybe some of how I feel and why it has been a while since I put something up here for public consumption.

Choices

There are choices that we make and there are choices that make us.

I chose to be involve in people’s lives

I never chose to help bury more people under 25 than over.

I chose to volunteer in Tanzania

I never chose long bus rides, hard roads, and harder souls.

I chose to follow my hear, my passion, and my God over my head and my 5 year plan

I never chose hardship or for my family to share my challenges.

I chose to adopt the most precious child I have ever connected with

I did not chose protracted court processes, high financial costs, and emotional lows from a lack of access to my own hear family.

I chose to open my heart and my eyes to the reality of the world

I never chose to be surrounded by more hard choices, more real fear, more raw emotion than I ever experienced in my blessed childhood.

I chose people over things.

I never chose to know about drug abuse and police interrogation techniques.

I chose to be a resources for others

I never chose to be continually frustrated by a lack of resources for some of the most important area of life.

Yet there are choices that you make and there are choices that make you. And in the end, the only thing that makes sense when you accept that they are all you and you are made up of all of them. Life becomes both harder and more acceptable, making it both easier to breath and much, much more difficult. And it helps you from running…knowing that all of this is now you and disowning isn’t possible and won’t help, but owning it may, some how, in some small way make hope for someone else, which than in turn, even when you didn’t choose it, is really what you were hoping for all along.

House Fires

I have written blogs about him before, but I have rarely known a more dedicated servant among our churches. Jacob Korinda is now an ordained deacon in the United Methodist Church of Tanzania. He was one of the first local pastors I met and he introduced me to the history of the Mara District which I unknowingly would later assume leadership of. Jacob is the pastor of Ingrichini UMC, circuit leader of the Rorya Circuit, and chair of our district development committee. None of these jobs earn him a paycheck, but he does them lovingly anyway.

On a recent visit to his home we were talking about different housing styles and building materials and he shared with me a story from when he had just started working as a local pastor. He was out in the field with his wife and they had had to leave their children at home in care of the oldest brother. While they were gone one of the younger children accidently knocked over the wood cooking fire and sent sparks into the roof of his traditional mud and grass roof house. By the time that Jacob and his wife reached home the house had already burned down. All the children were okay thanks to the oldest who rescued them from the house, but the family lost everything expect the clothes on their backs. Even through this episode the family stayed faithful to the church while slowly rebuilding their home, purchasing new clothes, and making it though a tough time.

Since that house fire many years ago Jacob have led the church members in building a church for Ingrichini UMC. This is the only church in our district where I found a roof already on the building and simply had to finish some of the layers of brick and doors and windows. Yet in all of that time Jacob has continue to live with his family in a traditional house with a grass roof. I feel like people as dedicated as Jacob should have safe, dignified housing.

Please consider supporting us on December 1^st, 2015 as we participate in Giving Tuesday and work to transform the lives of the people we work with. You can head to www.umcmission.org/give and search for “Church Construction and Development - # 3021923.” More information on how donations are matched is below.

UMC #GivingTuesday, Dec. 1

On Dec. 1, United Methodists will once again come together to support the work of Advance projects and missionaries on UMC #GivingTuesday. And once again, every gift made online through The Advance at www.umcmission.org/give on Dec. 1, 2015 will be matched up to $1 milion.* The missionary who receives the highest amount of online donations on UMC #GivingTuesday will be able to direct $10,000 to an Advance project of his/her choice!

* Global Ministries will allocate matching funds dollar for dollar up to the first $1 million in gifts to Advance projects received online on Dec. 1, 2015, between 12:00 a.m. and 11:59 p.m. CT. A maximum of $2,500 per individual gift to a project will be dispersed as matching funds. A project may receive a maximum of $25,000 in matching funds.