Let me introduce you to "my girls"...

Since I am always talking about "my girls," I thought I would take the time to introduce you to them. These are the girls that I have in my youth small group, who eat lunch in my room every day, who are fun-loving and energetic and who I will miss dearly when I leave. I have had the privelege of being a part of their lives these last three years and I have learned so much from each of them as I have tried to walk the journey of life with them.

Last weekend, one of the other teachers from school did a "photo shoot" with my girls. They had so much fun dressing up and getting their pictures taken...that is after they warmed up to the camera and stopped glaring at me for making them do it! It was so hard to choose which of the thousand pictures to post, but here are a few of my favorites...Enjoy!

This is my favorite picture...they were finally warmed up to the camera and ready to be their crazy and unique selves.


Introducing Lucy...





Lucy is an MK from England. She has been in Tanzania for 5 years with her family, but they are returning to England at the end of the year. Lucy is full of life and very outgoing. She plays both football (soccer) and basketball and is very althletic. Lucy's family is also a part of AIM so we get to see each other a lot.

Introducing Savannah...




Savannah is from Denmark and England, but she has lived in Tanzanian most of her life. She always has a smile on her face and lights up the room. She also plays both football and basketball and is a Manchester United fan.

Introducing Madison...

Madison is an MK from Michigan! She has been in Tanzania with her family for almost 4 years. She is a deep thinker and very reflective. She is on the basketball team and is a very good defensive player.

Introducing Jenny...

Jenny is an MK from the US. She has lived around the world with her family including being on Mercy Ships in central America before coming to Tanzania 2 years ago. She lives in a boarding house with other MK's while her parents work serveral hours away. She is goofy and always makes us laugh. I work with her during the school day so we spend a lot of time together during the week.

Introducing Laura...

Laua is a MK from the Netherlands, but she has lived in Tanzania for 7 years. She is down to earth and always looking to learn new things (she always has a book in hand!). She is a great swimmer and very talented in acting.

Introducing Melissa...

Melissa is a German MK but has lived in Tanzania most of her life. She came to HOPAC not knowing English in grade 7 and is now one of the best English students! She is dedicated and a very hard worker.

Here are a couple more of my favorite group shots...

This was before the photo shoot...I was supposed to wear the bunny ears to make them smile during the pictures!

We were not sure what to do, so I told them all to dance and this is a perfect capture of each of our unique personalities coming together!

Of course we had to take a head picture...it did take a little convincing to get them to all lie down in the sand.

And here we all are...

So these are my beautiful girls...my prayer for each of them is this: "The King is enthralled by your beauty; honor Him, for He is your Lord." Psalm 45:11

The scope of President Bush's visit to Dar

Yes, it is true that President Bush was in Dar last week, and we even got a glimpse of him…


Ok, so it was a very photoshoped picture of him on a billboard…but it still counts, right??

The word on the street is that Bush arrived in Dar with not one, but three Air Force One planes (so no one knows which he is in, I guess??) and ten cargo planes to carry the bullet proof cars that he brought all the way here. Interesting, isn't it??

We were hoping that Bush would speak at the embassy or something, but when we could not find any information out, Melissa and I decided to go searching in town one day for the hotel that we knew Bush was staying in. We were not exactly sure where the hotel was but all along the way there were signs or flags announcing his presences in Dar.

There were several of these billboards around town

These lined the streets and said something about a partnership between the US and Tanzania

This is the hotel that Bush was staying in...at least we think so...we were told that his entourage filled all three of the 5 star hotels in town...thats a lot of people!


It might not be a picture of Bush, but at least we got the to see secret service people searching a car. We took the picture quickly through the back window of the car! We later learned that Bush was not even in Dar the day we went searching for him.

Even though we did not actually see Bush, we did benefit from his visit – the road in front of the American Embassy was repaved and they even painted lines on some of the main roads (not that they really help, but it makes the roads look nicer!). He also gave a considerable amount of money to Tanzania and we all pray that the money is used to help the country develop.

A reporter from the Washington Post contacted a HOPAC parent while he was here with Bush and went with him to visit the village of the head cleaner at school. William is an amazing man who not only works all day at school, but then rides his bike 30 minutes home and spends the night teaching school to the children in his village. He has also set up a small church and is the pastor of it. He wrote a good article about his visit and if you are interested you can read it on this link: http://video1.washingtontimes.com/fishwrap/2008/02/a_memorable_day.html

Camping on the beach

A few weeks ago, I was thinking about our upcoming midterm break and wondering what I wanted to do. Then I had the brilliant idea that we should go camping and then I had the even better idea that we should take our youth small group with us. For a few weeks it was all exciting and the girls were so excited to go, but then came the realization that camping with nine people in Tanzania on the beach is a lot of work…and I began to wonder what in the world I was thinking.

After a very busy few weeks and parent teacher conferences, we packed up the car with everything but the kitchen sink and headed 45 minutes north of Dar to a small town called Bagamoyo. We set up camp at one of the local “resorts” on the beach.

We spent our time sitting around relaxing, swimming in the pool, trying to cook over a little “jiko” and taking lots of pictures.

We made "hobos" and cooked them over the fire...they were really good

Lucy making smores over the fire. It was dark and we all ended up with marshmellow all over us!

Hanging out around the campfire

All of our other cooking we did over a Tanzanian kerosine "jiko"...it was an experience! Here I am making pancakes for breakfast. We also had omlettes...we ate good!

Fun in the pool

Posing in the ocean for a group shot

Despite the work that it took to get everything organizes and sorted, we all had a great time and enjoyed each others company. These girls are all amazing and I love being around them – their energy is contagious and their smiles and love warm my heart.

Here are some group shot of all of us…

We took about 20 pictures before we got a good one!

The rat saga!

Living in Africa you get used to seeing a lot of things and you learn to take life as it is thrown at you…but there are some things that I can’t get used to…like waking up in the morning and finding a dead rat in my shower…yes in my shower!

This was my not so pleasant wake up call this morning the other morning.

Let me back up a bit…the last “rat” update I sent out we had killed 4 rats in our house using various methods. We thought that we had gotten rid of all the rats and we even had our landlord put new screens on the whole house. This was great because there were no longer rat holes in all of our screens, but sadly our excitement lasted only a few short weeks. It was truly a sad day when we woke up to find a hole in the screen in our kitchen and even sadder when 2 blocks of poison disappeared over the next 2 days…now it was a waiting game until the next one showed up dead.

The hole in our brand new screens...sad!

The 5th rat died a slow (and kind of sad) death in our kitchen after we covered him with a basin. The 6th rat was the one pictured above in my shower…I decided this morning that I prefer to have the rats alive because then I can ignore them and forget they are there (that is until the scurry across the floor in front of me) so I don’t think we are going to put any more poison out. But that could all change the next time I see one! More “rat” updates to follow…

Just in case you are interested…we have a lot of other critters living in our house besides the rats. We had a termite infestation the other week and they were billowing out of an old chair (it was like a horror movie…), we get frogs that come up our drains, we sometimes have flying cockroaches, we recently have had several millipedes and centipedes because of the rain and last but certainly not least was a spider in our sink the other morning…I simply put a cup over it and left it for someone else to dispose of (we actually took it to the science teacher at school who said we should have left it in the house because it ate mosquitoes…no thanks!)

The spider that we found in our sink...

The frogs that sometimes come up our sink...this one we found in a cupboard...

The pile of dead termintes after they billowed from the chair and we sprayed them with lots of Doom...they dont look like much but there really were hundreds of them...they shrivelled up from the Doom.

And finally the flying cockroaches which we thankfully have not seen in a while. I just realized that I don't have a picture of millipedes...I will get one next time we have one!

All I can say is there is never a dull moment living here!

A journey of hope...

It’s only fitting that for my first blog that I explain my thinking behind the title of my blog, so here goes….

I have been thinking a lot about life being journey and that God leads us each down different paths of this journey. When I think of a journey, I think of more than just a trip. I think of moving toward a specific destination with different stops along the way, I think of obstacle to be overcome, I think of an end goal, I think of life…a journey to become all that God created us to be. As I look back over my life, I am amazed at the journey that God has lead me down so far and I am humbled by the people that he has put into my life to help guide me. Someone recently used the example of life being a train that we get on and off of at different stops throughout our lives. My journey is going through Tanzania right now, but it will soon be time for me to get back on the train and head to the next place God has prepared for me. I don’t know where else God wants to take me, but I know that I am excited to continue living the journey…every step of the way.

Not only is life a journey, but it is a journey of hope. I listened to a sermon by Donald Miller the other day called “Our hope in the future glory of God” and he talked about the hope that we as Christians have and how this changes our lives. It really made me think about the things that we try to put our hope in and that the only true thing to hope in is Christ. Donald Miller said that God offers us everything that we need and all we need to do is believe and put our hope in this promise. I was asked by some of my girls the other day how I continue to live with the pain in my back and the only answer that I could give them is that I have hope in God and trust that his will is perfect. I have hope that all God’s promises are true and because of this hope I will not be shaken. So this life we have all been blessed with is a journey and it is a journey of hope as we believe in God’s promise and rejoice in his future glory.

Finally this journey is God’s story in and through my life. The whole Bible is God’s redemptive story for us. Our lives are just a small part in a larger story, a story that is not about us, but about God to bring Him glory. My life is a specially designed part of God’s story in the world and the part that I am playing is really God’s story in and through me. I desire that my life be a reflection of God and that the things I do bring Him glory. I challenge you to have courage to boldly write the story that God has given you.

So there you have it…My life is a journey, a journey that is full of hope in God’s promises, a journey that gives me freedom to live out God’s story in and through my life. I look forward to the journey of hope that God will lead me down in the coming months and I am grateful for you who have walked and will continue to walk this journey with me

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have HOPE:
Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is good to those whose HOPE is in him; to the one who seeks him. Lamentations 3:21-23, 25

May the God of all HOPE fill you with all joy and peace so that as you trust him you may overflow with HOPE by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 5:13

Better late than never...

It seems weird to be starting a blog now because I am planning on heading home in a few short months...but I have been thinking of it on and off for a while but never actually sat down and did it. I finally decide that I would enter into the world of blogging as I prepare to enter into a new phase of life. I decided that I love to write and thought that this would be a good way to share more of my thoughts and daily life with those who are interested. Plus, I can put more pictures on here than I can in an email! I am really excited about this now so bare with me if I post a lot of things right now and forgive me if I slack off in a few weeks...its a work in progress! I hope that you enjoiy reading a little more about what's going on inside my head and what I experience every day.

Our lives are all a journey as we follow God down the paths He leads us on, so welcome to my journey...God's story in and through my life...