Day 7, 8, 9 and after...

The last 3 days of our trip were full of shopping and traveling. We left LJS (the place we stayed) at 9am on Tuesday morning, shopped in Dar the rest of the day, slept at the Catholic Seminary and had a powerful worship night, flew out of Dar at 11am wednesday morning, and didn't get home to Tulsa until 1am Friday morning. It was long, but an eventful and fun few days of travel.

Reflecting on the trip as I am home, I have realized how much we learned from the Tanzanians. Throughout the week we talked about these several things that we learned just by watching and talking with them: We learned how to be more than hospitable, how to cook like a Tanzanian woman, how to keep babies calm and happy, we learned about respect and obedience towards our parents and our God, and we learned how to let go of anxiety and be relaxed.

This trip was more than I ever expected and every prayer I ever had for this trip was answered. We learned how missionaries live (the good and the hard parts), we learned all about the Tanzanian culture, and we saw how God can use our individual gifts to enrich His kingdom when we let Him. What an incredible experience that all of us will remember and learn from the rest of our lives.

Thank you to all who prayed and gave. We appreciate it more than you will ever know.

Asante Sana!

Enjoy some pics from the trip...

Day 6: June 6- Mount Oooroguru, hanging out with Linda, and Kid’s Club in Tchiweenoo

We had a blast today!

Robert took Fufi, Kori, Megan, Abby, & Frances climbing up a mountain that had one of the most gorgeous views in the world. It was breath-taking, fun, and gorgeous. A young man who was only 23 and was the village chairman was the guide up the mountain. After the hike, Robert took the group to the University of Tanzania where we had freshly made yogurt and sweet bananas.

Linda took Katie, Mollie, Shelby, and Avery back to her home for a relaxing morning. They baked peanut butter cookies, talked a lot with Linda, and shopped at the LJS shopping mall.

The whole group reunited and went to pick up Kristin to go to her kids camp. Before camp, we went to the Bishop’s office to meet the staff.  The staff was very friendly and hospitable in the short time we were.

After, we went to the church where Kristin has her kids camp. There were about 65 kids there from the surrounding neighborhood. We sang “rise and shine”, “hallelu hallelu”, and “father Abraham” with them. After some songs, we performed the story of Noah and the Ark for the children with the pastor as our translator. The kids colored coloring sheets of Noah after our skit. We played group games such as “rafikki(friend), rafikki, simba(lion)”(duck, duck, goose), jump rope, sit down if, and the Swahili version of “ring around the rosy.” The children were precious and we all had so much fun with them.

Before we left, the church gave us all sodas and cookies and we sat down to talk with the pastor. We met a few of the elders of the church and prayed with them. We were all amazed by their hospitality when we were only there for a short time.

We have all grown so much and have been taught a lot on this trip! Thank you for always praying! See y’all soon!

-Tanzania Team

June 4th & 5th

Day 4: June 4- Safari and Massai community

Today we went to Mikumi Park and saw a gorgeous part of Tanzania. Everywhere we looked was pretty scenery and tons of wild animals. Such as, elephants, giraffes, wildabeasts, impalas, hippos, zebras, baboons, a hyena, jackels, beautiful birds, annoying tsitsi flies, wart hogs, and 2 mama lions that were only 15 feet away from our bus!!! It was an amazing experience to say the least.

Another funny part of our day was that all the African tourists wanted to take pictures with us like we were taking of the animals. We were a part of their safari and quite a hit! =]

After the safari we went to a Massai family’s home. They were very hospitable and it was so cool to see the way they live and take care of each other. We were able to buy some spears, bows, and necklaces from them and asked them questions about their tribe and traditions. They were fun to be around!

Thanks for praying!

Tanzania Team

Day 5: June 5- Sunday Church

Hello everyone!!

Today we went to Linda and Robati’s church. We arrived at church at 9:45 and we left at 3:30! The actual service was only three hours.

They were extremely hospitable and served us hot tea and sweet bread as a snack before the service began.

The service consisted of their multiple choirs singing lovely songs to the Lord, communion, auction, and a sermon. We acted as a choir and sang a few worship songs as well as 3 other Tanzanian choirsJ

They served us lunch after and we participated in their auction and bought 4 of their chickens and avocados. We later gave the chickens back to 3 families within the church who only had one parent living and had kids who either had malaria or worms.

After the service was over we mingled with the Tanzanians and communicated as much as we could with them, mostly by laughter and pictures! Katie talked with one of the pastors who was in a car accident and just got his cast off of his leg last week. She taught him how to walk correctly with crutches and some rehab exercises.

The day was relaxing and we are enjoying spreading Christ’s love with everyone here. We are learning so much from them as well! The children are precious!

We miss and love all of you!

Peace and Love,

Abigail King

Last (June 3) night at dinner =]

Last night we had the privilege of eating dinner with Bishop Mameo (the Bishop of all the Lutheran churches in Tanzania), Raymond, & Samuel. It was such an honor and so fun that I though I would post a picture to share (since there is electricity at the moment and the Internet is working =]). More to blog about our great day later!

June 2 & June 3

Day 2: June 2- Morogoro, Tanzania Africa

Jambo!!

We just completed our second day here in the village! The weather has been wonderful, hot but with a cool breeze and lots of sunshine! As a team we had a very productive day with women from all over.

Today is known as the day where the people celebrate the ascending of Christ into Heaven. We hung out with many different women from all different tribes and villages and went into their gardens and picked peas with them! We also taught ourselves, along with the women, how to make fabric, beaded necklaces so that they can make more and sell them. We encouraged them and connected with them in many ways.

After making beads we ate lunch (lots of rice and beans) and had a 2 hour worship service with the women. They taught us songs in Swahili as we sang to them and taught them songs in English! They showed us a lot of hospitality and were glad we came to be with them.

The women taught us a few phrases in Swahili as well, such as “Shikamoo” which is a type of greeting you would say to an older woman and in response they say Marahaba. Also, “Habari gani” asks the question ‘how are you?’ and in response you say, “Nzuri” which means fine or well.

We had a lot of fun being with the women and learned so much about their caring hearts. As a team we are looking forward to the rest of week!!

Thank you all for keeping us in your prayers!! We are all having so much fun and doing well!

With much love,

Shelby Boaz

Day 3: June 3- Tanzania, Africa

Habari gani!?! Nzuri!

Today we visited the village of Lukangaza. We cooked, hung out with a lot of kids, sang lots of songs, and some of the children even knew English!

At the beginning of our day we picked some crops to cook for the lunch that the women were serving us. The different types included a Kasaba leaf, which is a leaf of sweet milk from a tree, corn that we shucked, cow-peas that we de-skinned, and another leaf from a little bush. After picking Abby, Megan, & Avery got to de-shell a coconut, which was super hard!! The women loved it that we were so willing to learn and help even though we couldn’t understand a word they were saying!

Next we headed to the church where the kids were learning English for some domestic and wild animals! We sang some English songs and they sang some Swahili songs AND English! Crazy, huh? They tried teaching us a song, but that didn’t go to smoothly. We also did a skit for them, Noah’s Ark, which Robert translated for us. They seemed to like it, or maybe they were just laughing because we used animal plates for the animals or that a girl was playing a boy’s part!

As the day went on, we ate lunch in Pastor Nuru’s house, played some outdoor games with the children, sang some more songs, watched a Swahili skit played out by young boys, and colored some coloring sheets. At the end it was sad leaving the kids, and they just kept saying bye to us and once we drove off they chased after the van.

Today was an amazing day just as the rest of them have been!! Thank you for the prayers, and we are all well and having a great time!

Lots of love,

Avery Hufft

Day 1- Morogoro, Tanzania, Africa

After a long couple of days of little sleep, long flights, being stuck in an elevator, running through the Chicago airport to catch our flight, a newbie flight attendant, crying babies on multiple flights, raining inside the airplane, a stripping man on the London tram, greenbus tour that made great nap time, getting our own rows on the final flight to Dar es Salaam, and waking up to a beautiful sunrise over Mount Kilimanjaro…WE MADE IT!!!

We went through customs, exchanged some money and hopped on a car and a van and began the three-hour journey to our home for the week! Our ride was filled with beautiful views and a lot of waving to the local people!

After lunch and getting settled into our rooms, Kristen took us for a walk to a local catholic orphanage. We saw two monkeys on the way! At the orphanage we played with kids from newborn age through 15! Some of the kids do not have parents, but most are waiting for their parents to come back and get them when they are able to support them. We all had such a fun time loving on the kids!

Thanks for praying! We are having a great time!!

Love,

Megan Crum

Today is the day!

We leave today at 2pm and get to Tanzania Wednesday morning at 7:45am their time (Tues. at 11:45pm your time)

I think we are beyond excited and ready for God to use us in huge ways. We are going to be visiting orphanages, playing with children, and helping women make beaded bracelets for them to sell.

We are thankful for this opportunity and ready to go!

Leaving in 14 days

It has been a year since I asked the missions coordinator if we could go on a mission trip to Tanzania with Asbury. It has been a year full of prayer, fund-raising, excitement, anxiety, shots, medicine, expectations, senior business, and anticipation for this trip! God is good.

We leave in 14 days.

My prayer for this trip is that our eyes are opened wider, our skin becomes tougher, our hearts become softer, our minds are filled with knowledge from the Lord, our lives are changed for the better, and that God is glorified in all that we do.

Last night in the sermon, 1 Thessalonians 4:3 was mentioned, "It is God's will that you should be sanctified." That's my ultimate prayer for this trip. That we will die to ourselves and become sanctified. That God will be lifted high in the lives of the leaders and the college girls. That we will "Seek first His kingdom" like Jesus says to do in Matthew 6:33.

We leave in 14 days.

I am excited =]

He provides

In 2008 I was approached by a few moms at church and they asked if I would lead their soon to be 10th grade girl's small group. I hesitantly thought about it because I was already committed to another small group and I was not sure how I could do 2. But, after some thought I thankfully said yes and began a relationship with girls who have blessed my life.

Shortly after meeting for a couple months I decided to go on a mission trip to Kenya, Africa for 5 weeks. Although I missed the girls, I had an incredible time and knew those 5 weeks were not the last of me going to Africa. But, little did I know it would affect our small group in such a big way...

When I got back the girls asked if we could go to Africa as a small group. I told them it would be awesome if we could get to do that someday (thinking, "yeah right, how will we pull that off? It would cost 20 grand to do that!") and then said, "Maybe when you graduate we can look into it."

Anyways, a year and half went by and we started thinking and talking about it again. We realized how much money it would take for us to go and how much we would have to rely on the Lord to provide. So, the girls, their parents, my co-leader, and I, fearfully said, "we trust you Lord, send us to Tanzania so we can be your hands and feet."

We knew we were committed, but we also knew we had a lot of work to do. We had to put our thinking caps on- we thought of multiple ways we could raise money... We sold t-shirts, hosted a "Wild Game Dinner", raked hundreds of bags of leaves, cleaned an office, wrote letters to ones that we felt would support us, and we prayed. We waited and prayed and trusted.

As this process of raising money to go to Tanzania went along there were times of fear, joy, hard work, untrusting hearts, trusting hearts, and stretched lives. There were times when we weren't sure if we were going to get full support and there were times when we were so blessed by all the generous hearts around us- And then, it happened. More than enough money was given to this team to go love on the people of Tanzania, Africa!

God is good. He is faithful. God deserves all glory and honor for this trip and the process to get there. He is and will be working in the lives of our team, the lives of the people who gave to this trip, and the lives of the Tanzanians. He is Jehovah Jireh and will always provide.

Thank you to all who gave and thank you Jesus for allowing us to be your hands and feet in Tanzania.

The girls going to Tanzania are: Megan Crum, Abby King, Avery Hufft, Shelby Boaz, Mollie Stansbury, Katie Wise, Frances Brower, Ruthie Brower, and myself. We are beyond excited and pray that the Lord will open our eyes, help us listen, and use us to His desire.

*P.S. Another incredible aspect of God's provision is that He has also provided more generous people who gave money for the first 5 girls on that list above, plus Kristin Fitzgerald, Ruthie & myself to go to Guatemala on the youth group mission trip over Spring Break. He is good.