Blog Resolution

Yes I know, I know. I haven’t posted anything for like 3 months. But all that is about to change…at least, I hope so. I am planning to put forth a concerted effort to make some kind of update to this blog no less than once a week. So for those of you who have completely given up checking this blog, I beg you for one more chance. One more chance to make things right. And for those of you who are actually reading this now, I’m going to reward you with some pictures from this Christmas break, which for those of you who don’t know, was spent with my amazing family (including the new baby Claire) and my super boyfriend Johnny. See what you think, leave comments, and I might even be inspired to do a few more updates this week. (I even have a few planned already) So, let’s see what the year holds.


The kids meeting Claire for the first time


Yay! Finally, a little sister. Everyone knows little sisters are simply the best.


Me with all my kids! I love this


David attacking Doo-Dad...he attacks often


Caroline and David with new baby Claire


Bevy with all the grandkids...what fun (you can tell that Owen especially is having a blast)


Mary Grace, Andrew, Johnny and I all took off one night for dessert. Yay for living in a place that has restaurants!


Johnny and I sporting our Christmas colors (unplanned)


Out for a hike in Kentucky...so nice to hike again!


Finally, an actual date. After nearly 8 months apart, it was great to get dressed up for a night on the town. Dinner and a movie, simple but wonderful (not to mention the excellent tie).

New Stuff!

I've recently added some stuff to my house that makes me very happy. Today I acquired my third piece of furniture here that is now residing in our hallway. The hall used to feel very big and empty, but is now serving a dignified purpose. I can finally keep my towels and sheets not in my bedroom, and the other cabinet serves very well for kitchen overflow (since we don't actually have a pantry. I had an idea of what I wanted, and then went to the IKEA website, and found pretty much exactly what I had drawn as an idea. So I printed that out, complete with measurements, and took it to our local carpenter. Though it took him a few weeks longer than originally planned, with some prodding he was able to get it done. And now it is in my hallway and gorgeous. I'm looking at it and admiring as I write. Yay.

I also recently got some curtains made. My previous curtains were floor length and, dare I say it, ugly. Not that hideous kind of ugly that is unbearable, but rather a more gentle ugliness that you gradually become accustomed to, then occasionally really look at it and say, "Wow, that is really ugly. How have I lived with that for so long?" Besides which, it did not go with my bedspread at all. But now, through many trips to the used clothing market (though all these trips were unsuccessful) and the luck of a friend buying fabric that ended up not working (thanks Lyndy!) and a visit to a fishing shop to buy sail cloth for the lining (even though I apparently bought the wrong kind) and the work of Mama Sophia, after 9 months of ugly curtains, I finally have some curtains that I love. My room looks bigger and much lighter, and that makes me very very happy.

things i miss

I miss eating meat that’s really tender

I miss changes in the weather…real ones

I miss autumn

I miss weekend visits to my sister’s in Arkansas

I miss coffee shops with free wireless

I miss ice cream

I miss feeling free to go out at night

I miss dressing up for stuff and feeling pretty

I miss going to church in English

I miss living in a house with 4 girls and a pit-bull

I miss swing dancing

I miss Target

I miss my family

I miss the library

I miss understanding what’s going on around me

and knowing what’s expected of me

Yet with all the things I miss,

the food, the places, the people,

the end of the matter

is that God has brought me here.

Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.

Last Week

Last week...what a week it was. Some highs and some serious lows. Serious horrible lows. But definite positive moments, and definitely a learning experience. I'm actually quite glad I've let a few days pass before writing this post, so the good things about the week stand out clear and strong.
Last week was our first in a series of workshops. These workshops are designed to begin to establish writers in the local languages both to produce literature, and hopefully someday be literacy teachers as well. The initial workshop is one week long, with a followup workshop later this fall. Eight languages in all will go through this series, eventually nine hopefully. We had two different language groups come in this last week, 5 people for each group.
This was my first time to teach for long sessions in Swahili, and with people who are not working for our organization. I was nervous, but excited. The first day seemed to go very well. I was pleased with my group and at my ability to generally communicate in Swahili. It felt so good to be teaching again. Though I quickly realized there were many things I hadn't thought through, and many things I could do better, I was still having a blast.
Day two things came to a head with money and communication issues. Money is always a difficult and tricky subject here, and no one I know has come up with a formula for making everyone happy with the decisions they make about money. Without getting into details, I'll simply say that a disagreement about money took place, followed by miscommunication and hurt feelings. And I was stuck in the middle, and it was awful, and I was hurt. I started crying at about 2:30 in the afternoon and then didn't stop until I went to bed at around 9:30. I wanted to leave.
The progressive days improved, and by the end I felt like things were much much better. I loved the people in my group and felt like I built some good relationships there. I look forward to working with them in the future.
At the ending ceremony, one of our administrators told the story of the lion and the mouse, and how we might be small and few, but we are like that mouse, intently nibbling away at the bonds that hold down so many in our region. We are small, but we are bearing the Truth, and the Truth has power beyond measure. And yet last week, I also saw the power of the Enemy. I saw his intent to discourage, harm, break relationships, create distrust, and sow seeds of disunity. I realized fresh that the work we are doing is important, and an act of warfare in the spiritual realm.
All of that to say, I beg you for your prayers. Many around me are fighting physical, relational, and emotional battles, all of which are related to the spiritual. Please pray for us here, missionaries and Tanzanians alike, that we will walk in unity as the body of Christ, and that the schemes of our Enemy will not stand. We have two more workshops coming up the next two weeks. Please pray for these.
And to close, here's a picture I love of me with the group I worked with. We're picking out pictures to go with a story they wrote which I was able to print up for them. That indeed was a joy.

Proof that I work + Birthday Wish List

In case you were wondering, yes I actually do work. I go into the office every morning at about 8:30am and don't leave until about 5pm. Yes I know that's a shorter workday and yes I get an hour lunch, but let me tell you, its enough. Not necessarily enough to get the work done, but enough to go home tired. A lot of my work at the moment is in front of a computer screen, though over the next few months that will change dramatically. But I decided to "prove" that I work by posting a pic of me working with some of our translators to prepare for some upcoming workshops. Because we don't currently have a building with a room big enough to hold us all, these prep sessions were held outside under our tent. Windy, but pleasant. Working with our staff has been a huge joy of mine. Please be in prayer about the upcoming workshops, for good health, energy, and Swahili.


Birthday Wish List
As some of you know, my 28th birthday is coming up in just a few weeks. Some of you have anticipated this and asked what you might send. If you are not one of the aforementioned, please do not worry. I don't expect anything. But here are some ideas if you're interested :)

• Flavored oatmeal packets (the cinnamon, maple and brown sugar variety packs)
• Flavored tuna packets
• Instant grits and Velveeta (for cheese grits, my birthday special, though I think my aunt may have already signed up for this)
• Duncan Hines Blueberry Streusel Muffin Mix
  
• Shin guards (seriously, this actually isn't a joke. Sunday soccer is painful)
• Lawry's Seasoning Salt
• Dark chocolate
• Retractable clothesline
• Workout videos (sigh)
  
• Pretty journal
  
• Cd's
• Any books or cds from my Amazon Wish List (look it up using my hotmail address)

Shipping Advice and Address: Don't make it look attractive; use a lot of tape so people won't want to spend time busting into it; be honest, but creative when listing contents (books as "educational materials," shirt from Target as "Target product"); double/triple wrap food so ants don't get in; use garage sale prices for price estimate.
Ellen McCaskill
PO Box 1235
Musoma
TANZANIA

Thanks and hope you all have a happy day!

Wait! What's Going On?

My life right now is a never ending state of not knowing what the heck is going on. This is a combination of my general lack of understanding of both language and culture. What it means is that I do a lot of smiling and nodding, and am gradually learning not to have any expectations of timing, because they are bound to be wrong. So mostly I just sit and follow people around. Sometimes I try to ask someone, but as I generally don’t understand the answer, this is often a less than effective method. Even when I do understand the words, and think I’ve caught the meaning, more often than not I’ve missed a cultural cue that gives the words another meaning entirely. Even in the rare cases that I do think I know what’s going on, I’m usually wrong.

This is a very exhausting state to live in. I consider myself a generally flexible person, certainly moreso than many others I know, but always being confused is hard. I miss “getting” things, knowing what’s expected of me, being able to ask the right questions to figure out what I don’t know. People say this will get better, I just wish I knew when. Some days are better than others, some days actually go somewhat as I expect. Sometimes I understand what people are saying when they talk to me, and somedays I have good conversations with people. Some days I don’t mind the up in the air feeling and can embrace the adventure of it. Some days I’m so sick of it I just want to hide in my room. It’s not that I don’t like the culture or the way things happen, it’s that I don’t understand it and constantly feel lost.

So what is God teaching me through this? I don’t know. I wish I could clearly say. But it is my prayer that he is using it for my sanctification and that someday I’ll at least be able to understand a bit more than I do now. And in the meantime I pray for the grace I need for each day to accept that I don’t know what I am doing or what’s happening, and to rest, trusting that God does know all those things, and won’t give me more than I can bear.

What a Day!

Yesterday was an hilarious crazy day in my life here, and I'd like to take a moment to share.
My morning started around 9am when I rose from my luxurious slumber. Had a cup of coffee and an egg, then got ready for church. So far so good.
The church service is supposed to start around 10 and so that's about when I leave the house. While walking up the road I get a call from my friend Parusi, who has seen me from behind. I am very thankful she is going to the same church that day...it means I won't have to sit alone. So we arrive late, but you can't exactly "slip in" because the door is in the front. But nonetheless, we walk in and take a seat. The church is held in a local school, so rather than pews we're sitting in desks, wide enough for two people to sit on, no backs. Very comfortable. We sing a few songs, but I don't have a song book, so I just do my best. I think in the course of the service there were approximately 3 sermons. Sunday school was pretty much a sermon, then came the real sermon, then another guy got up and appeared to be reiterating all that had just been said. There were also 20 minutes of announcements, and at the end, a 15 minute lecture about being on time to church in order to show respect to God. Oops. Only about 15% of all the speaking I really understood, which is actually an improvement.
So the service is longer than usual, and I don't get home till after 1. I immediately go to the kitchen to start preparing for our July 4th cookout. My responsibility is chips, salsa, and guac. So I go to make tortillas and discover we barely have any flour or shortening, and have no milk. Darn. So I look up a non-milk recipe for tortillas and try to make do. The tortillas are gross, but I have to make them into chips anyways, because there's no redo having used all the flour already. Then I go to make salsa. I pull out the produce I bought the day before to discover I only have 4 tomatoes, a kind of imperative ingredient in salsa. So I make the salsa with the ingredients I have, only I decide to put in 2 small hot peppers, making the salsa scorch the inside of your mouth. Sigh.
In the meantime, a neighbor's 9 year old daughter has come over just to hang out. I give her a soda, but am busy in the kitchen, so she eventually gravitates there. She helps me squash the avocados, which is nice I must say. The problem is, she's also peeping around in all the cabinets and occasionally leaving the kitchen to peep in other places. She gets some nice chocolate out of the fridge and eats it (and gives me some to eat as well). So the kitchen is a wreck with nasty dry tortilla/chip crumbs everywhere, all my chips are burning in the oven, and the salsa is virtually inedible.
So I try to get ready to go to soccer at 4. I pack bags with the stuff for the cookout, and the child is still roaming around, now counting up the Uno cards. When I'm about ready to kick her out, I notice that she has made a little "goodie bag" for herself. In a little ziplock bag she has places 3 little powdered drink packets, a sheet of paper, two (imported) Bic pencils, and a nice inky red pen from the US. Both the pencils and pen had been retrieved from my room, at least I think so. I look at her questioningly about the bag, and she looks a little embarrassed. She's a sweet kid and wasn't being sly about it, so as a compromise I take out the nice pen and one pencil, leaving her with the rest. She also borrows two books, but does finally leave.
Then my taxi is late picking me up. All my usual rides are gone, so I end up just waiting for 20 minutes for the taxi. I finally get to soccer, a highlight of the week for me, and after about 15 minutes in goal, I have to go inside because I have horrendous stomach cramps. So I spend most of the next hour in the bathroom. Meanwhile, my friend Kelly has added a load of tomatoes to the salsa, which has dumbed it down a bit, but still leaving it quite hot.
So then we decide to head over to the location of the July 4th cookout. Though an American party, we head over Tanzanian style. In one Land Cruiser we have 4 adults, 5 kids, lots of food, and a water cooler. Please don't ask questions about car seats and seat belts.
The cookout was great. We didn't really cookout, but we had pretzel dogs, potato salad, cabbage salad, my chips and salsa, watermelon, fresh lemonade, festive cupcakes, and smores. We sat around the campfire, sang songs, and told stories. Was great American style fun and a great way to celebrate the 4th. Their neighbors also had a huge fire and it was popping loudly with about 7 foot flames. The popping sounded a bit like fireworks, so we all felt it was very appropriate.
When I finally got home, I decided my final celebratory activity would be watching an episode of West Wing. Then in my exhaustion, I fell into bed with the decision not to go to work the next day, but instead have an actual day off. Good decision.