September Update

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PRUF:
-Language learning: we need motivation and discipline to study even when it’s hard or tiresome! We need an ear to hear the language, and memory to keep the new vocabulary in our melons.
-Homeschool is going well. We need patience to teach, even when the students(or teachers) wake up on the wrong side of the bed. We also pray that the boys would be developing a love for learning and understanding the world our Creator has given us stewardship over.
-Moving to TZ is taking an little longer than we hoped, but God is sovereign over all the details. We do have a contract approved, now we are praying that the renovations would be on schedule(projected to take 3 weeks).
-Homesickness is real and hard! Missing birthdays, holidays and get-togethers really highlight the cost of what we’re doing in Africa, and we need the grace and peace that only God can provide. We also need to remember that our motivation is ultimately the glory of God proclaimed among the nations!
-Teaming is going to be something we need a ton of prayer for. The Kigoma team is growing by leaps and bounds, and adding personnel is bound to raise some challenges. We love our team-mates and want to be proactively praying and working towards God-glorifying relationships on our team!

Rebekah and I pray this update finds you well! God has continued to sustain us through the last month, and we are ever-thankful for the blessing of new life in Christ!

The last month has been one of routine. Here’s our typical daily schedule:
-0600-0630, Rebekah and I wake up, read and pray, get ready for the day
-0630, I wake Elijah up to study(by his request)
-0730, other boys are up, breakfast, clean up
-0830, Phoebe arrives to help with childcare, George arrives to start Swahili conversation with Bek.
-0900, School day starts with the middle 3
-1000, Bek and I swap places- I start conversation with George while she takes over with the boys
-1130-1300, we finish conversation, make, eat and clean up lunch. Zeke goes down for a nap, other boys read for quiet time.
-1300-1600, formal language class online with instructor based in Dar es Salaam, TZ.
-1600-1700, make supper
-1700-1830, eat and clean up
-1900, Zeke goes to bed
-2030, lights out for the older 4
We’re enjoying the routine, but do look forward to the weekends when we have the house to ourselves and can spend time as a family. We love having George and Phoebe to help us, but having someone in your house 5 days a week gets draining!

We got the opportunity to meet up with the McDonald family at the Masai Mara at the beginning of September. It was a last minute plan because their kids didn’t get residency papers before their visas ran out(visa-type issues are just part of the life in missions!), so they drove up to Kenya to renew their tourist visas. We spent three nights at Sekenani camp at the Mara and did 5 game drives. We saw a ton of animals(right now is the Great Migration), and spent some really fun times with the McDonalds. It was a bucket-list kind of trip, and we’re so blessed to be able to drive 4 hours to do it!

We have a contract on the house in Kigoma! They should be starting renovation work this week, which means we should be a matter of weeks away from heading down to join the team. We’ll send out an update as soon as we get a firm travel date. In the mean time we’re trying to finish up our Swahili grammar and test out of language so that we have more flexibility in our time. Language learning will continue(language and culture are two primary objective during our first 3-4 years), but once we’re immersed in TZ we hope to pick it up faster!

Many of you heard about the generator project at Kigoma Baptist Hospital and gave generously! We’ve seen an outpouring of support for this vital project and we’re very close to being able to purchase the new machine(our team leaders are securing a couple other funding sources). Thanks for all who prayed for and/or gave towards the project!

Finally, a cultural moment: I’ve been reading the book African Friends and Money Matters, a sociological study that is considered a classic must-read for new missionaries on the field. It’s full of helpful nuggets about typical or common African culture, often contrasted with Western practices. If you are interested at all in African culture, or simply in how deeply our own cultural practices are ingrained, this is a must-read.
One helpful consideration I read this month was about clothing. Coming from a Western culture, my understanding of clothing is largely personal. That is, I consider clothing to communicate information about myself/my family to the people around me or the environments that I’m in. For example, I might not bother to put on anything special when I go buy groceries, because I consider that a mundane trip, and if I dress up it might communicate that I consider myself important or communicate pride. Conversely, if I’m going out to dinner with Rebekah I might dress up to demonstrate that I consider our date a special occasion or that I’m honored to be in her presence.
Typically in African culture, the way one dresses communicates attitudes about the people or environments being visited. To dress too causally is taken as a lack of respect for the person or place being visited. In a context like Kigoma, immodesty is considered similarly.
That’s why tomorrow, Fred the tailor is coming over to deliver my preaching suit. When we visit African churches(even those that are more Westernized), we never see a pastor/elder/deacon up in front of the church without a suit on. I didn’t pack one, but our experience here has led me to believe that I should have a suit to wear when the occasion calls for it, in order to communicate respect and honor.
We’ll never be Tanzanian, but one of the goals in contextualization is to break down as many culture barriers as our conscience allows to “build bridges of trust that can bear the weight of the gospel”. This is what Jesus did when He walked the earth with us, and we hope to faithfully follow Him in obedience!

That’s the update! Thanks for your support and prayers! Hopefully my October update will have a Tanzanian postmark!

How to support us:

Prayer
We are grateful that so many of you have expressed a desire to support our family in this adventure! The most important way you can support us is through your prayers. James 5 tells us that the prayers of the righteous are powerful and effective- we need you to regularly pray for our family, our team, our people groups, and the accomplishment of the Great Commission!
Some helpful resources we’ve found:
-The Joshua Project gives prayer prompts for the Unreached People Group of the day.
-The IMB Pray app gives you a variety of prompts for regular prayer for missions
-The PrayerMate app is designed to help you keep and schedule customized prayer cards
-Operation World is an oldy but a goody, a global encyclopedia of countries and people groups with prayer prompts.

 Giving
We are 100% supported by the International Mission Board, the missions agency of the Southern Baptist Convention. Thank you to the millions of believers worldwide who give generously to support the Great Commission work of the IMB!

If you would like to give to support our work, and the work of the 3000+ IMB cross cultural missionaries around the world, you can do so here: www.imb.org/give. 100% of gifts to the Lottie Moon Fund go to missionaries and the people they serve.

If you would like to directly support our work in Tanzania, you can:
-help us create an endowment to enable a self-sustaining hospital in Kigoma
-give directly to the effort to reach 55 UPGs(Unreached People Group) in SubSaharan Africa in the next 5 years: 55 in 5
-contribute to our family’s Ministry Gifts special fund- email for more info

Partner
If your church doesn’t have a connection to missions and would like to partner with our team(through regular prayer, communication, and more), send us an email at m28StoreyFam@gmail.com discuss further

 Visit
Short term missions trips, when properly planned and executed, can do much to enhance the work of a team on the field. If you are interested in coming to Kigoma to work alongside us, send us an email at m28StoreyFam@gmail.com to discuss further.