August In TZed — The Storey Fam

Habari za mwezi? (“What’s the news of the month?”) We’re excited to be writing to give everyone who actually reads these an update on what’s been going on!(As previously, Rebekah’s peanut-gallery commentary in italics)

Prayer requests up front:

-School: we’re back in the swing of things! Pray for Rebekah as she tries to balance survival and discipling our boys. Pray for the boys that they would develop a love for learning, and be good stewards of the gifts they have. Praise the Lord with us for Jana, who will be helping with the homeschooling this semester! (Also please pray with us for an a sweet college graduate who just interviewed for our “homeschool helper” position. She’s applied to three different jobs within the company, one of those being ours. We’d be delighted if she came here to help!)
-Ministry: we’ve seen a shift in our ministry focus here, and are asking for prayer for wisdom and discernment as we try to be effective workers for the harvest!
-Language: please continue to pray for our language acquisition. The more you learn, the less you know, it seems! (And the more HE learns the less I realize I know. He’s speeding ahead of me in language. I feel like those movies you see of hefty cops chasing after a thief, and the thief is running like a hot rodder and the plump cop has to stop, lean over with his hands on his knees and hack a few times to catch his breath, and then holds one hand up, as if to please, and gasp and cough out, “Wait up! Just give me a sec!” - Pretty sure I’ll never catch up to him, but it’s really fun to watch him excel!)

We’re coming to the end of the dry season here in Kigoma, and it has been a really good month! One big change for us is in the job- I’m transitioning a bit in my focus. I won’t be working in the hospital on a regular basis, but will instead start to work on improving the medical aspect of our team’s home visit program. I’m looking forward to the challenge of using healthcare to meet physical and spiritual needs this way. More to come on what that looks like, as soon as I’ve figured some of it out…

This past month has seen some birthdays, celebrations, baptisms, comings, and goings. We’ve been getting some good time with our team-mates and other friends, as well as some nice time at the lake.
It’s the dry season, which means there’s no rain for 3-4 months! (closer to 6 months, Mr. green-screen meteorologist) We thought this would be miserable, but we’ve really enjoyed the season-(despite the substantial layer of “vumbi”(dust) on LITERALLY everything) it’s much cooler, and we are blessed to be able to turn on a faucet and get water, so we don’t experience the same water insecurity as some. We live fairly simply, but we are continually sobered and humbled by the relative opulence of our station compared to what we see in the village every day.
Owning a vehicle in TZ is kind of like owning a truck in the US- you can quickly become the guy with the truck. Last month we were moving a casket. This month I helped our friend Z move into the recently vacant place next door. It’s a major upgrade for he and his family!

Sunset over Lake T

Celebrating Larry and Kari, and going away for Carly

Zeke had to go visit these guys, and we got a kick out of the double water wings.

Louise is growing in size and daring

My coffee roaster setup.

Out with the boys at our favorite chai place.

Helping Z move next-door.

Part of Rebekah's lettuce harvest.

Ministry this month was fairly busy. As I mentioned above our job is changing a little with more focus outside the hospital. We’ve always seen house visits as a great tool for our team, but especially with a bigger team we need someone to step in to organize the process better and try to have a more focused medical aspect. I’m looking forward to the change- one of the biggest benefits of medical strategies in what we do is that it allows you to meet people on their terms/in safe spaces for spiritual discussions. It also allows you to reach people that might otherwise be unreachable due to being bedridden, etc.

We spent a good amount of time in the villages this month, and I’ve included a few pictures. One of my favorites is the one where I’m wearing the red shirt. In that picture you can see that I’m holding a paper while one of our national partners, Masudi, used that paper to illustrate his gospel presentation to the mzee(elder) (pronounce M-zay) sitting next to him. I love this picture because it’s how we see our roles in evangelism. We are blessed to have a lot of local partners who are able to share in much more effective ways that we will ever be able to share, just because of their mastery of the language(s) and culture. Because of this, sometimes I get to just hold a paper and listen!

This month we also said goodbye to our neighbors as they moved away. We were sad to see them go, and in true African fashion, they were delayed in leaving by one thing or another for almost a week! When the truck finally arrived, it was around 7pm, and they started packing it up around 8pm(well into darkness here, because long summer evenings aren’t a thing here. Ever. On account of, life at the equator.). They sealed the truck around 12:15AM and the neighbors were off the next day!
This was a hard time. I’m leaving out the family name because they’re going to a higher security location, but this was a family that we’ve gone through the entire application and training process with, and we all assumed we’d have years of ministry together here in Kigoma. But the Lord had other plans, and so we’re praying all the best for them as they move(again!) to start life in a new location(again!) and with a new ministry(again!).

The boys and I started school on the 15th. I was more organized getting geared up for this school year that I have ever been in the past, but I’m not about to attribute this to some new found ability to be administrative, but rather the sweet, gentle Lord giving me a whole new passion for the education of these boys. I think this is in part from being exposed to the lack of education in the kiddos here, the long term effects of that that we see in the adult population that we are interacting with, and also re-realizing the huge need for intense discipleship in the home. Along with our normal curriculum, we will be working through a couple youth-geared apologetics books this year. Our deep desire is for the boys to bury roots for themselves, to believe what they believe because they’ve come to the conclusion that Christ is worthy, that he IS truth, not just that he’s what we as parents believe in. I want to encourage them to question, even to doubt. Without doubt there can’t be faith. We recognize that homeschooling the boys in a rural African context isn’t probably setting them up to be Ivy League level students, but we are so thankful for the opportunity to be the ones pouring into their lives in very specific ways, the ways we see are the most important. But also, I have to remind myself of all these things when I just want to hide in my bathroom and say, “forget it! I don’t give a rip if he never learns to read well. I’m done!” Lest you think that new little leaf always stays turned over. (Where did that saying come from, anyway?)

Let me tell you a story about Two Kingdoms...

A gaggle to kids hang out before our Friday Bible study

What a beautiful place for beautiful feet bearing the Good News!

All 12 of the minions

Faces redacted like a Justice Dept Subpoena...

Making rivers in the sand

Moving inventory check-off by the light of solar lanterns.

The last big event of the month was a medical team that came from the US to run a mobile clinic in Nkungwe (Swahili is, praise the Lord, phonetic. This village, “Nkungwe” is pronounced: n-koong-way), a village about 45 minutes from town. We had a great and busy week last week, seeing something like 1000 patients, giving out a lot of deworming meds, pulling a lot of teeth, and sharing the gospel! Over 130 people professed new faith in Christ, and a new church was born(the previous church in that location having died off a couple years ago)!
One of the challenges was that this village is a Ha village, and many people didn’t speak Swahili, but speak Kiha (pronounced: key-ha with a short vowel sound) instead. I was blessed to work with Afrika, a friend of mine who is a medical student, and also fluent in Kiha.
The team that came up has been doing trips like this all over the world for 29 years, and they were a well oiled machine! They came with the goal of being a draw, and softening hearts, and they certainly accomplished those goals! They have a system that is reproducible in a variety of contexts, including very rural areas like Nkungwe without electricity, plumbing or hard structures. It was fun to work with these servant-hearted folks, some of whom are well into their 60’s!
The last picture in this batch is of the church this weekend- 68 people meeting for the first time in the old building. There are four pastors who have committed to sharing preaching and shepherding this new group until a leader can be brought in or raised up.

Just kidding. That wasn’t the last update of this month.. The last last one is that we submitted our registration for a medical conference coming up in the beginning part of next year. This would be an opportunity for Josh to keep his medical license up to date, and if the Lord wills, for the boys and I to have much needed time for respite, access to counseling resources, solid teaching and fellowship with fellow workers from all over the world. The kids and spouses program is known to be healing in myriad ways to those who are able to attend. Getting to the location of the conference is no small feat, time-wise or financially, but we take great delight in knowing the Lord will provide if his desire is for us to be there. We are excited about that potential opportunity.