One morning a few weeks ago, I didn’t get a chance to have my normal dosage of coffee.  By midday I was in trouble.  I had a bad headache.  I was cranky.  I was tired.  I was also discovering something… all of those symptoms indicate an addiction.  No way to get around it by fluffing it with, “I just enjoy a good cup of coffee.”  That doesn’t answer the why.  My why was dependence.  Every morning I depended on a drink to get me going, to prevent me from physically feeling lousy, to give my mind its requirements to fully function.  I’ve heard of alcoholism but is there caffeinism?  There should be.  That would make me a caffeinic, a caffeine addict.  That hit me hard.  I didn’t need to find any scripture to confirm that I wasn’t to be an addict because the conviction in my heart was sufficient… time to kick the addiction.

The Sly Captor

So, for the past 3 weeks, I repented by weening myself off of caffeine and it has been nearly as hard as it was for me to stop smoking cigarettes 6 years ago.  God has given me His sufficient strength in both moments and as of today, I am 10-days liberated from caffeine’s grip on me.  Drinking coffee doesn’t have cravings that are as clear as smoking does but nevertheless likewise make me a captive.  I want any dependence I have to be or to lead to Jesus.  Caffeine did the opposite.  Stop and look at your life because there could be a sly captor lurking.

Just to give you a glimpse, here is what a typical workday at the office looks like time wise:

7am - Go to work

8:30am - 8:45am - Language Team Swahili Devotion

8:45am - 10:30am - Work

10:30am - 11:00am - Chai (tea) break

11:00am - 1:00pm - Work

1:00pm - 2:00pm - Lunch

2:00pm - 4:00pm - Work

4:00pm - Head home!

Literal meaning… hot seat
Slang meaning… pork

I’m using the latter for this post as we recently had our first experience with buying and prepping it this past week.  A friend of mine and I went to an area of Mbeya called Manjelwa to visit a recommended butcher.  We got there right after the freshly-slaughtered pig arrived via a barrel strapped to the back of a small motorcycle.  I got to pick out which piece I wanted so I took some of the shoulder.  Get the fat trimmed off for you?  Nope, because they don’t understand why wazungu (foreigners; especially of the lighter skin type) don’t want the fat.  Tanzanians eat it all.  Three kilos (6.6 lbs.) and 7,500/- shillings (~$6 USD) later, we were on our way home.

I trimmed it up, tossed it in the crockpot with some water, salt and pepper and cranked that sucker up to high so we could have us some barbeque that night.  After a number of hours, I took the pork out and pulled it.  Mixing it all back into the emptied crockpot with a sauce I made from an online recipe, it cooked for another hour and a half.  It came out great!

                     *  Exported from  MasterCook  *

                          Honey Spiced BBQ Sauce

Recipe By     :
Serving Size  : 1    Preparation Time :0:00
Categories    : Bbq sauces

  Amount  Measure       Ingredient -- Preparation Method
--------  ------------  --------------------------------
   1 1/4   c            Catchup
     2/3   c            Salad oil
     3/4   c            Vinegar
   5       tb           Worcestershire sauce
   1       c            Honey
   2       tb           Dry mustard
   3       ts           Ginger, fresh grated
   1       ea           Lemon, sliced thinly
   3       tb           Butter

   Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and heat to blend together.

                   - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Richard and I pulled out of Oilcom a few minutes past dawn and after topping off with diesel.  The 2-hour ride to Makambako was uneventful although we were able to listen to two John Piper sermons using my media player.  Our stop in Makambako was necessary to pick up Mchungaji (pastor) Mbogela.  His home was our destination, the village of Makete. Spending many hours with two Tanzanians, one of which knows very little English, put my Swahili-speaking ability to the test.  Challenging and rewarding, it was.
Our next stop was Njombe to deliver 300 copies each of Ruth & Jonah in the kiBena language.  Mbogela (left) helped us present the copies to Mchungaji Muhehwa (right).

This was very special to me as it was the receipt of the first shipment for Muhehwa.  The translation work is coming along well.  I have some very hard-working teammates.  Good job, y’all.
From Njombe up to Makete is 70 miles, 1,500 ft. incline, and all-dirt road.  I stopped so many times to take pictures of the mountainous scenery, I joked with Richard and Mbogela that they should expect to arrive in Makete one day late.
We drove in to Makete a couple of hours before the sun went down, unloaded our things into a guesthouse and headed down to Mbogela’s house for an early dinner.  Awaiting the pastor’s return was an mzee (elderly man).  I’ll refer to him as Babu (grandfather).  He was the mzee who would ride with us back to Mbeya when we returned.  Let me tell you why…
More than one year ago, before I even left the USA, the then-current team leader e-mailed me about a Tanzanian, Sanga, who owns a studio close to Mbeya.  Sanga is a Christian and wants to be involved with audio scripture and songs.  Well, I finally followed up with the man about 3 weeks ago.  I called him, was invited, and visited his studio all in the same day.  It is a very nice setup, even by western standards.  As our meeting progressed, I told him more about my particular role in the Bible translation world.  I spoke of having eight different languages worth of Ruth and Jonah to record already!  Then, I told him of a great mother tongue song-recording opportunity I had recently been made aware of.
After a visit to Makete a few months ago, our current project team leaders told me of an elderly man (Babu) who has many Bible-based songs stored in his head and heart and all in his mother tongue (MT) of kiKinga!  Babu had nearly pleaded to have someone record them so he could pass them on and even develop a method of teaching others how to write songs in their MT.  I had started a little communication with the translation team (Tanzanians) working in Makete about coming to record Babu in the near future just before I spoke with Sanga.
Back to my visit to Sanga’s studio… As I was telling Sanga about Babu and his songs, his eyes began to widen along with his smile.  Suddenly he burst out, “I’m [a Kinga person]!  I would love to have Babu visit Mbeya and record the songs in my studio.  It would be such a blessing to see and hear songs in my own MT being recorded here!”  Wow, I thought to myself.  I had an upcoming trip to Makete planned to speak at a church on our Prayer Day.  I thought that would be a great opportunity to bring Babu back to Mbeya with me and have him be recorded at Sanga’s studio.  I talked with our Prayer Day coordinator and the plans were set; Babu would be returning to Mbeya with us.
Fast forward to our arrival to Makete and Babu awaiting Mbogela’s return.  After introductions, we made our way inside and sat down to converse.  It was amazing listening to over seven decades of life in a culture far different from my own being described by Babu.  We were served our early dinner.  I don’t know the name of the dish but I can tell you it had potatoes and eggs in it and it was GOOD!  After dinner, Babu’s brother’s wife, we’ll call her Bibi (grandmother), arrived to meet us.  She is Babu’s partner in song creation and singing.  They offered to sing a kiKinga song for us much to our delight.
It was only about a minute and a half into the first song when I heard Mbogela join in the singing.  I don’t know if he already knew the song or if he picked it up that quickly because he was hearing his MT.  Near the end of the song, he turned to look at me and pointed to his heart.  A gentle, emotional smile formed across his face and as I looked into his eyes, I saw feelings now words would come close to describing.  It was in that moment that I truly understood the significance of people interacting with God in their mother tongue, otherwise known as their heart language.

To finish up on what I’m currently doing, this is the fourth project ‘in the works’.  I’m doing hardly any work with it right now and you’ll understand as I explain what it is.

Just as we arrived in Mbeya back at the end of April, I got an e-mail from our team leaders.  It was actually a forward from Bible Translation & Literacy (BTL) of Kenya.  They are doing a follow-up workshop for Kande’s Story and want to record it in seven different languages.  This workshop will take place over a 2-week span in November 2008 in Nairobi.  BTL is paying all expenses to have me there to help with these recordings.  That tells me they are very serious about this project because the fuel alone will be around $1,000 USD just for me to drive there and back.  Dana and Asher will accompany me at our expense though.  We’re looking forward to the trip eventhough it is more than 1,800km (1,100mi) roundtrip!

For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any double-edged sword, piercing even to the point of dividing soul from spirit, and joints from marrow; it is able to judge the desires and thoughts of the heart.

~ Hebrews 4:12

3 - Scripture in audio form for the Sangu people

Like I said in my last post, this project is the biggest in terms of planning, recording, distribution, etc.  And I consider it the most important because it delivers the word of God to those we’re trying to reach here.

At a glimpse the project seems simple and straight forward but remember that is very, very rarely the case in missions, especially in drastically different cultures such as that in TZ.  With all that said, the project is taking the finished translations of Ruth and Jonah and recording them verbatim in dramatized form.  That next to last word adds tons more work to the project.  Selecting reputable, well-voiced people from the local community of believers isn’t particular easy especially when I’m hours away from the eventual recording site.  Much to my relief, this is where the translation team, part of the body of Christ, helps me out.  Wiliadi, translation coordinator for his Sangu people, has anxiously stepped up to assume the responsibilities of all the on-site preparation groundwork. Lord, I thank you for Wiliadi and pray you bless him for having such a servant’s heart and a love for your word.  I pray his efforts are quickly and extremely fruitful in order that more people can hear from you as soon as possible.

So, where am I in the completion of this project?  At the beginning.  The translation department has already given me the soft copies of the two books.  I marked verses by character (God, Jonah, Ruth, Boaz, etc.) and reviewed the text with Wiliadi a few weeks ago during his visit to Mbeya.  After a few changes, the text is ready to be recorded.  I’m also using a new program designed by a software guy at JAARS.  It’s called Dramatizer and it does exactly that to the text of any book of the Bible. I point it to a text file of a book and it splits every word out by character and groups them together.  So, I’ll have all of Boaz’s lines in one script to give to the Sangu speaker when I’m ready to record that character.  I’ll have a master copy that has all the lines with the respective character noted next to it but the speaker only has to focus on reading and speaking what is on his/her sheet only.  I’m anxious to see how that helps the flow and process of recording.

Once all of the recording is completed, I have to edit it, make a master copy, and pretest it with a small group of Sangu before I go into the reproduction stage.  The audio will be dubbed mainly onto cassette as that is the most widely used form of media among them.  I’ll also do a number of CD’s and even look into experimenting with some digital players.  There are two possibilities in that regard: one is a solar-charged digital player that can hold the entire Bible!  It is the more expensive of the two so the second option, which is extremely new to the market, would be what I choose.  It is a hand-crank-charged mp3 player.  Unlike the first one, we can easily upload content onto the player and even increase it’s memory capacity.  We as an organization get a discount of nearly half price (WOW!) so that’s nice.  Still, these less expensive models are still USD$45 each.  So, only 20 of them will push the financial need up by almost USD$1,000.  Worth every cent though.

Our focus in Mbeya has shifted to nine specific languages as the Bungu work has been put on a temporary hold of sorts.  I’m still not sure of the reasoning but I don’t imagine they’ll be in that status for long.  So, in the meanwhile, I now have nine languages awaiting audio of Ruth and Jonah in their mother tongue.  I’m starting with the Sangu as we have assessed them to be in the most need of audio form.  At the Sangu project completion, I’ll review all of the processes and try to do two- or three-at-a-time next go ’round.

The Gospel of Mark translation work is in full swing right now and I doubt I’ll be finished with recording Ruth and Jonah before it is ready to go into audio for all nine languages.  Plenty of work for me here, I tell ya.  I foresee many years of us in Mbeya.

2 - Hymns in the Kinga mother tongue: there’s an mzee (old man) who lives in the hills between here and Njombe.  He is one of the Kinga people and over his lifetime, he’s come to learn over 40 hymns by heart in his mother tongue.  Considering the value Tanzanians place on singing, especially in choirs, this will be a great opportunity to expose a lot of Kinga people to The Way. This project is in the beginning stages with the first step yet to happen.  I will travel 7 hours to Makete (9°23′12.45″S,  34°14′17.88″E, Altitude 6,611 ft.) first to record these hymns to ensure they are preserved.  After they are transcribed with the help of translators, local Kinga choirs will be invited to come to Makete to be recorded singing one or more of the hymns. Then, a selection of those hymns will be chosen to make a compilation album duplicated mostly on cassette, maybe a few CDs, and distributed at an album release celebration/concert with the same choirs.

The biggest of all four projects gets highlighted tomorrow…

Yes, I deserve to be fined for blog neglect.  After all, it is the work I’m doing that brought us to Tanzania!  Time to get y’all out of the dark and let you know what’s going on.

I’ll start out by showing you a (not so very attractive) map of the Mbeya area languages with whom we’re working.

There are four current projects on which I’m working.  Here they are…

1 - Mark 6:34 on a language specific poster with this as the background:

Read the verse and you’ll see why this photo suits so well.  It was the favorite in a survey of my fellow Tanzanian SIL colleagues in the office.  It is a shot I took last November on the way back from our first safari in Ruaha National Park.

I’ve kinda hit a standstill with the progress of the poster because the cost to produce a decent number for each language group is going to be substantial.  I’m even exploring purchasing them from an online printer in the states and having them shipped over.  The quality will be better while the cost will be about the same or less.  The only issue we have with that is that we’d prefer to contribute to the Tanzanian economy by doing our business in-country.  Please pray for direction on this.

I’ll post about projects 2, 3, & 4 over each of the next three days.  I’ve gotta pace myself getting back into this blogging thing!!!

8:30am - Devotion & prayer with colleagues… all in Swahili

9:00am - We notice the voltage in the office has dropped from 230V down to 190V.  In case you’re wondering… that’s not good

9:45am - I bring 2 envelopes home that came from NC.  Best contents from them in my eyes… hand towels and grits!  Thanks y’all.

10:00am - I head for the post office hoping the Tanzania Revenue Authority (customs guy) is there during his posted business hours

11:15am - Still waiting on the customs guy

12:00pm - leave the post office with my packages from Dana’s parents after paying absolutely no duties on them.  Woohoo.

12:05pm - Ship an 80lb box of vehicle coil springs nearly halfway across the country.  Negotiate the price down to 14,000/= TZ Shillings or about $11.70USD.  Not too bad.  I even got a waybill number.

12:30pm - eat lunch with my family and explain to our house help that we’re picking her up full-time, M-F each week.  She dances in the kitchen while waving both hands in the air thanking the Lord.  We’re good employers.

1:45pm - Working back at the office when a colleague informs me some of the power lines next to the office are melting.  Hmmm… interesting…

4:45pm - I head home and have to pass a blazing fire in my normal walking commute path. Happy to have my camera phone…

Evening - dinner, crying baby, happy baby, crying baby, happy baby, cup of tea, finish a book, post a blog entry, head for bed. Nimechoka sana. (I’m really tired.)

Wondering how working is going for me?  Challenging so far just because everything is so new… everything… well, except my gadgets and gizmos.  I’m still very familiar with them.

So, what am I doing today?  Well, all of my audio equipment hasn’t been tested in nearly a year and before I begin planning any recording project, I need to make sure I’m as equipped as I think I am.  Got out my mixer, XLR cables, microphones, headphones, and mic stands to begin testing.  Hopefully I will have everything tested by the end of Monday.  We’ll see… I’ve got to remember…

This is Africa.