Eyes to See, Ears to Hear

Posts Tagged ‘Travel’

Today was our planned final safari which took place at Mikumi National Park. It’s not the richest in animal life but it literally sits on the highway between Mbeya and Dar es Salaam.
When we go on safaris, Asher gets to ride up front with us because of the safe pace and better view.

We have no idea what they were all staring at.

This buffalo had a bad day.

This was the only watering hole in which we found hippos. They would only pop up a few inches out of the water a couple of seconds at a time…

…until we got ready to leave. Then big daddy came up.

For the final shot, I post a challenge. This was the ‘road’ out to one of the watering holes, but can you tell which direction it is heading in this photo?

The answer is completely straight ahead!

Up early tomorrow to finish out journey to our departure city… Dar es Salaam.

In honor of my friend via Twitter @radiobill, I’m going to try to write out a big picture glimpse of what our goals are and where we currently stand in them.
Around this past New Year, Dana and I decided to shift our lives to a different location. We’re still doing the same thing in striving to make God’s Word available in non-print (primarily audio) format. It’s just that such work isn’t critically necessary here in Tanzania. There are other places in the world where my expertise is critically necessary for the most important thing to us to be heard and understood by all. That thing is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
One month from this Saturday, we will leave our home of the past 2+ years… Mbeya, Tanzania. We’ll travel back to our hometown, Charlotte, NC, for a 6-7 month furlough. During that period, we’ll visit friends, family and ministry partners. We’ll also be seeking more financial support as our upcoming path will have a considerable amount of expense.
We hope to leave in January 2011 for Chambéry, France.  We are scheduled for a 14-month French-learning plan at a language school there.  From there, we will travel directly to our new assignment in the country of Mali.  Our first six months there will have us learning yet another language… Bambara.  Then, we will hope to settle into our new home before leaving for the USA for our second furlough as we seek to take those every two and a half years.

So, where do we stand in that now?  In what seems like a whole new beginning!  I currently have SEVEN working days left in Tanzania and I’m on pace to complete what I set a goal to do by the end of this month.  I have one big project remaining that has so far been about 70% recorded.  I hope to attain the remaining 30% tomorrow, edit it all on Friday and submit it to the Malila language translators on Monday for an accuracy check.  There are other smaller projects I need to finish up but The Gospel of Mark in the Malila language is the biggie.

All prayers will be welcomed at the door.

In the States, MPG stand for miles per gallon.  It’s the distance your vehicle can travel for every gallon of fuel.  My personal tank is starting to feel low right now.  These last weeks of work are the absolute CRAZIEST of my life.  I thought I could drive myself at a high rate of speed all the way until the end of the month but already, on the 12th, my engine seems to be sputtering.  Pray for grace that I can finish my work here strong.

One week ago today, we loaded up the project’s new LandCruiser (the thing is SWEEEET) and headed to Makete to test Ruth, Jonah and Mark in the Kinga language.  My hope was to return the next afternoon with all three books approved and ready for distribution.  None made the cut.

First to get tested Monday afternoon was Jonah.  All of it went great with the exception of Jonah’s announcement to the Ninevites in the beginning of chapter three.  The talent used a normal voice instead of a loud one so they want that to be changed.
Next, after lunch was Ruth.  All great…. except one problem.  In the translated book, a set of closing quotation marks were inserted too early.  Instead of being after “vibena”…

… they should’ve been after “mumwene”.  So, that one sentence needed to be recorded again by the original Ruth speaker.  But, throughout the book, the Kinga translators feel she used ‘reading’ Kinga instead of the desired ‘conversational’ Kinga.  Then, they decided to have all of Ruth’s words recorded again and had a particular woman in mind.  Unfortunately, we had to have the LandCruiser back in Mbeya Tuesday evening in order for a colleague to use on Wednesday to travel to the Sangu language area.  That only left enough time to test Mark for the remainder of the day Monday and the first part of Tuesday.

We finished the introduction and the first six chapters Monday afternoon and even though we didn’t start testing until shortly before 10am Tuesday morning, we still were able to finish up by lunchtime.  The only thing Mark needed was some added space between each heading and the actual scripture text.  That was an easy fix so Mark is completely ready for distribution now!

The highlight of the trip was having Dana and Asher with me.  That was REALLY nice.

To arrive at our house it is advised to have 4WD.  After driving about 0.5 mi into the neighborhood (all rough dirt road) you descend into a small valley.  From there, the short, steep climb up to our house is about a 300 ft increase in altitude.  Remember… all dirt.  And what time of the year is it?  That’s right.  Rainy season.  Simple equation I so delightfully discovered early in my childhood: dirt + rain = MUD!!!!

About 2 weeks ago, we went to pick up our friends’ kitten to cat-sit for them while they traveled to Uganda.  It began raining on our way out of the neighborhood so much to our surprise, we discovered the construction people had just graded the main road leading out.  All was well in picking up the kitten and returning to the neighborhood… until the short, steep climb.  Fifteen yards from the top of the first section climbing up, the back wheels lost traction.  Okay.  So, I thought I’d just back down to the valley and take a different route that wasn’t just graded.  The mud was so soft, once I began backing up, it steered us straight into the ditch.  We didn’t stop until we got to the bottom.  I noticed in the rearview mirror some Tanzanians standing in a safe spot next to the road, getting what I’m sure was an entertaining sight.  Well, it was those same Tanzanians who were knee deep in mud all around the car just after we finally stopped.  As a matter of fact, it was well under a minute, maybe even thirty seconds, when they were already to our aid.  This totally amazed us.  Pouring rain.  Gushing run-offs.  Asher-deep (almost) mud and they still jumped right in to help us out.

An instant sharing of others burdens seems to be a given for the people here.  Our getting stuck wasn’t the first example of seeing this kind of action.  This is one characteristic of the lives around us for which I am definitely thankful.

(P.S. the car was SO stuck that even that many TZians couldn’t get us out.  I finally got in touch with a good friend of ours with a beast of a Land Rover with differential lock and everything.  He pulled us out AND all the way up the hill!)

Just for fun, I HAD to put this image here…

In two days, I take a day trip up to Makete in the Kinga language area. Literally ‘up’ because I have to climb to nearly 10,000ft before dropping back down into Makete at 7,500ft.

It’s about a 3-hour trip one-way, with 2.5 hours being on rough dirt roads.

The reason I need to go is because of what’s in red:


58 words were left out of the script when we first recorded Jonah last year. 6 hours roundtrip for 58 words to be recorded. That’s less than 10 words per needed hour of traveling. I have to admit, it is a hassle but I still haven’t perfected the accuracy checking process of my scripting. These mishaps aren’t being detected until I’m in the editing phase. Grrrrrr.
The wife and baby are going with me so it will be a nice trip. She plans to take candy to give out to the kids along the road in the mountains. Plus, the landscape is BEAUTIFUL up there. We’ll have pictures.

A whole lotta flip-flopping was going on this past weekend.  Kinda felt like I stood a baseball bat on end, touched my forehead to it, ran myself around in 100 circles, and stood up in an attempt to race to the other end of a football field.  Here’s the scoop…

For months now, our 10-language project here in Mbeya has been gearing up for our annual ‘Prayer Day’.  This is an event in which most of the team travel out to different language areas in order to visit Tanzanian churches.  While there, we share (in Swahili) about the work of Bible translation happening in their language and how they can contribute to their fellow Tanzanians who are translators with us.  My plan was to visit the church I visited last year way up in Makete, but my plans didn’t pan out.  So, our partnership coordinator took it upon himself to schedule me to visit a church in town.  Sure, why not.  Oh yeah, Jonathan, there are two services, 7AM and 10:30am.  Hhmmmm.  If I go to the early one, Dana and Asher wouldn’t be able to because of how early it is for him.  So, I got out of… I mean, it was unfortunate that I didn’t have to get up with the sun.

Okay, so show me where the church is.  We drove into town on Thursday to see.  Piece of cake.  I’m good with directions.

Friday comes.

In the afternoon, one of our friends calls me to let me know he’s bringing a package to the office for us from the post office.  ALRIGHT!  We love packages.  So, I scoot on down there to snatch it up right quick like.  The prayer coordinator sees me and says, “Oh, by the way, they’re expecting you to preach on Sunday.”  Come again.  I think he said… yes, he did.  He said preach on Sunday.  Jonathan, he no preach.  He no good at preaching.  He good at missionarying but no good at preaching.  WHAT SHALL I DO?????

Ding, ding, ding, ding… idea.  I’ve got audio (not past the final check but far enough to allow a congregation to listen to) of Jonah in Nyakyusa and Kinga, two of the three prominent language groups in Mbeya town.  For the other, Safwa, I’ve got some Bible-based songs I can play.  Yeah, that’s it!

I took a few hours cutting this, pasting that so I could have a nice little playlist for my “sermon” on Sunday.

We get there a tad late, no biggie, they’re already singing… and dancing… and shouting.  We take our seats of honor in the front row and after a few minutes, the pastor leans over to ask me how much time I need.  Interesting.  Westerners have watches. Africans have time.  Or, so the saying goes.  So, why is there some kind of time restriction, especially when they ain’t scared to preach into Monday?  Couple of sentences later, I find out that indeed I’m not preaching.  I’ve got 15 minutes to tell about the work of SIL.

So, I cram in as much as I can and play a little bit of those 3 languages.  They seemed to like it.  I then gifted them with a couple of copies of Hapo Mwanzo, stories from Genesis translated into Swahili along with audio cassettes of the recorded stories to accompany them.  They were very appreciative.

Then came more singing.  Then came some kind of dedication service for what I understood to be for someone in the congregation who has decided to go into the ministry.  Then came the sermon.  Then came more singing… and screaming… in tongues that definitely weren’t Tanzanian.  That final part only brought one passage to my mind:

“So then, tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers. Prophecy, however, is not for unbelievers but for believers. So if the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and unbelievers or uninformed people enter, will they not say that you have lost your minds?” 1 Corinthians 14:22-23

I guess being from a non-Charismatic background, tongues are kinda freaky to me.  Especially when there was no one even attempting to interpret.  Earlier in 1 Corinthians 14:5b, Paul wrote, “The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets so that the church may be strengthened.“  Unfortunately, the church wasn’t strengthened yesterday.

Moving on, the service carried on until a little before 2pm.  Of course, being honored visitors, we were then ushered into the pastor’s office for some chai, maandazi and chapati. That finished off our 4 hour church experience.

I praise God for that church’s giving heart.  Between the two services, they gave more than Tsh. 112,000 (~USD$85) which is an enormous amount over here.  This money goes directly toward helping further Bible translation in the Mbeya-Iringa Cluster Project.

On the way back from conference, we pass through a horrendous stretch of unpaved road between the Kenya border and Tanga, Tanzania.  To give you a glimpse of why this is the most dreaded part of the conference travel every year, I asked Dana to video a short piece so that we may show you.

This is a litle piece of video I shot while waiting for our turn to pass through some road construction in Iringa.

This is the place we stayed at on our first stop on the way to conference.  We liked it a lot with the exception of the short bed.  It was really difficult trying to sleep diagonally.  FYI, I’m 6’3″.  The room was Tsh. 50,000.

Daddy & Asher looking at trees and birds