2023.10.08 ACC and Maa worship services

Sunday morning meant getting on a coaster bus to Arusha for church at the Arusha Community Church for the English service and a great place to connect and even have some Providential connections.

In previous coaster bus blog posts, I’ve mentioned that sometimes purses get plopped into stranger’s laps to accommodate holding a child or hanging on to the hand bars while standing. Today, the “conductor” jumped off to help a mama with 2 girls all dressed up for church. The youngest was about 2 years old and adorable. The conductor picked up the 2-year-old and scampered on the bus with her, plopping her in the lap of a woman sitting by the door! Yes, a total stranger! Over the next several kilometers, the mama and older child find a seat farther back with now more people standing in the aisle and a few people between the mama and the woman holding the child. When the woman by the door moves, a man standing takes the child and takes the open seat! The child came with the seat!!! Later, he was getting ready to get off, so he looks back to the crowd and asks (in Swahili), “Whose the mama?” This is just fascinating to me to really see how the unwritten social contract of holding small children is shared by strangers in a bus!

I got to church and made a few connections with people I knew from before. One woman is in the missionary kid community that continued to live their lives in Tanzania. I helped her with a few tutoring sessions for computer skills at a time when she was a bit concerned that she was not able to be effective in her teaching role with the new technologies expected of her. She offered horseback riding lessons for Anya, while I gave the computer lesson. Pretty cool! She greeted me with a warm hug and lovely chat. Now, I’m praying for her brother-in-law, who has been diagnosed with brain cancer.

I stayed in town for lunch, as I was staying for the afternoon Maa (language) service, because I invited my former students via Facebook to meet me there. So, I had a couple hours to have lunch and try to find a few things in the big city shopping center. I could walk to the biggest supermarket in town where there are also some restaurants. I chose Chinese food, bypassing Pizza Hut, which is new since the last time I was here. They even deliver via motorcycle.

I got some rain boots for basically the same price as my lunch. Amazingly, they were made in Tanzania, not China! There was only 1 pair left and my size. I took it as a sign from God that I should wear them in the back yard when I’m working to restore a bit of the beauty that once was. While I’m not expecting snakes, it would be something possible. Most snakes bite at the ankles—not springing up high. Now you know why there are cowboy boots. (And did you see that Crocs now has a cowboy boot model!?! If not, here’s a link!)

I walked back to church to chat with my research assistant and work out some details of her very part-time, project based assistance. Which then grew into a lovely reunion as another of my former students, Selina, showed up to see me. Oh, she’s amazing. She is coordinating women’s empowerment, health (which sounded like the Form 3 biology content I taught her!), and even some climate change mitigation practices. So, I’m going to keep in contact with her. I have goosebumps now thinking that here are 2 women who grew up in stick, mud, and cow dung huts who are models for bringing the best of their culture forward. She has even named her children with Maasai names, which is less common, or they have a Maasai name but use the Swahili meaning.

Me with Liz and Selina

Another lovely connection was with Pastor Kimerei. He is a retired pastor, but he has an active role in rallying people to the Maa service.

Pastor Kimirei

He is honored by having the invocation and benediction roles in the liturgy, but he doesn’t preach or preside. I greeted him, reminding him who I was, but also, I then told him that not only did I spend the last year teaching at Wartburg Theological Seminary, where he earned his Masters of Sacred Theology, I have read his master’s thesis and have quoted him in my PhD dissertation and another paper! So, we will continue on contact, because I told him that the president of Wartburg is coming in January and would like to greet him at a special lunch for the alumni in the area. (There are 24 Tanzanians who earned a master’s degree from Wartburg, though some of them have passed, including the former Bishop Laiser and my dear friend, Lemburis Justo.

The service was suppose to start at 3:00, and at that time, there were a few people chatting outside. We got going at 4:15ish. The sermon was at least 30 minutes. After all, if you put all the effort into getting gussied up and get there, you want it to be substantial. I was able to give a greeting and encourage them in keeping their language alive. If you lose the language, you lose your culture, and then it is hard to know where you are from.

After the Maa service

At 6:30, while people were starting to pour their chai, I passed. Not only was it too late in the day for caffeine for me, I decided to text the taxi driver that I met last weekend to take me home as it was going to get very dark in 5 minutes. I was glad to be in a car with a good driver and a seatbelt. We passed an accident. He thought that a huge truck had a run in with a motorcycle driver. Lord, have mercy. There is a whole wing in the government hospital called the Toyo wing. Toyo is the brand of Chinese motorcycle that was dominant when the motorcycle taxis started to get popular. (Now it is more diverse.) I made it home safely and had a nice chat with the driver. He has climbed Oldoinyo Lengai, the Maasai “Mountain of God.” I would like to do this, yet, I’m not sure of my endurance and a knee that gets some KT tape prior to my long walks and hikes these days.

I made it home safely. Got the hot water tank turned on, started to work on dinner and the blog post, and the power went out. Fortunately, the water was warm enough for a sprinkle hose bath.

Tomorrow is my first lesson, so I want to be out of the door at 7:30 am for my 30-minute walk there.

Mungu akubariki! (God bless you!)