2 quotes and an observation

"Many of us have a mental conception of what a Christian should be, and the lives of the saints become a hindrance to our concentration on God."
-Oswald Chambers

"The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."
-Brennan Manning

Stereotypes, hypocrisy, and missing the main thing for a seemingly good thing. I'm not entirely sure yet of the proper link between all of these, but all are incredibly frustrating. Here's another:

Coming overseas, we had this idea in our head that the rest of the world hates America. Guess what we've found out in our limited scope of experience somewhere else? It's not true... until we make it true. You know who we hear loathing comments from? Americans. Tanzanians are fascinated with the US and have no major qualms with any foreign policy, belief systems, or culture. I think in our hundreds of conversations we've heard one complaint/remark to the contrary. But what we do hear all the time is "stupid Americans" coming from US expats, or negative remarks about the election, government, foreign policy, culture, and people... out of the mouths of fellow Americans. I don't think that the general people of the world have any qualm with the USA until we teach them to. Maybe.

(And why do we leave our country's borders with the idea that we as a nation are despised? Seems to come from within as well. Maybe I'm being way too ethnocentric. Maybe not.)

It's a small world after all

Today we offer a collage of some of the smaller delights of Africa. We do find ourselves occasionally contemplating the 1 night lives of bugs swarming around lights at night and left for dead in the morning, or the millions of miniscule ants that march in line for endless distances or the snail that seemed to freeze in shock after we picked it up and carried it across the road (moving at such a break-neck speed!!!). The tiny flowers that grow and are not seen by the thousands driving or walking by that don't look down. Are we any different? Should we be? We have definitely decided that we can't wait to get heaven and see God's creation from His perspective!!

Dance Grooves

A big part of our time right now in Africa is as students. Of course we are students at language school, but we are also in a constant effort to learn the culture. Since we are still newbies to the language thing, I struggled to really get a lot of good notes from the Swahili sermon at church yesterday, but I will submit to you my “keys to success” in dancing that I observed and recorded in my journal. I think if you follow the keys to success detailed below along with the spot-on drawings, you will be able to wow your friends in no time.


-lean back
-gaze anywhere
-follow the steps, but add plenty of knee vibrations
-think hula-hoop for shape of arms
-pulling arms back accentuates leg kick
-light, baggy pants are a must
-point toes
-turn slow with arms still for dramatic effect

So much to learn!

Swahili word for the day: to dance is kucheza musiki

S Car

There's a lot of really fast cars here. Just look at this S car go!


And pray for Kenya.

Thanks!


Swahili word for the day (just because it's fun and we need something else to lighten the mood): Green Pepper is Pilipili hoho.