this can't be a coincidence....

A team of ten people arrived at the base today for three weeks of ministry. Where are they from? Germany? no. France? no. Canada? no. Japan?. no......you guessed it. Norway. There's no use fighting it.....

School is going really well. Regina had a problem this week and hasn't been able to come in since Tuesday so I've been teaching on my own since then. It's actually been ok! I know! Amazing! The students are awesome and are picking things up pretty quickly so that helps. The team is going to help out with the musical side of things while they are here which should be a blessing to everyone within earshot of the classroom. One unexpected thing is that I've actually ended up with sort of two classes. After dinner several of the staff who don't speak English have been coming over to the classroom for lessons. This means I end up basically working 14 hour days pretty much every day. I was starting to think that I just couldn't do it when God reminded me of a moment sitting (well, crouching and hammering) on a roof in Mississippi 2 summers ago when I realised I wanted to come here and the phrase that kept repeating in that time was to "spend myself on others." I'll be pretty wasted at the end of it all but I wanted to waste myself on something other than myself so....
I've also got a much better perspective on what it is that I'm actually doing here. I was kind of uneasy about teaching just because I didn't know what the purpose of it was. Trying to get Tanzanians to speak English, it just felt a little imperialistic you know? What difference will it even make? But then I realised that what they are actually getting is the opportunity for education. I have 30 and 40 year old women in my class who have only studied up to 7th grade. Secondary education in Tanzania is all in English but they are not taught english in primary school so many students end up failing "high school" not because they aren't smart but because they can't understand the lessons. Many don't even try because the tuition is so expensive (none of the education is public, parents or sponsors pay for everything from preschool to university) and they are almost guaranteed failure. All six of my students are in this course so that they can continue their education. This means a life of something other than subsistence farming if not for themselves then at least for their children. That is something that I can get excited about

I'm working on plans for a trip to Zanzibar over Easter. Easter falls right around a muslim holiday as well so we have a whole week of national holiday and no school! Bev will be working in the preschool and will be free also so we're going to take a little holiday to what may soon be my favorite place on earth! Everything I read about it seems like it is a place I was made for! If you couldn't tell by the excess of exclamation points, I'm a little excited.... Oh did I mention Bev before? She's the other mzungu (white person) living on the base. She actually came from the same base in England that I was at. She left just one month before I arrived there and my whole time there we were praying for this team that had just left for a year in Africa....turns out, that was her! what a small world it is!