The Trip

After 10 days in Tanzania we have returned to the frozen tundra that is currently the great state of Ohio. We had an amazing time and have a ton of pictures and stories to share with you. Bear in mind though that Deanna has a real affinity for photography, so currently there are about 2,000 pictures stored on our computer. So while she sorts through them and uploads some of them over the next several days, I'll go ahead and write out the narrative portion of our journey and throw in a few selected photos.

We flew out of Cleveland on February 11th and met up with Linda Mason and Bekah Guess in Detroit before hopping on another plane to ride about 9 hours into Amsterdam. Linda is the assistant director of Children of Promise and was on her yearly visit to the Safina program in Tanzania. Bekah is a pk from Minerva who is thinking about full time missionary work in the future. She's currently finishing up her high school diploma.

I had the great fortune of sitting next to a really funny little Indian boy who was judicious in sharing the armrest. The kids slept most of this flight, although at one point Elliana woke up crying, "I want my Lilly," (Our Dog). She also proceeded to have an across the plane conversation with the rest of the aforementioned Indian family and their young daughters at one point in the very early morning hours, yelling "What's your name" repeatedly over the roar of the engine.

Once in Amsterdam, we got to walk around a little, take a small nap on the less than comfortable seats, and get ready for our final 9 hour flight into Tanzania. We did run into a little problem boarding our plane at this point, as we actually didn't have our boarding passes for the next flight and had to shuffle through security hoping to still be able to make it on the plane. During the chaos that was this screening, we had to discuss some things with one of the TSA agents at which point we looked down and noticed that Elliana was no longer with us. Of course, we briefly panicked before realizing that she had taken it upon herself to do a few laps around the newly installed full body scanners. Thankfully, after the craziness that was that boarding process, we got on the plane took off.

We made it into Kilimanjaro airport in the middle of a heavy rain at about 9 pm. We ran across the tarmac into the small building that housed customs and our baggage. After getting our travel visa's and fighting through the crowds, we met up with Ben Shular and Ron and Carol Baker and headed to our respective hotels for the evening. It was dark as we made the drive to Arusha, so we wouldn't get a real sense of the country until the morning.

That evening things got a little sketchy. We were staying at the Everest Chinese Restaurant, which had about 6 rooms out back. After tucking everyone in under their mosquito nets (we told Elliana they were princess tents, she was psyced), we were anxious to get some sleep. Unfortunately, Elliana began throwing up repeatedly through the night. About the 4th time the poor girl was standing in the bathroom looking up at me saying, "I can't believe this is happening Daddy." Thankfully by morning she was felt better and did great the rest of the trip.

However, the next morning it was my turn to get sick, and I spent the better part of day 2 visiting the Cho (Toilet) for my adventures in dysentery. We headed out that morning to the mountain village of Meru, to worship with the local church and then do interviews with the children of promise kids in the community. The bumpy dirt road did wonders for my ongoing bout with the travel sickness. As we were driving up the mountain, kids started running alongside the car yelling, "wazungu, wazungu!, which I would later find out meant "White People, White People!"

We stopped at the pastor's house at about 9 am and were treated with bottles of Pepsi, which was awesome, before walking down the hill to the little church. The worship service was exciting and beautiful, full of upbeat songs and clapping, and even a lot of classic hymns sung in Swahili.

I did however, have to leave about 3 times during the service to spend some time in the outhouse just down the hill. Below you'll find a picture of my new friend. The unfortunate thing about this particular restroom as you can see, is that it doesn't afford much privacy, as the door doesn't close and their are holes in between the boards. I'm sure that the people standing outside the church during these moments were saying something along the lines of "wazungu" and then whatever the Swahili word for rear-end is, because they could probably see everything going on in that shack.

Eventually after the service we met back inside to do interviews with the children of promise kids and spend some more time with the community. We felt unbelievably welcome and were amazed at the generosity of our new brothers and sisters. After sharing a meal of rice and goat stew, we headed back to the cars, drove back into Arusha and the Everest Restaurant again, and crashed for the rest of the night.

In the morning we got up and Ben showed us some of the places around Arusha where he typically does his shopping, the fruit stand, Meat King, and some other small shops. Then we traveled over to the Arusha town church for another Children of Promise meeting and interviews with more of the children. We were participating in these interviews through translators who helped us talk to each child and get to know them better, in hopes to relay some of that information to their sponsors in America.

After lunch in Arusha again we began the drive to Babati, where we will actually be living when we make our final move. When we got on the missionary compound we got to meet Ben's wife Kelli, as well as their sons Noah and Jonah, and actually get to see the house that we will eventually be living in. For this trip we stayed in one of the 4 guests huts on the property.

On Tuesday we toured Babati more extensively, and got to see the Children of Promise office where we will be working, and meet with the National Church of God Leadership in Tanzania. That evening, Noah took Elliana (They are actually about the same age) on a pretend hunt around the compound looking for Bears. They told me they got one with his bow and arrow, but I never did see the carcass, so I'm a little skeptical.

Wednesday I helped Ben put the lettering on the school bus for the local Church of God school, and then we headed to the home of Mama Ashifa and Mahmood, an Indian Muslim family that hosted us for dinner. Elliana had a great time playing with their 2 daughters and Ian made fast friends with Mahmood. The dinner was amazing, and I got to experience Meat Chops for the first time.

Thursday, we visited the Church of God school in Babati, Aldersgate. There, Elliana got to go to the preschool class and we got to take a tour of the campus. After having tea with some of the staff and meeting the leadership there, we headed over to the playground to have some fun with the younger kids. Deanna refused to teeter tooter with me longer than a couple of minutes for fear that I would cherry bump her into oblivion. I would have.

Over the next couple of days we spent time getting to know Babati a little better, hanging out with the Shulars, and visiting Tarangire on Safari. The drive to Tarangire provided our first taste of road side maintenance, as we lost a shock absorber somewhere along the way. Ben's expertise with what seems like everything came in handy, and he tied the now loose part until we made it back to the compound. While driving through the National Park we got to see probably 200 elephants wandering around, as well as numerous giraffe, water buck, ostrich, warthog, and other animals. The "African Salute" you see below was my personal favorite. In Tarangire the flies were an issue at times, and Elliana feared they would fly up her nose, so she spent most of her time with her hand over her nose. It was adorable.

On Sunday we headed back to Aldersgate, for church services with the students. I had the opportunity to preach that morning, and although I was psyched about getting to use a translator, I just did it all in English, as most of the students were learning English anyway. My English is about on par with my Swahili, so it was probably a push either way. It was another great opportunity to worship, and the music and environment was just beautiful. I especially enjoyed the Southern Gospel Country track performed by three of the older students. I'll post some video of that later this week. That night we had a campfire and said our goodbyes to everyone but Ben, and in the morning he drove us back to Arusha to do a little shopping before our flight home.

There is so much more to share and seriously I've only cracked the surface of all we experienced. I'm sure if Deanna wrote this she might actually highlight the experiences with the children, and gave a little less detail on the toilets. Regardless, we would love to talk to you personally and share even more with you, and again, all of the pictures and video will be posted real soon. Congratulations if you made it through all this text, you should feel a real sense of accomplishment at this point.

A big thank you to the Ben and Kelli and their family for hosting us, it really was an amazing trip. Also, Ron and Carol Baker, and Linda and Bekah, you are all wonderful. Bear in mind that it's pretty late at night right now, am I'm still struggling with the time change, so in my exhaustion spell check is not worth it. Sorry for any grammatical or literary shortcomings. Thanks again for your love and support.