polepole ndiyo mwendo

Why do I want to go?

Why am I trying to raise this illogical amount of money in tight financial times to go to a dirty, broken, third-world country in Africa?

This….this is why.

her toothless grin.

his snotty nose.

the joy i see in his face.

The hope I believe Jesus has to offer for their future.

I want to be an advocate of hope. Hope’s name is Jesus. 

simple as that.

These faces ignite a passion deep down in my soul and it is that God-birthed passion that compels me to act.

I love how Erwin McManus says it in Soul Cravings,

“WHEN A PERSON GIVES HER HEART TO GOD, SHE IS GIVEN A HEART FOR THE WORLD. TO GO BEYOND FEELING, TO GO BEYOND COMPASSION, YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE THAT IT IS RIGHT TO ACT, THAT YOU WERE CREATED TO BRING CHANGE.”

I must believe that God created me to bring change. He created each of us for this purpose. This is just my outlet for change.

That is also why I believe in serving. That is why I LOVE Servolution. I truly believe that it is through serving one another that we can create a revolution in our communities and across the WORLD. I think somewhere in each of our souls lies a desire to be a revolutionary… this is our chance. check it out.

So, in sum, that is WHY I am going. Again, thanks for any and all support and check out these sites for other ways to get involved//

Josh-Bob

Carole & Evangeline Turner

Well hello there. I know, I know. I have not blogged, and here I am. back and only to tell you more about Africa. Im assuming if you aren’t into Africa then you probably peaced out from reading my blog long ago, since it transformed into more of an update of my previous trip last summer and I have not updated much since. 

But, I wanted to take this time to let you know about a new trip I have the honor to be a part of this year to Swaziland and Mozambique. 

here is a little bit from my trip last summer to Tanzania //

And now a little about this year’s trip//      

        Well, it’s me again. Where did we leave off last year? I was heading to Tanzania to study Swahili for the summer, right? Oh, yes. Well those six weeks spent in Tanzania were some of the most incredible of my life. I’m not sure how I can even possibly put into words the experience that I had. The faces of the people that I met and each aspect of that land- the culture, the language, their love and hospitality will never leave me, its engraved in my heart and I don’t want to ever let it go. I truly believe that God used my experience there to grow the passion he placed in my heart for that continent stronger and deeper.

            Over the past year I have continued with my studies at LSU, and am now a year away from getting my major in International Studies, with a concentration in Africa and the Middle East. After returning home this summer I began working at the Baton Rouge Business Report as an intern working under sales and marketing. It is a truly wonderful job from which I am constantly learning.

Now for the fun stuff . . . this summer there is a new adventure in the works and oh am I excited. God has yet again amazed me and opened up a trip for me to go to Swaziland and Mozambique, Africa with the Healing Place Church Serve team! I will be journeying across the pond from May 27- June 7^th to visit the HPC campuses in Swaziland and Mozambique as well as take part in training the local leadership of the church about serving their community through culturally relevant outreaches. If you know anything about HPC, its that the DNA of our church is to be a healing place for a hurting world and that we do that by serving people, the same way Jesus did. This is going to be an incredible opportunity to impact the way hurting people in two countries in Africa are served and brought the joy that comes from a relationship with Jesus. I cannot believe I am even able to be a part.

            SO, after all of that, I am asking you to join with me. Stand with me. Pray. And, you feel moved in your heart, to give. This trip will cost $3,600. It seems like quite a bit to raise, but I believe that through your partnership and my own saving, that God will provide a way. More than that I just want to thank you for your continual support, you have no idea how much it means and I have no idea where I would be without it!

For those who are to come , Leah.

For I assisted the poor in their need, and the orphans who required help, I helped those without hope, and they blessed me. And I caused the widows’ hearts to sing for joy.

  -Job 29:12-13

AHH. i woke up this morning to this email in my inbox. its from Mama Ngao, my Tanzanian mother….

Praise the Lord Leah?
how are you doing my beloved daughter?
How about your family especialy your
Parents?. I hope they are all fine.
Iam doing well in my teaching and my family are great.
We are now living at a place which i tild you,
it not far from University.our church has a plan of
starting build a new church,i hope you will be with
us on buildig the church as we talked
We are still missiing you and your charming.
God Bless you.

Mama Ngao

how wonderful?! i especially love, “Praise the Lord Leah?” haa yes indeed.

They have tried calling me multiple times, but the phone never works. oh my. make my day.

well, hello there.

       it has been quite some time. my deepest apologies. I have just felt like there wasn’t much to say lately. I have a bunch of posts I started, but never finished. I felt like I had already done Tanzanian blog-overkill. So i took a little sabbatical. 

                                I’m back right now. yes! so school started, Gustav hit. 1 week off. goodbye fall break. see ya next year. My grandmother has been at our house since the storm, been a good experience. Learned a lot about taking care of family and being compassionate. very cool. She is pretty sick and incapable of taking care of herself. But she is adorable. It has been really great. 

that is all.

here is a picture i took the day after Gustav, got to get close to this little fellow because it’s wings were injured from the storm, uh-oh spaghettios. sorry little friend.

leah.

these are both pictures from tanzania.

they are two of my favorite.

they funny part is, i didn’t take them. Not even one of my friends took them. 

nope.

One of the little boys we met on the street took them. One day in Bagamoyo the kids played with our cameras and took pictures. One boy had my friend’s Canon and snapped these 2 and some other pretty neat photos.

i dont know much about the technicalities of photography, but think these are 2 incredible photographs, especially taken by a little boy.

just love them. thought i would share

hi hi.
im home.
back in the good ole united states of america.
those that have been and come home know what I am saying when I say its a torn, mixed feeling coming home. If you havent im not sure if that makes any sense to you.
I am SO glad to be back. I missed my family, my dear friends, my church, and my girls from Refuge so much. I was so ready to see everybody, hug some necks, and go to church. you have no idea.
but, pieces of my heart were left there. a big piece in fact.
God took that seed of passion that was in my heart before and stretched it so wide and so deep. he put faces and lives to connect to that passion. I feel so drawn there. to the people, the culture, the language. i want to continue to learn more of it. so, needless to say its a hard divide. I know that I am here now for a reason, so Im not going to whine about it. Im going to push forward in what I must do here, continue to learn and serve. And wait. wait until I hear that still small voice calling me back to Africa in tones so sweet.
Being there made me even more grateful for here. for my family here, my friends here that share that same passion for the world, and for HPC. I would think of all these culturally relative serving outreaches I would want to do, but have no Church to connect it with so it would have been pointless. It made me so grateful for the heartbeat of our Church and everything I get a chance to do there.
just a few random thoughts upon returning.
oh. plus i have the best family and greatest friends on the planet. as i walk off the plane Mom, Steve, Sarah, and Tori are waiting with party hats and signs with random swahili phrases to greet me with huge hugs. then i get home and they have cleaned my room, candles burning, some flowers and a card. sarah bought me a map of africa made in the 1890s, and we ate sushi and counter culture. what more could a girl ask for?!
then i got to take a HOT shower and sleep in clean clean sheets. nothing like it.
so basically, im the luckiest girl around. high five to my incredible people.

okay. that was long. a few ending photographs…

this is me sitting on the floor of a small shop in Zanzibar getting Henna on my hand and ankle

the Colobus Monkey. They are only found on Zanzibar Island and nowhere else in the entire world. they are sooo adorable, plus they arent scared of people because nobody harms them and so they will let you get so close to them. One reached out and tried to touch my friend Sara’s face while we were looking at them.

not to rub it in or anything, but this is a Zanzibar sunset. this was definitely one of the most beautiful places I have been in my life. this picture doesnt begin to grasp it

the whole group, including Mwalimu, in the Mangrove swamp in Zanzibar’s National Park. Those are the really cool trees with the roots that grow out of the ground. we got to climb all over them

this is me with my Tanzanian parents. i called them mama and baba, but their names are Amina and Ezekiel Ngao . Ngao is their last name and it means “shield”. Baba is a Lutheran Pastor (Mchungaji//swahili word for pastor) in Dar Es Salaam. they were pretty great to me.

Ashley and I in front of the Tower Bridge in LONDON. we had a 15 hour layover, and my grandfather’s friend who is a taxi driver came and picked us up at the airport and we were able to go spend about 8 hours in the city. He brought us to see a lot of the big sites and then back to his flat in a suburb of London where he made us dinner and then brought us back to the airport. yeah, so random and fun

that is all for now. thanks for reading. its good to be home

what do ya know?! more pictures from tanzania. the title of my post says (in english), TAKE MORE FOOD! which is what i hear a bajillion times a day from all my sisters when we eat. ahh its become a huge joke around the house now where we all say it to each other, sometimes i stuff food in Debora’s face and we all laugh. yay

ok. so pictures.

1st- . you know. snot-nosed mtoto that makes my heart pitter-patter.

2nd- ahh. hands. thats me holding a little mtoto’s hands in bagamoyo one day. love that

3rd- for miss tori ohlerking! that is one of the MANY incredible trees we saw in Mikumi National Park. love it love it.

4th- thats my group. realized i havent posted any pictures of us. thats everybody minus craig (he was taking the picture. he is the guy that really doesnt even want to be here. dont ask). but from left to right its sara, chris, me, brandi, kayli, and ashley. that was the night all of our shoes got stolen..ugh. but we were all rocking our vitenge (traiditional clothes) before the dance performance.

5th- thats me and Rachel, my littler sister so adorable. ahh love her. she cracks me up all the time. she says when she grows up that she wants to be either Miss Tanzania or a White person. i guess we will just see.

thats all for now. less then 1 week ahhh

some more pictures! yess.

first one- mtoto, of course. how could i post pictures without one, right?

2nd- in a TREE. this was right before we left bagamoyo, we climbed in this perfect climbing tree. thats Ashley, Sara, Kayli, and I up there. probably the best tree I’ve ever climbed…other than getting covered in ants. but thats no big deal

3rd-another picture from bagamoyo. just the fishermen out in a boat. we really would just walk out there and see this everyday. incredible

4th- a little sneak preview from the swahili rap song we wrote and made one night.

so stories?

went to church today, lasted at least 2.5 hours. and i chose swahili over english service. lets just say i could never be quaker. i loved loved the children singing. oh and when the offering was being passed a woman in front of me definitely took TSH10,000 (=$10) from the plate…mm. had no idea how to react, just reminded me of the need.

oh we had cappucinos the other day! first espresso in 1 month, and it was a grande cup of coffee. we sat at this Swiss Motel, Movenpick, where we go to exchange money and savored our coffee. oh yes indeed.

on the way back from Mikumi i sat at the table with a Masai Warrior and ate lunch with him while he sipped his pepsi. so random/ crazy.

weird food combo here- “Chipsi and Mayai” its french fries cooked into fried eggs. so random, but really quite good. there is alot of fried bread here- like i said if i lived here i would be huge.

me and some of the other girls have had some inappropriate happenings this past week that have made me really wary and kinda scared most of the time when we are walking. But im not going to walk in fear, no sir. hapana bwana. JC has got my back.

OH. fun story. so we have our little bible study every night before dinner. the other night the parents were gone for David’s (Korean from Georgetown) going away dinner. So it was just me, the daughters, the 2 girls that arent daughters but live there, and Flor the house girl. Well after we sing and read, Rachel the 7 year old goes to pray. As she starts to pray in Swahili I dont even pay attention to try and translate, cause i got kinda emotional at how sweet her voice was just praying to God. Then the girls just start laughing at her . Debora told me that they were laughing because their TV is broken and rachel prayed that God would give her Mom and Dad money to buy a new TV. When they laughed Rachel just busted out crying. I got really mad and almost cried, but held it in. I was frustrated but couldnt think of how to say in swahili that Jesus said to have a child-like faith and we should come to God with everything. ah, but they all got fussed when Mama got home, dont you worry.

again, all for now.

ah- only 2 more weeks here in Tanzania?! its bittersweet. its a beautiful and wonderful country and i love love love it, but by the time we are leaving i will be so ready to see all my people again. i miss my people. and refuge. ah, hearing some quick stories of Submerge made my heart ache a bit since i wasnt there, but SO encouraged to hear all that God did and how he really showed up! ahh. cant wait to just worship at home again.

well thats all for now.

baadaye!

okay i got some more pictures up, yesss.

to start this off right, the first two are of course a BEAUTIFUL mtoto.

the third and fourth are me with an adorable little girl Asha. she is beautiful and we were just walking down the street when the kids saw us and started yelling, “WAZUNGU! PICHA!” (hey white people come take pictures of us, basically.) and again they just flock. that was in Bagamoyo, too. things like that dont happen in Dar. nope, in DAR we have kids walk up to us and follow us begging for money. oh my.

the fifth is obviously a lion. very observant. how incredible is he though? i love that one- they are so intense.

the sixth is walking on the beach of Bagamoyo. i love that place. I think i could definitely go back there for a long time if you know what I am saying. Dar is nice too, but so big and its hard to get places. In Bagamoyo you just walk where you need to go. When you walk down the beach you see fishermen working, cutting up fish and squid and selling them. You see men walking around with peanut treats and pots of coffee selling it to the fishermen, women walking down the beach with buckets of fish they bought for dinner on their head, and children on their break from school splashing their feet in the water and walking down the beach holding hands. everybody here holds hands, and i think its so adorable. definitely a different definition of personal space than at home. When you get on the daladala(bus) to go anywhere, you are packed in like sardine. my head may be in somebody’s armpit (which is not a good idea here with the lovely body odor), or just squished on a small seat with a stranger. wouldnt work out so well in America.

oh but Bagamoyo, what a beautiful place. i mean look at it, right? exactly.

yesss. all for now.

here is one of those golden “Im in Africa and played with watoto” pictures you’ve all been waiting for! haa. plus its one of my favorites. this was in Bagamoyo whilst playing with kids outside the bank. Oh my, so adorable. those 2 boys both took a bunch of pictures with our cameras too, some coming out really cool.

so, yes. enjoy that. ive had a time limit on writing all these blog posts, and have left so much stuff out. im going to try and include alot in bullet-format. ready?…ok.

// last night in Bagamoyo woke up @ 3AM with my right hand in extreme pain. i started freaking because i didnt know what it was, took 2 advil and called mom (it was 7pm at home). She just started praying with me and declaring a peace and healing. After I hung up I just started singing “Jesus’ Blood” , was overwhelmed with a peace and literally just fell asleep. the next morning i had a little pain still in my hand, but refused to think it was anything serious and knew God had that taken care of. High Five God! Plus, I had just read Psalm 73:23(think thats right…) that says you hold me by my RIGHT HAND, ahh. Jesus had that on lock. pretty sure it was some weird bite, but im not feeling ANY repercussions

// Here on campus monkeys roam around like we have squirrels at LSU. they are all over the place. I walk outside to baby monkeys climbing on the window bars! how fun is that?!

//We just got back from a 2 day Safari at Mikumi National Park. definitely one of the msot beautiful places I have ever been. It was soooo chilly at night and its surronded by incredible mountains. We got to see all the fun safari animals- elephants, giraffes, hippos (one had just died but we missed seeing its carcas, which from what we heard was extremely stinky), crocodiles, wildabeast, impalas, cool birds, and on the 2nd day after hours of searching…LIONS! those are harder to find, and we saw a family of 3. so incredible. kinda scary-close, but beautiful.

oh and remember how i promised like a thousand times that titsi flies (the ones that carry african sleeping disease that kill you) aren’t in Tanzania?…..oops. yeah yeah yeah i know. well this fly flew in the car and mwalimu warned me that it was a titsi fly. basically we all spent the afternoon attacking them at all costs as they flew in and out of the van. i think i got one bite, but 1 isnt a big deal. you just dont want alot, so im fine

//im loving the language. so much easier to learn here. we have made a few language mistakes like accidentally saying a bad word instead of dolphin to a guy in Bagamoyo, but other than that have been fine.

// we have a free weekend this weekend and im pretty sure that we are going to Bagamoyo again because we loved it there so much, I THINK that next weekend we get to go to a school somewhere and help teach English (YES!), the next weekend is Zanzibar (MMM!), and then we head back. ohh i get to stop in London too and we will leave the airport to have dinner, so we wont be stuck there the whole time.

// everything else here is great. my family is really nice and great. I’ve never appreciated hot water so much in my life, its like a rare jewel. for real.

oh well I’m almost out of time on the internet, it takes so long to upload pictures, but i hope to get more next time?! expecting some Submerge updates soon, and hope everyone is well

ya kuonana…