What I'm Reading, Watching and Listening To

After staring at my computer for literally three hours trying to put together a blog post, I decided to default to some media that I've been consuming lately and that I can highly recommend.  (I had so many photos in this post, but internet in Tanzania has been so slow of late that I had to take them all out in order to post.)

What I'm Reading:

Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin

We didn't name our daughter after Gretchen Rubin, but her three books (The Happiness Project, Happier at Home and Better Than Before) have really influenced how I organize a lot of things in my life.  I've blogged about her earlier books here and here and here and here and here.

I've been inching my way through this book for longer than it usually takes me to read a dozen books--6 months--because I quickly get distracted thinking of ways to apply her many excellent tips on forming and breaking habits.  As recently as May I wanted a Coca-Cola every single day. Then I had a moment when one day I didn't want a Coke, and, taking advantage of strategies from Gretchen's book, I turned that into a string of days and totally broke my addiction to soda.  I haven't finished it yet, but I am not giving up on it yet, and I'll probably start over again as soon as I finish.

Let's Be Clear About What Real Christian Persecution Looks Like by Jesse Carey

RELEVANT Magazine is a Christian culture magazine which has been doing some really good reporting on the state of conflict in many areas of the world that aren't getting much press.  Their editor has been to Lebanon and seen the refugee crisis first hand in one of the toughest spots in the world.  They have written a number of articles exposing what ISIS is doing and encouraging the Western church to step up and support refugees coming from the Middle East.  This article, which came out today, summarizes the persecution that the Church is facing around the world and challenges American Christians to reconsider what we consider persecution.

What I'm Watching:

Tinga Tinga Tales: Seasons One and Two

The short answer is that I'm not watching much these days besides Dora the Explorer and Paw Patrol, but I have been dishing out a few episodes of Tinga Tinga Tales to my kids.  They love the show, which has really creative graphics, familiar (to them) language and accents, and clever story lines.  Warning: this show is not strictly Creationist in its viewpoint; it is based on African fables about how animals developed different unique characteristics.

Romantic Comedies Starring Brits

A friend of mine dropped a whole bunch of illegally ripped movies in my lap (this is Africa...we don't have access to Hulu, so we pass around bootleg movies).  One of the movies that I loved so much that I've watched it over and over again.  "About Time" is a lovely 2013 British movie starring some British guy I'd never seen before, Rachel McAdams and Bill Nighy, who is just great. 

Plot Summary: A young man inherits the ability to travel in time in his own life and learns how to build the best life he possibly can.  It's just so touching.  I highly recommend it.  

Then I was on airplanes for roughly 900 hours last month and I watched the recent movie "Man Up" starring the wonderful Simon Pegg.  He's the only reason I watched the movie, but I'm ever so glad I did. 

Plot summary: A woman accidentally shows up for a stranger's blind date and decides to steal the date.  Hi-jinks ensue.  There's a whole thing about people crying on airplanes, and I certainly did during this movie.  I enjoyed it so much, making me that woman who is not only awake watching movies while everyone else sleeps (because how often do I get to just sit and watch hours and hours of movies?) but also laughs out loud.

What I'm Listening To:

Podcasts

I have logged over 320 hours of listening to podcasts since I download the Stitcher podcast app a little more than a year ago. I love having the background voices while I do housework or process data or draw pictures of the birthing process.  The podcasts I listen to are all over the map, but here's a list of the top podcasts I never miss, even the embarrassing ones:

Pop Culture Happy Hour - Keeps me up on entertainment and culture in America

Slate's Political Gabfest - Fascinating analysis of both headline and obscure political news (left-leaning, I admit, but less hate-filled than most of the right-leaning ones I've tried), occasional language, 

The RELEVANT Podcast - I used to listen to this back in 2007-2009, but dropped off when my internet got achingly slow when I first moved to Africa.  I started listening again because my friend Joy is a frequent contributor.

Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! - Some of my best Saturday mornings in America were when I had to be in the car on a Saturday morning and got to listen to WWDTM.  Now I don't have to be in the car.

This American Life - Although this is sinking down my list of favorite things to listen to, it has been a staple for years.

Jordan, Jesse GO! - This is a new addition to my list, and definitely a "listen through headphones only" podcast of really random, funny, NSFW conversation.  I regularly laugh out loud.

My Brother, My Brother and Me - Similar to Jordan, Jesse GO!, it's a very quirky advice show hosted by three brothers.  Lots of language and certainly NSFW, but I laugh a lot when I listen to it.

Slate's Whistlestop - This podcast is in-depth political historical analysis from a man who has been a political journalist for decades.  I highly recommend it to any fellow political nerds.

Radiolab - Similar to This American Life, but more edgy

Mystery Show - Hosted by a This American Life contributor, Starlee Kine, she solves mysteries that cannot be resolved on the internet.  It's on a hiatus right now, but it's unique and thoroughly interesting.

This is only about a third of the podcasts I regularly listen to, and I'm always open to suggestions!

The Woodlands: Parallels Vol. I

I do not listen to much music, but The Woodlands are friends from back in my Portland days, and they make beautiful music.  You can buy their latest album for literally any amount of money. (I paid $10 and it is well worth it.)  It's beautiful, interesting acoustic music with lovely vocal harmonies.  It provides really nice background for creative or thoughtful work, like blog writing, although other weeks are a lot more both creative and thoughtful than this one.  Still, it's done, isn't it?  And it's still Thursday!

When Babies Don't Cry

Last week we had visitors from Village Life Outreach Project in Cincinnati, Ohio--an organization which was instrumental in helping Mama Maisha get started.  Every October they bring a team of medical professionals and students to do mobile clinics in villages around Shirati.

One of the nurses, Tina, who has 37 years of experience in obsterics, offered to do a training for Traditional Birth Attendants about the principles and skills of the Helping Babies Breathe curriculum.  Last Saturday we went out to Nyambogo village with Tina, a pediatrics nurse named Megan and a pediatrics resident named Sara.  They taught twelve TBAs how to help a baby breathe immediately after birth using only some blankets and a bulb syringe.

These TBAs are, on average, over 60 years of age and uneducated, so it is always inspiring to see them shamelessly put themselves out there to learn new skills and techniques and tools in order to help the mothers and babies they serve.  Several of the women really struggled to learn the technique of using a bulb syringe on a plastic baby, but they committed themselves to mastering this new skill.  They told us they appreciate this training because it is so much more effective than having a mother who has just exhausted herself delivering a baby then suck the mucus out of the baby's mouth and nose.















We are excited to track down enough bulb syringes for all of these TBAs and get this same training for the rest of the 28 women we have been training to improve the available delivery services for pregnant women in rural Tanzania!

I'm Going to Visit Refugees!

I'm going to be a bit vague on here, because it's a public forum and all, but I want you all to hear the story of how I got a chance to put some actions to my words.

As regular readers of my blog and Facebook are well aware, I have been talking a lot about the refugee crises that are occurring due to conflicts in the Middle East, especially conflicts caused by the Islamic State.  One aspect in particular which has concerned me is the enslavement of Yazidi and Christian women and girls by Islamic State fighters.  Girls as young as nine-years-old have been sold off as sex slaves or forced to convert to Islam and "married" off.  Many girls and young women have committed or attempted suicide to escape.  Additionally, even those who escaped are suffering depression and post-traumatic stress disorder from what they have seen, such as hundreds of men killed for refusing to convert to Islam when the Islamic State invaded the Yazidi region of northern Iraq.

While I was in the States, I had a meeting with an old friend who is now the Global and Local Mission Pastor of a church in Oregon.  I knew that they had connections to a ministry in northern Iraq, but he shared a lot more detail about the family who is working there and how they are serving refugees, especially Yazidis.  He mentioned that he had visited five times in the past year, taking teams from their church.  I asked about future trips, and he mentioned one coming up in November and one next March.  I asked about prenatal care and where women deliver babies and who assists them, but he didn't really know the answer.  (I expect it is a tradition of untrained midwives similar to the one that developed in East African villages.)

I talked to Fred about the opportunity to travel, and he was very supportive of me joining one of these teams, especially the one in November which would be easier on our schedule as a family than next March.  I couldn't imagine raising all the money within 5-6 weeks, though, so we made it a matter of prayer.  Then the pastor emailed me that he would cover all my expenses on the ground if I could get myself to Iraq by November 1st!  I looked up airfare, and it was about $750, which seemed very reasonable to raise that money within a few weeks.

This opportunity came up just as I was wrapping up my trip to America, so I was a bit slow to get the word out.  This week I put the fundraiser up on Facebook, and within a few hours had the amount I needed for airfare...so I thought.  When I went to check the prices, they had skyrocketed.  Several hours of research on excruciatingly slow internet led me to a ticket for $1,120, so I had to go back to fundraising again.  I put the bad news on Facebook and went to bed sad and wondering if I had been wrong about this opportunity.  When I woke up, over $1,500 had been donated!

Some of those who donated have been my friends since I was three years old.  One was a complete stranger.  Many give regularly to support our work, and at least one couple lives overseas on financial support themselves.  I really thank God for such a supportive and kind community of friends.

Now for some FAQ:

Q: Is it really safe?
It is as safe as where we live now.  The Islamic State is blocked from the area where we will be by geological features that my pastor friend compared to "the Grand Canyon."  Of course one can never be assured of absolute safety anywhere in the world (even a community college classroom), but I'm assured that this area is very safe.

Q: Aren't you afraid?
I really try not to live in fear (except of mice...can't seem to kick that fear).  In the worst case scenario, should something awful happen, I am confident that I will be in the center of God's will for me.  I believe that God can use my life or my death, whether it's violent and unexpected or quietly after a long life, to further the Kingdom of Heaven.  I would hate to leave my children and husband, but better that than to live in fear, not following where Jesus is leading.

Q: What will you do there?
I don't know 100% of what I'll be doing, but my hope is meet women and hear their stories.  I would like to be able to hear about their birth culture and what challenges they face in pregnancy and delivery of babies in a refugee camp in a war zone.  I would also like to encourage and bless the missionaries who are living there in any way I can, including sharing the 10 lbs. of chocolate chips that we were blessed with.

Q: How will you spend the extra money that was donated?
I plan to travel to the city of Mwanza in a few days and purchase some of the materials that we use in hygienic birth kits for expectant mothers and those who are delivering babies.  I don't know if I will have an opportunity to distribute those things directly or hand them off to a local health official or to the missionaries, but I want to have them with me, just in case.  Anything else left over I'll take in cash for unexpected expenses or to help meet needs on the ground.

Q: Will you be blogging?
YES.  I don't know what the internet situation will be like, so I don't know for certain if I'll be updating the blog while I'm there, but I will certainly be taking heaps of notes and some photos and journaling so that I can share the experience with all of you.  (Gosh, people, hold me to the photo thing.  You all know how awful I about taking pictures!)

Q:  How can we pray?
I covet your prayers for my preparations, both physical and spiritual, during a very busy next three weeks.  Please pray that I will be full of wisdom, peace, hope and love to share with those I encounter, as well as patience for the processes.  Most of all, please pray for the people in these camps and who are suffering from displacement, insecurity, and physical or emotional harm or threat.

We Should Have Bigger Concerns than the Toy Aisle at Target

I spend a lot of time on Facebook, mostly because it is my primary connection to my friends and family back in the States.  This, of course, exposes me a lot of click bait and the reposts of clever (or not clever) memes and the pro-con opining over whatever the issue of the week is (such as Target and gender in toy aisles or Trump's misogyny).

I talk about a lot of heavy issues on this blog related to our work in East Africa, but as much as I believe that we're here doing what we're called to, the issues going on in the Middle East are so much more important than what we're doing.  

I really try to shy away from being graphic about the things we encounter here unless it's important.  This is important.

Christians are being martyred similarly to the time of the Roman Empire.  You probably heard about the beheadings in Libya and Egypt, but have you heard about the Christians in Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq and traditionally a base for the Christian faith dating back to the days of the early church?  They have been entirely chased out or murdered.  Since the ISIS occupation, Christianity has been so thoroughly eliminated from Mosul that they've even carved the crosses off of the tombstones.

Women and girls are being systematically raped, and the leaders of ISIS have even warped their theology to encourage it.  The sex slavery markets are so efficiently organized that as soon as a Yazidi village was overrun, buses with curtained windows carry the women and girls off to stocked holding centers where they're sorted and categorized and assigned numbers before being sold off to fighters.

Apparently the silence of the West, particularly America, has been an encouragement to ISIS and a profound discouragement to the Christians trying to hold out hope in the facing of growing fear and despair.

I have posted about ISIS and the genocide they are perpetrating on this blog in the past, and I've linked to a number of articles on Facebook.  I'm probably starting to depress or anger some of you, but I've recently been encouraged by my friends Jenice, Adam, and Lindsay and by an article on Relevant Magazine's website written from a first-hand perspective to be more active.

Here are three things you and I can do that really will help those under attack by ISIS:

1. Talk about it!

ISIS is recruiting on social media, including Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.  They publicize their slaughter of Christians and other victims, glorify their cause, and recruit fighters to their cause from the United States, Great Britain, Europe and around the world.  You don't know who sees your posts and who they may be connected to.  If you've traveled in the world, have friends abroad or sponsor a child, especially an adolescent boy, in Africa or the Middle East or Central Asia, you are in touch with people who may be targeted for recruitment by ISIS.  There are many people in the West who are tired or frustrated of hearing about this seemingly hopeless situation, but we need to keep talking to our friends and communities and law makers and news makers about stopping ISIS and helping the refugees reach safety.  Contradict people who complain about hosting refugees and immigrants in our safe countries. 

2. Donate!

I found a little organization called the Hatune Foundation through a website (I appreciate their ISIS coverage, but I won't link here because their other content is not really in line with my views.).  This organization is German and seems to be actively engaged in getting women and girls out of slavery and to medical and psychological support.  It's not tax deductible in the States (yet) and I don't know anything about their financial accountability, but they're actually doing something pretty great (or they're great fraudsters).  I'm taking the risk and donating to them through Paypal. 

3. Pray!

I don't leave this to last because it's least effective - it is the most effective, but it's the hardest thing to do really.  

Let us pray for protection for the civilians and those opposing ISIS.
Let us pray for God to intervene miraculously, Old Testament style, to defend His people.
Let us pray for escape and healing and peace for the enslaved women and girls.
Let us pray for conviction in the hearts of ISIS fighters and leaders, that spiritual bondage would be overcome and that the truth of Jesus' love would transform them.

Let us pray for opportunities for Christians and Muslims (and Hindus and Buddhists and atheists) to join together in opposing ISIS and radical terror.

Let us pray that we entitled, comfortable Christians of the world would speak and act and pray for peace to come and ISIS to be wiped out.

Please join with me.

A Literal Miracle Happened This Week!

If you're not of a theological bent, I suppose this event could be ascribed to a series of coincidences, but personally think that God had a hand in pointing the people to the place at the time, and as a result, a miracle happened.

On Wednesday this week the Mama Maisha Coordinator and Advisor went out to one of our target villages to do a training for more Traditional Birth Attendants about how to use the Hygienic Birth Kits we are providing through a grant from Mennonite Central Committee.  They went with a Dutch medical resident who is volunteering at Shirati Hospital and wanted to see what Mama Maisha is all about.  Well, she had a front row seat!

When they arrived in Nyambogo, they were notified that there was a young woman in labor at our Maternal Health Advocate's house.  Every time we have gone to Nyambogo we have met a woman in labor, and this village has no health facility at all.  (We walked to the closest health facility, 10 km away, a few weeks ago.)  So Victoria, the medical resident, and Ellen, our Advisor who is a retired nurse-midwife, went over to check the 19 year old first-time mother.  She was very close to delivery, so they couldn't put her in the car and send her to a health facility.

The woman was a few weeks premature and very unprepared for delivery.  She didn't even have a khanga (a ubiquitous cloth which can be used for everything from an apron to a diaper to a menstrual pad) with her, but our staff happened to be there with over 100 hygienic birth kits!  Victoria, under the coaching of Ellen and with the assistance of five Traditional Birth Attendants, used the kit to deliver the baby!  There was a tense moment which led to Victoria doing an episiotomy to ease the baby's entrance, and if she hadn't had a birth kit, she would not have had the tools for that, and the mother would have torn badly or the baby would have remained stuck in the birth canal.

After the tiny baby entered the world, she wasn't breathing well for the first few minutes.  In a village as remote as Nyambogo, if that baby had had any problems getting her breath, there was almost nothing they could do for her and no chance, even with a car, to reach the hospital in time.  Moments passed and they prayed and held their own breaths to help this little miracle breathe, and she did.  She cried and took some deep breaths and started nursing to everyone's relief.

In many African cultures the baby is not named until he or she is born.  Much of this comes from the traditionally high infant mortality rate, as well as a very spiritual culture in which people fear curses upon the mother and her baby.  This baby, a little girl, had no name when she was born, but due to the role of this visiting Dutch almost-doctor, there's a new little baby Victoria in Nyambogo village!

Gretchen is 18 Months Old!

(You know those days when you wake up in the morning intending to be super productive, then you head back to bed at 8:30am with malaria?  You take medicine and park in front of the computer, because you have a blog post due, along with many other things, and the internet is so rubbish that it takes more than two hours to post three photos.)

Yesterday, this little beauty achieved 18 months!  She's a shiny, happy little girl who chatters away, sometimes in English, sometimes in gibberish.  She loves to copy our house helper, Adera, who always wears a scarf over her head when she's outside.  This purple scarf was a gift many years ago from Mama Esther Muhagachi, and it's nice and soft, so she loves to pull it out to play with.

She is also *in love* with Dora the Explorer.  She always asks to watch "DORA!" on the tablet or the laptop, and she complains loudly when Inno or Wesley try to change the channel away from her friends, whose names she all knows: Dora, Swiper ("shwipa") and Boots.

She also loves her baby doll ("Baby!") and carries her around, puts her to sleep, and smacks Wesley with her.

Although Gretchen is completely enamored with her father, we're getting ready for five weeks traveling together.  She's a friendly, flexible little girl, and I think many of you will enjoy meeting her in the coming weeks!

Photo Update Courtesy of our Canadian Visitors

Our friends, the Janzens from Shantz Mennonite Church in Kitchener, Ontario, were visiting last month with three young men from their church to do a number of service projects.  They were very good about updating their blog and taking loads of pictures, so here are a couple of highlights from their visit.

Their first project was repairing a water cistern and doing some minor repairs and upgrades at the home of a pastor we work with a lot, Pastor Joseph Buna.  

 

Jane went with me one day for a Mama Maisha client meeting while the guys built a new home for a very vulnerable family.  At the end of the project, they prayed to dedicate the home.

Terry's birthday happened during their visit, and I made him a birthday cake so we could all celebrate together.

They also helped install a water cistern for a teacher they met last year during their first visit.  She hosts an HIV support group in her home, and her intention is that the clients will benefit from the water.

The major reason the team came was to work on the bathrooms for the vocational school that Fred has been working on for years now.  The music department that Jane oversees and the choir that Terry participates in did a benefit concert that raised all the money to build very sophisticated bathrooms for the school.

The team was supposed to do one more house build for an HIV+ widow and her two adolescent children.  The night before they intended to go build, the news came that the mother had died that afternoon.  They reorganized their schedule and built a sunshade for a paraplegic patient of the palliative care program.  He spends most of his day in the sun and rain, so this shade will be a huge benefit to him.  The house for the new orphans was built after they left.

We so enjoyed having the Shantz team here, and hope it's not the last time we see them here!  Thank you to Shantz Mennonite, KCI Music Department and the Janzen family for caring so much for the people of Rorya District.