Battle won in Tanzania
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- Published: Tuesday, 19 May 2015 20:02
Battle won in Tanzania
Steef writes from Africa: Dar es Salaam, May 16th 2015. Let me share some reflections with you from a decent but not expensive hotel room, where I spend the last weekend, after half a month in Tanzania. I taught future missionaries, what I love to do most. Well, I enjoyed it, but it didn’t go from self. Humanly speaking this was ‘Murphy’s Law all over again’, but of course it was spiritual opposition. Nothing we couldn’t combat, but a bit disconcerting sometimes...
It started with a misunderstanding: this time there were 2 people to collect me from the airport (which I didn’t know of course), with all confusion that followed. I arrived Friday evening, but only by the time Saturday was almost gone I arrived at my ‘mansion’ for the next 2 weeks. A rather small room with a primitive bathroom (photo): shower with only cold water, and for the rest washing from the bucket. A small basin to brush my teeth. The low toilet had no seat. Well, I’ve seen worse. Above my bed there was a fine mosquito net, but outside it they found and pierced me anyway. I hope my weekly malaria pills will to the trick again!
It was the rainy season and that had consequences: not only because of the amount of mosquitos and other insects (termites and big grasshoppers, photos below): the road from my room to the ‘school’ was so bad, that my ‘taxi’, a Toyota Starlet (photo) got stuck in the mud by the end of the 1st week. When it had been freed by 6 soaked Africans we went back to organize a 4x4. That took the rest of the morning (because we had to hackle over the price of course), so we lost half a day. Fortunately I was sufficiently ahead of schedule to compensate for the loss. By the time my 2nd week was over, there was almost no road left…
The school building (photo) had a corrugated iron roof. You got it: the tropical downpours (photo) produced such a noise that we had to interrupt the lessons regularly because we could not hear each other any longer. There was no electricity, apart from 4 tiny bulbs that were fed by a solar panel the size of a pocket diary. That didn’t help much, since these showers fell from very dark skies, which, by the way, yields a beautiful green country (photo’s):
Before my departure from Holland the course books for the 2nd week of teaching had not yet arrived. So we had quicly ordered a small reprint from Nairobi, to be sent by fast mail. They didn’t come, well, that is, at the one but last day a small parcel with 6 books arrived. I was happy. Until I unwrapped them and discovered that it was my 1st book (without front- or back covers) instead of my 5th, that I needed for that week.
With no books, I had to teach the 2nd week from my laptop. Fortunately my interpreter, Sam (photo, I never had such a good guy!) had a laptop too, because mine works 4 but not 6 hours on its battery. You got it: after the 1st day of teaching from my laptop, all at a sudden the plugs in my room didn’t work anymore (apart from the many other times we had power cuts), so that the battery couldn’t be recharged. In the (empty) room next to mine they ‘happened’ to work (isn’t it just coincidence?), as the electrican that had quickly been summoned, discovered. So, my laptop slept over at the neighbors (the room was full of mosquitos) and was recharged beautifully the next morning. Later that week Sam had the same problem, but could solve it by coming to my facilities an hour early (where the plugs had been repaired in the mean time). And so we could work with 2 laptops again.
When Sam wanted to have the exam papers printed for the 2nd week, the copyshop was closed, because ‘it rained, didn’t it’? But that too got done in time. The outcome was good: 8 out of 10 students passed with grades between 64% and 93% (for their 1st week; I have no data about the 2nd week yet). The others didn’t pass because there fundamental Bible knowledge was below standard. Too bad. I hope they’ll work at it when their 5-month training is over!
I look back to this blessed trip with much gratitude. Carried by prayer. It had to be, because none of the opposition was successful in the end! Tomorrow night I fly back to ‘normal life’- where my books have arrived in the mean time.
Better late than never…
Oh, just in case you want to order my new book for yourself, go to biblekiosk.co.uk to order the english version or from biblekiosk.nl for the dutch version ofThe Bible’s Missionary Message – The New Testament – Part IIA. Later this year we also hope to publish the third and last volume in this series, Part IIB, so, keep an eye on the aforementioned site!
