Water, Water Everywhere ...

El Nino. The rains started in October. The water came in our house downstairs on November 4th. But this year the rains haven't stopped in December as they usually do and are continuing in ongoing torrents. Usually, we would get a second rainy season starting in April. But rumour has it this year with El Nino, the rains will carry on through until then.

 

We had a few delighted days of a dry downstairs after a week of no rain just before our visitors, Samuel and Megan arrived (more about their visit later). We set a bedroom up downstairs for Samuel in hope that the rains were over. But alas, after just three nights, we were deafened again by the great thunder and heavy rains and all the water was back with a vengeance cracked by fierce, power-zapping lightning. And so the mopping continues! So now with Samuel in Louisa's room and Megan in Amisadai's room, we have Tim's office, Amisadai and Louisa and Tim and I all squeezed into our little bedroom. A squash and a squeeze but at least all dry (even if all the washing hanging in every remotely available place is still wet)!

It is an ongoing fiasco, creating havoc inside and outside. On the night that Samuel and Megan arrived, it didn't look like we were going to be able to pick them up from the airport. A truck delivering grit and sand (which was to help the solve the problem of floods and mud on our driveway), skidded very almost into the trench and got stuck. It took ages to get him out. Then the second truck came with another load. Believe it or not, he also got stuck in the mud on the other side of the driveway, in our bougainvillia bush. It was getting dark and Tim needed to leave soon for the airport, but the truck was blocking our way out! Finally the truck managed to get out and left... left a huge pile of grit in the middle of the drive so we were still blocked in! After some quick digging in the dark, we managed to get Tim out the gate just in the nick of time to meet the plane!

Rain floods the front steps and car port

 

The trenches start to overflow

 



The truck bringing grit gets stuck and damages the new trench

The road outside our house becomes a fast flowing river when it rains
and this is what it is like when the rain stops!

Following are a few photos of our efforts to get to villages during this rainy season. So many roads are impassable or incredibly slow and difficult to drive on! We are ever thankful for our trusty land cruiser! But as we travel to these villages, it is a stark reminder for me about perspective again.

Yes, it all puts my own woes into perspective! It is not just the roads we drive on damaged by the continual heavy rains; the maize crops in particular are badly affected and things do not look so good for the harvest this year. While we may have a fiasco mopping our wet floor, others face the loss of their homes or the loss of their year's worth of food. We've been reading the news of all the flooding in the UK recently. But not all flood victims have emergency services available to whisk them rapidly to safety, healthcare for accidents or water-borne illnesses, insurance to cover their losses, a job to carry them through or any savings to fall back on.

But now on a lighter note... as wide-spread mould, continual flooding, intestinal parasites, power cuts, a broken-down car, lice and various other problems and bad news hit in a week of losing our house help and the imminent arrival of our guests, we decided our situation classified as an "emergency" and we had fun bringing out some MRE meals someone had given us! We had a great time with our own self-heating packets of survival food! Sometimes you just have to laugh so that you don't cry!


Emergency Survival Time

Figuring out how to heat the MRE's!

Tuck in!

Also in the midst of it all, it was good to enjoy celebrating my birthday! Even in all the chaos, my wonderful husband baked me a scrumptious birthday cake! And now as I write, a wonderful friend has offered to bring us all a meal this week! Thank you to all those who have encouraged us these past few weeks! You are God's grace in action to us and we really appreciate it! So many more reasons to choose joy!

 

Strength and Joy in the Turbulent Times

Though the fig tree does not bud
    and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
    and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
    and no cattle in the stalls,

 yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
    I will be joyful in God my Saviour.

The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
    he enables me to tread on the heights.

Habakkuk 3:17-19

So much turbulence is shaking the world right now. Paris. Beirut. Syria. Burundi.... The atmosphere seems so sombre, although our world has long been broken and hurting. And in the midst of the vast turbulence, all of us face our own small or huge personal turbulent situations. I am just thankful that my strength is not in the governments of this world, not in the success of a crop, nor the rain or the sun. And pertinently for me, especially not in a house in the floods. All these will fail. I will fail. My strength and my joy are in the Lord ... no matter what.

I can't really get my head around my thoughts of the greater turbulence right now. My brain is tired from the lesser turbulence around me. As I write, Tim is stuck in Dar es Salaam, unable to fly in on time because of the turbulent waters in Mwanza. It has been a busy week. I can easily and quickly focus on the frustrations and all that has gone wrong. But while the turbulent waters swirl about, my desire is to keep them off-board. Being in a place of strength and joy rather than sinking with the waters. Treading the heights with the feet of a deer. Looking for the sparks of hope, the glimmers of beauty.

I am rejoicing for the opportunity that Mama Saidati and Mama Wilson have to go to an International Albinism Conference in Dar es Salaam this week! They are excited about representing the Upendo wa Mama Group, taking some of their handmade goods to sell. Some of my recent "turbulence" has come about from the busy preparations for this event. The mamas are enthusiastic to meet and make things to sell, but gathering the group together at one time for a profitable time has been a challenge and involved a lot of "waiting." And trying to keep quality a priority over quantity has also been a challenge!

A busy morning!

After various meetings and plannings during the week, which included ordering, waiting for and picking up our very own "Upendo wa Mama" rubber stamp, we met at the school to do final work on Saturday. As the dark skies thundered ominously, we realised the man with the key was gone! We couldn't get into a classroom to work. We found a spot out of the deep, squelchy mud of the compound, someone ran to borrow a mat, and we got busy on the ground. Again today, heavy rains thwarted plans. Missing all the mamas but one, I ended up driving boxes of soap with Mama Wilson through driving rain to a red container at a bus stand. I can't say I've felt much like we've had the feet of deer treading in the heights, but we do have reason to be joyful!

Now the bus tickets are bought, the soap, Christmas cards and necklaces are boxed up and ready to go. The two mamas leave early in the morning. We have prayed together as a group for their safety as they go. I can't even imagine how it must feel as a woman with albinism, who can neither read or write, who has never travelled to Dar before, to be embarking on this trip! I pray it will be an encouraging and life-changing time for both of them. They have been through terribly turbulent times and my prayer is that they could find real strength and true joy. I can't wait to see them in Dar when I arrive at the conference on Friday!

 

 

Bottling the homemade soap

And finally, to finish with some more strength and joy in turbulent waters... water is such an appropriately apt analogy for me at the moment as we vigorously fight the rising floods downstairs every few hours! But while I still struggle to find joy in the basement, this church in Kisesa quickly found joy in the remains of their ruined building. They have been building a church, and had just put the roof on. But the high winds of the other week tore off the roof and the flooding torrents tore through the foundations. And yet the people sang.

The temporary building

The now-roofless frame. The rebuilding begins.

They know where there strength and joy is found. Yes, they see the problems, and I'm not talking about just their own building problems, but also those of their community, faced with harsh weather conditions, poor soil, and a lot of witchcraft. They see misplaced strength and a lack of joy. We are looking forward to working with them in Kisesa, reaching out from where we have been working at the demonstration farm at the School, to the rest of the village.

So yes, these times are turbulent. The history of our world has always been turbulent. But yet we can rejoice and have strength. In God, when all else is failing around us, we can rise above and tread the heights with our feet like the feet of a deer. And this is my prayer for friends, and also suffering strangers, in turbulent times now.


Singing in Kisesa Church from Rachel Monger on Vimeo.
 

A Land Cruiser from Down Under!

We now have a Project Vehicle! How thankful are we?

We are SO thankful! We have a Hard-top Land Cruiser! A rugged, durable vehicle, especially built for off-road driving! This has been something we have been looking to get since we arrived in Mwanza, and our prayers have been answered! Thanks to the very generous provision of funding from Emmanuel International Australia, we have been able to buy this well-cared for Land Cruiser in very good condition from a German couple leaving Mwanza last month. We want to say a huge thank you to the awesome Aussies who have made this possible! Thank you, Allison Chapple for all you did to make it happen!

Three Cheers for a Land Cruiser...!

This will make such a huge difference to the work we are able to do here. We want to be working with people in rural areas ... but it has been difficult making sure we had a vehicle in town for school pick-up which ranges from 2:15-4:30pm on different days. This has limited the distance Tim has been able to travel for projects and the time he has had in the village. And he won't miss waiting for daladalas and bouncing on pikipikis for getting from A to B! Also, especially with rainy season starting now, which makes the roads to villages so terrible, we really needed a tougher vehicle with higher clearance, able to take the beatings on the roads! So, yes! We are SO thankful!

We picked the vehicle up on Sunday morning and already we have put it to the test! Watch the clip below to see our drive to school yesterday... eeks!
.

Driving to School from Rachel Monger on Vimeo.

On Monday morning, we had one of the most torrential rainstorms we have seen here. It was loud and powerful and the amount of water was unbelievable! It was gushing in torrents like a mighty river down our road and through our property. We managed to get out to drive the girls to school, but even the main roads were terrible, completely flooded with overflowing deep ditches with small wooden bridges floating down the middle of the road. Yet, daladalas, small cars and motorbikes persisted in trying to navigate the chaos. We didn't realise at the time, but where we drove through, there were four deaths that we know of, where motorbike riders and passengers were washed away in the torrents. There were more deaths across the city and many homes were damaged or lost. It is tragically sad, and puts our leaky ceiling and flooding basement into proper perspective. But locking into 4-wheel drive, our Land Cruiser took us safely along the eroded roads, through the torrents, pot holes and mud.

It is hard to effectively communicate how much having a good vehicle means here. It means a lot. In many ways. And we are so very grateful.

Thank you EI Australia Team!