MozamWeek

A few weeks ago I had a lovely chat with a friend who loves and supports Little Zebra Books and our community reading programs. Hilda even uses Little Zebra Books in a Sunday School program at her church here in Tete. Our conversation turned, as often happens these days, to our impending exit from Tete. "Are you really going? What will happen to the programs without you? We need you here." "Yes," I replied, "we are going to leave. It is for the best. It has always been planned this way. Others are already running things. There are a few things I can help with from a distance if needed, but I trust my teams." "But it isn't the same. You do everything with love!" I got teary, as often happens this last year in Tete. "Hilda, so do you! You show such love to the kids. So does Veronica! You all do! You can love them even better than me, because you know them better." There is a reason that I'm not in all those pictures. Min...

About a year ago I posted Why read to kids on a pile of rocks in the shade of a thorn tree?   We've come a long way since those days! Not only have we graduated to reed mats, we have also expanded. Yes, Veronica recruited six volunteers in 2016, and we have added several more in 2017 so far!  Each of our newer volunteers is excited to read to kids. They are following the model that Veronica and I worked out as we experimented with our first books.  Talk to adults first.  Gather the kids.  Read stories and talk about what happens.  Meet weekly at a fixed time. The adults often stay for the stories. Some of them can read. Some of them cannot. One thing they are learning is that their children LIKE to read. Books are now a part of their community life! Books are not a foreign thing brought by strangers. These books are THEIR stories in THEIR language.  The bigger storybook version of each title is also really popula...

We have been in Mozambique for a very long time. This is our oldest daughter visiting a village a half hour out of town in 2003. This was most of what she knew about the world at the time. This village was new to her, but not scary or strange. Our home was surrounded by a green, lush garden. Tea time under a guava tree was a daily ritual with Rosa and Maria. I admit, this looks a little "colonial" in some ways. But that is just life in Africa: our kids are white and everyone else is not. When you have a picnic this is what it looks like.  By 2012 my kids were happy in their school. The translation project was well under way. I was out and about visiting friends and finding places to share Nyungwe stories. There weren't many. Not many people were interested yet. We were on the verge of a new big thing, but we didn't know it.  After our "furlough" for a year in 2012-13, we returned to Mozambique. Little Zebra Books started publishi...

I was reminded again, today, that it is coming. December 2017. We should be officially 'done' with our Nyungwe New Testament. There will follow months of publishing activities and there will be a big dedication... and then... we will go. This "last leaving" flashes into my mind every once in a while. When a friend leaves and reminds me that our time will come. A lump rises in my throat and a tear wells in my eye, and if I let my thoughts dwell there a little longer, I hear myself sigh as the tear falls. "Not just yet," I assure myself. "You have time to get ready, and lots of things will keep you busy along the way." I have left many times and said good-bye to many friends. I have gone and come back to many places. Somehow this place isn't quite "dear enough" on its own to make me dream of visits in the future. Most of what makes this home is very transient: people come and go, houses and homes have changed, church friends have gr...

I can list all the upheavals and setbacks and bumps in the road. Honestly, we have our share. I can list them for you to feel somehow that I am deserving of your sympathy or pity or help. I can throw all the ugly truth out there for everyone to see just what we go through around here. But really, that isn't the way I live my life. I am dependent on God's provision through his people... and even through people who don't recognize they are used by Him. I've had to ask for money and it feels pretty crappy. I've had to wait a week or two or more to follow through on plans I've made. They are good plans. They aren't even selfish plans! But it isn't up to me to make them happen in the end.  So, what do I men when I say that God provides? And what do I mean when I say that I must depend? And what do I mean when I say that I don't make lists of all the rotten breaks in this life?  I guess I mean that there is peace. Again and again I am thr...

I have been a frustrated literacy specialist for about 15 years. I'll just admit it. I haven't ever taught anyone to read. I never have claimed to teach, but to train trainers and develop materials and to research how two very different languages can be used in education of some very special people in a very difficult situation. Now that it is out in the open, I can get on with it. I believe that my impact on a community can only make a difference if I can replicate my initiatives. I talk a lot about literacy and materials in Nyungwe and about using Nyungwe to teach reading. I believe that we only learn well when we can relate new information to something we already know. Theories sometimes describe these as hooks or scaffolding to connect new info with our own experiences. On Monday, I stepped into a Mozambican classroom in a Mozambican school with Mozambican students for the first time. I am grateful for a school director and a district administration that trust me with a...

lufoyi... love...  penu ndiribe lufoyi... but if I don't have love... ndine lini cinthu... I am nothing... I Corinthians 13... the famous Love Chapter that is read a weddings all over the world, every week... is translated into Nyungwe. The consultant  check  is underway for Paul's first letter to the church at Corinth. Things are going well. There were a few days when the team stayed to work through just another verse and spent an extra hour discussing it. Chapter 7 was tough. Chapter 14 can get tricky. Chapter 13 is pretty much done, at least the first seven verses I begged Mikael to share with us for this post. Here are maybe the most quotable parts... 4  Love is patient,   love is kind.           4  Lufoyi limbapirira, lufoyi limbakomera m'tima.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.       Lufoyi liribe njiru, limbasamwa lini ayai limbadzikuza lini.  ...

Yesterday I shared about how I believe Nyungwe  RED ZEBRA BOOKS  will have a positive effect on all literacy skills of Nyungwe children studying in Tete schools where Portuguese is the medium of instruction. Today I'll talk about how these Simple Nyungwe booklets are giving teachers confidence and adding reading comprehension strategies to their lessons. Just having the books published increases the connection between home culture and literacy. Knowing that Nyungwe is a "real" language is a good start in helping people feel that what they know is valuable. Through  RED ZEBRA BOOKS , the younger generation grows curious about the knowledge their elders can share. City kids see that the language they hear at home is a valid means of communicating in writing, too.  Back to how  RED ZEBRA BOOKS  fit into the picture. Teachers are mandated to teach kids about local culture and use the local language,* but it is complicated to make up lessons th...

Some of my friends and acquaintances on Facebook or otherwise will know something about the  RED ZEBRA PROJECT . This is a non-profit organization currently based in Cape Town, South Africa, started by dear friends who love the Nyungwe people as much as we do. In the next few days, I'd like to share how  RED ZEBRA BOOKS  came to Tete and are making a difference around here. At the edge of the provincial capital of Tete, a good 90% of kids speak Nyungwe 90% of the day. For many, school is the only place that Portuguese, the official language of Mozambique, even seems important.  Nyungwe  RED ZEBRA BOOKS   are colorful and chock full of local culture. Children are presented with stories written in their own language for the first time.  We were shocked when our simplest idea became the overall favorite.  "The Bean Book" is simply numbers 1-10 with the respective number of beans and the Nyungwe word for each number. Even teenagers, pu...

When I was 15, I lived in a small town in Indiana. I had a small circle of friends. I babysat on weekends. I went to basketball games and football games or slumber parties at my friends' houses. I was in 10th grade. I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I knew I'd figure it out eventually. I wasn't in a hurry. Being a kid was pretty good, actually. I had no illusions that growing up meant more freedom. I was free... to be myself... in a loving family... in a safe home... God would grow me up in time. I knew that even then. Last week a 15 year old girl came knocking on my gate. She turned out to be the niece of one of our night watchmen who happened to be off work for a few days. She needed to see him. He didn't answer his phone. She didn't know where he lived. She met him here before... she wasn't from Tete, but another part of the province. Her time in Tete last month was short and she worked at a neighbor's house looking after an elde...

My friend Gigi takes amazing pictures. She has lived in Tete for about 3 years or so. When she came, she said she wanted to find beauty wherever she was. I said, "Good luck, you are in Tete now!" She has shown me the beauty of the place around me and I look at my African home differently. I want to thank Gigi for showing so many of us here in this dry, dusty place where the beauty is. Her blog is  SnappingAfrica . Have a look. It is a wonderful glimpse of life here in Tete! Baobab It towers over everything around it. It looks dead. Waiting for the two months of rain during the hottest part of the year. For just a fraction of the year there is respite. Otherwise, wait. Still. You can't tell it is alive until it buds and blossoms and produces fruit. Those seemingly dead branches give fruit every year. The baobab stands in God's stillness and waits for the blessing of rain. Through the burning sun and the drought with no sign of help. It knows. God is here. In hi...

Today I was reminded that at noon in the USA, it is almost nightfall in Mozambique. I spent a few minutes thinking through what nightfall in Tete is like for some of my friends. I'm feeling a little more homesick these days. Africa calls and I can't be there right now. I can remember and breath a prayer, though. Read along and maybe you will, too. The sun sets quickly in the tropics... instead of long, lingering sunsets, the orange ball nearly drops out of sight behind Kalawera mountain at the edge of Tete town. In the shadow of the mountain, the breeze picks up from down river and there is a bit of coolness... or at least a marked relief from the strength of the sun. The light dims and birds fly home. Cattle wander back to the corral moved along by young boys with long thin sticks, dusty clothes and tattered flip-flops.  Women are home and fires are lit for cooking or heating bathwater. There is smoke in the air and that smoke and dust are what make an African sunset s...

Yesterday I got a request to Skype with a friend in Mozambique. I thought it odd, but knew it must be something important. "I just didn't want to tell you this in an email or on Facebook," she explained as we finally got connected. "I just found out that Dona Rosa has died. Q said it was back in January. She was sick, he said you knew about the illness. I'm so sorry. I know you were close to her." Dona Rosa. Rosa worked with me for nearly 14 years in Mozambique. She was our  empregada:  employee. She arrived on our doorstep in November 1998, soon after we began living in Tete. She knocked on our door one morning and asked for a job. Without references, we were hesitant to "let her in." She came back every day practically begging for work. "I have two hands and I need work. My brother will tell you that I'm a good worker." After struggling to wash blue jeans by hand in a basin of cold water a few times, I gave in. "Ok, come and...

Bata and Semu are Bible translators If these guys don't get it... Artinha and Rosa are my household "staff"                              ... ask a woman! In Bible translation not everything is a theological question. Sometimes we have to find a way to explain an aspect of New Testament culture in the Nyungwe culture. Let's face it, even the best trained Nyungwe translator will get stuck on certain concepts! In many cases, it is just necessary to ask someone with different experiences - like a WOMAN! My maids, Artinha and Rosa, clarified the two concepts that follow for our visiting consultant during a chat after breakfast. Easy! There is no color purple... Lydia sells "purple cloth" in Acts. In Bible times, people would understand that to mean that the cloth was very expensive; only for the elite. In Nyungwe, they are baffled by the color purple. It might be red (but re...

Tiny bananas make us smile a tiny bit. Christmas in Tete 2010 Some very random pictures of a side to my life that I usually don't publicize. Here is the story behind the story from the past few years. Hot Christmas. Interesting acquaintances. Food. Bugs. This is some of the good, the bad and the ugly of a missionary family in Tete! Christmas beetle- small, fuzzy and really red!  I can't get my husband to wear shirts at home, so I don't post pics of him very often I gave these guys Nyungwe Bible story books when I was visiting the immigration office. Then I found out they are Sena speakers! Interesting company. I meet people from many walks of life. I think Jesus would love to hang out with these ladies too! When we moved into this house the yard was depressing and bare. We didn't want you to feel sorry for us though! Many man-hours to plant grass in the depressing yard... it makes a difference! Nectarines are such a ...