Poetry

Friday night I was kicking it at my house and I began to go through all the previous blogs that I’ve written since December. Maybe its vanity, but I really like going back reading things that I’ve written. It reminds me of where I was when I wrote it, it brings back the emotions, the thoughts, events, the whole deal. I am very blessed by the ability to write and articulate life and I was quite encouraged the other day when my mom told me that my writing is “poetic.”

And yet I’m a little worried. I used to write poetry. I guess I can say that I write poetry, but I haven’t lately. My fear is that I’ve traded in my poetry for prose (does blogging qualify as prose?). Yes, I want my prose to be “poetic,” but I would rather just write poetry. As I’ve gone into writing songs and prose, I’ve been losing my roots.

Roots. I can’t say that “poetry” is necessarily my roots, not just poetry. I am quite indebted to hip hop. My first memory of hip hop, was at my house on L Street in San Miguel. My Junior High best friend Baldo came over and I turned on my radio. I had it on Sly 96 Alternative Rock. He asked me why I didn’t have it on Kiss 99.7 (before it evolved into Wild 106) Hip Hop and R&B and I made some lame excuse and changed it over. We went about our business and soon he left, but I left it on the airwaves. My dad came in and 2Pac was on, he heard it and told me that that is not music I should be listening to, I was officially hooked. Even now, to get in the mood, I got my favorite album on, Black Star. Hard to believe this album is over 10 years old already. “The fire’s in my eyes and the flames need fannin’” [Insert head nod here] So my first poems, weren’t Shakespeare, Frost and Dickinson inspired (that came later), but rather Nas, Method Man, and Mos Def.

Poetry. I decided a couple months ago that if I was going to start writing poetry again, I needed to get back into the culture and get inspiration by reading it first. I got a book and have been enjoying the poems, but the pen hasn’t touched the pad yet. I wrote a song while I was at language school, but that is different from poetry and spoken word. The last few days I’ve just been praying the Lord will give me the opening line, if I get that, I’ll just take off. We’ll see.

Sorry, this blog isn’t really about Tanzania or the kids so much. This is what I’m thinking though. The Lord gave me words, I’m no Robert Frost, I’m no C.S. Lewis, I’m just Brandon and this is what I enjoy. This is my art form. I want my poetry back and I don’t want to lose my prose or song writing, I just want to have my words intact. People that are photographers come to Africa and take amazing photographs, people that paint, come here and paint the most beautiful paintings, and so on. I want to write a poem that will bring tears because of the beauty it shows in life here.

Ephesians 2:10 says we are God’s “workmanship” the Greek word is poiema. As you can infer, this is the word we get our word “poem” from. Try and fit this into your head. Jesus is the Word, the Alpha and Omega, A to Z and all good and real things are brought into existence through the Lord speaking. This universe exists, because God spoke and we are what He does when He writes a poem. That is AMAZING!!! Something special can take place in a poem where the effect it has goes beyond the form and the words. There is such a valuable beauty that comes about that is so much more than you’d find in a science textbook. We are more than a humongous group of intricate molecules and body parts. We experience things that cannot be explained physiologically. Our existence goes beyond our form, that’s because we are His poem. That’s beautiful.

So as you can guess, by the end of Friday night, I had kicked aside the previous blogs and pulled out my poems. And as far as going forward, I’m sure that my words will return to me and if I feel confident with a written poem, I’ll share it with you all at some point. In the meantime, I suggest you find a book of poetry and watch the effect the words have on you. The Lord gave us art and it is one of His most special creations. We are blessed to partake. I’ll give you a freebie and get you into the poetic swing of things…

Excerpt from “The Eternal Goodness” by John Greenleaf Whittier

The wrong that pains my soul below

I dare not throne above,

I know not of His hate, - I know

His goodness and His love

I dimly guess from blessings known

Of greater out of sight,

And, with the chastened Psalmist, own

His judgments too are right

I long for household voices gone,

For vanished smiles I long,

But God hath led my dear ones on,

And He can do no wrong

I know not what the future hath

Of marvel or surprise

Assured alone that life and death

His mercy underlies.

And if my heart and flesh are weak

To bear an untried pain,

The bruised reed He will not break,

But strengthen and sustain.

No offering of my own I have,

Nor works my faith to prove;

I can but give the gifts He gave

And plead His love for love.

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The Rundown: Speaking of writing, I just got published. My first article written as Education Director was just put out in the newsletter this week, kind of. I really love writing, as you know. Apparently Rita really loves editing. I wrote that article in Victory Magazine, mostly. After I read the published version, I was like “Wow, I sound like Rita.” Lydia, Jodie and I had a good laugh about it and they said she’s been doing that for years. Hamna shida. She wants like that dramatic, adventure writing and I just want to chill, be real and crack self-effacing jokes about eating oatmeal in my underwear. Its all good, just difference in style and I‘m pleased with the article. Life is good. The past couple days have been really nice, a little slower and I’m keeping up with stuff. I’m still trying to figure out the programs somewhat, but the preschool is just about right where I want it. This coming Wednesday, I am going to lead worship at my home group (weird we don’t call it a life group), so I’m looking forward to that. Today was the Kilimanjaro marathon. I went down there and checked it out. My church was supposed be doing evangelism, but I couldn't find them. Several of the kids, including Awadhi, have malaria so you can be praying for them and I myself have a bit of a sore throat, but I'm hoping that's all it is. I’ve been doing research for the ESL stuff, so hopefully that will fit in a little better. Its just hard, because all the kids are at different levels and their schedules seem so random. Continue to pray as I try and figure it all out. Yeah, that’s life.

Moshi Brandon

They (whoever they are) say that after five months on the field, a missionary goes through a bit of a culture shock or a season where they are a little more sad and frustrated. I know of friends that have gone through seasons like that while they’ve been here. This is the best explanation I’ve got for what’s going on right now. Yay, for being a textbook!

Granted, I haven’t been here for five months (consecutively), but between an introductory two weeks in 2008, a normal life type of two months over this last summer and being here a month and a half now, maybe somehow that’s accumulated and now, I’m in a little bit of a head funk or emotion funk or whatever (and if this isn’t that, I’m in for something special come May).

This makes it entirely frustrating to write, even though I want to write. Maybe I just love getting comments on my page, seldom as they may be. I don’t even know if anyone reads this. If I write a blog in the forest and no one reads it, does it make a difference, at all? Just joking, but I really do appreciate those people that take a moment to comment or email me (side note). Throughout the week, I think of like five different titles and topics for my blog. I’ve got some doozies in the oven, let me tell you. I’ve been thinking of one called “Poem” for a while, last night I started writing one titled “Possibility,” and the list could go on. This one, I didn’t title at the start. I just wrote an introductory sentence talking about how I have no idea what I’m about to write (it was deleted upon revision).

If there were one prayer request for me personally, it would be for thought and emotional clarity. My internal life has never been so ambiguous and I’m an introvert, a very pensive man, but I feel like in the times that I just stop and spend sometime trying to organize my thoughts, I make no headway. To be honest, I don’t even know if I’m sad, maybe I’ve never been happier. I just can’t make sense of anything (which maybe adds to my cynicism exampled in the previous paragraph, sorry).

Lydia said something last week that scared me a little. She talked about how she is not the same person that she was when she was in the states. That inevitably will happen to me as well, and I believe its already begun. I think about Long Beach, that amazing, yet brief season. I liked myself in Long Beach. Paso Robles Brandon is too immature and Costa Mesa Brandon has too much baggage, but Long Beach Brandon, yeah I wouldn’t mind being that guy for awhile. Children’s Pastor, Life Group Leader, the guy that loves to just go to Portfolio and write or get coffee with a friend and talk about the Lord. Hmm, good times.

And yet I would rather be here in Moshi, but I’m not as fond of myself here or maybe I just miss my community and family back in the states, which undoubtedly plays some role in all of this. In Long Beach, I felt more like I really had something to impart to The Garden, to the people, to those friends in Orange County I would still see regularly. Here, I know, but I don’t know. These kids need a father, but this isn’t the way that I envisioned it. I think of my dad, good memories as a child growing up even up til my visit there a couple months ago. He’s a dad. How can I be a dad, when we don’t even largely speak the same language? Yes, they call me “baba,” but that’s also very cultural. I call men older than me on the street “baba” because that’s what you do here. Yes they love me and I them, but its like I get here and they’ve lived basically their whole lives without me in it. I’m their father? There’s more to being a dad then this and I just pray that the Lord will show me what that looks like, because this is entirely different from what I would think of as normal.

To end abruptly...

I appreciate your prayers so much, equally so the emails of encouragement. Thank you for being my family and spending part of your day reading. Please do keep me in your prayers. I am so blessed to be right where Jesus wants me, the hardest place there is to be. As I was telling my friend Melissa the other day, being a full-time, long-term missionary and feeling the gravity of such an undertaking is a whole other ballgame from short-term missions. This of course adds to the difficulty and that’s why I appreciate your support so much. I bless you in the name of the Lord.

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The Rundown: This week has been good. I started some of the ESL and art programs at TOA, which has been fun. Its all a work in progress, but I prayerfully trust that its making a difference. The bookkeeping is coming along too. The Lord’s grace is sufficient for that. Its been nice to know that I’m doing something that Lyd would normally have to do and it takes a little off her plate and keeps our books up to date weekly as opposed to monthly. The preschool is going well. Jeremiah, or JerrBear, or Pinoche, or Stevie, or simply Jerry (I have many nicknames for him) will be starting at his special day school this week so we’re down to seven kids. Its been a joy to work with Grace and I think we’re starting to settle into the changes I’ve made. The kids are well, although you can pray for our second grader Sam. He’s a good kid that we love, but he’s made some bad decisions (like kids do) and he’s on ultra groundation. Pray that the Lord would be speaking and ministering righteousness to him. Other than that, things have been normal. Tuesday discipleship and Thursday worship with Ryan was good. Let’s see what else, oh, right when I was getting used to my new beard trimmer and really liking it, it broke on me a week ago. So I leave you with this final prayer request, pray that I can find a trimmer before I turn into Grizzly Adams.

Living Life

Saturday night. I’m at home. The electricity has been out most the day and it is coming and going right now. Another chill night alone in the Stiver residence. I got a case of peanut butter chest thanks to my dinner. Just finished winning my 30th straight FreeCell game on my laptop. That’s right, Brandon Stiver, missionary and FreeCell extraordinare. I tried to take a picture but taking a picture of small print on a laptop screen doesn’t quite work. Sitting in my favorite chair, listening to Matthew Mayfield, enjoying his raspy voice and trying to not let it lull me into a nighttime depression.

This is my life. Its nothing glamorous. Not particularly romantic. At times its beautiful and at times I sit in my living room eating oatmeal in my underwear.

I wish that I could tell you how I “feel.” The truth is I’ve been on a bit of an emotional hiatus since December 8th. Completely unintentional and entirely frustrating. I haven’t been crying like I regularly do, my mind has got four thousand and eighty six things on it and my words can’t articulate the surface of my emotional ambiguity from moment to moment. I’ll try simple words for now. Right now, I’m at peace. Not sad, not lonely, not exuberant, I just am.

"I Have Not Forgotten You"

God's grace is always sufficient. Praise the Lord.

This weekend has been in a word, normal. I cannot tell you how much joy it brings me to tell you that. This is my life. This is my work. This is my home. I'm blessed.

This week was hard and so blessed. This week was busy and so joyful. The last few days have been so good and I believe they've given me my best picture yet of what life in Moshi will look like.

Let me run through the anointed normality.

Friday was my first day really doing hands-on education stuff with the kids and it was so much fun. I busted out the play-dough and finger paint and we went through eight different colors and trying to get the kids to memorize both the English and Swahili names for each of them. I love working with kids and the preschool age always seems to be the funniest. No matter what color I held up and no matter which language I asked for, half their answers were "yellow" unless of course I held up the color yellow. Justina has really taken the game on in normal life, anytime we're together, we ask each other "rangi gani?" ("which color?") and she's starting to get them down. After that I took the three older ones upstairs for computer time. Lucy and Justina did really good, but Jerry was in way over his head so I let him go back with the toddlers outside.

The hardest part since getting back to Moshi was on Friday afternoon, when Baba Pendo and I went to pick Awadhi up from his school. I was distracted enough during the week to not focus on the fact that he wasn't there, but it hit me like a ton of bricks when we went to get him. We got there and he walked up with his caregiver and he was so lethargic. He didn't smile until we got home and saw his friends, had a snack and got back into the swing of things at TOA. I don't know what to say. I wasn't able to talk to anyone really because only one person there spoke Swahili and the rest were deaf. Keep praying. I don't know what to say, but please do pray.

Friday night, I had a great time over at Lydia and Jodie's place. They cooked a bomb meal and we were able to talk about the kids, about our lives, share stories and so on. I am feeling more and more blessed to have them and Eli as my partners in this wonderful ministry.

Saturday was a good day, mostly. It didn't start off too great. I went and picked up Awadhi and then Jodie to go to a place where a lady was supposed to meet us and hook Awadhi up with a hearing aid, but to no avail. The lady had told Jodie to come Saturday and she never showed. That is not uncommon here. The rest of the day was great though. Playing with the kids outside, singing, teaching the older boys to play guitar, and so on. The best part was Awadhi's first skype conversation with Babu na Bibi (Grandpa and Grandma) back in Wisconsin. He really got a kick out of it as did mom and dad. You'd think a deaf kid wouldn't get much out of that, but the kid is so visually geared with facial expressions and everything that he was perfectly content to stare and make faces at these wazungu on the screen.

Today was special. I had a very anticipatory sense throughout the morning and God was faithful to speak as well as give me new things to pray about and remember. I went and picked Awadhi up from TOA and then him and I went to church together just the two of us. I had heard good things about the community at this Anglican church (shout out to Scott) so him and I went there. I doubt he's ever seen so many wazungu (white/western people) in one place. He was so so so good! I didn't feel comfortable taking him to the children's service, but he did a great job sitting next to me in service, cuddling, coloring and playing with my sunglasses. The service was good, I certainly enjoyed the sermon and there was a time where the guest speaker had us hear from the Lord. It was hard to focus on her prompting with Awadhi by my side totally clueless, but in the brief moment I closed my eyes, the Lord took me back to the time when I first held Awadhi in that hospital and to think that He has brought me all the way to where my son and I are sitting in a church service together. With that came the words "I have not forgotten you." All the worries about being here not knowing what I'm doing, being single, having so much to do in a culture that is not my own, waiting on Awadhi's healing and being frustrated with his schooling, and any lack of money, all these things fall by the wayside as I remember that He remembers.

Praise the Lord. I'm not forgotten, God knows my name. Awadhi's not forgotten, God knows his name. You are not forgotten, God knows your name.

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The Rundown (SPECIAL HOME EDITION): As I said above the week was good. Progressively getting stuff done and next week will be even more normal. All the most important stuff was put above and the only other things were that had a good time in worship at Ryan and Stacy's on Thursday and we had a rad drum circle going on at the end. I took my first spill on the pikipiki on Friday. Nothing serious, just glad to have gotten it out of the way. I played indoor soccer a couple times this week with Noe at ISM which resulted in the biggest blister of my life. I was astounded and it gave me a limp for two days. And that is pretty much all I can think of.

Since this is my home, you may want to see it (or you might not, in which case, thanks for stopping by!) so I've got some pictures of life here and the places I am daily. The most important pictures were posted on Facebook this week. All the Treasures' pictures are in the album "January and February," but here are pictures of my house and my office. This is my home...

Nyumba Kwangu (My home)

My Living Room (The floor's filthy and the furniture's not mine)

I duct tape paintings to the wall, not because I live in Africa, but because I can.

The kitchen (gotta love the ugly gas tank right under the counter)

Can you spot yourself on the fridge?

Still working on that whole shower curtain thing. One of the joys of living alone.

Plenty of closet space

The mosquito net is a God send. So long as no mosquitoes get trapped inside.

My main ride. I love him so long as he doesn't kill me.

Secondary vehicle.

My office. The source of all my webcam pictures and skype conversations.

Family Family and LG Family don my desk with Awadhi and JuJu on the screen.

Need For Grace

Well I’m at TOA. Language school is over and I spent the weekend and today at the orphanage.

Its official. I am in way over my head. That sounded so romantic when I said it in Long Beach, now its more daunting than ever.

I prepared to come here, but there was only so much that I could do stateside. I was assuming that once my foot touched the tarmac at Kilimanjaro International, all of a sudden all of these things would just come to mind and I’d know exactly what the ESL program would look like and the preschool class and the bookkeeping and everything. Well, Day 1 is in the books and I’m still like “huh?”

When I was a senior in high school, I took over as the PRHS website editor after the Christmas break. This was a position that had never been held by a student, but my teacher was being deployed to Iraq and he asked me to be in charge of posting because of my riveting journalism starting the “Bearcat Spotlight.” I got back from break and felt pretty legit, I sat in the teachers chair in the front of the class while all the other students were at their computers. Yeah, I was the man, pretty sure of myself. I thought I was cool, because I could put up pictures of Tobey skating and pass them as “extra curricular activity” posts. Well, my first day on the job in just trying to update the website, I managed to erase the homepage and left nothing but the template. I scrambled and felt pretty dumb. I managed to get up a note before the end of the period saying that the website was “currently down,” but I had managed to screw everything up on Day 1. My prayer is that that is not the case here.

I’m being dramatic, I apologize. I feel like the Lord has prepared me for this. No, I can say this with confidence… the Lord has prepared me for this. But in all my prior experience in education and working with kids, its been like similar but not this. Yeah, I’ve worked at a couple preschools, but I’ve never run one, much less in a foreign country. Yeah, I spent four years supervising tutoring, but I’ve never implemented ESL programs, much less in a foreign country. Yeah, I’ve got a degree in education, but I’ve never been responsible for 26 kids educational progress, much less in a foreign country. Yeah, I’ve been responsible with my personal finances, but doing payroll and bookkeeping for 26 TOA employees…hoo.

It easily adds to frustration in other areas, especially technology. I had all these dreams of how easy contact with the states will be once I’m here. Skype like crazy, Facebook up the wazoo and yada yada yada. I had the sweetest video to post on YouTube of me and the kids dancing in worship (it was so sweet!), but I can’t get the thing to load up and I can’t edit the videos from my camera on my computer because of a difference in files. Also I don’t know anything about networking, so I haven’t been able to get my laptop online at TOA so no Skype and no Facebook videos. I’m 23, this is my generation, I’m supposed to know everything about computers! Living with Josh and Cody for three years you’d think some of this stuff would have rubbed off. Nope.

Lydia is the most gracious program director that I could ask for. She is kind enough to walk in this with me and like me, she doesn’t know what to do exactly. To me, she’s the picture of strength and seems to have a grip on things. With me she told me that she’ll only give me what I can handle and if I say “tosha” she won’t give me any more. The problem is I don’t know how much I can handle, because this is all so new.

There are a couple things that I can fall back on. The Lord spoke a very simple truth to me last month as I was lying awake in bed at my parents’ house. I was worried about whether or not these programs for the kids will even be effective and if the kids would progress. He told me “the kids are already progressing.” Sam and Maggie were among the top students after finishing the Standard 1, Sifa was able to skip a grade to go into Form 1, Jerry is able to receive the special needs he needs at school, so is Awadhi (but that brings about its own difficulties at home). The kids are progressing. Hopefully anything that I do will just add to that.

The only thing that I can do is be faithful. That’s pretty much all we can ever do. I don’t claim to be God’s gift to education or fathering. I’m a 23 year old, inexperienced man without my credentials or too much in-class experience. But what I can do is be faithful. In my work, I can do it unto the Lord, I can be faithful. That’s where I gotta hang my hat and trust that His grace in all these things will be enough.

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The Rundown: Language school was a good experience and I learned a lot. It is quite practical Swahili and I look forward to using it. Thursday night, we had a end of the course party and a New Zealand friend Tom and I played a bunch of pop songs on the guitar. It was fun. I’m so glad to be at TOA. This weekend has been good. Saturday, I got a fridge to keep my chapati frozen and peanut butter cold. I find that my staple in Tanzania switches from peanut butter and jelly to peanut butter and bananas, of which I have been throwing back like crazy the last couple days. After that, I was getting settled into my office. (Pictures of everything will be coming once I’m finished settling in). I’ll be honest, it feels pretty legit to have my own office. Sunday, we did an all worship service at ICC and my hands were raw from drumming at the end. Sunday afternoon, I hung out at TOA with the kids and played basketball with Ryan, Noe and some others at ISM at night. Monday was some intro with bookkeeping and education stuff at TOA and Noe and I played a little indoor soccer at ISM in the evening. He, Amanda and the kids are moving back to the states soon and they found a buyer for the house. He said that the new buyers are cool with me living in the back house though. The heat and the mosquitoes suck. Awadhi is at a boarding school Monday through Friday. I’m glad that he is able to learn sign language and advance his education. It hasn’t really hit me yet though that I’ll see all the kids everyday, except for him. He is such an outgoing and loving kid, his teachers said that he loved his first couple days last week and our staff said upon dropping him off that he was energetic in making new friends and fitting in. He’s such a great kid. Everything else is good. Please do pray for my programs and that the Lord would use me and his grace would abound. Pray that we’re able to fix the technical stuff and get my laptop online. Pray for help with the electric company, they are saying that we owe them over a million shillings or something crazy when we don’t owe them anything. Also, Rita (HWCM Director) was supposed to becoming out this month, but its not looking like we can afford it. Pray that she only not come if the Lord says “no” if its because of money, then pray that He opens that up and soon, because she would have already bought the tickets. Thanks for your prayers family. Check Facebook for some pictures that I put up recently of me and the kids.