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Boy, I’ve gotten out of the swing of things with this whole writing thing. Another week and a half goes by between blogs and I’m out of the writing mode.

Well, the reason that I haven’t been blogging as frequent is because things here in Moshi have been a bit different than normal and I just haven’t had the time to sit at my house and write. They’ve been different because we had a team and then Rita was here. It was a good stay for them, but now they’ve all gone back to the states. Just like that they all are back in the states.

It kind of throws me for a loop. Wait, Rita just got on a plane and now she’s back in California. She was here Friday night and now she’s be back in Orange County. That’s crazy to me. That place that I once called home, recently estranged to me, and she’s there just like that.

You know before planes became the most prominent mode of global transportation, missionaries would go out to the mission field and be there for twenty, thirty years, maybe spend the entire rest of their lives in that foreign country. That doesn’t have to be the case anymore and typically isn’t. For just a couple thousand dollars, maybe less, I can get from the south-eastern quadrant to the north-western quadrant of the earth and be right back with those people that I miss so much.

This is a really big world, but its also quite small. As far as we know, the Lord created the earth and its inhabitants as the most unique and dear to His heart part of His universal creation. And because He gave us the ability to create, as He Himself does, we’ve been able to come up with some amazing technology that makes the most remote places of this world completely accessible. Thus, California is quite close to Tanzania. I praise God for airplanes and that they bring us visitors and in January 2011, a plane will take me to the states for my first furlough. I praise God for the internet, and all its entities of Facebook, Blogger, Gmail, YouTube and Skype that allow me to stay in contact with my friends (do you think I could get a little flow from mentioning any of those companies?)

So as far as I am from the states, its not actually the distance that makes it far away from me and its not the money for a ticket either (the Lord provides all such things). Its rather the time that goes between visits and insufficient interaction with those back in my previous home. By no means am I pining to leave Tanzania to live in California again. Its rather that I want to live in Tanzania AND California. That’s not physically possible (or the commute would get rather expensive), so I happily choose to live in Moshi knowing that this is where the Lord chose for me to live.

I don’t know who actually reads this blog. I’ve gotten comments from the most random people and yet I’m fairly certain that some of my closest friends from California don’t read it. I know that’s the case. One thing that people have told me is that they like my honesty in my writing, so we’ll chalk this next comment up to my honesty. I really hate that I don’t hear from so many of my friends and loved ones. I know that it takes two to tango, so I’ll accept my responsibility on any dropped connection, but its really hard to tango with so many people. My friends see one less friend on a normal basis, and I lost just about all of them. Its hard to chase down that many people with emails and Facebook messages. So I’ve done the blog, video and photos regularly to keep up my side, but really don’t get much back from others, besides general blips I catch on Facebook.

I don’t say this for a “woe is me” or “my friends suck” effect, but rather just to express that that is what makes everyone seem so far away. You know who doesn’t seem too far away? Tricia (that’s right if you email me you get a shout-out in the blog… with that said, what’s up Rosa?). I haven’t seen Tricia since mid-December and yet you know what, I feel like I’ve gotten closer to her over the last five months. She emails me and responds to what she reads in the blog and I respond to what she writes and we have a good back-and-forth. It is honestly one of the things that I look forward to most throughout my week and it blesses me. She is already a great prayer and financial supporter and yet, she supports me just by keeping me up on what’s going on in her life and taking interest in my work.

I also feel love when my friends pray for me. I can’t hear your voices though from here. I’ve had friends that have told me that they pray for me everyday which is so wonderful and I appreciate it. Typically when people IM or FB Comment me and ask me how I’m doing I give them a quick answer and then ask them if they’ve been reading the blog. Often they answer “no” or “not all” or “not recently,” but then they tell me they’ve been praying for me. The prayer is great at any rate and I don’t want to take away from that, but I would like people to pray for things they hear me talk about, so that they know what to talk about. Back in January after reading a blog I wrote (Reality), my friend Sara told me about the prayer time she had for me after reading it and what she heard from the Lord ministered to me as I read it in an email she sent me. That’s how she shows me love from Long Beach all the way to Moshi and that’s how I know she’s my friend.

I apologize, I’ve gotten off on a random pity party tangent. That’s right, I always have some take-home moral of the story… let’s see… don’t do drugs. The end.

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The Rundown: Just playing, this isn’t the rundown yet and that’s not the point (although you shouldn’t do drugs). In the most redundant preschool Sunday school message, God gave us friends. Why did he give us friends? Because He knew that community and family are going to be necessary for support in a world that is so hard. And also because He knew that love is so special it ought to be shared with as many people as possible.

This isn’t just about me, I don’t want this to just be about me. I’m only writing out of my experience. You have friends in your lives. Some of them are casual friends and some you would consider “close.” Pour into them, bless them. If they are far away, write them, ask them what you can pray for. If we are not being the church to one another, we won’t be effective for the Kingdom and we won’t be fully satisfied with life. Jesus said that the way people will be drawn to Him is by observing the way that we love one another. Take aside time and spend it with someone and build them up and encourage them. You spend time doing the things that you ascribe worth to. If you don’t have time for loving and building up people, you don’t have time for doing one of the few things that will last into eternity. Don’t do it out of obligation or because some guy guilted you into it in a blog. Do it because it satisfies, because its part of the Lord’s design, because its good.

The Lord has given us a good thing in church, community, friends and family. He has a wonderful plan for how we are to love one another and grow closer and closer to one another as we grow closer and closer to Him. In all of it He is glorified and we are satisfied, for this we give praise.

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The Real Rundown: Like I mentioned, the last couple weeks have been ultra crazy with things that are not normally in my week to week schedule. Its really been great. I was blessed to be able to spend time with Rita, who is just a wonderfully, blessed director and she ministered to us as she always does. It was my first time having her Tanzania-side as a missionary under her and it went very well. I got to eat out more which was nice, but even more so it was just great to talk with her. She is a great support for me, Lydia, Jodie, and Eli. On Wednesday Jodie took off for her overdue furlough, so she’ll be gone for the next couple months. I’ve had a good time introducing some of the materials that the team brought me into the education program. As I came home yesterday evening, I had an “I live in Africa” moment, with my whole house in this funky half-power mode with my lights dimmed and realizing that my sink is apparently completely clogged as it never drained from this morning (no they don’t sell Drain-O here). The kids are all doing well and we had a couple birthdays this week (Maggie and Maria). A team from Newport-Mesa Church just got here to work with Ryan and its cool because my friend Tyler is on the team. He was on the first team I came here with two years ago and he’s the first one to come back from that team (other than me of course). He also sponsors Jeremia and we love having our supporters come and visit. I led worship at ICC again this morning as Ryan was taking the NMC team out to Pastor Mbasha’s church. It went well. Lauren has a team here now also. They'll be doing construction and community building I think, so I got to hang out with all of them over worship on Thursday and worship/dinner/games on Friday. All good things. Anyways, the end.