Here Comes the Rain

David with new pet chameleon
 on his head.

I hope every week does not have quite as many activities to report on as this one. Besides having a work week of travel, the weekend was even more full with several social events including a Birthday party for David on Sunday. That last event was so exhausting that we all turned in early last night and I had no energy to try to stay up and write this week's entry.

Backing up.... As I predicted last week, the rainy season, which was crossing the Serengeti when I flew over it, arrived in Arusha on Monday. This is the short rainy season marked by heavy rain and thunderstorms that usually begin in the afternoon and go into the night. The air is cooler again after a short dry season, and the air seems clearer. The termite royalty made their annual mating flight as water soaked into the soil and the ground on Tuesday was littered with their discarded wings. 

The big event of the work week was a visit to the town of Dodoma, right in the center of the country and an 8 hour drive from Arusha. Dodoma is the home of one of our education partners: The Dodoma School for the Deaf (DSD). I went down with our Country Representative Sharon, and our Agriculture Coordinator, Chrispin. She was taking me down to formally introduce me to them--the last partner I have not met, and Chrispin was going down to do a training on fish farming as they had recently completed an MCC sponsored fish pond and were preparing to raise Tilapia.

Me with Director Kennedy
and Matron Faustina

Having come from Burundi where we had several education partners, it is hard not to be comparative. While deaf children face tremendous challenges in TZ as a whole, the ones fortunate enough to be going to DSD are getting a good education by trained teachers in an environment conducive to learning. Besides academics, students have opportunities to learn conservation agriculture, chicken raising, some vocational training, and now fish farming. Teachers are trained in sign language and educational needs of deaf students. The passion for these children is clearly in evidence in the director, a Tanzanian educator by the name of Kennedy.

We arrived in Dodoma on Monday evening and checked into the "El Shaddai" Johannic Hotel, boldly claiming on the sign above the door that it was "the next level in Jesus' name" (I assume they meant in hospitality.) It turned out to fall a bit short for $25 per night and we tried the 4 Points Hotel on the second night we were there which only cost $15 per night. As it turned out, we were lucky there to be on the 2nd floor as thieves came in and robbed most of the guests on the first floor by shining a small flashlight into the windows then using a long flat stick to scoop up cell phones and slide them out the windows. I heard a number of women screaming at about 2 in the morning. We did stay there a third night, but I would rate it a one point hotel.

The visit to the school was much more satisfactory. We met Kennedy on Tuesday morning and he then took us on a tour of the school. They had what appeared to be a student-centered teaching philosophy. The Montessori style pre-school had some very nice simple teaching aids-- bottle caps for counting, ribbons to practice tying shoes, hand washing station, puzzle of Africa, old shirts to practice buttoning, etc.

student signing a question

A highlight was watching Chrispin teaching the students about fish farming. They were fascinated by fish. Chrispin had an interpreter who could sign. The students signed many questions and seemed extremely bright. On the second day we went out to the fish pond and he explained more about how to care and feed for the fish in that pond. Unfortunately the pool was somewhat smaller than what Chrispin had specified prior to his arrival which means that the number of fish they can raise in it will be limited. It is still an opportunity to learn how to do aquaculture though, and a skill they can take with them when they leave the school.

We returned to Arusha on Thursday and got home around 4pm. It was a long drive both ways through land I would describe as Texas panhandle flat in the Dodoma region--very dry and arid. (Not unbearably hot though.) In fact, with the wind, it was quite pleasant. We also passed through the Manyara region which is a bit more hilly and green.

It was good to be home after 4 days away. The kids were happy to see me as well. On Friday we went to Gymkhana and Oren brought two of his friends from school (Abraham and Abraham). One of them has an A that sounds like 'Awe'. They had a great time together and it is good to see him making friends. That evening we went to an Indian restaurant we had heard about in the Impala Hotel. Zoe, the MCC SALT volunteer, was down for the night and she joined us. It was without a doubt one of the best dining experiences I have had here. Pukka Indian food AND quick service! Definitely gets my endorsement.

The rest of the weekend was mostly dedicated to preparing David's Birthday. David has been to 2 birthdays for classmates and trying to conform to the practice of others, he invited everyone in his class. We did, however, decide to have it at our house, which is different than most. Keeping with our family tradition, I organized a Treasure Hunt, and made a pinata as well. It was a pirate theme again this year and the pinata was in the shape of a treasure chest. Rebecca also organized some games, made snacks and a homemade cake, and we felt prepared for the party.

Sunday started out well for David as he found another chameleon at church that day--a baby horned chameleon. He put it on the plant where we kept the first one (which had run away). It is very cute, as you can tell from the photo of it on his head.

Generally the party went well, however, the level of energy of the boys that came was a bit over the top. Keeping them from tearing the place apart took a lot of supervision and redirection. By the end of 3 hours we were completely worn out and our house was a mess. I can see why people prefer to have the parties at outdoor restaurants.

PS to Grandparents> David's favorite gift by far was the Lego set sent in the Christmas suitcase that arrived last week. He built it immediately and really wants to do more!

Bonus Photo: This one is a bit gross, but I was baffled to find this animal dead in our compound. What shocked me was the primate-like hands and long (one meter) ruffed prehensile tail. I was sure it was a lemur, but knew that was not possible unless it was brought here illegally form Madagascar. I did figure out though (from Google) that it was a Northern Greater Galago (a kind of bush baby). I am really sad I never saw it alive and cannot figure out what it died of, as it does not have any obvious injury.

Visit to the Lake Region

I have had the opportunity to see more of Tanzania in the past week because of a field visit to an MCC partner organizations in Musoma. Musoma is a town in the lake region (Western TZ), bordering Lake Victoria on its Southeast side. It has a bit more of the feeling of Bujumbura than Arusha does, as it is more hilly and has more Lake-affected weather than the savanna we live in.

I travelled with Sharon, the Country Rep. in order to be introduced to our Mennonite church partner, KMT (Kanisa la Mennonite Tanzania). We have an albinism-related health project that they are administering, which aims to provide health care professionals with training in identifying cancerous skin lesions in their albino patients and referring them for treatment. Besides facing stigma, albino people in TZ have a very high incidence of skin cancer which is rarely identified and treated in time. Consequently, one of the main causes of death among this population is skin cancer--usually before the age of 40. 

Getting from Arusha to Musoma is what I would describe as a case of 'you can't there from here'. That is to say, you cannot easily travel directly between the two cities without going through several game parks (and paying fees) on an 11 hour bus trip. The alternative is to take a flight to the town of Mwanza, also on Lake Victoria, then take a bus 4 hour bus or cab trip up around the lake to Musoma. This was the route Sharon and I took and we were to be met by a driver with a vehicle from the Mennonite church to take us on the Mwanza--Musoma leg.

I could tell the day was going to be another 'Africa Wins Again' experience almost from the get go (that is -- hold your western plans loosely because anything can happen). When we arrived in town on Monday morning to take the shuttle bus to the airport, we were told it had left one half hour early. We asked why and they said because of the holiday schedule. (There was no scheduled holiday that day.) We took a cab to the airport and caught the flight without incident. When we arrived in Musoma our driver was not waiting for us and after waiting for about half an hour we took a cab over to a nice hotel to get a soda.

The Malaika hotel in Mwanza was frankly spectacular. We had a soda and snacks and enjoyed the view of Lake Victoria from the restaurant window. One of the features I loved was a pool that jutted out over the lake with a cool scuplture next to it. The placid blue of the pool water was a stark contrast to the turgid swell of Lake Victoria which was big enough to surf on.

Our driver was delayed by nearly 2 hours despite continuous assurances that he was 5 minutes away. Finally we were told he was at the police station because he had parked illegally at the airport and needed money to get his vehicle out of the impound. I had to take a boda-boda (motorcycle) over to the station to help him get the car out.

We went back and picked up Sharon and headed up to Musoma, several hours late. As we neared the gate of Serengeti Park we had our second delay: a punctured tire. Sharon and I took the opportunity to walk over to the park entrance and take photos while we waited for the driver to change the tire. We continued on another 50 kilometers than stopped in the town of Bunda to get the flat tire repaired (in case we got a second flat.) We got to Musoma about 8 pm and checked into a hotel Sharon had heard good things about.

The Acacia hotel, despite the charming name was not great. I did not mind it too much but was quite surprised to find in the morning that every surface exposed to light at night had blankets of dead fruit flies. And I mean like a carpet. As they cleaned the hallway outside my room they poured out a bucket of water that sent a massive wave of dead fruit flies into my room that soaked and coated everything that was touching the floor. I was glad to hear that Sharon's room was also not good and we decided to try a new place for the second night.

John W. and me

We had a good visit with our partner and met the KMT General Secretary (John W.) and his staff. They had recently reoccupied an old mission compound that had been abandoned for years and it was cool to see some old printing presses and other facilities constructed by some of the first Mennonite missionaries who came in the 1930s.

We met for most of the morning and had lunch together with John before checking into our new hotel (Le Grand Victoria Hotel). I think the 'Le' makes it sound classier. It was a definite improvement and even had a pool! We also took a brief tour of Musoma visited another place called Matvilla Beach Hotel which is out on a point overlooking the Lake. I got some great photos there of rocks, and several animals including hyraxes, an egret, and a very large monitor lizard on the beach.

We left Musoma early the next morning and made the trip back to Mwanza much more expeditiously and without incident. The flight back was short but a bit bumpy as we flew over the Serengeti among the large rain clouds that were starting to cross the savanna. I think rainy season will arrive in Arusha soon as well.

Rebecca with Zoe and partners

It was good to be home after 3 days away. The kids have been on fall break all week which means Rebecca had extra parental duty. Fortunately she was able to put the kids in a day camp at the Alliance Francaise, where they seemed to manage fairly well giving Rebecca about 4 hours to work at the office.

I took on parental duties on Thursday so Rebecca could go out of town to Longido to visit MCC's SALT volunteer Zoe. She was able to drive there alone and back without incident and had a chance to meet some of the partner staff as well. I spent Thursday afternoon at our club Gymkhana playing Marco Polo in the pool for several hours.

The weekend we were excited to welcome our third out-of-town visitor from the US. Rebecca Heidkamp, a good friend from our church, NBMC, was near Arusha for work and dropped in on us from Friday to Sunday. She also brought one of our suitcases (Christmas decorations) from the US, so we were grateful to see her for that as well.

She was very busy during her visit preparing for a presentation she had to do, but we did enjoy several meals together to talk and visit.

I am going out of town again on Monday morning, this time for 4 days to Dodoma. Rebecca will be here with the kids--fortunately they will be in school during the day. We will fill you in on the details next week.

Bonus Photo: Beach at Matvilla Beach Hotel

Values in Concert

Music Club presentation (David on far upper right)

Hmmm, it’s Monday… Paul has just left for a 3-day trip and I don’t think a new blogpost has magically appeared since we went to bed last night ;-). I guess I will have to pinch hit and report on our week myself.

We had a fairly routine week in many respects, in terms of going to work, trying to get some Swahili lessons done (though our charming teacher has proved to be a bit unreliable when it comes to showing up for class L  ). I am currently working on assignment descriptions for young adult volunteer opportunities for next year through the one-year SALT program. https://mcc.org/get-involved/serve/volunteer/salt

Lucia, Paul, Neema and Chrispin at the funeral

We are hoping to find one or two young people with training in Special Education or OT/PT who will come and serve with the Step by Step Learning Center. So I went to visit Margaret Kenyi at the school, to talk more about the opportunity and to learn more about the school. Paul wrote about his visit there a few weeks ago, but I was really glad to go myself.

Margaret is such a wonderful, warm woman of faith, and I loved talking with her about her experiences in working with each individual child in her program. They are all different and have different gifts and needs, and I appreciated how much the education there is relational. I also have a better understanding of the profound needs her students have. Under any circumstances, I know it must be a challenge to raise a child who isn’t typical. Unfortunately, in Tanzania, when a child is born with special needs, families have very little safety net to draw upon. Rarely do families even have a diagnosis. Often the father takes off, leaving a mother to raise the child on her own. Her options for earning a living are even more limited, and she may need to make the terrible choice of leaving her child unattended and locked in a house while she goes to try to sell something or tend her fields. Many people are hostile to people with disabilities, fearing that their condition may be contagious, so children with autism or downs syndrome or other learning disabilities struggle with both poverty and rejection. It was a real testament to the work of the SSLC that all the children I met were eager to greet me and shake my hand, to the best of their ability.

I know that Paul would have wanted to say something about a big event on Tuesday as well. Our MCC colleague Chrispin lost his mother-in-law at the end of last week. As a sign of solidarity, the whole MCC team attended (except for me, because I was on kid pickup duty) The funeral was held in Chrispin’s wife’s village not far outside of Arusha. After a church service, the family and friends accompanied her body back to her own lands, where she was buried down a steep hill in her banana plantations. Paul may have more to add in detail about his experience of mourning together with our colleague, but at least I can attach some photos of the funeral and our colleagues here.

Another special school event took place at our kids’ school. The Upper Elementary classes presented a concert on Thursday evening. Since we live so far away, we can’t really go home after school and return in time for evening events, so the kids and I hung out at an outdoor café next door to the school for some early dinner. The kids had gone off to play in the somewhat distant playground while I waited for our sandwiches, but when the food arrived, I realized I had a problem. A troop of vervet monkeys had been playing in the magnificent tree shading the café, but now, with food in sight, they were on the ground, prowling nearer and nearer! One seemed pretty unafraid of me, and kept approaching so I resorted to waving around a pair of pants (Oren had changed). But how to get my kids to the food without the food going to the monkeys? Fortunately, Arusha is a small town and I knew the two ladies sitting nearby. One offered to continue waving the pants at the brazen monkey while I ran off and summoned the kids. I was thankful!

The concert was very fun. Each class had prepared a song/dance routine to a western pop song that had something to do with the Values of St. Constantine’s. We heard “Honesty,” “Respect,” “Superhero” and many others. David’s class presented the theme song from Zootopia, “Try Everything,” – which has sort of become my theme song for this beginning period in Arusha, since I’ve heard it so much as David practiced. “No I won’t give up, I won’t give in, til I reach the end, then I’ll start again…” The finale involved all 12 classes, singing Katy Perry’s “Roar!” The sheer volume of their performance, in and of itself, was tremendous. But there was also something incredibly moving about hearing a group of international kids of this particular demographic, singing these words. I’ve attached a video that Paul made of part of the song. Click the link below. Or maybe the link below will work...

We will try to post it on our Facebook pages.

Roar!

Under the Shade of the Jacarandas

'Cammo' David's new pet chameleon he found today

Before things get too routine and we forget some of the novelties of living here, I thought I would mention a few of the daily differences from life in the US. Nothing is particularly remarkable but there are some things that seem simplified. That is especially true around the kitchen. We don't have a dishwasher or hot water coming into the sink so we usually boil a pot of water and pour it in the sink to clean dishes. There is also a lot more stuff made from scratch--tomato sauce, yogurt, pasteurized milk. Shopping tends to be done in much smaller quantities than in the US, but that could be because raw ingredients take up less space and packaging. We need to wash and sterilize all our fruits and veggies in "Sanex," and so far, we haven't gotten major tummy bugs.  A large water filter is the way we get drinking water and filling it several times per day is routine.

Many of these changes have been welcome, even if life is a bit more labor-intensive than in suburbia. But the activity that I least enjoy is our ongoing war against invading ants. These aren't the big army ants one sees on the savannah, these are the tiny black 'picnic' ants. It is hard to describe how perniciously they stream into our windows and door frames to cover any food left out, and weirdly, seem to have some kind of water fetish. We often wake to find millions in the shower, sink, or hiding under the lid of the toilet bowl. This past weekend I found about a million had climbed into our water boiling kettle and committed suicide. Others actually invaded our water filter and managed to get into the clean water. Gross.

Jacarandas behind St. Constantine

At least twice per week I go out and do battle. Armed with a can of 'Doom' I go and spray a Maginot line around all the window and door frames and soak down any nests I see. It works for about 4 days than we wake up to find our defenses have been breached in a new location and there are millions covering our counters and kitchen sink. At times I have seriously considered giving up and learning to simply eat them along with our food. (I am not there yet.)

On the other hand the perks of living here cannot be ignored. The climate continues to be incredible. Right now we are in the dry season, and while it is a bit dusty, most trees remain green and in bloom. Right now jacaranda trees are in full bloom everywhere and many of the streets of the city are lined in purple. I will confess that I have never gotten used to winter since our stint in Burundi and I am very happy I will be missing it this year in the US.

Rebecca will fill you in here about our weekend.

We had a non-routine event to report from the weekend. The parents association of the kids school held a special cultural fair to celebrate the school's diversity and also promote the idea of democracy. A tent was set up for each continent represented at the school Parents were instructed to go to their continent tent and bring a food from their culture to share. We weren't totally sure what to expect, but we baked at least 8 dozen cookies -- Peanut butter & Oatmeal Chocolate Chip (yes, I found something called chocolate chips here! Too much fat, not enough chocolate, but still looked OK). It turned out that there was only one other North American family which turned up. They were from Canada and brought maple flavored caramel popcorn. Yep, the North Americans had people covered on the sweet side! I wasn't actually surprised that our tent was fairly sparsely represented -- I was almost wondering if we would be alone, given that I've met no other North American parents before this. They all seem to attend the other two (more expensive) international schools down the road a ways.

Our families took turns handing out sweets and talking with passing students about North America. And then we parents and kids also joined the groups circulating to other tents. We enjoyed cucumber sandwiches and bitterballen from Europe, interesting rice flour sweets from Asia, vegemite from Australia (?!), and then the overwhelming variety of treats from different parts of Africa. Burundi was well-represented, but the tastiest food came from the Zanzibari families. The kids also enjoyed the bouncy castle slide, and a few interesting inflating water roller activities. The weather was beautiful as always, warm and breezy. We stayed through the raffle drawing and won a gift certificate to a toy store, worth the exact amount that we had spent on raffle tickets. ;-) 

I was really hoping to connect with the parents of a few of Oren's school friends, but sadly they were some of the many students who did not turn up to the event. I'm beginning to realize more of the dynamics of St. Constantine's that present a bit of a challenge to expatriate families. Other international schools that we and our children have attended in the past have been a primary source of community, probably because a large proportion of the students were expatriates. At St. Constantine's, most of the families come from the local Tanzanian and Tanzanian-Indian business community. It's great for our kids to be making friends with kids from here. However, those families are already well-established here and have their extended families and friendships outside the school. They send their kids to school with a driver or private bus, and so it's really hard for us to connect with other parents. Anyway, all of this will mean that we need to be creative and persistent in finding friend-times outside of school.

Paul--On Sunday we were back in church where I went to help with David's Sunday school. David has not wanted to go and has complained that it is boring. I was a helper and that was good because there were 25 kids in his class, and apparently some were missing. They had one teacher, so I could see how it could get a bit out of control. Still it seemed to go well and David stayed and seemed to enjoy the lesson and craft.

After church we went out to lunch with some friends. One of the routines for David and I, whenever we go to a new restaurant is to search the grounds for chameleons. (Every restaurant we have been to here is outdoors. I don't think there are any indoor restaurants.) For 2 months our search has been fruitless although David has caught a number of geckos which he releases into his room, and skinks. But yesterday our fortunes changed. David was throwing a ball up in the air, and as it came down, out of nowhere, a little chameleon came down out of a tree right after it. David caught it and we brought it home and put it into a small potted tree beside our kitchen window. He has been living there for 2 days and seems quite content. David has named him Cammo.

Bonus Photo: Here is a photo of a display of art projects from Oren's class. They had to try to reproduce Starry Night using VanGogh's style.

More Visitors and A Busy Weekend

This will need to be short and sweet because I am behind schedule in getting a blog up every Sunday night. It is already late Monday and thanks to the kids' lack of sleepiness I am just beginning this at 10pm. We did have a reasonably good family game of Carcassone though, so it is not a complete loss to be up this late.

Greg, Beth Anne, and me, Woodstock '78

Working backwards, I was remiss on Sunday because we had our second visitors drop by on Sunday. Although they did not come to the house, I went out and met some of my old high school classmates. Some of you who are reading this either went to or are familiar with Woodstock School, a boarding school in the foothills of the Himalayas where I went to 12th grade. It is truly as magical as Hogwarts and our graduating class of about 60 has stayed in close contact these past 40 or so years, thanks to Facebook.

So about a month ago, Beth Anne Wray and her husband Greg Wray got in contact with me to say they would be coming to Arusha on Safari and wanted to know if we had time to have dinner with them on Sunday. For logistical reasons I ended up meeting them alone and had a delightful evening of catching up on several decades. They stayed at a place not far from us called Onsea House and if anyone is thinking of doing a classy safari in Tanzania, you might want to find a tour company that books it. The place has a gorgeous view and the food, prepared by a French chef, is fabulous.

It would have been nice for Rebecca and I to go together but that would have entailed bringing the kids and we had already asked them to make many sacrifices this weekend already. Earlier on Sunday we finally were able to attend the Arusha Mennonite Church with our country rep Sharon. MCC has an ongoing partnership with the Tanzanian Mennonite Church and it was important to fellowship with them and to greet the chair bishop. I have been to many local African services and this one, true to form, lasted over 3 hours. We knew we would be asking a lot of the kids as we were promptly escorted to the front row where we were quite conspicuous in everything we did.

Both Rebecca and I did reasonably well in introducing ourselves and greeting the church in Swahili: Tunawasalamia katika jina la bwana wetu Jesu Christo! We said a bit about ourselves and began and ended with the obligatory Bwana Jesus Asifiwe! (The Lord Jesus be praised.) The kids for their part did very well by not complaining about sitting in the service the whole time and understanding nothing. Oren even said he liked the singing and dancing, especially the very active kids' choir. I have about 3 seconds of video of that because my camera malfunctioned. We greeted the Bishop afterwards as well as the WOMAN who preached powerfully (I was impressed by that, since women aren't officially ordained in the Tanzanian Mennonite Church.)

After the service we went to get some gelato which is now available at a mall close to the kids' school. It was very strange to get such authentic Italian gelato in Tanzania (sorry, no pictures), but good for a special treat / incentive for exemplary behavior.

Continuing to work backwards through the weekend, Saturday was also a big day for us as we paid a call on an old friend from Burundi days named Wilfred Mlay. Wilfred and his wife Faith are Tanzanian and both retired now. He used to be a regional head of World Vision and was a very active part of the Great Lakes Initiative (GLI), a ministry started by Duke University to bring influential Christian leaders in the church together in Eastern and Central Africa to reflect on the Biblical call to be ambassadors of reconciliation. I had written several times about it in my Burundi blog in the past.


Faith and Wilfred live about 2 hours away in town near Moshi, in the western foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro. I was really looking forward to seeing the mountain in all its splendor, but it was covered in clouds. I tried to take a photo and you can see some bits of it, but not the whole thing. We still had a lovely time with them and enjoyed catching up after not seeing each other for several years. The kids showed great patience on Saturday as the adults pretty much just enjoyed adult conversation, and were glad for some uninterrupted down time when we got home that night.

NDI Director and Finance Officer

The week itself was quite routine, which was nice. One exception was my first solo trip out of Arusha. I drove to a town called Karatu outside the Ngorongoro crater to meet with our local Maasai partner NDI that will be implementing the maternal and child health project. I drove up early in the morning, and it took about 2 hours to get there. I spent the middle of the day with them, then headed back to Arusha in the late afternoon. I was home by 5PM. Karatu was a real reminder that tourism is a big part of Tanzania's economy and it seemed they had about 100 safari style hotels up there. Some were quite cheap but others looked extremely high end. I am hoping to see the project we are starting, beginning in the month of November, so we are trying to get a lot done to make sure it gets off to a good start.

Rebecca writing here: One final special occasion came at the end of the week as David's year four class led their primary assembly on Friday. I took an early lunch break to go visit. The kids' school, St. Constantine's International School, actually has its roots in some Greek Orthodox monarch's initiative (not sure of all the details). The four school houses are named after ancient Greek city-states, the school cook is Greek, and there is a definite emphasis on classicism in their education. In any case, it's a big deal to study the ancient Greeks from every angle, and in the past two weeks they have been studying democracy, as one of the school ideals. David's class prepared a few funny skits contrasting authoritarian government with democracy. 

At the end of the assembly, David's teacher Ms. Peacock (no kidding) appointed him and another boy to act out a morality play, contrasting "Give up Greg" and "Try again Tony." I guess that was in line with the next emphasis on changing one's mindset. David did well, reading the part of Tony, and I'm glad to see him having positive moments at school. He also says that his new weekly piano lessons at school are his favorite class (until he has to practice the left hand!! when he sounds a little more like Greg) I'm glad that he's still enjoying music instruction here; it was hard to see him give up the opportunities he had with the Maryland State Boychoir. 


I will also note that I have been so happy to see Oren laughing with friends almost every afternoon when I go to pick the kids up from school. His two best mates are Abraham (Ah-bra-ham) and Abraham (AA-bra-ham). One of them is always forgetting the name of the other, go figure. Still no after school get togethers though, and Oren is beginning to notice their absence. So we'd really appreciate prayer for at least one other 12 year old boy in town  who would be a good friend to Oren, and who is hopefully part of a family who could be good friends to all the rest of us.

Bonus video: 3 seconds of the childrens' choir at the Mennonite Church