Paul and Rebecca Mosley in Tanzania: New Jobs

Paul engaged in Home makeover

We have been gradually transitioning into the role MCC Representatives for Tanzania since we signed the offer last October. But on Friday, we officially moved from the back seat to the driver’s seat. Today, we felt the full force of Rep email descending on us. We are grateful that we are near the end of emergency online education because we will need to be giving a lot more time to our roles as Directors of MCC’s programming in Tanzania.

Meanwhile, there are other side jobs to tend to as well.

Haircuts in the garage

Like most people in lockdown, our hair has been getting a little unkempt. Last weekend, our set of hair clippers finally arrived, and I found myself trimming my mom’s hair, and then David’s. I need to figure out who I am brave enough to ask to trim my hair…

We have had a larger side task to tend to after work and on the weekends in the past month. We found an arrangement to stay rent-free in a lovely, vacant vacation home on the Bay, in exchange for painting. It has turned out to be an interesting and substantial job. Fortunately, we have a coach / site manager with all the equipment we need. Last weekend, Don dropped off a power washer, which enabled Paul to blast the old paint and stain off of the lower sides of the house, as well as the moss and weeds off of the patio and the concrete walkway down to the beach.

Powerwashing

On Wednesday, he brought a truck with a lift. By Thursday night, Paul had blasted clean the high front wall of the house. By Friday night he’d stained the entire high section, and on Saturday, he and I worked as a team to stain the rest of the place. David even pitched in to paint a low section of boards where the stain just dripped into the bushes and didn’t do any harm. We made it festive by blasting the upbeat tunes from “The Greatest Showman,” a current favorite with our boys. It was great to finish this part of the home improvement contract before our Rep role really got going. Now we just have a couple of doors to paint, and some mulching to do.

In the midst of these various kinds of labors, our nation is facing yet another crisis. Is this a moment of opportunity? On May 31, when we last wrote, we could hardly imagine that any other crisis could surpass the COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying economic disaster in our country. But then the system of racial injustice in America killed George Floyd. People have had enough. And now we are in the midst of urgent labor, as a nation, some of us trying to deliver justice. Or will it be a miscarriage, once again? It truly feels different this time, and if there is anything we can do to push our country towards change, we need to do it. The trouble is, we are staying out in the boonies, and we also are wary of being exposed to the virus in crowds, since we are essentially “quaranteaming” with our older parents.

Demonstrating on Rt 40, Cecil County

We decided to join with a movement for systemic change, the Poor People’s Campaign, to remembering Floyd’s killing. We stood on the sidewalk near our local Food Lion grocery store and demonstrated for a couple of hours, and then knelt to observe 8 minutes and 46 seconds of silence. This county is very Republican. Mostly pickup trucks drove past, and so we only got a handful of supportive honks every few minutes. But that’s OK – it’s important that we all realize racial justice is a moral issue, and people in every corner of the country are calling for it. About 20% of the drivers we saw were African-American, and we hope they know we saw them. David came with us for that first round. Oren was very apprehensive about the potential for some kind of violent confrontation with a right-wing person who might be offended by our expression of our constitutional rights. But we had no conversations or confrontations. We just smiled and waved and were present in the community.

I was also struck by how easy it was for us to put our signs into our car and return to anonymity once more. In our church service the day before, one young man of color reminded us, with deep emotion, that racial injustice for him is not an issue, it is his reality. What will it take for all of us, especially Christians of European background, to make this struggle for justice our daily reality, not just a cause or an issue to take up when we have the luxury of a little spare time?

We continue to enjoy visits with each set of grandparents every few days. Paul's parents really are grateful to leave their closed retirement community to go for a drive into the country. We are able to sit in the yard, in the fresh air and share lots of stories, as well as debate what on earth needs to happen to fix our country.

In the beginning of June, David and I went to enjoy a special overnight with my parents. We picked up fresh strawberries along the way and I felt inspired to bake a fresh strawberry pie.

Family strawberry picking

In the morning, my mom took David and me for a visit to Ladew Topiary Gardens, right there in their neighborhood in Harford County. It was the very first day they welcomed members by reservation, and we were so glad to revisit those gorgeous flower gardens while the peonies and iris were still blooming.

David especially enjoyed finding all stages of tadpoles in the little ponds and fountains, giving us older people the chance to sniff the roses.

Both David and Oren have had special overnights with my parents, which always involve productive yard work (and pay!). Oren has mowed their grass at least 6 times by now. David accomplishes all kinds of odd jobs, including leaf blowing, seed planting and cutting the suckers off of the bottoms of their fruit trees.

David wielding the leaf blower

My parents have been stuck at home for the entire lockdown, so we invited them to come out to stay one night with us on the Bay. We forbade any computer work! My Dad started reading a memoir about the Bay, and my mom and I took a canoe trip with David up the Principio river. The river is always lovely and refreshing. But overall, the trip was a little longer and harder than we planned. David needed to take a turn at paddling – steering the canoe. And as we returned, in higher wind and waves, he got very tired, but somehow I was able to urge him to keep going, since we really did not have a choice about switching positions to relieve him of his duties. It was a good lesson in endurance for him.

David with bags #13 and #14

David has also been going through a great unit in environmental education in science class. This has coincided with a sudden interest in picking up trash off of the shore around where we are staying. This particular shore had gotten very junky after the two big storms in April, which washed every possible kind of trash up from the south and deposited it directly into the marsh next door. We are able to gather and separate what we find (shoes, styrofoam, and endless plastic bottles) into trash and recycling.

Gramma Jean and Oren

Oren has also enjoyed more personal time with his grandparents and is finally at the stage where adult conversation can be actually engaging for him. He has had several sleepovers and has watched the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy with my parents. We are glad for the ways that he is able to appreciate this time to be with them.

We have another two weeks of school to get through, and we will need to focus well on getting our real new job off to a good start. And who knows what else might happen. This is a time which will call for a lot of endurance. But we are also surrounded by many small wonders, and many good fruits of our little labors.

Bonus Photos: