Category — Uncategorized

Due to ease of posting, designing, etc. I have decided to relocate my personal blog to here:

http://alifeofjoy.blogspot.com/ .  Hope to see you there!

In some ways it seems like it was yesterday, and in other ways it seems like such a long time ago. In 1992 we began our homeschool journey with Julia. Now, 17 years later, we are graduating Lindsey. It has been awonderful time of learning for all of us, and we wouldn’t trade it for anything. But where has the time gone? Preschool papers are no longer strewn here and there, with wobbly attempts at ABC’s. No more dissections of frogs and cow eyeballs at the end of our dining room table. These memories and many more are forever part of our family. We have loved the journey with our children thus far, but our adventures are not over! Our children have been a joy in our lives, and they continue to be a delight to us.

Our special congratulations to Lindsey, who has put her nose to the grindstone, and is now finished with her high school course of studies. She plans to continue her volunteer work at the medical clinic, operated by the Smelsers, and will do some secretarial work for George at ACSOP, as well as continue work with the various mission activities in which we are involved.

I have been part of a preacher’s family all of my life. I grew up with the privilege of my father being a gospel preacher. Nine months after our marriage, my husband decided to devote his life to being a full-time gospel preacher. More recently, he decided to focus on foreign missions, so in 2007 my husband and I, along with our four children, moved to Tanzania, East Africa.

My husband and I are a team. However, with any team, there must be a leader, and God has assigned the husband to fulfill this role (Eph. 5:23). He understands that his decisions greatly affect the rest of the family, and he continually demonstrates thoughtful consideration to making decisions that will be the most beneficial for us spiritually. He values my input, and asks for it frequently. He is the head of our home. My work in Tanzania is the same as it was in the United States. I am a help meet to my husband; a keeper at home (Tit. 2:5). This has been God’s design from the beginning (Gen. 2:18). Therefore, my work is to help my husband be the best missionary he can be.

God, in his infinite wisdom, designed the family structure to be universally applicable. God expects husbands and wives in Africa to follow the same biblical pattern as he does of husbands and wives in the United States. For good or for evil, missionary families will make an impact on the culture in which they live, through their example as a family, including the roles that each family member assumes. If we want to make a positive impact on those people with whom we are sharing the gospel, we must also be role models for the family as God has designed it.

Much of my time recently has been spent preparing some lessons for an upcoming seminar we are having here in Moshi for the girls/young women.  The theme of our day will be “Beautiful in the Eyes of God.”  One of the four lessons that I will be teaching is “Dressing to Please God.”  Regardless of where you live, this is a relevant topic.  Insufficient clothing has been a problem since the Garden of Eden, yet many people have yet to learn the lesson.

We identify many people by the clothing they wear.  Here in Tanzania, we can easily identify a member of the Massai tribe, by their traditional clothing.  We recognize policemen, or other people in public service occupations, by their clothing.  As a Christian, what does your clothing say about you?

In 2007, a group of young people conducted a modesty survey.*  While they are not members of the Lord’s church, they are religious.  The results of the survey were very enlightening.  For example, 70.4% of the guys agreed that a woman that shows any part of her cleavage is immodest.  Here is a comment from one of these surveyed:  “I find it totally distracting.  It is EVERYTHING I can do to keep my eyes on her eyes when cleavage is showing.”  Another comment:  “This is the biggest thing that causes me to fall.”

For the most part, the women of Tanzania tend to keep themselves more covered than females in the states.  So, after living here for a year and a half, when our family went back to the states for a visit, we were struck by the degree of immodesty we faced at every turn, including members of the church.

Missionaries have many different challenges on the mission field, and one that we’ve had is the immodest clothing worn by women who come to help, especially during campaign time.  Even when the issue has been addressed during orientation time, some continue to do as they wish.  This does not help the work!

Ladies, if you catch a man because you advertised with your body, you can lose him just as easily when something better looking walks by.  Is that the kind of person you want?  What does your clothing say about your heart?  Are you dressing to catch the eye of men, or are you dressing to please God?

*(See www.therebelution.com/modestysurvey/ for the complete survey and results.)

Our family has been in the States since August 27, traveling from place to place,  visiting numerous congregations and reporting about our work in Tanzania.  Today we arrived in the community where we lived for six years, previous to our move to Tanzania – rural Iowa.  It has been a very strange experience for us.  It seems like nothing has changed, except us.  We went out to our house, which is still up for sale.  Bad time to sell a home in rural Iowa.  Anyway, we spent a few hours there, cleaning and checking on things.  Even our cats were still there.  Now before you assume that we abandoned them when we left, we did not.  Our neighbors (half mile away) agreed to take them for us.  They even put them in their barn for a few days, hoping they would learn that it would be their new home.  Nothing doing.  They promptly returned to our house.  So, our neighbors kindly feed them there, and they seem happy and healthy.

As I was saying, it seems like everything is just the same.  The people are the same, seeming to be content with status quo.  It’s like we’ve been gone a week or a month, not a year and a half.  While taking a break from our work, our family discussed how we felt about things -  do we really miss living here, do we miss the house, do we regret moving away?  Sure, we miss living in our nice home.  We miss the peaceful countryside.  But would we want to move back?  No way.  Even though we loved living in the country and we relish the good memories that we made living there for six years, we’d never be content to go back and continue as before, even when we compare our living conditions here to our living conditions in Africa.  Although we may go without some things, and we don’t exactly have some of the comforts that we enjoyed while living in the States, each of us in our family has changed, for the better we hope.  I think we will always want to live somewhere, some way, so  that we can make a great difference in the lives of others.   Living in Africa will do that to you.

This past week the ladies of our congregation resumed their Wednesday visitation program. Though we were few in number, we enjoyed a brief time of singing and studying God’s Word, and hopefully encouraging a weak sister. Julia Mwakabanje gave a good lesson on the character of Miriam. She pointed out both the strengths and weaknesses of Miriam. We were reminded of the event in Numbers 12, when Miriam and Aaron launched complaints against Moses. They were not happy with Moses’ choice of a Cushite woman to be his wife, and they used this complaint as a springboard for further criticism of him. They were jealous because of the high position of authority that God bestowed to Moses, and they wished to have this position. Did they consider the fact that it was God who set Moses in this position? In criticizing Moses, they were criticizing God.

It is no coincidence that Miriam was the one struck with leprosy. Just why did God deal more severely with Miriam? The first, most obvious reason is that Miriam initiated the rebellion against Moses. Another additional reason could be that Miriam’s leadership was limited to the women of Israel, but she was not content to stay there. There are numerous lessons to be learned from this event.

1) We need to think very carefully before launching criticism against a servant of God.Yes, there is a time and a place when it is appropriate, and even our duty to note those who are teaching error, but we better have our facts straight first.

2)Women need to be content in the role that God has given them. Women have a great role to play in the plan of God, but must remain within the perimeters God has defined. It is not a new problem, but it is a growing one – that is, women not being content in the role that God has especially designed for them, and taking on positions which God intended men to have. Sadly, this problem is not confined to the states, but is a problem that we must deal with in places such as Tanzania.