a place for women to be encouraged in their walk with Christ

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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.

I am currently reading a book entitled “Do Hard Things.” This is a book written by twin brothers, who were 18 years old at the time they wrote the book. They challenge young people to rethink the teen years. The majority of teens are satisfied with mediocre production, because that’s all that’s been required of them. Some teens have been made to think they are exceptional, because unlike their peers, they do NOT participate in some sinful behaviors. While that it is all well and good, simply the absence of evil does not make one exceptional. These young authors, Alex and Brett Harris, challenge teens to aim higher than that – get out of their comfort zone, do not be satisfied with meeting mediocre expectations, and make a determination to accomplish great things. The authors are not members of the church of Christ, and so please keep that it mind if you read the book.

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.

My 15 y.o. daughter, Lindsey, wrote this note shortly after our campaign work in June. I thought it would be an interesting piece to read:

This year when the campaign was going on in Arusha there was also one going on in Mto wa Mbu (Mosquito River). I helped with that campaign for a few days.

One afternoon after lunch I was standing around outside, when these two Maasai girls come up and start talking to me in Swahili. As I’m talking to them one of them starts stroking and feeling my hair. I turn around, smile and tell her that I have very long hair, and then show them where it would come to on my waist. They giggle and tell me that “It couldn’t be possible!” I laughed and asked if they’d like to see it. When they eagerly nod yes, I take the clip out of my hair and let it fall down around my waist. Their eyes got as big as saucers and they gasp. That attracted a whole group of Maasai children, and they all started to feel my hair. I didn’t want it getting out of hand, so I stuffed my hair back into my clip. “I only have a little hair” said one of the girls. “You have long light hair!!” I laughed and nodded, then the kids and I started to have a big conversation. We told each other our names, etc., talked about my Swahili, where we lived, etc. etc. etc….Mary, the girl that was just a little younger than myself, even invited me to her house! “Come walk with me to visit my house…I live just over there!” It would have been very interesting, but I wasn’t able to at the moment.

One of the girls then pulled out her Bible, turned to Daniel, and asked me to read some from it. So I read. Then it hit me. I’m standing in the hot sun and dust in the middle of Africa, surrounded by a bunch of Maasai children (in their full traditional outfits) speaking in a completely different language, and completely understanding what they’re saying. I don’t even know how to explain the feeling that I got. I am definitely blessed.

Living in Africa presents a few challenges in the food department. Some food items are available in larger towns, such as Arusha, but so far, have not been found here in Moshi. I make a lot of our own bread, since the bread choices are pretty limited here. Yesterday, I tried my hand at making Enlgish Muffins. They turned out great, according to my in-house taste-testers. Here is the recipe:

Welcome to my new blog – Journey with Joy. It is my hope that this site will be an encouragement to women who are striving to become more Christlike. By necessity, this will be a slow-going process of building resources. Our family lives in Moshi, Tanzania, where we work as missionaries, and therefore, I do not have unlimited time to devote to this project. Regardless of where you or I live, we all have basic needs and responsibilities to fulfill our role as women. I plan to develop resources for a number of topics: Child Training, Courtship, Homeschooling, In the Kitchen, Marriage Enrichment, Sewing, and probably a few other topics, as well. Again, welcome to Journey with Joy. Let’s journey together and encourage one another in our walk with Christ. Don’t forget to bookmark this site, and check back frequently for updates.