Connectedness

“Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.” Albert Camus

As people, we all want to feel connected. This is something we’ve become more aware of throughout our experiences here in Tanzania. The moments we’ve had here are hard to express through words or even pictures. We’ve come to realize that this experience is something you just need to do to truly understand. We’ve seen so much and have felt an overwhelming range of emotion. We’ve seen extreme poverty, debilitating illness, economic struggle but also so much JOY radiating from people faced with these situations.

Yesterday we had the opportunity to visit the Amani Orphanage in Mbigili. Our house mom, Irene, volunteers here and wanted to show us this orphanage. It was wonderful to see how well the children were taken care of! The accommodations were very clean from where they slept to where they ate. They had their own vegetable garden and farm where they sold some of the animals and ate some of the food but sold the rest so they can use this money to help fund the operations of the orphanage. The kids welcomed us with dance and song!

While at the orphanage we visited a girl, Upendo (in Swahili this means “Love”). Upendo was born with a rare form of skin cancer – she had sores all over her body and just three months ago the hospital in Dar Es Saalam, where she was receiving treatment, told her there is nothing else they can do. Despite all of this, she sang songs for us about God’s love, chatted with us and even got up to say good-bye.

Through all these moments with women in the villages, children in the schools, children in the orphanages and time spent with our EPIC team and family, we really can see how everyone wants to feel connected in some way. We all want to feel like we have a friend—not someone who is “greater” or “below” us. Our challenge to each of you as you continue your week is to be aware of this. In any of your encounters—treat the people you meet as a friend and create that connectedness that we all want to feel!

With Love,

Ty + Michelle

This is a photo from the food market in Iringa. The market is filled with many vegetables, beans (as you can see!), rice and fruit. Not sure either of us have ever seen so much rice and beans under one roof :) 

Many of you ask what we eat here. Here is a picture of a typical lunch (rice is a bit more typical than noodles). We had noodles, spinach, sweet potatoes, veggies, beans and pineapple. There's always chai (aka tea) to drink. 

We had a laundry day on Monday. This is the view from our backyard-- breathtaking! 

This is a dance that the children at Amani Orphanage did for us. We love their moves and energy.

Some of the little kids watching the dancing-- those faces!

Michelle and Jenny-- immediate connection with this sweet girl. 

Loving the blonde hair :)

The view from the orphanage.

Human Needs

Each morning and evening we have different reflection topics. This helps us open up as a group and encourages growth among each group member. The first morning the quote was:

“Every person has a longing to be significant; to make a contribution; to be a part of something noble and purposeful.”  John C Maxwell

How true is this quote? What does it mean to you? Both of us felt this hit the nail on the head when it comes to where we were a couple months back. For us, this meant following our passion to help others and grow His kingdom where we left our hearts (yes, we know we’ve talked about this many times!). But to someone else it could be something different—to feel significant, to make a contribution, to be a part of something noble and purposeful could happen right at home, in your own community. This can be as simple as giving someone a hug when they’re having a bad day, helping a neighbor out who needs an extra hand or volunteering at a local school or non-profit.

Most of us seek out significance around things like your job, job title, how much money you make, where you live, how many things you have etc... but what you don't always understand is that your CONTRIBUTIONS lead to feelings of SIGNIFICANCE. Rather than basing your significance around things like your job, title, how much money you make, where you live, how many things you have etc... you can also feel significance by contributing through ways mentioned above. Challenge yourself to think about this, try it out and see how you feel. 

Here are some videos and pictures of what we’ve been up to the last couple of days. We actually drilled a new well in Kitayawa (so exciting!) and have visited a number of different villages and group. We also did our walk for water—see images below.

With Love,

Ty + Michelle

The well in Mangalali is working great.

Loving the selfies!

Our welcoming song/dance in Kitayawa-- this was an emotional experience to see how excited the school and community were to have us there. Shows how BIG the need is. 

Kids from Kitayawa-- these smiles are contagious.

A woman in Kitayawa helping me adjust the bucket on my head. You wear a little Kitenge in between your head and the bucket for a little added cushion. 

Ty's turn!

During our walk, the children constantly came up to us asking if they could help or take our bucket from us. 

The E.P.I.C. group after we finished -- sore necks after our hour and a half walk. Most people in this village do this walk at least 3 times per day (sometimes up to 12 if they're using more water for washing). This was a very humbling experience for each of us. To think, in the states, we easily drink 10 cups a water per day and have a difficult time getting up to get the water. Also, on average, one person taking a "regular" shower, uses about 1 bucket per minute. If you take a 5 minute shower, you're using about 5 buckets. This experience definitely puts things into perspective. 

Ty showing the kids some basketball tricks-- they loved it!

1...2...3... Do a funny face! :) 

Pound it!

Teaching some yoga, stretches and exercises-- they picked up on this so quickly!

Our group with the women from Mangalali. These women have created an internally funded small women's group that offers micro lending for people in their group and the community. We hope that they're able to teach their model to other villages which will help educate and empower other women in the villages in the Iringa region and continue to spread throughout Tanzania!

Hello from Tanzania!

We made it here safely on Sunday evening— we’re glad those flights are over J. On Monday morning, we had a nice 11 hour drive from Dar Es Saalam and arrived in Iringa Monday evening. This is where we’ve been since!

It’s only been three days but we both feel like we’ve already gained so much knowledge. We’ve had many discussions with our group here; helping to inspire each of us to live to our fullest potential while also contributing to the world to initiate change that will be sustainable.

Meanwhile, we’ve also had conversations with school masters, water drilling companies and tomorrow we’ll be meeting with village leaders to discuss the well that we’ll drilling later this week.  Tomorrow we will also be visiting a few villages where E.P.I.C. has already drilled wells. We’re both looking forward to seeing this in action and seeing the responses of the people who are using these wells and how it has helped in their day to day lives.  

Later this week we’ll be doing a couple different walks for water. We’ll be traveling the distance that the people travel to find their current source of water.  We’ll be wearing our fit-bits, so we’ll report back on how many steps and the length of time that this journey takes. Part of the purpose of this is for us to understand the conditions that many people take every day just to receive water (in many cases, contaminated water at best).

We don’t want to bore you with so many words so we’ll share some photos instead.

Thank you very much for all your prayers—please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers for health, safety and positivity and love to radiate to all of those we come in contact with while here in Tanzania.

With Love,

Ty + Michelle

Half way through our 26 hour day of traveling- we made it to Amsterdam.

This is Bibi, she is the mother of our family here in Tanzania-such a kind woman with a huge heart. 

This is our little sister, Orina-- she became a fast friend! Her dad is our team leader from Tanzania. 

This is a photo taken in downtown Iringa.

Some of the students from the school we visited that EPIC will be teaming up with in the future. As you can see there is some clean up work that will be much appreciated. 

Orina loves her kaka (brother)!

African kids love the selfie too ;)

This is our team with some of the kids at the school.

Here we go!

The time has come... our bags are packed! We're feeling about every emotion under the sun but excitement is certainly the most dominant :)

We depart at 1:30 PM from Grand Rapids and by 10 PM on Sunday we'll have made it to Dar Es Saalam. We'll be greeted in Tanzania by a few people from E.P.I.C. and Monday morning we'll make our way to the Iringa region of Tanzania where we'll begin learning about the program and the water projects. 

Over the past week we've tried to catch up with family and friends and have felt an overwhelming amount of love and support which we appreciate so very much. We've taken the time to learn how to drive a stick (thank you Manifolds!), celebrated birthdays, and searched almost every store in the West Michigan area for international necessities which we think we're covered with!

Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we make our way over to Africa and begin this experience. Specific prayers for not too many tears when we say good-bye, safety in travel and mostly that the Holy Spirit shows up and guides our interactions and experiences. 

We're thrilled you're taking this journey with us through our blog and we promise to keep the updates coming as much as possible. 

Lots of Love-

Ty + Michelle