Archive for December, 2009

  • 27 Dec

    Posted by
    emily


    Category

    Determined

    0

    I am determined to figure out how to decipher Makua, and how to conjugate verbs.  I am reading through a Makua dictionary, that I found after a year of searching.  I also found a grammar booklet, and the 4 books of the Bible that are in Makua-Emeetto.

    I plan on at least learning how to say “I love you” in Makua on my own, and deciphering how to say a few other useful phrases, like “Where is the latrine?” or “Please give me my sandals back”.

    I have about 10 months to accomplish this.  Though that seems like a really long time to learn a few phrases, just figuring out verb conjugation seems like it could take 6 of those months.  There are 6 parts to every verb, so there are 6 things to take into consideration when conjugating them, and they are all wrapped up into one word.  Whoever said English is one of the hardest languages to learn apparently never studied the grammatical structure of Makua.

    Maybe it isn’t hard, it is just different.  I mean, we realized that when only a few people could even pronounce “Ncina na thi paani?” to ask the kids what their names were last year.  I realize that looking at books is not the best way to learn a language, but no one in Pemba could really tell me how to conjugate verbs or things like that, so it took me a full year to find books with the right dialect to help me learn some “frases uteis” in Makua-Emeetto, as opposed to Makua-Emarenje, Makua-Lomwe, Makua-Esaaka, Makua-Erati, Makua-Enahara, Makua-Esankaci, Makua-Echirima, Makua-Eshirima, Makua-Emarevoni, Makua-Emoniga, Makua-Emwaia, or Makua-Enlai, Makua-Enyara, or Makua-Empamela.

    Yeah, there are over a dozen dialects, so half of the battle of finding the dictionary was figuring out what dialect they speak in Pemba.  So my searching this week led to find out that they speak Makua-Emeetto (otherwise written as Emakua, Macua, Macoa, Emeto, Emedo, Emeeto, Meeto, Meetto, which makes searching complicated) in Pemba and in the part of Mocimboa da Praia that speaks Makua, so basically northern Cabo Delgado Province.

    In short, I now have the materials to learn Makua-Emeetto and plan on figuring out things to say to the kids when I go back in 2010!!

  • 25 Dec

    Posted by
    emily


    Category

    Hope this Christmas

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    Merry Christmas!  Why on earth am I blogging on here rather than spending time with my family, you ask?  I did, all day so far, I’m taking a breather from discussing politics– somehow gay marriage and global warming came up in conversations… kinda heated topics.  Despite that, this Christmas is one that I am finding Hope in.

    I found out this week that shoeboxes I packed this year for Operation Christmas Child went to children in Nepal, Southwest Asia, Cameroon, Central African Republic, and Panama!  These boxes go farther than I ever could imagine to.  I probably will never get to Nepal.  I have been in the airport in Panama, and that is the closest I have been to any of these countries.  I didn’t find out where all of my boxes went, just some of them, but things like this, spreading light to at least 5 different countries that I have never been in, and touching the lives of 54 different children, that gives me hope.

    It gives me hope that these kids will know Jesus, and I will meet them in heaven one day.  It gives me hope that through these boxes the children will learn peace in a world where “hate is strong”.  It gives me hope that the little gifts I have to offer so great a King really may matter and count for something.

    This Christmas I am also thinking of the kids in Africa who I left over a year ago.  The kids who have hope, who have found Jesus, for Carlito, who must not be much of a baby anymore, and cheeky Sabina, and the older girls who are so beautiful with God’s face just shining on them.  These kids give me hope too.

    Hope that there is still hope for all of us who are just trying to get through our daily lives, aching to go back to God’s heart, aching to go back to Africa.  Hope because the children still love you and will wave to you even as you walk away and leave them, you and them both knowing you may never see them again.

    Jesus, give us more hope this Christmas.

  • 17 Dec

    Posted by
    emily


    Category

    Hope for the Street Kids

    0

    Many thanks to facebook today, and its inane newsfeed.  I saw someone from YWAM in Recife (where I have not been in 3 years) tagged in a photo of someone else’s.  Silly me decides to go and look at the photos, to see if I recognize anyone, like YWAM staff I liked there.

    Lo and behold, I see the girls from this year’s DTS with the boys from the Hope House, the house to rehabilitate street kids! And there were some of the same boys as when I first went there in 2005!  The boys are now teenagers, like 13-17 years old, but they are still there, or at least some of them are! There is hope for the street kids!

    I know that YWAM had a hard time keeping boys there, the street life lured many of them back to gangs and drugs, but these kids somehow stayed! How cool it was for me to see photos of a few of the boys I had played with when I was a teenager, to be nearly as old as I was when I first visited Brasil.

    The best point, however, was seeing a photo of this boy, who had been so little when I was there, not age-wise, but physically small.  He was about 9 or 10 when I was there the first time, and had the cutest lisp when he talked.  However, he went back to the streets, and the last time I saw him, he was drugged up and out of it.  We didn’t know how long he would last back out on the street.  But here was a photo of him, healthy and about 13 or 14 years old!  I guess he went back to YWAM and lived! Yay Jesus!  Ah, that makes my day.  Makes it all kinda worth it to know that one of the kids actually went back off the streets after leaving YWAM.

    So, facebook, thank you for making it possible for me to see people’s photos, people who I have never met’s photos, and find out that the kids I worked with 3 1/2 years ago are still alive and happy!

  • 15 Dec

    Posted by
    emily


    Category

    Who even cares anyway?

    0

    I’ve been reading up a bit on what Nicholas Kristof has found in all his reporting for the NY Times about crises in the developing world.  He is one of my heroes, he has reported about issues all across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.  He even went to Tena, Ecuador once!  He’s reported on Darfur, and poverty and hunger and Aids and malaria in Africa.  He’s a prolific writer, but not only that, he writes to compel people to act upon these crises around the world.  He got into journalism for the same reason I studied journalism- to help people around the world.

    So, Kristof has found that if you are reporting about malaria, find one malaria victim, tell their story, tell how they are overcoming this problem, how they have gotten help or a bednet to prevent getting malaria again, or something of the like.  Be positive, find people overcoming challenges.

    And, find just ONE person to write the story around.  People care if there is one person they can help.  They lose interest if there are even 2 people that need help.  So, may that be my lesson this month, and for the future to keep it all in mind when I am writing about places I work and places I am going.

    Focus on ONE person

    Show hope

    Simple Enough.

    That might get people to care more.

  • 11 Dec

    Posted by
    emily


    Category

    "But hate is strong"

    0

    “But hate is strong and mocks the song of Peace on Earth good will toward men”

    Starting from a different point today… Last night the leader of the prayer group I go to was praying over me some, and I had just a picture in my mind that was beautiful and it was of heaven, more on that later.  After the guy prayed for me, he said how I dream of a better place, of heaven, and how I really want to go there and how I wish for things to be different here on earth.  He also said how that desire would increase my visions of heaven, and bring other people into that realm as well.  Wow.

    I really do just dream of peace on earth, but it seems so often that hate is stronger, that war cries are louder than cries of peace.  But we must be the ones crying out for a touch of heaven here on earth, for peace in the midst of chaos.  I cry out for hope for the little selective-mute boy I work with who never smiles.  All children should be able to smile and talk freely, and not have such trouble at home that he can’t smile ever.  He’s only 6 years old.  My heart breaks for him.

    And then yesterday in worship at the prayer meeting, we had been praying Isaiah 6, where Isaiah sees the Lord on the throne and says “Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the Lord.”  So I was meditating on that, and that passage was the passage that had first opened up a vision of heaven for me a few months back.  So as I used that to get into the throne room, and I wondered if I could bring some of the kids I work with to Jesus and see if He would touch them and heal them of their autism.

    I heard a story of a lady who led her son to the throne room, and prayed for the peace of heaven to come on him, and he crawled onto Jesus lap, and fell asleep, and he was healed of autism.  She actually led him into the vision as well, and he was in the vision and in heaven.

    Anyhow, so I was thinking how cool would that be to lead one of the autistic kids I work with into heaven and get healed.  Even though none of the kids were there with me, I started to pray, and it wasn’t the boy I have been working with everyday, but the other kid I work with a few days a week came, and he was there.  And I see him with Jesus, actually, God, because He was on the throne, and the boy goes onto his lap, and touches God’s nose, which is one of his autistic stims, he shows he is happy when he touches his nose, or yours.  So he touches God’s nose, and then gets off, and starts running around on his toes (again, his usual autistic running) and claps, and is really happy.  And God claps and laughs too, and I could just see that God was in love with this child.  But did not heal him.

    And I felt like God was saying “He has a broken body in a broken world” and that is why he is autistic, and that was why God did not heal him.  I don’t know what that is supposed to mean, but I know that heaven is not a broken world, and I want more heaven on earth, and since earth is broken and heaven is not, I wonder what would happen if heaven really came down in my life.

    Would I see autism healed?  Would I see mute children talk and smile freely?  Would I see all these broken lives around me changed by the Kindgom of God coming down?

    “Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
    ‘God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
    The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
    With peace on earth, good will to men.’”

  • 03 Dec

    Posted by
    emily


    Category

    gravity

    0

    The gravity on earth is changing

    We’re warring against the waves

    waves threatening to take us away

    Do you know how to swim

    when the waves come crashing over out heads

    over our heads.

    they lie when they say

    it wont hurt

    it will be ok.

    Gravity is changing, and with it

    the tides.

    We’re fighting the pull

    of tidal waves

    that threaten to take out love away.

    Losing the battle as the waves

    grow larger and larger

    with every crash of the overflowing tide.