Thrive Retreat

This is how I picture women’s retreats:

I walk into a room with women strewn about the floor, weeping, processing, maybe a few even wailing. There are emotions everywhere. I look to my left and I see mascara running, I look to my right and there is snot running, I look straight ahead (there happens to be a mirror) and I see myself, with wide eyes, nearing someone to awkwardly pat them on the shoulder (that’s comforting right?).

That is the primary reason that I had never been to a women’s retreat. But for various other reasons I found myself going to the Thrive Ministry retreat that was conveniently being held in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. Thankfully the amount of tears did not live up to my expectations and in most other ways the retreat exceeded them.

Most importantly I was focused on God’s presence and had a lot of concentrated time on Him. What more could I ask for? Oh yeah, a haircut. I also wanted a haircut, and I got that as well!

Thirty, flirty and thriving with my friend Kelly!

I was asked to write a brief blog post for Thrive Ministries about my experience and you can read it here on this link: http://thriveconnection.com/2014/10/25/2014-fall-tanzania-retreat-good-perfect-gifts/

My Normal: Oodles of Keys

I have never had a key to my parents' house. This was completely due to the fact that the door was never locked. Seriously! Ask any of the youth group kids. Did we lock our house? No! I literally got used to locking and unlocking doors for the first time in my life when I was in college. Sadly, it wasn't as natural or intuitive a task at it should have been.

I have now swung to the opposite side of security lifestyles and can't leave the house without a handful of keys. I have 3 house keys: one for the door, one for the metal grate on the door, and one for the gate to leave the property. I have 4 office keys: one for the door, one for the metal grate on the door, and two for my desk.

Thankfully, college taught me how to use a key, so now I can actually leave my house and enter my office!!!

Currently, I am backing up the finance office. This means that my key count has recently DOUBLED. Yes, there are 7 keys associated with the finance office and I use at least 5 of them each time I work over there.

So, this is my new normal: oodles of keys...that I actually know how to use!!!

Meet the neighbors

Over the past couple months I've had opportunities to get to know my neighbors a bit better. Sarah and I even got to go over for dinner last month!

So, meet my neighbors: the Makwasa family!!!

Deborah and her father Makwasa

Makwasa has adopted Sarah and me as neighbor-daughters and says that we can call on him anytime we have an issue or are worried about something at the house.

Makwasa's three sons, Sarah and me.

The boys have come over simply to say 'hi' a few times since we had dinner at their house. Its great that they are really warming up to us! When I returned from the Kara/Kerewe survey the two on the left greeted my by my Zinza name 'Nyakahoza' and the younger one grabbed my hand, escorting me to my gate while the older one rode beside us on a bike catching up with me.

It is such a blessing to have a good relationship with my neighbors and to be increasingly accepted into my local community here.

A faith analogy

One of the essential elements of life is potable water. If you read my post from a couple months ago about the process of getting potable water at my house then you know that it is not as simple as just turning on the tap.

On the Kara/Kerewe survey a couple weeks ago we brought along a portable Katadyn filter so that we wouldn't have to spend money on bottled water. While I drink Katadyn filtered water on a daily basis, I hadn't ever used a portable one and it gave me a bit of an insight regarding how faith works.

The first couple of nights the water looked like this before being filtered:

It wasn't hard for me to feel confident that this water, going through the Katadyn, would come out clean and free of disease. The water looked pretty clean already, I just had to have faith that the Katadyn would do its job, and it wasn't hard to have faith for that.

When what we can perceive with our five senses doesn't contradict what we know about God, it is easy to have faith.

Now, due to having a dark nalgene (covered in stickers), once the water was in the bottle, I couldn't really see the quality of the water. So, when the water started looking like this (before being filtered)...

...its safe to say that my faith in the Katadyn was tested. This is a trusted product that I have used for years and it has a reputation worldwide for filtering water...but how much did I really trust it? What I was seeing (and smelling) made me question my faith in the Katadyn and I couldn't simply look at the final product before drinking it to ensure that it at least looked clean. I had to drink in faith, trusting that the faithful Katadyn had done its job. I could decide to run out and spend money on bottled water, or I could step out, in faith, and drink the filtered water, trusting in what I know about Katadyn, having faith that despite what my senses were telling me, it was safe to drink the water.

I drank the filtered water and I'm not sick! So, my faith in Katadyn was proven to be well placed, but my faith couldn't have been proven had I not stepped out and drunk the water first.

Maybe this will challenge your faith as it has mine:
In what ways am I relying on my five sense and having more faith in them than I do in God?
Do I really only have faith in God when my senses agree with my faith, or does that faith still hold just as strong when everything tells me to question it or doubt it?
Are there times that I need to be stepping out in more faith despite what reason, logic and worldly wisdom are telling me?

Stay tuned for the answers, they may come up in future blog posts, we'll see.

For faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1 NASB)