Little Milton

One of the guards at the office asked if he could name his unborn child 'Ronit' if it turned out to be a girl. I agreed, but as luck would have it, he had a little boy! The solution? He asked if he could use my father's name instead.

I offered him both 'James' and 'Milton'. He chose 'Milton'! I think that was partially due to the fact that this guard's name is 'James', but he says that he really likes the name 'Milton' and was excited to call his son by that name.

Last week I went and visited little Milton for the first time and we seemed to get along fairly well. At least, he felt comfortable enough to fall asleep in my arms.

So, here is little Milton.

What kind of checked luggage do you have?

There are certain products that are simply better over here by Lake Victoria. In fact, when people travel from this area to other parts of Tanzania they regularly travel with a certain Lake Victoria product because it is simply not as available elsewhere. Or, at least it isn't as good, I guess.

Either way, it is a common enough to bring this product with you on a bus, that even the local airline FastJet has a place on their website where you can add buckets of this product to your checked luggage.

What is it?

Fish.

Singing the Scriptures

If you want to have Scripture running through your head all day long, I have a great resource for you.

The Verses Project puts out songs that are straight from Scripture. These songs are submitted by current musicians and the words are taken from Scripture, not just a line or two, but the whole song is pure Scripture. Oh and they are completely free to download! Here is the website, in case you didn't follow the hyperlink above: http://theversesproject.com/

Several months ago I started memorizing the book of Hebrews because a friend had been putting the whole book, verbatim, to song. I'm only in chapter 8, but at some point in the future I'm expecting to have the whole book in my head. I've never known how best to meditate on Scripture, renewing my mind to the truths therein. For me, I believe songs are the best way. Instead of thoughts of worry, thoughts of frustration, or meditation on my own self, more and more the Bible is what my mind is chewing on, even when I'm not aware of it.

Learning that Lasts in Nairobi

In September I received some training in a workshop called Learning that Lasts (LtL).

"The LtL workshop is an intensive course for people who want to improve their teaching skills for adult learners of various cultures, learning styles, experiences, and educational backgrounds."

There is a shortage of teachers/facilitators for LtL in East Africa, so me and another colleague from the Musoma office were invited to be interns in an LtL workshop held in Nairobi at the end of April. This internship is the first step for us towards being lead teachers for LtL in English and/or Swahili.

We had an incredible group of motivated people who are passionate about their ministries, passionate about seeing God glorified in their communities, passionate about seeing people using Scripture in their daily lives. There were church leaders, SIL/BTL/Wycliffe members, and even a couple NGO leaders. I was blessed and humbled to be a part of this group.

Ironically, growing up there was one job that I was emphatically not interested in; teaching. I love it when God shows me just how much I am able to do because of Him. Not only do I have a number of teaching jobs as a linguist in Musoma, but now I am even becoming part of a team that teaches how to teach. I love my life.