Steve and Barnabas in Tanzania

I thought you might like to hear some of the stories from my travel home during the middle of a global pandemic.  Some of you may have seen some of the photos on my facebook feed, but I have some more that did not make that feed.  I am also going to talk about what I am doing now that I am at home and in self imposed quarantine before I go to stay at my folks home.  I am also going to ask for your help to decide what I should be doing on the blog during what will be an extended break. Let's start with what was happening in Tanzania before I left.  The government had encouraged people not to gather in large groups and given some basic guidance along those lines.  They closed all school and  universities.  They required everyone coming in to Tanzania to go into a 14 day quarantine at a place the government set up.  This meant expensive type hotels that many of the Tanzanians returning after being overseas could not afford.  The government howev...

How to best describe my first week back at site in 2019.  How about two words:  Sprite Zero.  Don't understand?  I love Coke Zero.  finding it here was a true blessing for my mental state.  I look forward to going into town once a week, getting some attempt at western food and a cold Coke Zero.  This week all they had was Sprite Zero.  Not even Diet Pepsi just Sprite Zero.  I don't like Sprite Zero.  It tastes weird-I mean a lemon and lime flavoured drink?   Before I go too far, let me reassure everyone the mission site and school is fantastic.  They told me they had 88 kids registered and we have 88 kids at school.  That kind of honesty has been rare for me in Tanzania.  When I got to the site, the first day they opened up the financial records for me to close out 2018 and see how they were doing in 2019.  That kind of openness and financial accounting has been rare for me in Tanzania.  My first week...

I am going to cover two parts of this out of context because I want to bring in the positive items first then we will deal with the less fun activities.  The first good activity for me is that my blood sugar was really low this morning-low enough I treated myself to a chocolate bar today.  The second is my cough finally started to go away on Saturday and is finally gone completely now.   I want to say a big congratulations to the MUMC youth being confirmed as church members, Barnabas and I are really proud of you.   Also best wishes to Travis as he preaches his first sermon at LIVE Worship this Sunday, remember to relax and breath. Now to the rest of the story (my apologies to the late great Paul Harvey).  I am going to tell this part in chronological order in hopes not to miss anything.  Let me also say this is not a big sympathy call but simply doing what I normally do in this blog-telling the story of life here and what folks deal with on a regular bas...