Steve and Barnabas in Tanzania

Most that know me also know about my love of all things concrete.  From concrete canoes to translucent concrete in buildings, I have always loved concrete as both a building material with structural properties but also as an artistic element. When my parents first moved into their house in the Rolling Green retirement community, I did several upgrade projects for them.  The hardest was the back patio expansion.  Partly it was harder because the person in charge of approving architectural changes would not let us pour concrete to the existing concrete curbs.  Instead only to the building extents.  This meant there were about two feet between the patios and the existing concrete curbs.  We came up with a pretty decent solution of using river rock and concrete stepping stones that can be easily moved to fill the space.   Mom wanted to stain the back patio and seal it to hide some of the rust stains from her furniture.  I have stained co...

A couple of odds and ends before I get into the meat of today's topic.  I have installed a bike rope pulley system to store my parents large A frame ladder. I have started working on their garage floor and have cleaned the siding on the outside of the house Now the  big news:  I have accepted a chance to be a missionary engineer with Blessed2BlessU Ministries, Inc. out of NC.  Specifically, I will be working on their project KATIE (Keeping All Tots In Education) not to be confused with Kisses from  Katie.  This project is in Kiruani, Tanzania which is roughly 1 hour below Moshi.  It is in a Maasai Tribal area, in fact it was the local Maasai tribe the donated 22 Acres for the Tumaini Maasai School Campus.  They are currently building a Primary (Elementary and Middle school) at the site.  They have  classrooms, an office and a house for the headmaster of the school as well as a kitchen, bathrooms and a bored well water system. ...

I am sorry I have not been as bloggy as normal while I am at home.  (yes I know that is not a word but in today's culture that seems to be ok)  I have been busy with filling out applications online for jobs that are filled in less than 24 hours.  I have also kept myself busy helping around my parents house and trying to relax on a vacation.  So I am going to do one of those odds and ends type of blogs. Cleaning up my parents garage has proven to be a bigger job than I originally anticipated.  At first I thought we were mainly just going to clean up what is there so we could see the floor again and clean the stains off.  But then mom wanted to pare down her seasonal decorations for the house.  She is keeping her seasonal decorations for the Summerside community in Rolling Green (she decorates their entrance sign and then at Christmas the entire neighborhood stop and street signs).  But after last year's removal and storage of Christmas decora...

I have been home for just over a week and half though it has felt much longer.   There have been a lot of questions asked that my answer of “I don’t know” does not suffice.   There has been a lot of activity, some of it mine and some of it tagging along for my parent’s activities.   Since I have been home they eat breakfast every Wednesday morning at the Rolling Green Community dining hall so I join them for that.   They eat every Thursday evening at the same place with a group of their friends here at Rolling Green and I join them for that.   They cook breakfast for the Mauldin UMC Men’s fellowship once a quarter so I helped this last Sunday by cooking pancakes.   Every Wednesday they participate in the covered dish meal we Methodist are known for so that meal is covered (no pun intended).   In a couple of weeks, the church will start back up their prepared Wednesday night meals and I suspect my mom will be cooking some of those and I will go hel...

How do I describe this last week?  Surreal, hard to fathom, chaos, unbelievable?  After last week's blog about the wonderful gifts, the team brought me and the gift of their time and presence we move to my being recalled to the states. Why? As many will recall, I had to come home in April due to my residence permit expiring and not being able to get a new one due to the requirement that any resident must have a work permit first.  At that time, we had applied for the work permit 2 months prior to my coming home.  2 months is a lot longer than their promised 15 day turn around. This last week FDMC (the Tanzanian side) canceled all my work suddenly citing concerns about my not having the work permit and in the ensuing discussion FDMUSA (the US side) decided at their Thursday board of directors meeting to recall me because of those concerns.  I understand their liability concerns, even if I was willing to assume the in-country risk.  I have long bee...

When I wrote up the review of the mission team and their activities a couple of weeks ago I left one major part out.  Not because I did not want to talk about it but I did not have the pictures to go along with it. Zawadi means gift.  When the team came over they brought me some of the items I like most that I can use here.  Spam, beef jerky, tea mix,  lemonade mix, cheese powder, sugar-free chocolate treats.   My mom and dad even brought over the remaining Vienna sausage cans my dad can no longer eat.   This is food with flavor which is not something I get a lot of. In case you can't tell from the faces of the team members in the photos we had a lot of fun with it all.  They even brought over some bar clamps for me to work with. Probably the physical item that I was not expecting was from Jerad.  He brought me a set of welder sleeves to protect my arms and a good set of welding gloves that will not melt.  But best of all he b...

So the team brought over bears made with love and showered in prayers.  The people back in the states paid to adopt a bear to help raise funds for the team.  They got a laminated picture of the bear they adopted.  Now here in Tanzania, we give the bears out to the kids and people we come across with kids or to others who can benefit by being blessed with a bear that someone is praying for.  Can you tell I love this program?  If not I do.   To me, this program is basic Christianity.  Not TV or social media Christianity.  People who will remain anonymous to the recipients gave money to send a bear that was made with love and at a cost to the maker (she does not get reimbursed for materials to make the bear).  They do this so a child here in Tanzania who may not understand all of that gets a bear they will love.  These programs of making something and giving to others who need a boost or show of caring are what we are supposed to do as...