August 2022

Kliemtpost August 2022

We are in Germany

Dear friends, family and prayers!


We are in Germany, spontaneously and unplanned. And that because of illness. Our son Samuel, who will be 14 in three months, told us a month ago how badly he was actually doing. Outwardly we hadn't noticed much in the last few months, he was happy, laughing, went to sports, cultivated his friendships in Mbeya, but inside he wasn't doing well at all. He had had major problems falling asleep for several months and was now so emotionally drained that we sought medical help in Tanzania.

But there they could only help him to a very limited extent.


We had informed SIL in Tanzania and Wycliff Germany and, in agreement with our advisors, decided to come to Germany as a whole family to get help for Samuel. We got cheap plane tickets for July 10th and 11th at very short notice. We took Samuel straight to a clinic near Giessen. After four weeks of inpatient observation and examinations of his mental state and a detailed blood and thyroid check, it is still unclear what the cause of his sleep disorders and emotional lows is. Starting this week, we're trying to get him treated on an outpatient basis.

Until he gets better

It is clear that we want to stay in Germany for the time being until Samuel is well again. A separation of the family is out of the question for us, especially in this situation. We are preparing for the children to go to regular school after the summer holidays and to stay there at least until the mid-year report at the end of January 2023.


On the first weekend in July, when Samuel confided in Damaris, I was in a Sangu village where the most powerful Sangu magicians exercise their power. As a result, Mponzi, a Sangu Bible translator, suspected a supernatural attack on our family and, without our knowledge, asked an elderly prophetically gifted Christian, who is well versed in occult powers, for prayer. With the old man's answer, Mponzi came to our home. The old man got various truths revealed by God that applied to us, and he saw that this problem with Samuel was not an attack from the unvisible world, but that Samuel simply needed medical help. This strengthened our decision to fly to Germany. Nevertheless, we are aware that our children especially need prayer, that they will be protected from all evil and that they will emerge strengthened from all the challenges that arise from the changes between cultures, that they can see opportunities and appreciate the good.

"I will seek again that which is lost, and bring back that which has strayed, and bind up the wounded, and strengthen the weak."



(GOD,

Ezekiel 34:16)


Loved and consoled

How do we feel about it? We are sad, we all missed Samuel a lot these last four weeks. We are so sorry that he is not doing well. Tears flow, questions come up - could we have helped him earlier? As parents we did our best and now we realize our options to help Samuel are limited. This also sets us back to God. Of course, Samuel is also in the phase of separating from us,  but so suddenly and in this way we would have liked to spare ourselves and him. 


We have experienced God as very caring in everything. The fact that Samuel got a place in the clinic right away and was well cared for there was not a matter of course at all. The four of us were able to stay for 5 days in the Wycliff center in Burbach-Holzhausen in the apartment that our children already know well. Then we were allowed to move with our little luggage to a large and bright apartment in Hohenahr-Erda (near Giessen), which had recently been vacant. The apartment is part of the parish house of the Evangelical Free Church. The kitchen and bathrooms were fully furnished. Parishioners carried two sofas upstairs from a church children's room, brought a chair, prepared air mattresses, towels and bedding. We also got two beds from them. The fridge, freezer and cupboards were full of food. Some Christians, including some who didn't know us at all, pooled money and bought a washing machine for the church, which we are now allowed to use. We got another complete children's room through Ebay classifieds, also paid for by brothers and sisters in the church. A couple went on vacation and lent us their second car for the time. We wanted to buy a cheap car from a car dealer and someone paid for that too. Friends gave us money so that we could buy other things that we need for a longer stay. In this way we can also initially cover ongoing costs in Tanzania. This reminds us of a verse from the Gospel of John: "Beloved, if God so loved us, we should also love one another" (1 John 4:11); or also: "Love your neighbor as yourself!" (James 2:8). We are so grateful for this warm and active love! We feel like the person in Jesus' parable story who was cared for by the good Samaritan through pleading and understanding.

More than two suitcases full of school supplies

What about school and our tutors? Since we had brought forward our school vacations to June in favor of the planned busy months of July - October and had planned to finish the home school program in July and August, we now had to take all the unfinished school material for our three children back to Germany.
Now we have to finish the home school program during the local school vacations. From the school in Giessen, which Samuel and Rebekka had attended in 2020, we have received the promise that our children will be allowed to return to their classes. We are very grateful for this opportunity for them to build on what they know and continue to build friendships with the friends they made in 2020. This is so important for our children who have been exposed to many changes over the past few years. For Elia, we are still considering whether to place him in a small second grade class here in our village or have him go to school with his siblings in Giessen. The learning assistants who were placed with us for the coming quarters have received other offers and would like to contribute their time to other projects.

What's next in Tanzania?

I had to cancel the week with the Sangu artists in July and the training with the actors in August. In the meantime we have also decided to postpone the big tour to the twelve Sangu villages until 2023 and to give preference to other projects that I can supervise from afar. At first I was really disappointed, just now that we were really picking up speed, to be slowed down so much. But an experienced Wycliffe associate reminded me that the unexpected is more the normal in our ministry. And after a few days of reflection, I'm coming to the conclusion that it might even be a good thing to have more thorough preparation among the Sangu people before we teach very offensively in the villages about Joseph, the Bible and Jesus.


I am very grateful for Mwasandube, who is holding down the fort as my Ethnoarts assistant in Mbeya. He is now going to get his driver's license and can drive to the villages with our car, record other artists of other Sangu art forms with recording equipment, build relationships, and further advance other projects under my supervision. Personally, I will focus on completing some past projects and analyzing more recently recorded material. Mwasandube and I can work on video projects at the same time thanks to good software, as we did in the Corona year 2020. We will rework the content of past projects and I will continue to learn Swahili in the process. If we are in Germany for a longer time and Samuel is well again, we could also imagine that I will travel to Tanzania during our time in Germany to do some practical things, to organize one or two workshops, that cannot be delegated from here. We ask you from the bottom of our hearts to keep praying and donating for the work in Tanzania. From there we can continue to work from Germany and finance the projects in Tanzania. Before we return to Tanzania we would like to have collected the necessary amount for the 12 villages tour.


In Tanzania, Lukia, our domestic help, and our employees, gardener and night watchman, stand guard in and around the house. Lukia keeps our house and guest houses in good shape and provides the gardener with food. She has also started sewing costumes for the Josef play during her working hours. She also takes care of our cats and our children's rabbits and guinea pigs. She also looks after our new house guests: Elianne, a missionary friend with her two children, is now living in our house until her husband can follow her from the Netherlands to Tanzania and they can continue to build up their project together in their remote Tanzanian place of residence. This has the advantage for Elianne that she can now live in the city of Mbeya close to good friends.

Pray with thanks and faith

To be here now with professional help for Samuel and to see God provide for us fills us with gratitude and hope. We trust that this situation will also serve us for the best. “But to those who love God all things work together for good” (Romans 8:28). God is a God who takes special care of the weak. That's what we believe and that's what we pray for.


We also ask you to pray earnestly for Samuel, that God will reveal himself to him in a very special way, that Samuel will experience the reality and love of God in a depth that he has never experienced before and that God will take care of him physically and heals emotionally and bestows wisdom on all helpers at his side.


"The desert and wasteland will rejoice,

and the steppe will rejoice

and will bloom like the lilies.”

Isaiah 35:1

Visits, sermons, lectures

You are welcome to invite me to report and tell stories in your community. We are very happy if we can also encourage you in Germany during these months with God's great word and with what we have experienced with God.

THANKS

We greet you from the bottom of our hearts and thank you for all your support and prayers,


your Daniel with Damaris, Samuel, Rebekah and Elijah





New address: Frankenbacher Str. 2, 35644 Hohenahr-Erda

New cell phone numbers for the time in Germany: 01575 4004509 (Daniel); 01575 4004513 (Damaris)


Whatsapp, signal and prayer messages continue through our Tanzanian numbers:

255 743 938 744 (Daniel) and 255 719 655 189 (Damaris)


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