Mondays with Allee

So be truly glad.  There is wonderful joy ahead. 1 Peter 1: 6 This will be my last blog post for awhile.  A mission team from Texas and Oklahoma, a team of my friends, the same team that I first came with to Tanzania, they are arriving here in Morogoro next Monday.  During their two weeks here they will be starting construction on a dining hall for our school and leading VBS for three different Maasai villages as well as for the children at school.  I am so excited to be reunited with my friends and be apart of the amazing work they will do while they are here.  Just a couple days after the team leaves I will be headed home as well to spend a couple weeks with my family and friends.  I'll return at the beginning of July to start a five month Swahili course in preparation to continue missionary work in Tanzania.  I plan to resume blogging once I start my next adventure. I don't know that any school or job has taught me more than this year has....

Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. 1 Timothy 4: 12 All of our church leaders left Morogoro early Saturday morning to attend a two week long annual conference and training (yes two weeks) in Mwanza, a city in northern Tanzania.  You would expect that with all the leaders gone for such a long time things would get left undone, worship would be a little more stressful or disorganized, weekly devotions would be cancelled- but not here in Morogoro.  One of the amazing things about our church is the way that the congregation, not just the pastors, make the church function from day to day. Our congregation is divided into four groups- children, youth (anyone who isn't married yet), mamas, and babas (dads).  We also have five community groups- one for each neighborhood represented. All of these groups meet weekly for devotions and each week there is a different l...

For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation.  He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall never be shaken. Psalm 62: 1-2 How is it already the middle of May? I think back to where I was a year ago finishing out the school year in Plano, Texas, making arrangements to move my things into storage, attempting to get out of my lease, weeding through clothes and purchasing all of the supplies I would need to move to Africa for a year.  And now that year is almost over.  It doesn't even seem real.  Now, a year later, I find myself in a similar situation.  Finishing the school year, preparing to move, making sure my permits are valid, weeding through my things, starting the packing process.  And while my move this year is not nearly as massive as last year's, I am feeling the same excitement and anticipation. I am not a patient person.  I think many people view me as patient because I love working with children, but m...

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. 2 Peter 3:18 We are receiving heavy rain here every day now.  The clouds move in quickly and a light drizzle turns to heavy, pelting drops that build in intensity and volume as they fall upon our tin roofs.  Our dirt roads turn to mud so that mamas and their babies slip and slide as they walk home from school.  When we see the rain coming we grab our buckets and set them out to be filled and used for washing the floors and doing laundry.  And when the storm is over and the sun comes back out, everything is more vibrant, more alive than it was before.  We found out this week that a large church in Oklahoma has agreed to support Junior in his seminary education at Texas Christian University.  This was news we have been hoping and praying for over the past year and a half and when I heard, it almost seemed too good to be t...