To Travels and Trunks

“To Travels and Trunks” is the name of the song that was playing on the PA when I disembarked at Seatac Airport on my way home. I thought is was nice subtle touch rather than playing generic elevator music. The song is a product of the Seattle band Hey Marseille and is, you guessed it, about traveling and trunks (of luggage—not elephants, because that would be weird).

Then when I left Seatac, I heard the song twice coming over the PA, so I came to the conclusion that there's just a looped tape that plays it over and over. The only thing fitting about the song was that it talks about luggage, and I lost my luggage. Twice

I'll start from the beginning, which is where many stories start. I will not, like David Copperfield, tell you how I was born, we're not going back that far. Lets go back to when I left to come to Seattle. I boarded an airplane to Maputo, to then go Maputo to Johannesburg, then eventually to Seattle. Thankfully, I have learned well from the misfortunes of others and was sure to pack absolutely nothing in my bag that, if lost or stolen, would really put me in a bind. That was good foresight on my part because I hadn't even made it to Johannesburg before my luggage was lost.

As it happened, I got off the plane in Maputo, the main int'l airport in Mozambique, making a connection to Joberg. It was a small plane and only about thirty of us on board—a full flight. As they started pulling checked baggage out of the plane, a group of about a dozen or so people that were not on the plane were checking luggage tags, grabbing bags, and leaving. I watched the workers pull all the bags off the plane, and did not see mine.

I found myself standing with about ten or so other passengers looking around wondering where our bags were also. As it was explained to us, the flight yesterday had about ten people whose bags were not put on the plane, and thus were sent today. That was the group of people that were waiting to receive the plane, to get their lost luggage from the day before.

For us, we were told, our luggage would be put on the next flight in a couple of days and we could come get it then. The shocked look on all their faces was only surpassed by the vitriol anger with spewed forth upon the lone representative of the airline. For myself, I was consumed by a singular thought: Just how long was Mozambique Airlines so over-stuffed with luggage that they just set aside certain bags to go on the next flight, thus taking the place of another ten or so people who will no doubt have their bags not boarded the next day, and each successive day? Just how long? Two days? A week? Years???

As it happened, I was leaving the same day on a flight for Johannesburg, and hours later would be on my way to Europe then Seattle. I did all I could and reasoned and begged the Airline to follow the instructions on my luggage tag and send it back to Nampla at the orphanage. The reason for my labeling by bag to the orphanage is twofold. One, I think it is less likely to get robbed by an airport worker that if it says AMERICA is big, bold letters. Two, I think I have more luck getting a rinky-dink airline to send it back to my little rinky-dink town than flying through three continents just to make it to Seattle.

So, after arriving for a layover in Amsterdam with the same clothes I'd been wearing the the last two-and-a-half days, I bought a new pair of clothes, then eleven long hours later landed in Seatac with my carry-on bag.

Luckily for me, I was staying with my folks the whole time back in Seattle, as were my brothers, who are both as freakishly tall as I am. I quickly instituted wearer's rights which is the same thing as squatter's rights except more wearing and less squatting.

Thus concludes part one of my saga. Part two is much less exciting. It involves the orphanage telling me that my bag was mailed back to the orphanage and waiting for me, which only meant that Value Village lost a very happy customer that would have had to replace most his wardrobe. It also involves me saying that when I got to Johannesburg on my return trip, I waited for me bags to come of the plane once again.

Then (because they are a little more on the ball in Joberg) my name came across the PA system with instructions to go to the customer service line at the baggage claim. I arrived and the informed me that my bags were not on the plane. I replied, “yeah, I figured that much out hearing my name called.” I asked when they would get here. The reply was simply, “when we find out where they are we will have a better understanding of when they will get to Johannesburg.” After some discussion between the customer service guys and much pointing at the computer. I determined with 100% certainty that the location of my bags, while not knows, was also not unknown. They were either in Seattle, in Europe, or at 35,000 feet. That narrowed down the search considerably.

I was assured that when (read: if) they arrived they would be sent directly to Nampula and I could pick them up on the 2:30 flight. If they were not there the first day, check back the next day on the 2:30 flight. And everyday after that until they get there. Well, I landed in Nampula on Friday and on Monday, the first flight of the week, I found my bag waiting for me at the airport, thankfully. Since all my stuff never left (ha) I was bringing back mainly stuff for the kids. And while I secretly hoped that my bag got mixed up somehow with a billionaire with the exact same bag and when he opened his he found my undies and deflated soccer balls I would open up mine and find gold ingots, that was not the case. Inspected my bag at the airport and found undies and soccer balls.

And that was about as exciting as the travels got. Oh, and there was also a HUUUUUUGE misunderstanding with airport security that a few people heard in person but will not be put online otherwise the governments will put me on their no-fly list.

Great News

So, I know it's been too long, and this was supposed to be an update about how I'm back and super thirlled to see the kids and it's hotter than I remembered it (all very true and coming later), but all this is getting preempted by some super important amazing joyful news: GIZELA'S BROTHER GOT BAPTIZED AT CHURCH TODAY!!!

You may remember I snuck in a tidbit a while ago about one of our girls named Gizela. She left in January for Beira with the group doing vocational school. Gizela had been great about trying to reach out to the family she has left and tell them about Jesus. Her brother had been coming to church for the better part of the year after his family had been trying to raise him a muslim. I told Gizela when I was in Beira and she was thrilled to hear that he has kept coming to church and always participates in any programs/events we have outside of Sunday mornings and everybody is really good with reaching out to him and making him feel welcome.

This Sunday at church we had baptisms, and I was surprised and overjoyed to see that he was in the line to get dunked. Even greater was hearing him profess his faith in Jesus and knowing that this was not just some emotionally based better-do-it-know-while-everybody-is-looking kind of decision. He even had to go to the baptism class the last couple Saturdays and meet with the pastors. Basically, I'm just trying to say I'm super excited at his genuine conversion and the change is his life. Praise Jesus.

Painting with broad strokes

Picture, if you will, the Mona Lisa. Yes, the famous painting. Think hard about it. Do you have a good picture of it in your mind? Good. Now time for some questions. What color are her eyes? Is her hair straight or wavy? What color is her blouse? What color are the shades behind her?

When you imagined the Mona Lisa what did you see? Chances are, you imagined a portrait of a girl staring back at you and following your eyes everywhere you go. Maybe you pictured something like this:

Yes, you are right. That's not the Mona Lisa, but that's about as much as you can picture. You can't really see the background. But try to picture that now in your mind. Deep burgundy shades half drawn over the window allowing a glimpse out at the quiet meadow as a silent tree dots the landscape as the hills fade into the distance where they meet the sky. Now can you picture it. Have a good image of it in your mind? Good. Keep that image cemented in your mind before going on any more.

One of the main things I like to do with this space is to paint a picture. However, I strongly feel like the picture I paint, much like the snapshot of Mona up there, is incomplete without the rest of the details. I can talk about teaching lessons and tutoring kids, and that's the shiny foreground, the thing that draws your attention in, the big idea. That big idea is incomplete, I believe, without understanding the context behind the picture. In the foreground, for example, can be kids studying in my house.

In the background, the thing you don't see at first, is that the reason I have such a heart for the kids studying and reaching for excellence in academics is because of what their school looks like. They are in a classroom with seventy other kids, sitting on the ground underneath a cashew tree while their teacher lectures on a chalkboard for three hours then they all go home. Suddenly, the picture of the kids sitting and studying feels incomplete, doesn't it, without realizing what is there in the background (or in the case of school, what is not there).

Or take this photo from a while back with the kids moving the new mattresses into their beds. You the boys all buzzing over the mattresses and me making sure that people don't take two (yes, somebody tried to put two mattresses on their bed, it was pretty funny though watching them try to climb up into bed). What you may not notice in the background are the mosquito nets on the beds.

Those simple little blue nets are what help us keep malaria at bay. Whereas the average Mozambican gets malaria about two times a year, our rates are significantly less than that just by the simple practice of sleeping with a net at night. This allows the kids to be healthier, happier, and (during school) not have as many absences due to being sick.

How about this one. Its a little out of focus, so just imagine it is a fancy watercolor by Monet or somebody. If there was a video of this picture it would have about a million views on youtube only because there is nothing funnier than somebody getting drilled in the nuts by a soccer ball.

What isn't obvious in the picture is that the soccer ball only has about another week to go before it pops and bites the dust. That's about the average life of our soccer balls, anywhere from two to four weeks. That's where you folks come in, because folks help out by sending money. Most the time for whatever is needed, groceries, utilities, or to do something special for the kids, and recreation is just as special to the kids as having bibles or clothes or food.

That's why I like to tell stories on here. Stories can help give a fuller picture of what is going on. I've discovered as I visit and talk with people, that they do a pretty good job at the foreground, like with Mona again. You picture the eyes, maybe notice she has wavy hair and pursed lips, you may not note the color of her blouse gut you know the general hue and shape of it.

In the same way, people do a pretty good job of imagining my life and the ministry at the orphanage. They picture the kids, playing games, going to school, doing bible study in the evenings. They see the difficulties of their circumstances and poverty, but that's mostly because, duh, everyone knows that it is hard being an orphan is a poor, third-world country. What you are imagining is not wrong, it's just very incomplete. You're seeing only the foreground.

Remember how I asked you to imagine the Mona Lisa, especially the background, with the fading horizon, the drapes, the trees. Remember all of that. You remember that picture you painted in your mind? I hope so...

...because you remembered it wrong.

Ok, now that wasn't exactly fair on my part. There is no window, no shades, no fading horizon. There is a path, a river, and what I'm going to refer to as forest/blob on the left. The tendency much of the time is to assume how the background is without really looking at it. That's what I try to do here, paint a picture not only of the foreground, but to complete the story to give more depth and meaning and beauty to the story that is unfolding in these kids' lives.

I've discovered many folks understand that poverty exists. They don't understand that many folks where we are live on less than a dollar a day. They understand that corruption exists in all level in the public and private sector, but can't ever imagine that I'm stopped by police on a daily basis asking to see my papers and harassing me for made-up charges. When I say how much our kids are picked on and disparaged for living in an orphanage it is heartbreaking. When I mention the depravity and poverty and abuse from which many of them have been saved it's tremendously and joyfully overwhelming.

Those are the stories I'm trying to tell here, to paint all parts of the picture.

Graduation Day

I'm back in Seattle now for a short time before returning to Mozambique, but that doesn't mean there sill aren't stories to tell, and I've got plenty of them, so I figure I'll just keep on telling.

Making up stuff to write here has its own kind of flow to it. Sometimes inspirations strikes and I'll come up with three or four posts in a day. Other times, life drags on a little bit and there is just not much of note. Sometimes, like this time, stuff happens. After that stuff happens I immediately start thinking, "How can I let everybody know about all that in a way they won't fall asleep reading." Then I think about how many times I can break the fourth wall. Is there a fourth wall in writing? Or do things jump off the page. Or jump out of the screen. If you had one of those 3D computers they'd jump out of the page. I bet that spinning tag globe on the right would look pretty crazy in 3D.

Sometimes, there's just no way to tell what happened other than to start at the beginning and finish at the end. For some reason, everybody has decided this is the proper way to tell a story and so I'm going to give in to pressure and tell the story that way.
 
I recently went down to Beira as part of making my way out of the country. Beira is a good day's drive away. I took a bus that left at 1am and got in that night after it was dark. Actually, it was two buses. But the trip went smooth and it didn't break down in the middle of the jungle. Breaking down in the jungle is bad.

The point of the trip was to get out and visit some of our kids that are down there studying. Just a friendly visit to see how they're living and adjusting and getting along down in their new confines.

I know not everyone, or anyone, remembers that we have kids that have "graduated" from the orphanage. Every now you get reminders, like when I told you about the two boys that threw a dinner party for us one day. 'Dinner party' is probably not the best thing to say, but it was a party, and dinner was involved. So there. But for us still in Nampula, we are constantly reminded and constantly praying for them, so I had been looking forward to getting out and visiting them.

The ones that are down there this year have joined and are living with Lazaro, one of our kids who is studying at a university down there in his second year. They are all living together in a rented house. Gizela, who went down at the same time, is living in a dormitory at the vocational school. They're all studying things like refrigeration and air conditioning repair, auto mechanics, cooking, electricity.

It was just a trip to go down and see them and spend a few days visiting. I wasn't "being nosy" or "checking in on them", it was just a visit to see them and they were thrilled to have me. I spent the first day just telling them all that's new back at the orphanage and how everybody is doing. They were full of questions how everybody is doing and wanted to hear everything that has been going on back at the orphanage.

The second day they took me to see their trade school. They had just finished an exam day so they had a day off of lessons so I just got to see their classrooms, meet their instructors, see all their friends. And unlike a similar American experience they were thrilled to see me and wanted to show me everything and meet all their friends.

Some of the boys took me out around the town to look at some of the projects they had done as part of their training. Zaqueio showed me construction sites where he had installed the electrical box going in the office complex. Albertino showed me a bank of air-conditioners he tuned up and got in working order at a flour factory. They were all proud and couldn't stop telling me about all they've done and are learning.

The trip to visit our students was one of the most fulfilling and encouraging things I've gotten to do in my nearly two years so far in Mozambique. The boys (and girls) were truly thriving, learning well in their school, and appreciating and valuing the education they were receiving. They are participating in church as often as there is a chance to. They are valued in their neighborhood, which was initially skeptical of 7 young guys moving in to rent a house together, but soon realized that they are respectful, play great with kids, and are there to learn and to improve their live and not just fun and games (there are still plenty of fun and games though). Their once skeptical neighbors now thank them for watching their kids and providing protection, "because no thief would dare come here during the middle of the night knowing there are seven strong men right next door. A couple of the boys go down to a nearby orphanage when they have a weekend free to socialize and play with the kids there because they know how important things like that are.

Well, yesterday they graduated their job training program to much fanfare. Here are some pictures I got a hold of.

Here is (back) Albertino, Gracio, Isaty, (front) Zaqueio, and Lazaro. Albertino and Isaty finished their training in refrigeration and AC repair, and Zaqueio completed his in electricity installation and repair. Gracio and Lazaro have got a ways to go and are in year two of university. Albertino and Gracio are friends of our that we are helping/scholarshiping while the other boys are from the orphanage.

Here is Claudia (who went down to Beira last year to study), Lazaro, Gracio, Gizela, Isaty, and Zaqueio. Gizela studied culinary and was full of stories of all the things she's learned to cook and all the work she's done. The director of the dormitory at the school also sought me out when I was there to praise here and tell me how she has such a great character and is a pleasure to have in the dorm. I didn't get sent a picture with Gabriel, the last boy we sent down, but his mechanics course is a full year and won't finish till December.

Perhaps one of the most encouraging moments of my trip was getting to really hear from the heart of our kids there how much they've grown up in such a short time and how much they value what they are learning. As I talked to them, it was clear how hard they are working. Isaty was particularly emotional, tearing up as he told me, "My whole life I never understood school. But here, I'm working with my hand, getting the best marks in my class, and enjoying it so much. This is exactly what I want to do in my life."

As the ones that graduated Young Africa Trade School get ready to move on, keep praying for their hunt for jobs and apprenticeships. The climate for work is extremely challenging, but they are all going to work hard to find opportunities, so pray with us that God rewards their efforts and blesses their knowledge and that they would find stable and healthy jobs.

Announcing TJ's 2012 Book Signing Tour!

It's been a while since I've been able to put up anything but that's because of all the travel I've been doing recently. I'm going to have more on that later. But for now, I'll just get out the most pressing information I'm sure many of you are excited to hear.

I'm gonna be back in Seattle for a couple months to visit and take a holiday. I'll be in June 26th and have till mid-August to visit until I return to Mozambique and continue the work God has there.

In order to help you understand all the details, I've prepared a list of common questions you are likely to have. This allows both me and you to get the most out of my trip and have a super awesome fun time.

1. Where can I buy your book for the tour?
While I am calling it the 2012 TJ's Book Signing Tour, I feel I should let you know (full disclosure here) that I don't actually have a book. However, if you have a book that you'd like me to sign feel free to give me a copy of Huck Finn or Little Women and I'll put my John Hancock all over it. (paperbacks not accepted. Don't be cheap.)

2. So there's no book?
No.

3. What's the purpose of the trip?
I've been gone for almost two years. It has been been a great time, but pretty long. I'm coming back for a visit to see my family, friends, all you folks that I love and miss dearly. I also am taking time recharge my batteries and tell people about God's work in Mozambique.

4. Should I wait a little bit before contacting you so you can rest from travel and see important people right away?
Don't be silly. You're plenty important to me. Yes you, reading this right now. And I've been in the US traveling for a couple days now, so I'm rested and over jet lag. I'm only getting into Seattle on June 26th, so that's why I'm letting you all know now.

5. How can I get in touch with you?
As always, email or facebook are reliable. I also picked up a cell phone number to use for these next few weeks. My digits are 206-504-6403. Don't worry about privacy of me posting it on the interweb because the number is temporary and will expire in a couple months anyways. But do however tell me who you are when you call because things could get really awkward me trying to hold a conversation just guessing who you are the whole time.

6. Are you available to talk to my [church, bible study, small group, family, nursing home, daycare, golf buddies, captive audience] about your life and ministry at the orphanage?
As a matter of fact, I'm extremely available and would love nothing more than to do exactly that!

7. What if I just want to hang out and catch up or have a meal together or catch a Mariners game?
Heck yes! Just give me a call.