My first blog! This is mainly because I keep getting the same questions from a variety of people and want to answer them all fully and completely, but I just can't always remember who I've told what to! So skim this if you already know the details and check back another time!



4 years ago now, I got to sped a life-changing year in Tanzania working with a ministry called Imara Ministries Foundation and a teacher training college called Joshua Teacher Training College. I taught several classes at JTTC and assisted Imara in 5 village schools throughout northern Tanzania, neither of which I had ever done in the US! I even helped start and set up 2 preschools - not bad for a 5th grade teacher! It was an amazing year, and God stretched me waaaay outside my comfort zone. As soon as I left, I was praying to be able to go back again for another long stint, and I am just on the verge of that now!



My church, Perimeter, suggested I go through a missions organization called United World Mission, and they, in turn, required me to go through a cross-cultural training program called CIT in North Carolina. I'm there now - an almost month long intensive course like being in grad school! I got there about a week after everyone else had started, so I had to hurry to catch up: read 2 books, dozens of articles, write 3 papers (in the last week or so) and start on my 15 page final paper! It's been more reaffirming than I would have thought, and I find myself loving the intensity of it as I know it will help me on the field.



So, what am I going to be doing this time? Good question: I'm wondering the same thing myself many days! JTTC helps train the teachers for the 5 Imara villages and that was becoming impossible due to resources at Joshua. So they've devised a plan to mentor and distance educate the teachers, using our best resource: previouls JTTC-trained teachers already in schools. The training includes lots of Western methods to replace their lecture/rote memory methods, and a great deal on incorporating a Christian world-life view into your teaching of all subjects. The instructors at Joshua are wonderful at all of this, but they/we are all Westerners ourselves, and the new teachers have had to figure out what this looks like for Tanzanians to be doing it. This way, they get to see other Tanzanians putting these concepts into practice and what it looks like in a Tanzanian setting. I am so thrilled to get to help pilot this program. It means I get to be in the village of Karanse 2 weeks a month: the village where I first lost my heart to African children, then teachers, then widows, then fathers, etc. I sponsor 2 children there and have been going for so many years that it really is a place that I consider one of my favorites on earth! I have no idea where I'll stay during those weeks, but the other 2 weeks a month I'll stay at the JTTC campus, where they already have a room waiting for me (with 3 suitcases I sent on ahead - have you ever tried packing for a year?!). That's another great place, and I'll include pictures of both so you'll, hopefully, begin to get a feel for where I'll be. I anticipate lots of pictures of children, too, as that's where my heart really is. I'll use the teachers' and children's names as often as I can so you get to know them, too.



Lastly, a huge thank you to supporters who have truly enabled me to be on this adventure: financial supporters who are faithfully giving so I can go, people who helped me move out of my apartment, gave me places to live and store my things, provided meals when I couldn't even think of cooking, are keeping my cat,and just generally cared about me and loved me through this whole hectic time. I can never thank all of you enough. And then there's family and friends who are "letting me go" in the emotional and physical senses of that word. I will miss all of you more than it will ever sound like I am as I'll also be trying to "be there" 100% and sometimes that sounds like I don't miss you at all! You have a huge place in my heart!



I'm not going to be one of those daily bloggers because (1) I'm just not that narcisssistic and (2) I don't belive anyone wants to know that much about all of this! So check back in a while, and I'll let you know how the journey's going!