Hallelujah!

There is a Seventh Day Adventist church across the street from us, and they often have mid-week services. Yesterday evening we had heard some people over there and guessed that a gathering or service of some sort was happening. A while later, suddenly singing burst out, "Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" It took less than a millisecond to recognize the words and the tune; it was most definitely the hallelujah chorus! It was pretty random and a bit crazy to hear the hallelujah chorus (in English!) bursting out of our little neighborhood SDA church on a Wednesday evening.

Later that evening we were making dinner in the kitchen and, as usual, listening to our neighbors in the house next door. Let's just say their house is very close and that their kids (and adults!) are often very loud. Anyway, we started laughing when we heard one little kid running around the yard singing, "Hallelujah, hallelujah!" It was kind of a pleasant change from the usual neighbor noise!

How did you wake up?

Greetings are very important in Tanzania. It's rather rude to walk past someone you know with just a wave and a hello; you really need to stop and make sure the person knows that you are placing them at a higher importance than whatever activity you are racing off to do.

Some of the typical greetings and responses here sound a bit funny when translated into English, which is a great example of why we don't translate things word-for-word. Anyway, at the end are a few slang greetings, which sound just as funny in Swahili. If there is more than one possible option of which word to use in the question or answer, I have used a slash.

How did you wake up?
Peacefully.

News of the morning/afternoon/evening/night?
Good.

How have you spent?
Peacefully.

News of here?
Good.

News of work/family/home/rain/any activity?
Good.

Do you have an issue?
I don't have an issue.

Issues?
Clean/Cool/Pipe.

Issues which?
Issues clean/cool/pipe.

Checking spelling in Zanaki

Now that we have finished drafting and checking Luke in the Zanaki language, we're working hard on getting it ready for publication. One of the biggest jobs is checking spelling. Now, I (Misha) try to pay fairly close attention to spelling when I'm working with the translators and we make a lot of corrections during every check. So when I started spell-checking, I thought, "Oh, this won't take too long; I'm sure there are some mistakes, but I think we did pretty well checking most if Luke already."

WRONG!

Sure, we already caught a lot of errors, but there are still an awful lot of others! For example, check out these two words:

ang'ariri - "he shone"
ang'ariiri - "he deserved"

Believe it or not, both are correct. Now I just have to make sure every other instance of "shine" and "deserve" are correct, too, or readers might be a little bit confused!

okutura - incorrect spelling of "to put"
okutuura - correct spelling of "to put"

The incorrect spelling above is easy enough to fix throughout Luke, but realizing it is spelled inconsistently in the first place took some work. It was used so often with the short vowel that it looked correct, since the translators had been very consistent with it. It was the few instances of the incorrect one that tipped me off (and I first I thought it must be the incorrect one, since it only appeared a few times!).

I'm just glad I got glasses this past year!

I don't think I'd drink that...

Last week we had some issues with our water pressure being quite low. Sometimes there was enough pressure to get the water to come out of the shower head, but other times it only worked out of our lowest-to-the-ground tap. Then it cut out completely and there was no water anywhere at all.

Knowing that there was roadwork going on by our house, we figured it was caused by something the road folks were doing and that it would come on in due course. But on the third day of no water, we'd had enough. So, we went down to the local water department office to figure out what was going on (or not going on...).

Much to our pleasant surprise, they escorted us straight to the head technical manager's office! He listened to our story and then called in one of the repair work foremen. As soon as this man heard where we lived, he immediately knew what the problem was: there had been a bad pipe that had finally broken last week (thus the issues with the water pressure). They had put in a temporary line for the houses that relied upon that line for water, but the temporary line wasn't long enough to reach three houses. Ours was #2 of those three. The manager asked him to fix the problem right away.

When we came home yesterday evening, the foreman was out front just finishing his work. He gave us a big wave, and a few minutes later came to our gate to ask us to try a tap and see if we now had water. It worked! However, it seemed like some air and dirt had gotten in the pipes, since it wasn't quite the color we usually expect water to be, and wasn't coming out in a straight line! After it ran for a while, it improved, and after a few days I think it might be clear again.

Musoma ladies' Bible study

Some ladies who regularly attend Bible study weren't there on the day when we took this picture, but here's a quorum of our group. We meet every Tuesday afternoon after work and it's always a highlight to get together and talk, study and discuss God's Word, and pray for each other. Sometimes we even get a snack (which is almost always due to the generosity of one certain special member of the group...).

Ever since I first arrived in Musoma in 2007 there has been a missionary women's Bible study, but the members have changed as the missionary community is comprised of almost entirely different folks now than it was then. The time and location have changed a fair bit, too, as it's tricky to find a good time. Our group has women working in the office who aren't free until 4:30 or 5:00 in the evening and moms with small children at home, and our schedules are fairly different! But regardless of these issues and those of childcare, transportation, etc., we are very committed to our time together and really appreciate it. Right now our group has only SIL women in it, so we're all involved in the Bible translation project in some way.

We have no leader; we just take turns volunteering to lead each week, and it works pretty well. We use whatever studies come our way, which usually means we have only one copy. We utilize photocopying or printing or even typing them ourselves while looking at a book!

Last week we didn't meet because of Christmas/New Year, and I'm looking forward to being together again tomorrow. Our study this week is on wisdom, and I am the one signed up to lead our discussion, so I am praying for wisdom about wisdom!