Well, when I woke up this morning I was looking forward to a regular day in the office. What a regular day in the office is I'm not sure, because it seems there's always something happening around here! And since we have 22 Austrian guests in the office this week (short-term missions trip) and Andrew is out of town for several days, I guess I already knew it would be an out-of-the-ordinary day.
Before beginning this story, let me back up a bit. Yesterday the Austrians descended upon us. They are here to pray for the translators and bless them with gifts and to pray for the peoples of Mara Region for a week. The team members range in age from late teens to retirement age. It felt like an extremely prayerful Christmas yesterday in the office as each Tanzanian was blessed with prayer and a gift bag. Many of them had no idea what some of their gifts were, and I somehow ended up being the "gifts interpreter". I explained how to open an unusual sort of necklace clasp, what a suncatcher/rainbow-maker was, how much a euro is worth, what a paperweight is, etc. Several of the translators shared their candy with me, and I loved being in a situation in which Tanzanians wanted to share with me because they felt they had more than I did (there were no gifts for expat staff). So you get the idea, yesterday was a bit out of control at the office, but in a good way.
Anyway, I was worn out after all of that (I did a presentation for the team about the cluster and various other things) and looking forward to "normal". But when I got to work this morning, my computer would not start up properly! I won't go into technical detail, but suffice it to say that there was no using my computer all morning and it wasn't looking too hopeful, although a technically-inclined co-worker was trying a few things to try to get it going. This one aging laptop (over four years old) is my lifeline for skype, e-mail, translation work, entertainment, everything. I couldn't figure out what to do at work without a computer, so was pondering just going home.
Just then, one of the translators came to me looking very worried. He explained that his daughter was very sick (from his description she sounded delirious, so I thought maybe it was a bad case of malaria). She is a secondary school student and her school was a bit over an hour away out in a village. The headmaster of the school had called him that morning to say he needed to come pick her up, and that she was not in good enough health to travel on his motorcylce or in public transport. So the translator came to me, wondering if I could arrange anything.
Usually I'm extremely busy at work and can't ever just leave. But since I had no computer, here I was at the office with nothing to do. "Give me five minutes and I'll drive you out there," I told him. He was shocked and very relieved. We took the wife of another translator (Sara, the one who was the bride when I was a bridesmaid) who just happened to need to go to that village and also the mom of the sick girl, along with her baby, the sick girl's little sister.
When we got to the school, the headmaster asked us to come into his office. Another woman and man were already in there. He then sat down and explained that he was a Christian and had studied in seminary. He said that demon-possession had been traveling around the school, being passed from girl to girl as they shared clothes and other possessions, as teenage girls are prone to do. He said that daughters of the two families in the room were currently affected. He explained it began with a girl whose mother was a witch doctor and had given her daughter some spirit-objects. He also said a few things that didn't quite sit right with my theology, such as how males are more resistant to demonic attack because they are smarter than women and that demons inhabit the eggs in females' ovaries, so women are susceptible. But anyway, he was calm and just explained the situation (the two girls had walked stark naked into one of the classrooms the day before, etc. - not their usual behaviour) and said that the parents needed to take their daughters home, pray for them, get them demon-free, and then the girls could come back to school to take their end-of-the-year tests. The two girls then came in, and the other family's daughter seemed out of sorts and very strange. The family I was with, their daughter seemed very quiet and tired, and like her mind wasn't fully present.
We got in the car and started driving home. I asked if they still wanted to go to the hospital immediately, as their original plan had been. They weren't sure and asked my advice. I suggested that since there was a group of 22 people committed to prayer at the office, maybe we could go there to have the girl prayed for. We got there just as they were praying for the people group which this family was from - it was perfect timing! They prayed for her and the girl suddenly became normal and happy again. Her face, especially her eyes, became free and relaxed. Her parents took her home and have decided she will not be returning to that same school.
So then I went and checked on my computer. It was working!!! While I was away, it had been fixed. :-) I am writing this blog post on it and am thrilled that it works.
What a day! I came home and went for a walk and ate chocolate... :-)
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