The good-bye tour begins

Dancing with the children's choir

Our present

Well, the big good-bye tour started this morning.  I remember watching Cal Ripken have an entire good-bye season and thinking that 162 farewell games was a bit over the top, and I hope that our tour isn't quite as ridiculous.  Due to not having quite as much time as he did to spread all that adieu-ing over, we should be okay.

It's very strange to think that we only have three weeks left in Tanzania.  When we started talking about how we felt God prompting us to leave, we didn't think it'd happen on such a quick timeline.  For most missionaries, the big struggle is having to leave everything in their home country and trusting God to help them as they move around the world to their country of service.  For us, it's the reverse.  It's a little different for Andrew, who had a real job and everything in the States, but for me, I knew I wanted to be a Wycliffe missionary starting when I was in college, so never accumulated much stuff in North America, and I went straight from college to grad school to Tanzania.  But since I planned on living in Tanzania for years and years, I certainly collected a lot here!  But, just as my missionary colleagues bravely put their faith in God's call and gave it all up and got on a plane, so will I - good-bye, Tanzania, hello, USA.

It's not just one good-bye, though - there are some places we really want to visit and some people we really need/want to see before departure.  Today we traveled out to a Zanaki village, Kibubwa, to one of our favorite churches (see blog post from Easter 2012: http://www.amsandeen.blogspot.com/2012/04/easter-snapshots.html).  We had called ahead so they knew we were coming to say good-bye, and they were genuinely happy to see us.  We got to sit in chairs that we played a part in them acquiring, which was exciting.  (Thanks, friends who you know who you are, for making that happen!  These chairs were WAY better than what they had before, and all the kids had space on a bench and the adults got real chairs.)  They gave me a nice cloth, which I'll have made into something that I can wear.

It just so happened that someone (man in the picture above) I met at some Zanaki orthography workshops way back in 2007/2008 happened to be there today!  He was astounded that I was still around Musoma and still working with Zanaki, and had gotten married and had a kid.  It was fun for him to see Zanaki Scripture, which he played a little part in making happen.

And so the tour has now officially begun.  Next week we're off to another church, our other favorite one.  It's not coincidence that it's also Mennonite, also in a Zanaki village, and also a place we've gone to before on Easter.  We're consistent in what we like!