18 months old

The many faces of messy-haired Zarya... She's now 18 months old, almost 19 months, so officially 1 1/2. She's closer to her second birthday than her first one! We can't believe just how much fun this sweet little girl is.

West African Peanut Stew Recipe

When I was in Ghana, my very favorite food there was peanut stew with guinea fowl and rice balls. I wanted to try to replicate it when I got home, but my family was less than excited about trying West African food, and I never got around to it. A year or two later, though, when I was in grad school, my housemates were my best friend from that Ghana missions trip and another girl who had grown up in Mali, where she'd also eaten peanut stew and loved it. One of our best days was when the Mali girl's honorary missionary aunt from Mali invited us over to her house for lunch, and she served us peanut stew! We ate platefuls of it and demanded her recipe. Long story short, it has remained a favorite. My family even liked it so much that my sister served it at her wedding for nearly 300 guests! It was a staple item in our dinner menu rotation in Tanzania, where I usually made it with beef and sometimes goat. It's such a flexible recipe that it's really forgiving and truly no-fail.

West African Peanut Stew

2 lbs chicken breasts/legs/thighs, goat, lamb, beef, whatever meat you want, cut into chunks if using boneless meat

Brown the meat (don’t have to cook it all the way through, just brown the sides) in a frying pan. This step is optional if you're feeling unmotivated. It's better if you do, but you don't have to.

Remove meat from pan and saute:

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 onion, chopped

(You can also skip that step if you aren't in the mood. It adds flavor but isn't mandatory.)

Put everything in a slow cooker.  Add:

1 - 1½ c. water

2 bouillon cubes

1 lb./1 1/3 c. cooked garbanzo beans (drained if using canned)

1 lb. diced or crushed tomatoes

3 oz. tomato paste (1/2 small can)

½ tsp. cayenne pepper (more or less as desired)

1 tsp. salt

Cook on low in slow cooker for about 6-8 hours. Or simmer over super low heat on the stovetop for 2-6 hours if you’re making a big recipe that is too much for your slow cooker. 

About 1 hour before serving, mix together:

2/3 c. creamy natural peanut butter, dissolved in

1/3 c. hot water – or if your stew seems a bit thin, scoop hot liquid out of the soup and use that in place of the hot water. Don’t skip this step or your peanut butter will get all clumpy! Mix the hot liquid and peanut butter well, then add it back into the pot.

Serve over rice with sweet potatoes (baked or microwaved until soft; peeled and sliced) and greens (spinach, kale or green salad).

Freezes excellently! Cook it as usual, then put it in the freezer. There is no noticeable difference even after it’s been in there for months. For authentic flavor, eat with your hands.

It's a free country

Tanzania's flag

I forget which country's flag this is... (kidding, kidding)

A conversation I have had somewhat frequently with international friends over the years is about freedom and why America loves to proclaim that it's a free country. My friends aren't angry or anti-America; they are just curious Norwegian/Korean/Canadian/Dutch/Australian/Ghanaian/British/etc. people who find it interesting that many Americans proudly announce that their country is free.

I don't think I've ever done that myself, but word gets out, thanks to the media. And it's true - drive through Anytown, USA, and you're bound to see some banner announcing that American soldiers fight for our freedom, or watch TV for 10 minutes and a politician's ad will come on during a commercial break and talk about how he promises to keep America a free country. Actually, I suppose I have said it before myself - I remember being a kid and telling my parents I didn't have to eat my mushrooms if I didn't want to, because it's a free country.

What my international friends find so interesting is that in their minds, all of their countries are free, too. However, they don't feel the need to have it as a national slogan and proclaim it so frequently. They don't quite get why Americans think they live in the only free country. And it's true - I have a strong hunch that if given a survey that asked Americans to check one of the following options, most would choose the last one:
I feel that...

1. My country is less free than most other countries.
2. My country is more free than most other countries.
3. My country is the most free country on the planet.

There are probably some reasons why folks feel this way, starting back with the founding fathers and all that, and I'm sure if you ask an American history and political science person to tell you about it, they'd be happy to do so. A lot of it is just culture and tradition. Americans like to talk about freedom and feel special and free, the message continues to be pushed by all sorts of people for reasons both good and bad, and it's become kind of become a unifying slogan we shout and believe.

All that being said, after living in Tanzania for quite a few years, there is something to be said for the freedom of that country. For example:

• You can put your child in a car seat if you like, or not if you don't. It's your kid, and you are free to choose. 
• You can go with any mobile phone company you like, and there is never any contract. You're free to have as many SIM cards for your phone as you wish and change them in and out, because it's your phone, and you can do what you want with it.
• If you're renting a house, you can paint and decorate it however you like. It's a free country. (Some exceptions may apply, but not where I lived.)
• The idea of making a rule of "no shoes, no service" has not yet hit Tanzania. You are free to go shoeless and walk into stores in that state if you wish.
• Should you wish to transport 32 people in your 15-passenger van, go for it.
• There are not road signs every 20 feet advising you to go more slowly around an upcoming curve or telling you to keep right except to pass. It's a free country, you can keep on going the speed limit for the road around that curve if you like, which hopefully your eyes will tell you is coming soon.

I read a book (Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale) that is set in the future after the US is taken over by some folks who take all the power into their own hands to run society according to how they interpret the book of Genesis. One line in it stuck out to me. I can't quote it exactly, but it said something like, "There are two kinds of freedom: freedom from and freedom to." The point was that in the new (creepy, legalistic) society, everyone was protected and had freedom from, whereas in the "old America," they had freedom to do all sorts of things, many of them harmful. (Personally, I would put having 32 people in your van as a "freedom to," one which is quite frequently harmful.)

And since this blog post is already quite long, I'll end it here. I only wish to state that there are a few different kinds of freedom, and many free countries. I felt very free when living in Canada and in Tanzania, and sometimes life under all the rules there are in the States is actually quite constricting. I miss the freedom of Tanzanian life. That being said, I also feel significantly safer when driving down the road in America.

The JESUS Film premieres

Today, Monday April 28, 2014, people of the Kabwa language will be able to watch The JESUS Film in their own language! The big premiere is this evening. And while that is very exciting news, what really touches my heart is that tomorrow, just one day away, the Zanaki people will enjoy their own premiere - The JESUS Film in the Zanaki language! The two Zanaki translators with whom I've worked so closely over the years, Andrew, and I, as well as many of other colleagues, put a lot of work into making the translation of the script and the recording happen. So although I am a continent away for it's first showing, what matters here is that the Zanaki people right there in one of their villages are present, listening to Jesus speaking the Zanaki language!

Pray that hearing the gospel in the language of their heart is a turning point in many people's lives. Pray that many Kabwa and Zanaki people will believe in Jesus!

Little reader

This kid loves her books, especially ones with real animal pictures. She moos when she sees cows or dogs (we're working on sorting out that misconception), snorts when she sees pigs, and says, "Caa," when she sees a cat. She says something for chickens that sounds kind of like chicken, but I'm not sure how to spell it. And while she can correctly identify fish and zebra, they are silent animals for her.

The honeymoon phase

When learning about cross-cultural adjustments before going overseas, I remember reading about four main stages. There is the initial honeymoon stage when everything is new, interesting, and you're just in love with it all. And then one day you wake up and realize that you have abruptly moved into the acute misery stage, which eventually gives way to the "I think I will make it...maybe..." stage (which has a more official name, but I've forgotten most everything I've ever learned, that name included). Finally, you end up at a functional stage where you appreciate the culture, can even see some ways in which it's better than your home culture, and can live and work in your new home, even if there are some aspects of it that you might never really like.

They say the same stages are often true for re-entry - coming back to your home country after extended time away. If so, I'm definitely still in the honeymoon stage of things. America seems really fabulous to me! (Side note, to make sure y'all don't misunderstand me here: I can honestly say I liked, really honestly liked, living in Tanzania and felt it was our home, and saying America is fabulous in the following ways doesn't mean Tanzania isn't fabulous in other ways. But this post is about the US of A, so I'm focusing on that here.)

Let me tell you about some things that I think are pretty amazing about my new home:

• Shopping carts! I can go to the grocery store with Zarya, put her in the seat of the cart and zip through the store collecting stuff. I don't have to carry my stuff OR her, much less both! And, get this - nobody ever grabs her out of the cart. No wonder Zarya and I find shopping in the States to be a very low-stress experience.
• Church childcare! At the lovely church we've found here in Indiana, PA, they have rooms full of toys and responsible adults who play with your kids while you sit in the service during the sermon. She loves it, and runs straight to her classroom door when I take her back there.
• Boneless, skinless chicken breasts! So the other night for dinner I got out some chicken, which I had purchased quite cheaply, cut it into pieces while it was still raw, put it in a frying pan and stirred it around until it was cooked, and then we ate it without needing a knife. The whole thing took mere minutes. I still can't get over how very, very quick it is to make meals here.
• Dishwashers! The cutting board on which I'd cut that chicken - it went into a machine that sanitized it. I'm not joking here, folks, there really are machines that wash your dishes for you.
• Carpet! We spent our first weeks here lolling around on the floor like cats, having carpet was that exciting.
• Clean water! It's such a time-saver to have clean water coming straight out of the tap. No more having to boil and cool Zarya's bath water every day, no more needing to remember to fill our drinking water filter all the time, no more having to thoroughly dry your hands after washing them. I still feel gleeful when I'm cooking something and want to use the same utensil for one thing as I did for another earlier,  like sharing a knife between onions and carrots or something, all I have to do is just rinse it off and keep on going. Can you imagine - tap water and food get mixed and I don't wonder if we're going to get sick because of it! I can now wipe my counters with a wet dishcloth, wash Zarya's hands after she eats something messy, and rinse my toothbrush under the tap. Oh, and do you want to know a secret about how luxuriously over the top life here really is? Don't tell, but I've heard it said that Americans even flush their toilets and water their lawns with drinking water! 
• Parks! We can go outside and play. I hope that I always appreciate what a precious gift it is to live somewhere with public parks and playgrounds. This morning we went on a walk over a hill and through some woods, went past a little lake, ran around in big, grassy fields, saw daffodils, and played on a safe, clean playground. It was the most wonderful way to spend a Saturday morning as a family! God bless you, America. Life here can be pretty good.

Because what could be cuter than a toddler in footie jammies?

Caught her looking a little suspicious, just standing in Baba and Mama's closet.

Side note: Yes, we are aware she has outgrown her pack and play, but we're missing a few pieces to her crib, so are awaiting those in the mail. In the meantime, it doesn't seem to bother her.