Josiah says his evening prayers

Stop! Go!

Josiah has managed to stretch the nighttime ritual to considerable length. Okay, I'm entirely to blame. He's just so cute and generally well behaved from evening prayers onwards! Our current permutation of the night-time ritual involves two songs that for some reason must be sung while his little, rather freaky, seahorse glows and plays it's competing music. The first we sing is "Jesus Loves the Little Children," which as I sing it has me wondering if it's still socially acceptable in the United States to sing about children who are "red and yellow, black and white." The second song we sing is "I love you, Lord, and I lift my voice…" Josiah sings with me most nights. The other night, as we sang he cried out, "STOP!" which, of course, rather took me by surprise and interrupted the song. He sang a few lines alone and then cried out "GO!" Fortunately, I'm a pretty bright guy so I figured out we were playing "Red Light, Green Light." These nights he still occasionally cries out "STOP!" and "GO!" while we sing. I'm okay with it. Especially as his wavering little voice rises above the evening noises of crickets and frogs, "Take joy, my King, in what you hear. Let it be a sweet, sweet sound in your ear."

-Shauen

What do parents do?

The last several nights as I tuck Josiah into bed and say goodnight, he calls me back into his room right after I close the door… "Yes, Josiah?" "Go downstairs and cook eggs and talk to Mama and Mama will help you." "Okay, buddy. Good night!" Turns out what Mama and Papa do at night after the kids are in bed isn't any of the things we thought we do - clean up the living room, do the dishes, wipe off the dinner table, relax, visit, catch up, watch a DVD, email friends, or Facebook. To our oldest, at least, the nightly ritual involves cooking eggs. Same same.

-Shauen

Field Film - May 2013

Why we import all of our medications

We usually bring or ask others to bring to Kenya all of our over-the-counter medications. This article is exactly why we import all of it. Our medicine cabinet has at least a two-year's supply of just about anything you'd need - all from the USA. 

The original posting of this BBC article is available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-22574689

My Pikin deaths:
Nigerians jailed over poisoned baby drug

Two Nigerians have been sentenced to seven years in prison over the deaths of at least 80 children who took adulterated teething medicine.

The officials from the company which made the My Pikin syrup were found guilty by a court in Lagos.

After children started dying in 2008, the mixture was found to contain engine coolant.

The judge also ordered that the company be closed and its assets forfeited to the state.

The paracetamol-based syrup, used for treating sore gums, was found to have been contaminated with diethylene glycol, used as an engine coolant.

It caused the babies' kidneys to fail.

My Pikin means "my baby" in Nigerian pidgin, the language widely used in Lagos.

Napping on a day off

Despite rising in the 5 o'clock hour to get stuck in traffic for an hour and a half so I could get to the airport late to greet our short term team from Living Faith Lutheran Church in Clive, Iowa, I took a sick day today with some kind of head cold that's leaving me in a fog. That meant rest - an afternoon nap. It sure is nice to have a little guy snuggle me, even if for just a few gloriously quiet and calm minutes. You can see that his eyes are open. Scheming, that's what he's doing in that quiet moment. Hope my head's a little clearer tomorrow. -Shauen

Roses

As fall gives way to winter here in Kenya, Krista picked a few of our roses for the table. It's not that they don't get picked. But usually just the petals make it inside, clutched in Elijah's little fist and held out to Mama. The loose petals are more precious but these stems last a little longer.

-Shauen

Made it!

Today we were an hour and twenty minutes delayed getting to church - waiting for Elijah to wake from his nap. Fortunately we weren't too late. We made it in time for the Gospel Reading! - Shauen

LCMS Missionaries to Africa

Is gap year volunteering a bad thing?

This piece is based on an edited version by Daniela Papi originally appeared on BBC News. The original is available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22294205 .

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Viewpoint: Is gap year volunteering a bad thing?

Volunteering abroad to build schools or dig wells might make people feel good about themselves - but it can be detrimental to those who are supposed to be helped, writes tour company founder Daniela Papi.

I've volunteered all over the world - building homes in Papua New Guinea, doing post-tsunami work in Sri Lanka, helping paint a school in Thailand - and I used to think it was the best way to travel.

In 2005 I even organised my own volunteer trip - a bike ride across Cambodia with five friends. We were going to raise funds to build a school, and teach students we met along the way about the environment and health.

There turned out to be more than one small problem. We didn't really know that much about the environment or health - or Cambodia for that matter.

Much of the money we had raised for other small projects had been wasted, or landed in corrupt hands. And that school we helped to build? Well, when I arrived to see it, I found a half-empty building.

I decided to stay in Cambodia a bit longer to see how we could better use our time and money. That bit longer eventually turned into six years living in Cambodia and that first school building turned into an education NGO (non-governmental organisation).

To raise money for our work, I started a volunteer travel company that led hundreds of volunteers on trips to Cambodia.

At first, our tours looked a lot like that first bike ride, with foreigners coming in to "serve" people in places they knew very little about. I slowly stopped believing in our "voluntourism" offerings and began to see that young people didn't need more fabricated opportunities to "serve" but rather opportunities to learn how to better contribute their time and money in the future.

I feel that the growing practice of sending young people abroad to volunteer is often not only failing the communities they are meant to be serving, but also setting these travellers, and by extension our whole society, up for failure in the long run.

The school - now housing an NGO - that Daniela Papi helped build in Cambodia

Hundreds of thousands of young people are going abroad to volunteer each year, as part of school requirements, to build their CVs, and as part of gap year trips.

Yet much of this demand is fuelled by the belief that because we come from financially wealthier countries, we have the right, or the obligation, to bestow our benevolence on people. Never mind if we don't speak the language, don't have the skills or experience to qualify for the jobs we're doing, or don't know anything about what life is like "over there".

As a former serial volunteer myself, I'm not in any way trying to criticise the good intentions of these volunteer travellers - I know from my own experience that our desire to help is sincere - but I now also know that good intentions are not enough.

Our lack of critical engagement about international volunteering is creating a double standard.

When someone goes for a work experience or internship placement in a law firm or an accounting company, they don't expect to be leading a case in a courtroom, or managing their own clients - they understand their number one job is to learn (and bring the coffee). Yet when we go abroad, we sometimes forget that we have to learn before we can serve.

It's like we think we are all Clark Kent. At home we slave away and work hard to be useful in our jobs, but then we enter a magical phone booth and - ta-dah - we take off to a far-away country and somehow our Superman suit, or our volunteer T-shirt, gives us all of the power and knowledge we need to save the world.

We're teaching our next generation of leaders that development work is easy, and that their skills are so valuable to the people abroad that it is worth donating money to send them to help.

And we're teaching them that, just because they come from the UK or the US, they are in a position of superiority over the people they are going to "serve".

We must stop volunteering abroad from becoming about us fulfilling our dreams of being heroes. The travellers are not just missing out on learning the lessons that lead to more sustainable changes in themselves and in the world, but they are also often negatively impacting the people they are meant to be "serving".

Orphanage volunteering is one of the most popular volunteer travel offerings in part because it fits with both our desire to be heroes and our desire for fun.

Volunteering to take care of orphans might not sound too bad at first - at least I didn't think so on my initial orphanage visits.

But then I started to realise that my visit repeated over and over and over again can indeed become a problem.

Imagine if an orphanage near your home had a rotating door of volunteers coming to play with these children who have already been deemed vulnerable.

Imagine if, during times when they were meant to be in school, they were performing "orphanage dance shows" day after day to visiting tourists. Imagine if any tourist could come in off the street and take one of the children out for the day with them? You are right in any assumptions you might have about what type of harm that could expose them to.

In Cambodia, orphanage volunteering has become a big business. While the number of orphans has decreased, the number of orphanages has risen with the rise of tourism. Unicef estimates that three out of every four children in Cambodian orphanages actually have one or more living parents.

The most corrupt orphanage managers even have an incentive to keep the children looking poor, because, as I have heard many travellers say, tourists often want to give their time and money to the poorest looking place, as they think that is where it is needed most.

People often say, "doing something is better than doing nothing". But it isn't. Not when that something is often wasteful at best, and at worst causing a lot of harm.

We need to focus on learning first - not just encouraging jumping in. Like the legal intern delivering coffee and learning what it takes to be a good lawyer, their most significant impact in the role is not achieved in a short time, but rather in avoiding being too much of a distraction in the short-term and learning how to have a real impact in the long run.

We can encourage young people to move from serving, to learning how to serve. It's a small change in vocabulary, but it can have a big impact on our futures.

This piece is based on an edited version of Daniela Papi's Four Thought on BBC Radio 4

"Go it?"

Krista: "Josiah, stop it." Josiah: "Go it." Krista: "What?"

Apparently we need some lessons on talking back. Although it's pretty hard to keep a straight face when he says something like "Go it."

-Shauen

Could it possibly be this easy?

This morning Elijah gave me the sign for potty. So, good father that I am, I took him. He has been fairly consistently doing something potty-related when he gives the sign and we take him to the toilet. Usually he goes pee. Sometimes he has a little toot and then gives the "all done" sign. And, of course, he certainly doesn't give a sign every time he needs to go potty - we still change plenty of wet diapers. But this morning, he gave the sign and I took him and although he tried to quit early with an "all done," I told him we would wait just a little longer and my boy pooped in the toilet! He's 16 months! Could it possibly be this easy?!?!? -Shauen

Grandma is in the fish?

The other night as we were reading the selected bedtime story of "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod," Josiah pointed to one of the herring fish and said, "Grandma is in the fish." As you can imagine, I was quite confused. I suggested several permutations of what he might be trying to say: "Do you mean Grandma told you about this fish?" "Do you mean this fish has a grandma?" But he insisted, "Grandma is inside the fish." So I finally gave up, envisioning a miniature grandmotherly type, small enough to fit inside a herring fish. "Okay." Satisfied that I had accepted his statement as he intended it, Josiah proceeded to tell me that the fish would swim to the beach and spit out Grandma and then the fish would swim back to the rest of the fish in the sea. There's that lightbulb over my head moment - click! - as I remembered how fond he's been of his Bible lately. "Oh, okay, buddy. I see. That probably wouldn't happen to Grandma. I think it has only happened to Jonah in the entire history of the world…" "Now cast your nets wherever you wish - never afeared are we. So said the stars to the fishermen three, Wynken, Blynken, and Nod." -Shauen

Home-Service 2012 Presentation

This is a video of one version of our home-service presentation from Fall/Winter 2012. Gary Thies of Mission Central introduces our family at the beginning. The presentation has been edited for time. For a copy of this interview, please contact us by email (Shauen.Trump@LCMS.org) or contact Mission Central through Gary (Gary.Thies@lcms.org). 

Interview at Mission Central

Interview of our family with Gary Thies in November 2012 during our home-service stop at Mission Central, Mapleton, Iowa. For a copy of this interview, please contact us by email (Shauen.Trump@LCMS.org) or contact Mission Central through Gary (Gary.Thies@lcms.org). 

Happy Birthday to me!

~ Peppermint Mocha Cake ~ We celebrated my birthday on April 9th this year because it was a national holiday here in Kenya - the inauguration of the new president, Uhuru Kenyatta. I woke up before the kids which makes a huge difference for some reason. Then Elijah (15 months) gave me the sign for potty which was unusual to say the least. "Why not?" I thought, so I put him on the toilet and he peed in the toilet! I'm certain it was a fluke but it was a wonderful present - or at least the hint of good things to come.

Two of our missionaries, Shara Cunningham, and Britt Anderson, came over to the house early to help with the cake and missionary Fred Reinhardt joined us just before lunch. We went out to lunch at ArtCafe and I enjoyed a cappuccino milkshake, chicken wings, and a pasta salad with feta cheese (ah, the luxuries of living in Nairobi). After lunch I went for my walk to keep my back in good shape and the girls finished the cake.

This year Krista (and the girls) made me a mocha cake with peppermint cream cheese frosting topped with shaved chocolate, crushed peppermints (candy canes), and chocolate covered espresso beans - inspired by my favorite drink, the Starbucks Peppermint Mocha. It is absolutely delicious! A few presents, some particularly sweet moments with my boys (Josiah told me several times without prompting, "Happy Birthday, Papa!"), and a wonderful birthday draws to a close. Thank you all for the birthday wishes! 

-Shauen

March 2013 Field Notes Published

Field Notes for the month of March 2013 has been published. This issue of Field Notes included the following articles:

• Meet Britt Anderson
• Agricultural Missionaries in Kenya
• Peaceful Handing Over of Power in Kenya
• Photos in Focus: Easter 2013

Our prayer requests this month include:

• For Britt Anderson as she begins work in Kenya
• For preservation of people and property during the rainy season and its constant flooding
• For all our Kenya missionaries as they study Swahili

In Praise

• For peace during the national elections in Kenya
• For safety for our LCMS staff and personnel during the elections
• For opportunities to continue Swahili work during our precautionary evacuation
• For Delano and Linda Meyer

If you haven't seen it yet, download Field Notes - March 2013 (PDF format) from thetrumps.org now!

February 2013 Field Notes Published

Field Notes for the month of February 2013 has been published. This issue of Field Notes included the following articles:

• Advance Trip with Living Faith - Clive, Iowa
• Home Service 2012-2013
• Donors or Friends?

Our prayer requests this month include:

• For peace during the national elections in Kenya March 4th
• For our precautionary evacuation during elections
• For all our Kenya missionaries as they learn Swahili 

In Praise

• For Shauen's recovery from his herniated disc
• For Elijah's recovery from a high fever this week
• For a limited but successful home-service
• For Living Faith Lutheran Church – Clive, IA and St. Andrew's Lutheran Church – Cape Girardeau, MO 

If you haven't seen it yet, download Field Notes - February 2013 (PDF format) from thetrumps.org now!

St. Andrew's Agricultural Team - Success?

~ Team Members Learn About the Kit Greenhouse and Irrigation System at Faraja ~ In the weeks leading up to St. Andrew's Lutheran Church of Cape Girardeau, Missouri's trip to the Pwani Parish in Kenya, a donor from Norway unexpectedly elected to build a kit greenhouse at the Faraja Children's Home in Wema on the Kenyan coast. He had heard the request around the same time that St. Andrew's had received the request for support and training in greenhouse farming. As explained to me (to be taken with a grain of salt), this donor decided to act virtually unilaterally, ordering the greenhouse, arranging for installation, and hiring an agronomist to start the project at the Faraja Children's Home with limited consultation with the parish. This took the Parish by surprise and put them in the suddenly awkward position of trying to redirect the St. Andrew's team that had been preparing for some time to come to Kenya to explore opportunities for greenhouse farming at the Children's Home. Knowing, however, of the good relationship St. Andrew's has shared with the Menzamwenye congregation and aware of the difficult farming conditions there, the parish suggested that exploring greenhouse farming and/or drip irrigation may be quite fruitful for that area instead.

~ Weeding in the Raised Beds with Faraja Workers ~

So as the St. Andrew's team arrived we sent a few of the Agricultural Team members to first see and learn about the kit greenhouse and irrigation systems that had been installed at the Children's Home and then to travel to the Menzamwenye congregation to begin the conversation with the church elders about the possibilities there.

Our excellent Agricultural Team from St. Andrews spent hours upon hours with the church elders of Menzamwenye, talking about greenhouses, drip irrigation, the extreme dryness of the area, the amount of water that would be consumed, the cost of water per liter, the amount of land available, and so forth. Each day they made progress although from the American perspective it certainly felt like negotiations - and slow ones at that! After several days of visits and conversation, both sides appeared to be coming to the conclusion that a drip irrigation system would be a good start, even with the potentially high cost of sourcing water.

~ Evening Devotions and Debrief ~ As our LCMS Field Staff priced out the irrigation system and transportation, though, a message was indirectly passed back through several parties that the local church was, after all, very concerned about the cost of the water that would be necessary for the irrigation system. In short, they did not believe it would be possible to fund that much water over the growing season or to sustain it long term. How frustrating! What a waste of time! How completely demoralizing for this hardworking team! They failed! What are they going to tell the people who sent them? But wait, says our cultural interpreter - that's me in case you're wondering. That's not at all what has happened here. Allow me to explain from the Kenyan perspective.

~ Visiting with the Menzamwenye Leaders before Lunch ~

Time together is a blessing - this is the ministry of presence and arguably the most important thing any short-term team does. Time spent in long meetings with church elders is time together regardless of the topic. While the Americans felt like they were engaged in hours-long negotiations, the Kenyans were happy to be spending time together in conversation. While the Americans were frustrated that absolutely every single elder had to have enough time to speak his mind in these inefficient conversations, the Kenyans were relishing the relationship they were sharing and building with their friends from America. As the parties talked together, they accomplished exactly what they had set out to do. The Americans taught about greenhouses and drip irrigation. The Kenyans heard and understood. Together they explored solutions to the local problems. And together, from the American perspective, they decided to till the land, purchase, and install a drip irrigation system. And, actually, no other solution could have been publicly reached. From the Kenyan perspective, to say to the Americans directly that they are not able to manage the water consumption of a drip irrigation system would have been shameful - essentially admitting that they are unable to fulfill their end of the bargain. There was also concern about shaming the visitors who traveled so far to do this teaching. The irrigation system couldn't be turned down in a face-to-face conversation. Instead, overnight the elders met together. They recalculated the costs to double-check what would be expected of them. They talked, each having a chance to contribute and have his say. And they concluded that they wouldn't be able to do it. The amount of water was just too great. The risk was too high - especially after this year's failed maize crop that resulted in a 10,000 Shilling loss on their self-initiated building project funding system. So they declined the irrigation system in culturally appropriate ways - indirectly. Word was sent through a third party. Pastor Trump then sat together with Pastor Joseph, the parish pastor, to be sure he understood what was being conveyed. And together they rejoiced at the wisdom of the elders who knew their own capacity and valued the relationship so highly. They did not want to shame their visitors by embarking upon a project they knew they could not sustain. They did not want to risk shaming themselves if the project collapsed. When they fully understood greenhouse farming and drip irrigation systems, they realized it was not a good solution for their congregation at this time. So to preserve the relationship, they declined - indirectly - rather than accept and see the project to fail. 

The Agricultural Team from St. Andrew's accomplished their task - and a day faster than the Renovation Team! The Agricultural Team lived a ministry of presence, spent time with people, listened, shared, and successfully taught about greenhouses and irrigation systems. The Elders of the Congregation were so well informed that they were able to decide for themselves that the irrigation was not sustainable in their location and they appropriately conveyed that to the Agricultural Team. To affirm the Elders and the congregation at Menzamwenye and to show how much we appreciated the wisdom of the elders, the St. Andrews team pushed hard to complete the renovation work a day early, allowing one day free for the whole team to visit Menzamwenye. Sending the whole St. Andrew's team to Menzamwenye for visits in the community and a meal together with the church leaders confirmed that no offense had been taken and reaffirmed the strength and importance of the relationship.

Well done, Agricultural Team! And well done, St. Andrews. 

-Shauen

From the ABC3s of Miscellany Blog: Tanzania Trip Segment

The following post is provided by Rev. Dr. Albert Collver III, LCMS Director for Church Relations, as found on his ABC3s of Miscellany Blog. The original is posted here.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We arrived in Mwanza, Tanzania, on 9 February 2013. Mwanza is on Lake Victoria and the second largest city in Tanzania. It is also the headquarters of the East of Lake Victoria Diocese (ELVD) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania (ELCT). The Mid-South District of the LCMS had a partnership with the ELVD for more than a decade. In fact, Bob Allen of the Mid-South District is a name revered in the ELVD for his tireless work.



The East of Lake Victoria Diocese (ELVD) has a unique history in the Evangelical Luther Church of Tanzania (ELCT). Unlike the other dioceses which were a product of the various European mission societies, beginning with the Leipzig Mission Society in the 1840s near Mount Kilimanjaro, the ELVD was created by the Tanzania church for the purpose of mission. Only 15% of the population in the region are Christians and most of the people hold to traditional religion. 

The tilapia fish in the logo of the ELVD represents not the fish in Lake Victoria, but the deep hard to reach mission areas in Tanzania. This is one of the fastest growing areas in Tanzania in terms of mission outreach.


We visited the ELVD cathedral and headquarters. 



The ELVD Cathedral holds about 2000 people with an average attendance of 900 people per service (1800 per Sunday). 



The service and liturgy on Sunday is very similar to a Missouri Synod service from Lutheran Service Book (LSB). Both the ELCT and the LCMS drew their liturgy from the same source -- the Leipzig Agenda. The German missionaries brought the Leipzig Agenda to Tanzania and CFW Walther brought the Leipzig Agenda to America. The liturgy is nearly identical and many of the hymns are the same.


Like the Missouri Synod, the ELCT has a mixture of historic and more contemporary or modern music. In the ELCT, the liturgy is used strictly and every congregation uses the same order, even as songs both ancient and modern are interspersed. This seems like a good model that perhaps the LCMS could learn from. (FYI: Worship began at 7 am and lasted three hours. The service starts early so people can go to work if needed. There also were three offerings which roughly corresponded to Witness, Mercy, Life Together -- this is simply what the church does.)



Bishop Andrew Gulle with LCMS Pastor and Missionary Shauen Trump in Mwanza, Tanzania,waiting for the ferry across Lake Victoria. Pastor Trump is the only Swahili speaking LCMS missionary.


We took the ferry to cross Lake Victoria so we could reach the newly created diocese -- the South East if Lake Victoria Diocese (SELVD). Bishop Elect Emmanuel Makala, a doctoral student at the Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne and supported by the LCMS Mid-South District, will be installed on 5 May 2013 as Bishop. Bishop Elect Makala was the assistant to Bishop Gulle before being elected to serve as Bishop.



The cathedral of the SELVD is being constructed now with the hope that it will be finished in time for the installation of Bishop Makala.



Children with the ELCT Hymnal memorizing the Small Catechism on Saturday Confirmation Class. When the children are admitted to Confirmation Class, the children's parents are invited to the front of the church to pledge that their child will learn the Small Catechism. The ELCT hymnal has a rite for the beginning of catechism class that is used for this service. We had the opportunity to witness this on Sunday morning.



The future headquarters of the SELVD. Not yet completed but hopefully soon.



Dr. Mike Rodewald, Bishop Andrew Gulle, Dr. Albert Collver, and Pastor Shauen Trump at the site of the Old Shinyanga Church, planted by Evangelist Andrew Gulle 20 years ago.



Pastor Shauen Trump receiving a gift at the site of the SELVD Cathedral.



Bishop Gulle indicated that the greatest assistance the LCMS can be is to walk along side of the Tanzania church and assist with theological education. He also indicated that the Tanzanian Church is carefully watching the decision made by the Evangelical Ethiopian Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY) to break fellowship with the ELCA and the Church of Sweden over the issue of same sex marriage and ordination. In 2010, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania (ELCT) issued the Dedoma Statement which affirms the Biblical teaching on marriage and commits that their church will affirm the Holy Scriptures rather than sociological doctrine from America and Europe.



Rainbow over Yerusalemu Lutheran Church on Transfiguration Sunday.

The future of Lutheranism may reside in Africa rather than either Europe or America. In Africa today, there are more than 20 million Lutherans (that is, people who attend church nearly every Sunday -- unlike Europe or America). The African Lutheran Churches are showing themselves willing to resist anti-Scriptural ideas imposed upon them by Europe and America. Of course, the African Lutheran Churches have many challenges as well. The day could come when Africa sends missionaries to pagan Europe and America. There would be a certain irony in this as Africa was one of the first places to adopt the Christian faith -- think of the great theologians Athanasius and Augustin, not to mention the Ethiopian Eunuch in the book of Acts who took the Christian faith to Ethiopia.

... On way to Accra Ghana, Africa, for an African Theological Conference sponsored by the LCMS and the Luther Academy.

-- Posted the Monday after Transfiguration by Rev. Dr.
Albert Collver in flight over central Africa.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone