What an absolutely amazing trip! Below you’ll see some pics of the journey – I tried to add commentary as the pictures accumulated, but WordPress somehow won’t allow me to do that, so it’s a string of pictures and videos!
We started at a game reserve for two nights, and went on a walking tour of the 11,000 acres to see some cool animals. Note the pic with the guy with the gun in case a lion or wildebeest came after us…
We were brought to the gate at 11,000 feet and started our 10 day journey. We had 44 porters carrying all our stuff, 3 guides, 2-3 “medical” people, and a great group of 6 of us; Kris and Gabe, a young, fun, adventurous couple from Toronto, Pam, a fun, energetic, hilarious 40 YO exec from Indianapolis who kept us laughing most of the time, Julie and Joe, who are a 50ish YO couple who have lots of experience trail running and are all around fun, passionate people, plus MC (Mountain Cheetah), our guide, Gideon, Chris, Hendry, Matthew (my personal porter) and so many others made this awesome trek!
There was more snow up on Kili than there’s been in more than 20 years, but we all made it to the goal of 19,341. There are actually two other “peaks” that people get to that are around 1,000 feet less than Uhuru, but we made it all the way.
This morning I visited the Selian Hospice and Palliative Care Center, which is right around the corner from my hotel. I had been encouraged to visit here, and Dr. Mark set up a visit with the staff, and I’m so glad I visited because I really wasn’t looking forward to it. I mean, who wants to visit a hospice?
Selian Hospice has been in operation for a number of years and served about 100 patients under their palliative card until they partnered with a Denver Hospice and the Arusha Lutheran Medical Center, and grew to minister to about 5,000 patients in 2016, with a paid staff of about 18, and 300 well-trained volunteers. Many of their patients are HIV/AIDS people, and it’s referred to as one word because the timing between contracting HIV and AIDS is so quick because of lack of preventative medicine.
USAID had been a major funder of this program, but by the end of 2016 there had been deep cuts to USAID because of changes in their funding priorities. Tragically, with those massive cuts come deep cuts to the Selian programs and outreach, and now they are back to ministering to only several hundred end-of-life patients, and the thousands that they once supported now do not receive any support.
In recent years (as I understand the 50% of what I was being told because of the difficulty in communicating in English) is that cancer is on a big rise, and HIV/AIDS is stable or declining because of the years of education throughout Africa. Praise God for that, but breast cancer is rampant here, and women are only able to get manual checks because the nearest mammogram machine is a 4 hour drive away in Nairobi. I asked a couple times about that, and it seems to be true. The hospital here doesn’t have a mammogram machine and is not able to do much radiation care, as I understand it, and chemo is expensive for those women without insurance, so they most often are not able to afford it. Tragic stuff. Brought tears to my eyes as I thought about this. Wow. Luckily Dr. Jacobson is involved in developing some medical care nearby at the Kilimanjaro area where they hope to have a mammogram machine.
A large part of what they do is train volunteers in villages to do hospice ministry/care. Because some of the roads are almost unpassable during the Tanzanian rainy season they train volunteers during the dry season. Many of these trained volunteers are the village/region Lutheran evangelists, so it’s pretty amazing the work that they do.
Oh, and the third picture here is of the treats they prepared for me. Coffee was instant, and the banana is a deep fat fried green banana. There’s only one deep fat fried green banana on the plate there; that’s because they gave me two, and I had to take a picture of it to give my stomach a break before I ate the second one. Not my fav delicacy, and you can be sure I’m not going to bring a plate of deep fat fried green bananas to the next Zion potluck, but my mama always taught me to eat what’s on your place because there are starving children in Africa, and since I’m in Africa, and since I’ve seen so many starving children, there was no choice but to eat it.
This is a picture of a used water bottle used to keep liquid oral morphine. Not knowing, I asked if the patient drank the whole thing, and they all had a knee slapping laugh at my expense, and said that no, they drink about a half a teaspoon. Silly me.
This was the staff I met with. Wonderful people who are passionate about their work. The pastor in the middle (I had a tough time getting names…) attended Wartburg Seminary in the US for his training as a hospice chaplain, and had read one of my dad’s books, so that was pretty awesome.
I get picked up to climb Kilimanjaro tomorrow (Tuesday) evening, so this just might be my last post for a while. Wish me luck, and keep me in your prayers, and I’ll post something as soon as I’m able.
Again, it’s such a blessing to be here and experience Africa in this way. Amazing and awesome and humbling in so many ways. And again, thanks to Zion for supporting this, and to the Lilly Endowment Fund for leaders who is funding this entire experience!
Oh my, what a wonderful day! I went to church this morning at Arusha Community Church, a nondenominational, international, multicultural, English speaking congregation on the grounds of the Arusha Lutheran hospital. The church is connected to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania. It was wonderful in every way, and they sang songs that we normally sing at Zion, too. The second video is of a beautiful little guy sitting right in front of me. The Masai people/tribe are beautiful, gracious, kind, joyous people. I asked Margaret if I just bring home and adopt one of these kids, and she was fine with that, but I think this kid is pretty attached to his mom, so I didn’t ask.
I went to the adult forum before church, but the leader didn’t show up, and I met Moses who is a Lutheran evangelist who is supported by the Arusha church to do evangelism amongst the Muslims in Tanzania. He looked for support to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT) but they declined, since outreach to Muslims isn’t considered “politically correct.” I think they must have gotten that from the American church…
He has a heart for Jesus, and does amazing work, and is a typical Masai guy – kind, generous, and genuinely wonderful.
Then met Eunice Simonson, and old, old friend of the family, who, with her husband, David, started Operation Bootstrap in 1965. David and my dad went to seminary together years ago, and David and Eunice and my parents have been friends for a very lone time. See http://www.bootstrapafrica.org to find out more. David died several years ago, but his ministry continues through his children and his passion. OBA has focused largely on the education and empowerment of African girls, and the work they do is just amazing. I had not met Eunice before, but I had heard of the work of OBA for years. David is well known for being a visionary, passionate, draw-outside-the-lines rebel of Lutheran missionary who knew that God had placed a huge burden on his heart for this ministry, and he did whatever he needed to educate and empower African girls.
I also met a guy from the worship committee of the church, and he invited me back at some point in the future to spend some time at the church to preach, teach, and be a part of this amazing community. At some point I hope to do just that!
Below are some pictures post-worship.
The white guy below (easy to pick out…) is Dr. Mark Jacobson, the director of the Arusha Lutheran Medical Center. He’s been here for 35 years as an ELCA medical missionary. He just returned from the South Sudan, where the other three people are from. In the South Sudan he set up a surgical suite in a couple school rooms and did surgery on about 15 women who suffered from a condition of “leaking urine”, as he describes it, which made it very difficult for them to be with their husbands, or anyone else. One woman he did surgery on had leaking urine for 40 years. And Mark did surgery which healed her condition. I told him that he’s kinda like Jesus with the woman with the flow of blood for 12 years. I think he liked that. 🙂
So. The gal of the left below is Terry, who is originally from Klamath Falls. I’ll tell you about the guy in the middle in a moment. Terry has a daughter and son-in-law in Bend, so that’s kind of cool.
Terry works with albino outreach and ministry in Tanzania. Albinos are fairly rare here, but when they are born to African parents out in the small villages, they can’t understand how a white baby can come from black parents. Some of the witch doctors in the remote villages tell people that the albino children have to have come from the mother having sex with a goat, so, of course, the children (and mother) are shunned. Additionally, albino children have a high percentage of either being killed as “freaks” or kidnapped and trafficked, or just killed. If they survive, with their light and fragile skin, and since they don’t have Coppertone in small, remote villages, over 85% of albino people die by the time they are 30.
Terry is passionate about her work, and I’ll tell ya, I got chocked up a couple times while she was describing her work.
And that’s the thing. When you come to Africa, your heart breaks for Africa. It happened the last time I was here 12 years ago, and it’s happening again. Your heart breaks for Africa, with the beautiful people and the huge, huge need that they have. We are SO lucky and blessed in Redmond. And we have a responsibility to people here. We simply can’t ignore their plight.
But wait. I’m about to break into a sermon, and I promised myself not to do that.
Until I get back, that is…
And finally, this is Sylvester, below. Unbeknownst to me, he is a friend of Terry’s, and has been a driver for some of her trips to the remote places of Tanzania for the work with albinos. Sylvester was my taxi driver to and from church this morning.
Sylvester grew up in a remote village in Tanzania, where his father had four wives and 26 children. If I had that many children I’d name the boys Bill and the girls Sally, just to keep them straight.
Sylvester grew up on the streets of town as kind of an urchin, went to work in the mines, and then started being a porter on trips up Kilimanjaro before being promoted as a guide. He’s been up Kili over 100 times. Heck, I just want to make it once. Several years ago he hurt his back, so he’s been driving taxi for the last while. He also has a heart for God, and told me about the love of his family and how tribalism infects so many families in the bush, but that his family all gets along, and he attributes everything to God. Wonderful guy.
Later this afternoon I’m getting a tour of the market down the street, and tomorrow morning I think I’m going to a Lutheran hospice right around the corner from where I’m staying. In the meantime, I wanted to get this up for the people of Zion before church begins back home. It’s about 3:00 in the afternoon here, but it’s only 6:00 am in Redmond.
Good morning, and may your day be blessed. I know that mine is blessed beyond belief just by being here.
After a long day’s flight from Athens to Amsterdam to Arusha (and getting Margaret on to her Athens to Amsterdam to Seattle to Redmond flights), I awoke Saturday morning to meet wonderful Dr. Alex, a Tanzanian dentist, to visit his clinic on the campus of the Arusha Lutheran Medical Center. Here’s Dr. Alex with the other dentist he works with by their dental chairs.
Dr. Alex showed me his dental chairs, which look like they came from my childhood years where I used to go to Dr. Bjorndahl, who worked without gloves, had hairy knuckles, and worked with horses on his off hours, but you knew it when he had his fingers halfway down your throat. But I digress…
In the Arusha side of Mount Kilimanjaro there have a high level of fluoride in their water. 1.5 parts per million is high fluoride; in Arusha there is 8 parts per million. That means that children are susceptible to a variety of bone deformities in their legs and ankles and also to tooth deformities at an early age that lead to improper tooth development and problems in adult life. Dr. Alex is a dentist, but God put preventative pediatric dental care on his heart, so he’s starting a pilot project to work with a local school with 1,800 kids in grades 1-4; his project that Zion is looking at supporting helps to teach teachers to provide dental education to their students. Currently he’s working with just grade 1 at the school, with 800 kids in that grade. Colgate donated dental packs (tooth brushes, tooth paste, and floss) to the 800 kids, and he’s looking at growing the program to include more students and more schools as this project grows. Zion is on the ground floor of supporting this project, so it’s very exciting.
Oh, and by the way, the second and third pictures are their dental lab. Oh, and also, the pictures of the X-Ray machines are the old films; they’re not digital, so they have to look at the films. And one of the machines was delivered years ago, second-hand, with missing parts, so it doesn’t work, but they keep it there just for posterity.
To repair a cavity costs about $15; a root canal is $45. Most Tanzanians can’t afford that, so they go without much dental care at all. This can be devastating for them, and especially difficult for the children. That’s what we hope to help out with at Zion. 85% of people here don’t have insurance at all, and even the small cost of dental care is out of the reach of most Tanzanians.
Then it was on to the Arusha Lutheran Medical Center, a private hospital which is one of the best in Tanzania. The Lutheran hospital system here is similar to the Lutheran hospital systems in the U.S. of 100 years ago where good Lutheran people started hospitals and social service agencies. They pay a very high tax, which caused the hospital to come close to closing last year because they couldn’t afford the taxes. Tanzania is a democratic country, but they elected a guy recently who put many detractors in jail, and it’s coming close to a dictatorship, which is very unfortunate.
The rest of the pictures are from around town, including one of a woman sweeping her sidewalk.
And here is Dr. Alex and me after the morning tour. He’s a wonderful, gracious person and it is going to be very rewarding working with his project!
Since Margaret’s uncle is Zorba the Greek we had to take a 4 hour Greek cooking class. Actually her grandfather is from Athens so that’s close enough to be a distant relative of Zorba.
We met Marina and found that we were the only ones in the class that day. WooHoo! We first went to the fish and meat and vegetable markets where we bought what we were going to cook.
Then it was to Marina’s flat by subway where we cooked up one of the best meals we’ve ever had! Amazing 5 hour experience!!!
From Athens we boarded a largish cruise ship for three days on the Greek Isles. We first went to Ephesus, where Paul spent 3 years in this pagan society. We visited what is considered the House of Mary, where Mary is said to have spent her last days. Then we went to Patmos, where John wrote Revelation. We saw the Monastery of St. John, and the Cave of the Apocalypse, but they didn’t allow pictures, so that’s that!
The next day we went to Heraklion, Crete, and Santorini, which was amazing. We took a tour of the cliff-top village of Oia, with the blue domed houses, and it was utterly wonderful!
Then it was back to Athens where we disembarked, went to Corinth, then back to the Parthenon, and back to our Athens hotel where we we’re spending a couple extra days before Eric goes to Africa, and Margaret gets back home.
This is truly an unbelievable experience, and again we’re so grateful to Zion for being so supportive of such an experience, and to the Lilly Endowment Grant for making this financially possible! Truly, the trip of a lifetime! Stay tuned for more in the coming days…
Sorry for the delay! There was only email available on the 3 day cruise, and no possibility of uploading pictures. I know, First World Problem. This update is just from a couple days listed above, and then the next one will be the 3 day cruise, and some final pics from Athens!
We went to Berea, where we saw where Paul preached to the local community where Paul and Silas were sent by friends after they were accused of treason at Thessaloniki.
From Berea we went to Meteora, where there are monasteries built on high cliffs where 6 of them still are operating. Absolutely stunning! Much more information about Meteora is there, but this is mostly a picture blog!
The next day we went back to Athens and prepared for boarding a ship! Totally amazing time so far! Watch soon for the next update!
Ah yes, multiple romantic dinners with the lovely Mrs. Burtness. What could be better?
But I digress. Since the last blog post there’s been a whole lotta travel! We went from Florence to Sienna, which was once the financial capital of Italy. Amazing place!
Then we went to Rome for a quick night’s sleep, and then on to Athens for the next tour of the Footsteps of Paul! That began Sunday evening; Monday morning began a 300 mile trek on the bus up to Thessaloniki. We saw the Church of St. Dimitri, who was a fourth century martyr. Amazing sights/sites are around every corner!
Once there we took a trip to Philippi, which was totally amazing. One of the pictures below was the “prison” where Paul and Silas were after they were beaten in the public square for casting the demons out of a sorcerer who then lost her source of income…I won’t go into it now, but it’ll be in a sermon sometime, for sure!
Also at Philippi we visited the place where Lydia is said to have housed Paul and his disciples, and she was the first Christian convert baptized by Paul in Philippi. There is a shrine dedicated to the place where she was baptized, and it was just an amazing place!
And we end this blog post by another picture of the lovely Mrs. Burtness, cooling her feet in the stream where Lydia was baptized.
We are having a marvelous time!! It is truly an amazing opportunity and we feel so blessed and fortunate to be able to be here!
Tune in again on Friday, where I hope to post another entry from the cruise ship!
What an awesome couple of days! We went from Venice and Burano to Pisa, and arrived there just in time for Margaret to save the day.
Pisa was totally amazing. Of course we went up the winding narrow steps up to the top of the tower, which was somewhat of a feat with a little challenge to our balance with the lean of the Tower! At the bottom of the Tower was the Fallen Angel; fascinating!
And there we saw the most awesome sight: Nuns with a selfie stick. Who’da thunk?
On to Florence and the Academia Gallery to see the 17 foot tall David. Awestruck all the way. Amazing.
And those amazing eyes focused on Goliath. And then on to the Florence Cathedral and other sights around Florence.
And the graves of Galileo, Michelangelo, Dante, and Machiavelli at Santa Croce Cathedral. There are more Renaissance Masters buried there than any other place in Italy.
You know, there are a whole boatload of Catholics in Italy. Apparently 85 percent of the population. Even so, I’ve looked and looked for a statue of Martin Luther in every corner, and this is closest resemblance to Luther I was able to find.
Four hours at the Uffizi Gallery was over the top amazing. We have so many pictures, but here are just a few of some of the more familiar ones, including a close-up of Jesus saying, “Get that fat little angel boy away from me.”
Yeah, not a great pic, but it was at the end of a very long and tiring and amazing day. Tomorrow it’s on to Sienna, with tomorrow night in Rome, and up and at ’em at 2:30 am to get to the airport and catch our 6:00 am flight to Athens on Sunday morning where we begin our 9 day Footsteps of Paul tour! No rest for the wicked, eh?
Stay tuned until next Tuesday at about this time for the next blog posting! Love to you all! We’re having an amazing and wonderful time and are so thankful and blessed to have this opportunity!
Pastor Eric and Margaret's Sabbatical Blog! 