Jesus prays for disunity

Forgive my tone today.  I’ve been reading in preparation for Easter sermons, and I’m in a bit of a bad mood.  Just before being arrested and crucified, Jesus prays for all the future believers in the world, and much of his prayer is for unity.  But we’ve apparently opted to read his words in this way:

easter in kasilo village

the road to kasilo village

Our family spent Easter in Kasilo village, visiting a new church there.  Our teammate Calvin has been mentoring Yohana, one of the church leaders at Kasilo, and was asked to be present on Easter for several baptisms.  The Groens are on their way home for furlough, so I offered to stand in for Calvin.  This was Christie’s and my first trip to Kasilo, and we had a great time.

Yohana is a jack-of-all-trades sort, in that he is a nurse assistant by trade — and the most qualified in his village to do just about anything related to medicine.  Within minutes of arriving at Kasilo, I was called over to watch a guy have a wisdom tooth pulled.

yohana the dentist, doctor, and minister -- though he looks like about anyone from an MTV Rock 'n Jock softball game in the 90's

I wasn’t the only person watching Yohana’s work.  A crowd gathered as he prepared to pull this man’s tooth just around the back of his house.

just the usual tools of the trade

After the extraction, the patient told me that he felt absolutely no pain at any point during the process. 

the extraction of a lone wisdom tooth

 That means he felt less than I did.  It was painful to watch.  But an incredibly interesting way to begin a village visit.  Something I’ve never seen before.

the happy patient, tooth in hand

Then we ate chai — which is basically breakfast — at 9:30 am.  It was rice and beans; some of you know this is my least favorite food in the world.  They told us we were eating the stuff because it was Calvin’s favorite.  Thanks, buddy.

beans and rice for breakfast... mmmm.

Then we went to worship (the first time).  Because there were several baptisms planned for today, I preached on the relationship between water, Easter, and baptism.  (Basically that) water in the Bible usually involves some combination of the following: death, cleansing and/or new beginnings.  And that on Easter we celebrate the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  

Baptism, then, relates to both of these.  The water represents death, cleansing, and new beginning.  And the act itself embodies our death to sin, burial with Christ, and resurrection to a new life.  Baptism is a play of sorts, in which the participant reenacts the story of Jesus, as he claims it as his own story.

oh brothers, lets go down, down to the river to pray (NOT a river)

So we headed down to the large puddle / small pond in which we’d be baptizing.

a baptism performed by yohana the doctor, dentist, and baptizer

Yohana performed all ten of the baptisms while the rest of us celebrated in song.  I had gone with the goal of not doing more than one or two of the baptisms myself, so the Tanzanian leadership wouldn’t rely too heavily on us as missionaries.  I was happy to not be needed at all. 

a prayer after the baptisms -- isn't it strange that we call the act of praying prayer... and not the person who does it?

Then back to the church “building” for more worship.

worship at kasilo church

Everyone was excited to participate.  All the kids sat up front.

...and more worship

Afterwards, we ate again.  Rice and beans.

baylor learned to share with the other kids. and the girl's a huge fan of rice and beans.

My favorite part of every village visit is the time I get to spend with the men as we sit around talking before and after meals.  Today we discussed agriculture (no-till farming) and group Bible studies, among other things; we also set a date for me to return and do some more teaching.

my favorite time in the village -- sitting and talking with the men before and after meals

Then we shared together in the first communion taken by the recent baptizees.  [Is that a word?]

communion, eucharist, lord's supper, whatever you prefer to call it

Our trip to Kasilo village was a good one.  In total it was a 10-hour trip (6 in the village and 4 driving), but we were still able to be back in Geita in time to eat pizza with Carson and Holly while reading the resurrection story (in English).  The Harrison family had a very blessed Easter (see Easter photos of Baylor here).  I hope you did, too.

And please say a quick prayer for the Kasilo village church; it would be much appreciated.

baylor’s easter (and a few other days)

It’s Easter Sunday, and we’ve just returned home from a day with the church in Kasilo village.  I’ll tell you more about that tomorrow (lots of photos to download) — but today I thought I’d catch everyone up on what Baylor’s been doing lately.  So here are some pics of our little girl.  And Happy Easter!

baylor made a new friend at kasilo village today. and last week she learned to shrug her shoulders and to go'on and brush'em off (but we have no video of that just yet).

baylor with a village bicycle

baylor in a crockpot (which is not plugged in). sorry for the nudity.

baylor with crazy hair, eating a bell pepper

baylor with our friend carley (also a harrison -- no relation), who came to visit all the way from dar

baylor hanging out with the cooks in the kitchen

dirty baylor playing with an old bicycle tire... and with a girl in a VERY green easter dress

angry baylor in front of a pharmacy

wild and crazy baylor in front of a pharmacy

baylor about 30 seconds into the trip home from a long day in the village

reading through holy week

I’ve already got a post scheduled to publish today, but wanted to get this link out there in timely fashion.*  Christie, Baylor, and I are using this week’s morning Bible reading times (and adding an evening reading time) to navigate the scripture’s account of “Holy Week.”  [Until that last sentence, I'd always just referred to it as the week of Jesus' crucifixion.  So don't call me unwilling to try a new turn of phrase.]

J.R. Briggs has published a reading guide which designates which passages should be read each day (except Wednesday, because apparently there’s no record in the Bible of what happened on that day).  So his guide leads you through Holy Week both chronologically and in real time.  He’s also made some devotional suggestions which correspond with each day.  

This could be a great way to prepare ourselves for Easter.  Even better than buying your son one of those suits that has shorts (instead of pants) and a bow tie.  And if you’re not already reading your Bible regularly, this week is a terrific one to start.  Here’s the link:

Holy Week 2011 — Participants’ Guide

Happy reading.

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* The reading calendar begins today.