A well. A building. A baby.

  I haven’t posted much about Samaritan Village lately.  I think this is approximately where I left off:

  We are members of the board of directors, and are working with them to get through some kinks in the structure of the organization so that they are in a place where they can send a couple of American’s over to serve. (us?)  Not sure how long this will take – God’s speed.  When we get to that place, we’ll see if it is us he will send, or someone else!  In the meantime, we’re serving in the way that we see God putting in front of us!

 

  We are working on building a second orphanage about two hours away from the current orphanage.  This orphanage came about because a woman came from the area (bringing twins to leave at the orphanage.) and explained that there were lots of children dying in her area because they were being abandoned.  So : orphanage number two.  This orphanage is in Mwanga.  Very exciting.

 

  Anyway…

  Yesterday we got a phone call from the president of the organization to let us know that someone in California made a very large donation to the organization with the intent to dig the well for the second orphanage, and to build the first building there!  Praise God!  So, overnight we went from wondering how God was going to provide for us to build the second orphanage, to having a good portion of it covered!  This came among several other answered prayers regarding the Mwanga orphanage – what a blessing.

Well: Check.

Primary Building: Check.

 

  Other news on the Samaritan Village front:  A new baby was brought to the Arusha orphanage yesterday! 

 

Adorable.

 

  He was found abandoned about 4 kilometers outside of the city.  Amazingly, he was found in generally good health at the hospital before he was taken to the orphanage.  They think he is approximately 11 months old (he’ll be assigned a ‘birthdate’).  He’s not been given a name just yet.

 

  If you could send up a prayer for this little guy, I think he’ll probably have a rough couple of weeks.  Luckily he’s got lots of loving Mamas to take care of him at Samaritan Village!

Fitting.

I just heard this song today for the first time, and thought that it was fitting for the post yesterday.  Cool video too.

Ringing in the New Year, Tanzanian Style.

Well, Brian is in Arusha! 
I just got an e-mail update from him about all he's doing and experiencing, and it sounds like the trip is going really well.
He's there with the founder of Samaritan Village, the president of the American board, and a few other people who also joined them on the trip.  It took a while for him to e-mail me because they are trying to get a new computer that was just donated to the Village hooked up with internet access.

Brian says:

It's almost 5pm here, and all of the people here are working hard preparing for a new year's party.  They are cooking a goat.  Yes, a goat.  That was alive this morning.   They are expecting over 400 people.  I wish I could just type and type and type, because I want to share with you how everything is going, but I don't really have time, so here is a chronological summary.

I took a ton of pictures on the way back, it took us about 1:15 to get back to the Village from the airport at Kilimanjaro.  The first thing I got to see when we arrived was the dorm, where we are staying.   It is huge!  It's built like a condo or apartment complex, with two floors, two units on each floor (left and right) with stairs to the second floor balcony in between the sides.  Each unit has three bedrooms, three baths, and a 250 sq ft living/dining/kitchen area.  The rooms are a decent size too.  The bathrooms aren't all the way finished yet, the shower is just a shower head sticking out of the wall, no pan or curtain.  Only the first floor is finished, and even then the kitchen area only has a sink right now.
I got to walk around and meet everyone shortly after that.  The kids are beautiful, and so happy and smily all the time.  I will have a lot of pictures, but I'm really really really wishing I had remember to bring our video camera!! 
From the front porch of the main building you can see Mt. Meru (MAY-roo, I got that wrong), and it is stunning. It is so beautiful here, the weather today was a little cool when I first went outside (maybe 65-70 degrees) and it warmed up to 80 this afternoon, with a cool breeze under partly cloudy skies.
Last night we went (along with some of the kids) to a Bridal send off party. (For the fiance of the father of the orphanage)  The best way to describe it is a combination of a wedding reception/rehearsal dinner/bridal shower.  It was at a banquet hall (the large back room of a place called "The Police Officers Mess Hall".   There were about 150 people there, and the party lasted from 6:30 until 11:30.  I will tell you more about it when I get back and show you the pictures, but it was really neat to get a glimpse of their culture.
We got home at midnight, and slept soundly...until 5:30am when the Swahili praise music started blaring from the chapel, and I heard Josephat preaching loudly for the morning service.  So sleeping in wasn't an option.
This morning I had pancakes (pan fried corn-flour sweet thick tortillas) and a banana fresh from the market for breakfast, then I spent some time journaling, walking around taking pictures of the place, and helping out a little with cleaning up the grounds.
This afternoon we went in to Arusha to do a little shopping; we went to a handmade craft market and I bought small gifts for you and sylvie.
Oh honey, there's so much here that I want to tell you about, so much that I can't even fit it all in this email.  But there are two things that I haven't mentioned yet that you need to know.  1) I haven't seen a single mosquito, even last night as darkness fell and I was standing in the parking lot of the police officer's mess hall.  and 2) the well water here is safe to drink!  I have been drinking it for 24 hours now and I still feel fine!
I'm feeling well, though a little tired.  I am glad to be here in this beautiful place, and I really need to learn swahili.  That phrasebook and Tanzania book were very helpful to me, as I already had the basic conversation pieces (hello, goodbye, how are you, good, fine, yes, no, please, thank you) down before I got here!
I love you, I miss you, and I have already taken 350 pictures. kiss and hugs to you and my beautiful daughter!
Love,
Brian

I can't tell you what a blessing it is to get these e-mail updates!  It is also such a blessing for him to get to go there to see Arusha, the orphanage, and to meet the people before we actually move there.  God has given me so much peace about all of this, even just through this one short e-mail.

Anyway, just wanted to share the update!  Hopefully there will be more soon, and of course lots of pictures when he gets back.  You're prayers are so appreciated!

The Pearl.

Well, I realize that I’ve not been around here much lately.  God’s been busy around the Popp house creating some waves that are beginning to look a little more like a tsunami.  To us anyway.  To God it probably looks like we’re splashing in puddles.

 

Do you remember this post?  I talked about how I knew in my heart that God was preparing us for something, but that I had no idea what it was.  I knew the wind was picking up, but I had no idea where this tsunami was going to come from.

 

Well, God was faithful in revealing the pearl he has for us.  As if I should be surprised.  Looking back on that post, it is still a mystery to me how God works.  How he put a desire, a longing, a burden on my heart to prepare me for what he would ask of us.  (This post leaves me in awe of His planning as well.  And this one just seems a little ironic at this point.)

 

God has presented Brian and I with an opportunity to take our family to Tanzania.  To live.  There.  In Tanzania.  As in,

 

We would be serving as administrators for an orphanage there called Samaritan Village in Arusha.  We’d also be working as communication between the board of directors here, and the board of directors there.  (This requires learning Swahili.  No big deal, right?)  There is such a huge need for this there.  The orphan crisis is doing nothing but growing, and if these babies don’t have somewhere to go, then quite simply, they just die.

The organization is also working on building a second orphanage about an hour away that we would help with as well.  All of the other people who work at the orphanage are locals, but there are a few other Americans in Arusha serving as missionaries in different ways. 

 

So yeah.  It’s looking really, very possible that we will be moving to Africa.  We’d likely go sometime in late summer of next year.  Between now and then we would have to sell our house, sell our cars, have a baby, raise financial support for our time there, put all our stuff in storage, and move.

 

This isn’t something that we pursued, which is one of the reasons it is so evident to us that God is orchestrating all of this.  We were surprised.  He is not.

I’m going to try to put into words how this all came about – but it will take some time, so all  that for another post.  I’ll also try to share more about the orphan crisis and the need there, and about why in the world we would move our family to the other side of the world. 

So far this has been one of the most blessed, scary, awe inspiring, humbling, and challenging experiences we have faced – and it’s certain to not get any less so in the coming months!

 

So there you have it.  When God is preparing you for something, hold on, cause he might just send you to Africa.