I just thought I would share this email I just got from my dad who is on
a mission trip in Africa.

Becca

----- Original Message -----

From: ttillapaug@...
To: Cherie_till@..., punkin13@...,
he-is-able@..., yvonnetillapaugh@...,
tillie_godlover@...
Subject: Fwd: In Africa
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:44:32 -0400

Hello family!!

Sunday

We flew from JFK in NYC to Zurich, Switzerland and then a 7 hour flight
to Nairobi, Kenya. We flew over the Alps- they are incredible!! After
flying over the Mediterranean Sea, we spent hours flying over the Sahara
Desert. It is the most desolate place I have ever seen. Literally
hundreds of miles without vegetation. Solid sand for hundreds of miles.
It makes our deserts look like rain forests.

We stayed at a missionary guest house in Nairobi. It is a walled
compound with guards. The electricity was off half the time. We had
mosquito nettings over our beds. The temperature was actually very
nice! maybe 65 degrees.

In the morning, we went to visit the giraffe center and fed giraffes!
They are very friendly. We went by one of those gigantic slums.
Unbelievably sad. Immense squalor. The regular people live bad
enough. The slum people are 10 times worse. No electricity. no
plumbing. Packed in by the hundreds of thousands.

Last night we took Mozambique's national airline (LAM) to Nampula. We
are staying in some mission dormitories here. In both Kenya and
Mozambique, everyone has guarded compounds. You can't go out at night
because of fear if getting mugged. During the day. thousands of people
just throng the street. Most roads are just ruts and here the houses are
mud huts with the occasional nice house interspersed (Nice homes have
high walls, like forts).


The church was filled with a hundred people mostly kids just singing and
dancing to Jesus for three hours. Then we spoke. All my words has to be
double translated, into Portuguese and then into their native language.
But they still got excited! I talked about, "If God is for us, who can
be against us?". Then I talked about God's miracles in the ministry.

Then a little kid crawled up in my lap on the stage- a three year old
named Sarah. I guess she thought I was papa.

A strange thing has happened, for some reason, I have lost most of my
sight in my left eye. It is very blurry, like I am looking through a
dirty windshield. I can not read with my left eye at all now. When I
get back I will go to Kaiser and figure out what it is.

Monday
Yesterday afternoon we went visit went for a drive south of town. It was
quite education. Though we no longer on the city, there was still quite
a few people walking up and down the road (dirt); they lived in mud huts
that lined the road. They are scurrying about trying to make a penny.
Carrying wood, their babies, or what not. from the town south I never
saw a pane of glass. They huts had holes for windows but no windows.
Dirt floors, dirt walls, dirt everything. Every now and then there was
something that could be construed as a store. They look like an old
concession stand. Sometimes they are just an old leanto with a lady
selling bananas or something.

There were incredible mountains off to the east. Not ranges, just
individual mountains. One looked like it had a thousand foot dropoff.
The countryside looked like a mixture of jungle and overgrown pastures.
Very lush. We finally got to the first church. They were building it
out of mud bricks and a rainstorm blew down/melted the wall. The "pews"
were individual mud bricks from the blown down walls. They were still
worshipping there. Of course no glass no electricity. Mud huts all
around. Yet the yard was immaculate. These people do their best to keep
their space as clean as is possible under the circumstances. Every
square foot of lnad was planted in corn, beans, peanuts, squash, etc.
Everywhere. That is what they live on. When the people around saw us,
they came running up to greet us 25 children or so and mothers, old men,
etc., including the pastor who is one of them. (these are very short
people; the average man is about 5'6" In the midst of all this poverty,
they were very happy people, laughing, smiling, and so glad to see us.
One of the mothers even brought corn to give us as if we needed it more
than her. I am sure they have never known anything any different.

We then went further south and turned on to what looked like a rut. We
started through the jungle on what looked like a foot path but the four
wheel drives did fine. As we went further off the main road, there were
still people living back here in clearings in the little square mud huts
with thatched roofs and no windows. After a couple of miles of an
everdwindling "road" with with tall grass and branches brushing the car
on both sides, we came to a large clearing and here was another church!
Again a well kept yard (swept dirt) These people live so far back that
they would consider the ones who live on the main dirt road
cityslickers. A boy came up and rang a bell (an old car wheel) and
people came pouring out of the jungle to greet us. The first one was a
little 2 year girl carrying an old transistor radio that I am sure has
not seen a battery in many years. People kept coming up to greet us,
still as happy as can be. Before we left, we prayed with them.

By this time, it was near dark. It was then that the magnitude of their
situation became even more evident. Very few had anything more than a
candle or a tiny fire. Some just sat there in the dark (and it REALLY
gets dark here!). As we drove back to town, we still saw people walking
on the road, in total darkness, carrying things on their heads or babies
or both. Most of the the huts sat in total darkness.

This morning we went far back on a really bad road (that word would be
generous). When we could go no further, we came to a piece of property
where we were to build a church for Pastor Alberto, a young African man
who was excited that were coming to help him. The whole area is mud huts
and gardens, mostly corn, beans, etc. They plant every square inch that
they can. This was just a cleared off corn field, sloping off to a rice
paddy. We helped the pastor figure out which day his door should face
and where on this property the building should be built and face. When I
got there, there was a mother and her baby just sitting there. The
property had a corn field (and peanuts) and this mother was finding corn
ears that were lying on the ground, She was gleaning the field.

So we sent all day today working on building this church. We got four
cement columns up today. Needless to say, zoning and codes is not a
concern. Next to the property, about twenty feet from a well that we
getting water from to mix concrete, was another young mother holding her
baby (she has another child as well). She was sitting on the ground next
to a hut whose whole front end had been blown down/melted in the last
rainstorm. So the building has no front end exposing it to the elements
(a 100% dirt house with a dirt floor). I looked it and found...nothing.
She didn't have anything. I guess they just sleep on the ground (the
floor of the house is the ground) Yet she smiled the whole time. I gave
her a dollar which 25 of what they have here. The last I saw here it was
getting dark and her older child was gathering fire wood.

Then we went back to our guarded compound with the high fence and
electricity and internet. And she is sitting out there in the dark
holding her baby, getting bit by mosquitos and getting malaria. This
makes me feel guilty about building a church. We should be rebuilding
her house.

My eye is still a mess. It is like looking through dirty film with a big
piece of black lint floating in front of the pupil. I don't think I can
do anything until I get back to the US. Is there a Kaiser in New York
City or the northeast?

More later. Pass this along to the faculty/staff and anyone else you
want.

Tom/Daddy


.
Thomas Tillapaugh
Denver Street School
National Association of Street Schools
1567 Marion Street
Denver, CO 80218
w: 303-860-1702
cell: 720-299-3420
e-mail: tom@...
DSS website: www.denverstreetschool.com
NASS website: www.streetschools.com

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Planning your summer road trip? Check out AOL Travel Guides.

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Planning your summer road trip? Check out AOL Travel Guides.

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