They told me that i can use it for three month,
with out filling again and i can fill it in $30,that is after three month.
So thank you somuch for all that,may god bless you all
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
The thing that hold the gass for my cooker
They told me that i can use it for three month,
with out filling again and i can fill it in $30,that is after three month.
So thank you somuch for all that,may god bless you all
Back to Tanzania
I have bought my gass cooker using te money that,
Jack geved me for that.I started using it yesterday.
Thank you for your help to get that
Monday, June 2, 2008
The English pf in Samford
She made me so happy with her cord.I will never forget you.
She so specil to me in my heart,like Jack Brymer
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
My story from Jacksonville time's
CROCODILE ATTACK CHANGED HIS LIFE For most of us, it would be hard to pick a single defining moment in our life. For John Megoliki, though, that's easy. One moment profoundly altered his life, first nearly ending it, then adding layers upon layers of change to it. At age 6, a crocodile bit off his right arm. It was an event that didn't just forever affect him in the obvious physical ways. It changed him spiritually and professionally. It led him to forsake an ordained-at-birth job - witch doctor for the village - and give up all that came with it. First, though, it led him to North Florida. At age 9, he underwent extensive surgery and treatment here, got a prosthetic arm, then returned home to Tanzania. At the time, the people who got to know him in Jacksonville - doctors and nurses, church members, families who opened their home to him - thought it might be the last time they saw him. But he has come back twice, first in 2000 for a prosthesis replacement and again this month for a new, adult-s!ized prosthetic arm. He no longer is the little boy who only spoke Swahili. He now is 6-foot-5 and speaks fluent English, albeit often softly and sometimes reluctantly. He has been using this change from his first visit - no more need for a translator - to speak to local Baptist churches and youth groups, telling them a story. His story. The boy who lost his arm to a crocodile. A walk to the river with cows Megoliki grew up in a village just south of the Serengeti. One of his chores, as the oldest boy in the family, involved taking his father's 25 cows down to the Pangani River for water. Before the cows entered the water, he would wade in to scare away any crocodiles. The inherent dangers in this task are obvious. But until a day in May 1990, he had never even encountered one. On that day, though, a 6-foot crocodile bit into his right arm and tried to pull him underwater. He managed to get free, grab a tree branch with his left hand and swing to shore. ''When I look a!t what happened, it seems like something lifted me out of the !river,''he said last week. ''I wasn't able to hold the tree with two hands. That day, I held it with one hand. I look at that and say it is impossible. Sometimes I say, maybe it was an angel who took me out of the river.'' He knows exactly who took him to a faraway hospital. Tim Tidenberg, a Southern Baptist missionary, was driving through the area when he spotted Megoliki's father frantically waving. Tidenberg stopped, got the boy and drove him to a hospital about three hours away. Megoliki spent five months there, before eventually returning to the village - and to his old job of tending to the cattle. Three years passed. Jack Brymer, a mission volunteer from Jacksonville, accompanied Tidenberg to Megoliki's village. And the Florida Baptist Convention arranged for the boy to travel 10,000 miles to Jacksonville, a place where the otherworldly oddities included people who seemed to worship orange-and-blue Gators. ''We were an education for him and he was an education for us,'' !Carolyn Nichols said. The Nichols home in the Julington Forest subdivision became his home. He bonded with their two daughters. He played soccer with kids in the neighborhood. He became a country music fan. Fifteen years later, he is back for a visit that serves several purposes. He met with Bruce Steinberg, the physician who operated on him in 1993, and returned to Hanger Prosthetics. He also is speaking at churches, trying to raise money to help pay for college. And in the process, Nichols says, he is putting a face on the churches' international missions. A familiar face. ''That smile hasn't changed,'' she said. He gave up everything So much else has, though. It isn't just that his left arm grew to the point where it was 6 inches longer than his old prosthetic. The other day, he sat in the Nichols' living room, answering many questions with a shrug and maybe a smile - until the discussion turned to being a witch doctor. His father and mother have died. He is respo!nsible for raising his four younger siblings. But instead of t!aking the job that he was destined to have, he has plans to enter Mount Meru University, a Christian school in Tanzania, this fall. He wants a career in electronics or perhaps business. ''When you become a witch doctor, you must kill people,'' he said. Walking through the room, Carolyn Nichols paused and said, ''Did you say kill people?'' He had said this so softly and matter-of-factly that it did seem possible he had said ''heal'' people. No, he repeated, kill people. ''You must make sacrifices,'' he said. He said that maybe others would be doing the killing, but that wouldn't matter. In his mind, he would be responsible. When he got to heaven, he said, God would hold him responsible. He said that if he had become the witch doctor, he would have been given 18 cows. By deciding not to become a witch doctor, he lost the cows - one of the most valuable commodities in the village - and his family lost their home. All that, he explained, belongs to the witch. As he dissected his !spiritual journey, talking about the prospect of figuratively having blood on his hands, he ultimately came back to the day he literally had blood gushing from his right arm. ''My father was the witch doctor,'' he said, ''but he couldn't save me from the crocodile.'' http://us.mc588.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=mark.woods@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4212
my history in Jacksonville baptist witness 2008
Tanzanian warrior single-handedly shares God’s faithfulness
The John Megoliki story
By EVA WOLEVERAssistant Editor
Published May 15, 2008
Photo by Eva Wolever
John Megoliki spoke to students at a youth event at Cedar Bay Baptist Church in Jacksonville April 12. Megoliki also sang a song in Swahili, involving the students by teaching them the words and showing them the movements.
JACKSONVILLE (FBW)—Never have problems.
Although the meaning of John Megoliki’s last name is instilled with an optimistic promise, the young man from Tanzania has overcome many challenges in the space of 24 years. His faith, however, has not wavered.
“God is able and God is able to do anything,” Megoliki told Florida Baptist Witness. “No one has ability to say, ‘God don’t do this.’ God does as He wants. If He wants your life today, He’ll take it today.”
Megoliki learned a deep reliance on God when he was very young.
Around the age of seven, as Megoliki was caring for his father’s herd of cows, he entered the river first to scare away any crocodiles.
One day, a crocodile clamped its jaws on his arm and tried to pull him into the water, Megoliki said. Struggling with the reptile, Megoliki gouged the animal’s eyes with his fingers—a defensive technique he had been taught—and managed to free himself, but at the cost of his right arm.
Tim Tidenberg, an International Mission Board missionary in Tanzania, found the boy and took him to a hospital where he arranged for him to receive immediate medical attention before Megoliki was returned to his village. Three years later, after his mangled stump continued to deteriorate, Tidenberg brought his medical needs to the attention of a Florida group on a mission trip there. Within months they arranged for medical treatment in Jacksonville that included a prosthetic arm and the Florida Baptist Convention paid his way to the United States.
“God saved me from the crocodile,” Megoliki recently told a group of students at Cedar Bay Baptist Church in Jacksonville—at one of his many speaking engagements while visiting the United States for the third time.
Throughout the challenges in his life—which have been many, from his arm being bitten off to his parents dying and leaving him responsible for his four younger brothers and sisters—Megoliki said God has guided him.
“God has helped me because everything I see now which is against God, God would open a new door for me to go in,” Megoliki said.
Megoliki said many people question his positive outlook, seeing his prosthetic arm and the physical limitations that entails.
“There’s God in my life,” Megoliki said. “I never blamed God and say, ‘Oh, God, You have done this to me, and this, and this. I don’t have two hands.’ I never blamed God. God made that before I was born. He said there’d come a time when you have one hand and I will find a new way for you to get a prosthesis.”
Photo by Eva Wolever
Megoliki stopped traffic in his traditional morani robes that signify him as a Maasai warrior.
“Maybe God had done that because he wanted me to serve His will,” Megoliki concluded.
Megoliki shares his message of faith whenever he can—from Jacksonville to Birmingham, Ala.
Jacksonville has been one of his homes away from Africa, Megoliki said. He returned to Jacksonville for the third time March 27 to be fitted for a new prosthesis sized to his 6’5” frame. As in his previous visits, he stayed with Gary and Carolyn Nichols, members of Fruit Cove Baptist Church in Jacksonville. Gary is also Associate Director of Discipleship Training at the Florida Baptist Convention, while Carolyn is a long-time newswriter for the Witness.
Baptists and Florida Baptists in particular have been instrumental in Megoliki’s life, said Carolyn Nichols, calling Megoliki a “poster child for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.”
And Megoliki has been faithful in following the legacy of the missionaries and Christian men and women who have cared for him through the years, Nichols said. Nearly every Sunday and Wednesday while he is in America, Megoliki shares his testimony and the urgency of sharing the Gospel in Africa.
Megoliki hails from a long line of respected, and feared, witchdoctors. Even now, people will hear his last name and recognize his grandfather’s name. Megoliki’s father never practiced the craft, but he kept the paraphernalia—which is worth about 11 cows, he said.
As the eldest son, Megoliki should also have inherited the trade, but as a Christian, Megoliki would not even keep the pieces of his grandfather’s livelihood. After asking his brothers and sisters about it, they all agreed the relics should be burned.
“We destroyed together as we fasted and prayed,” Megoliki said. “You can’t burn without praying. You can’t destroy without praying, no way. You put drums on there you put drums and drums; they’ll still be there until prayer.”
Jack Brymer, former editor of the Witness, was part of the mission group that visited Tanzania as part of a three-year partnership between the Florida and Tanzania Baptist Conventions and arranged for Megoliki’s medical care. Megoliki spends part of each visit with the Brymer family, which now lives in Birmingham.
“I see the future of Africa in the people like John Megoliki, who, by-the-way, are products of Baptist work through the years,” Brymer said. “But, it’s a new day so what I’m thinking is significant is that we see the value of educating these people and empowering them to take the Gospel rather than us going over there and trying to take it for them.”
One of Megoliki’s dreams is to set up a secondary school in Losiminguri for the Misaim people, Brymer said. Currently they have only a primary school.
“[Losiminguri is] the heart of Maasai land and that’s kind of a message that he’s trying to get across with what he’s doing,” Brymer said. “He’s going to the heart of the Maasai people, not just his clan, but the whole Maasai nation.”
Megoliki is fiercely proud of his culture, both Nichols and Brymer agree. But, he realizes there are things his people need to learn—and he thinks more education will make a big difference in their lives.
“John sees a lot of things that he appreciates about tribal life and law but he also sees things that are really detrimental to people,” Nichols said. “He wants people to know that not all traditions are worth keeping.”
Megoliki speaks strongly against the traditional practice of female circumcision—female genital mutilation (FGM). At times the elders listen to him because he is educated through high school, Nichols said.
Megoliki told of a time a 13-year-old girl from his home village called him while he was at school. She was scared because the tribe was going to circumcise her that weekend. Megoliki told her not to worry, that he would come.
Megoliki met with the elders and told them they shouldn’t perform the ritual and that it was illegal, he said. Many of the older people cursed him, but the elders agreed not to perform the circumcision.
A couple of days later, the girl called Megoliki again saying they were still going to do it. Megoliki went to the police station and went with the officers to the village. The officers refused to go alone, fearing the village men might kill them.
Entering the girl’s home before dawn on that Sunday morning, they found the girl’s father and other members of the tribe preparing for the circumcision ceremony that was to take place just after dawn. The officers arrested the girl’s father and he was sent to prison for two years, Megoliki said.
Many of the villagers now fear him, Megoliki said. Others apologized for not believing him. One gave him a goat and thanked him for teaching them. Megoliki said that although the event stopped some female circumcisions, the practice continues.
While he speaks against FGM, the rite of circumcision is one of the tests Megoliki said he had to pass to become a Maasai Morani—warrior.
“At the time of circumcision [you can’t] shake even a finger or do anything. They don’t use medicines at circumcision or anything. … Without any shot to lose pain. So they look at you and look at you with their eyes and it’s in public where people come and watch you and people watch the fingers. If you shake your fingers,” Megoliki said barely twitching three long fingers, “you’re nothing. You better find a new way to go.”
What else did he have to do to become a tribal warrior?
“There are some tests you have to pass,” Megoliki said nonchalantly. “Like killing a lion.”
Nichols said it is hard for her to imagine Megoliki in his life in Africa.
Nichols cared for the hurt young boy in 1993, met the morani he had become in 1999, and now sees a more serious, responsible man anxious for the welfare of his siblings and eager to continue in his education, she said.
“When he wore his morani robes he could stop traffic. He could be the center of attention. Then he wouldn’t talk to people very much, so it may have been a little intimidating,” Nichols said of the somewhat reserved young man’s recent time in Jacksonville. “You have to wait for those moments for him to bombard you with a bunch of information and stories. You wish you could remember every one.”
The responsibility of caring for his younger siblings weighs heavy on Megoliki’s heart, Nichols said.
“[The responsibility] is a real burden for him,” Nichols said. “And it’s not one he would give up because he thinks of that as his personal tribute to his parents, protecting them. It weighs on his mind a lot because his brothers and sisters don’t have anybody to pay for their education. It’s not like they’re babies. They’re teenagers. They can’t wait on John to finish school and get some money and be able to finance it.”
A fund in Megoliki’s name at the Florida Baptist Foundation in Jacksonville has financed his education and personal needs thus far. He recently completed high school and plans to attend Mount Meru University in the fall.
For more information, or to make a donation, please contact the Florida Baptist Foundation, 1320 Hendricks Ave., Suite 2; Jacksonville, FL 32207.
The John Megoliki story
By EVA WOLEVERAssistant Editor
Published May 15, 2008
Photo by Eva Wolever
John Megoliki spoke to students at a youth event at Cedar Bay Baptist Church in Jacksonville April 12. Megoliki also sang a song in Swahili, involving the students by teaching them the words and showing them the movements.
JACKSONVILLE (FBW)—Never have problems.
Although the meaning of John Megoliki’s last name is instilled with an optimistic promise, the young man from Tanzania has overcome many challenges in the space of 24 years. His faith, however, has not wavered.
“God is able and God is able to do anything,” Megoliki told Florida Baptist Witness. “No one has ability to say, ‘God don’t do this.’ God does as He wants. If He wants your life today, He’ll take it today.”
Megoliki learned a deep reliance on God when he was very young.
Around the age of seven, as Megoliki was caring for his father’s herd of cows, he entered the river first to scare away any crocodiles.
One day, a crocodile clamped its jaws on his arm and tried to pull him into the water, Megoliki said. Struggling with the reptile, Megoliki gouged the animal’s eyes with his fingers—a defensive technique he had been taught—and managed to free himself, but at the cost of his right arm.
Tim Tidenberg, an International Mission Board missionary in Tanzania, found the boy and took him to a hospital where he arranged for him to receive immediate medical attention before Megoliki was returned to his village. Three years later, after his mangled stump continued to deteriorate, Tidenberg brought his medical needs to the attention of a Florida group on a mission trip there. Within months they arranged for medical treatment in Jacksonville that included a prosthetic arm and the Florida Baptist Convention paid his way to the United States.
“God saved me from the crocodile,” Megoliki recently told a group of students at Cedar Bay Baptist Church in Jacksonville—at one of his many speaking engagements while visiting the United States for the third time.
Throughout the challenges in his life—which have been many, from his arm being bitten off to his parents dying and leaving him responsible for his four younger brothers and sisters—Megoliki said God has guided him.
“God has helped me because everything I see now which is against God, God would open a new door for me to go in,” Megoliki said.
Megoliki said many people question his positive outlook, seeing his prosthetic arm and the physical limitations that entails.
“There’s God in my life,” Megoliki said. “I never blamed God and say, ‘Oh, God, You have done this to me, and this, and this. I don’t have two hands.’ I never blamed God. God made that before I was born. He said there’d come a time when you have one hand and I will find a new way for you to get a prosthesis.”
Photo by Eva Wolever
Megoliki stopped traffic in his traditional morani robes that signify him as a Maasai warrior.
“Maybe God had done that because he wanted me to serve His will,” Megoliki concluded.
Megoliki shares his message of faith whenever he can—from Jacksonville to Birmingham, Ala.
Jacksonville has been one of his homes away from Africa, Megoliki said. He returned to Jacksonville for the third time March 27 to be fitted for a new prosthesis sized to his 6’5” frame. As in his previous visits, he stayed with Gary and Carolyn Nichols, members of Fruit Cove Baptist Church in Jacksonville. Gary is also Associate Director of Discipleship Training at the Florida Baptist Convention, while Carolyn is a long-time newswriter for the Witness.
Baptists and Florida Baptists in particular have been instrumental in Megoliki’s life, said Carolyn Nichols, calling Megoliki a “poster child for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.”
And Megoliki has been faithful in following the legacy of the missionaries and Christian men and women who have cared for him through the years, Nichols said. Nearly every Sunday and Wednesday while he is in America, Megoliki shares his testimony and the urgency of sharing the Gospel in Africa.
Megoliki hails from a long line of respected, and feared, witchdoctors. Even now, people will hear his last name and recognize his grandfather’s name. Megoliki’s father never practiced the craft, but he kept the paraphernalia—which is worth about 11 cows, he said.
As the eldest son, Megoliki should also have inherited the trade, but as a Christian, Megoliki would not even keep the pieces of his grandfather’s livelihood. After asking his brothers and sisters about it, they all agreed the relics should be burned.
“We destroyed together as we fasted and prayed,” Megoliki said. “You can’t burn without praying. You can’t destroy without praying, no way. You put drums on there you put drums and drums; they’ll still be there until prayer.”
Jack Brymer, former editor of the Witness, was part of the mission group that visited Tanzania as part of a three-year partnership between the Florida and Tanzania Baptist Conventions and arranged for Megoliki’s medical care. Megoliki spends part of each visit with the Brymer family, which now lives in Birmingham.
“I see the future of Africa in the people like John Megoliki, who, by-the-way, are products of Baptist work through the years,” Brymer said. “But, it’s a new day so what I’m thinking is significant is that we see the value of educating these people and empowering them to take the Gospel rather than us going over there and trying to take it for them.”
One of Megoliki’s dreams is to set up a secondary school in Losiminguri for the Misaim people, Brymer said. Currently they have only a primary school.
“[Losiminguri is] the heart of Maasai land and that’s kind of a message that he’s trying to get across with what he’s doing,” Brymer said. “He’s going to the heart of the Maasai people, not just his clan, but the whole Maasai nation.”
Megoliki is fiercely proud of his culture, both Nichols and Brymer agree. But, he realizes there are things his people need to learn—and he thinks more education will make a big difference in their lives.
“John sees a lot of things that he appreciates about tribal life and law but he also sees things that are really detrimental to people,” Nichols said. “He wants people to know that not all traditions are worth keeping.”
Megoliki speaks strongly against the traditional practice of female circumcision—female genital mutilation (FGM). At times the elders listen to him because he is educated through high school, Nichols said.
Megoliki told of a time a 13-year-old girl from his home village called him while he was at school. She was scared because the tribe was going to circumcise her that weekend. Megoliki told her not to worry, that he would come.
Megoliki met with the elders and told them they shouldn’t perform the ritual and that it was illegal, he said. Many of the older people cursed him, but the elders agreed not to perform the circumcision.
A couple of days later, the girl called Megoliki again saying they were still going to do it. Megoliki went to the police station and went with the officers to the village. The officers refused to go alone, fearing the village men might kill them.
Entering the girl’s home before dawn on that Sunday morning, they found the girl’s father and other members of the tribe preparing for the circumcision ceremony that was to take place just after dawn. The officers arrested the girl’s father and he was sent to prison for two years, Megoliki said.
Many of the villagers now fear him, Megoliki said. Others apologized for not believing him. One gave him a goat and thanked him for teaching them. Megoliki said that although the event stopped some female circumcisions, the practice continues.
While he speaks against FGM, the rite of circumcision is one of the tests Megoliki said he had to pass to become a Maasai Morani—warrior.
“At the time of circumcision [you can’t] shake even a finger or do anything. They don’t use medicines at circumcision or anything. … Without any shot to lose pain. So they look at you and look at you with their eyes and it’s in public where people come and watch you and people watch the fingers. If you shake your fingers,” Megoliki said barely twitching three long fingers, “you’re nothing. You better find a new way to go.”
What else did he have to do to become a tribal warrior?
“There are some tests you have to pass,” Megoliki said nonchalantly. “Like killing a lion.”
Nichols said it is hard for her to imagine Megoliki in his life in Africa.
Nichols cared for the hurt young boy in 1993, met the morani he had become in 1999, and now sees a more serious, responsible man anxious for the welfare of his siblings and eager to continue in his education, she said.
“When he wore his morani robes he could stop traffic. He could be the center of attention. Then he wouldn’t talk to people very much, so it may have been a little intimidating,” Nichols said of the somewhat reserved young man’s recent time in Jacksonville. “You have to wait for those moments for him to bombard you with a bunch of information and stories. You wish you could remember every one.”
The responsibility of caring for his younger siblings weighs heavy on Megoliki’s heart, Nichols said.
“[The responsibility] is a real burden for him,” Nichols said. “And it’s not one he would give up because he thinks of that as his personal tribute to his parents, protecting them. It weighs on his mind a lot because his brothers and sisters don’t have anybody to pay for their education. It’s not like they’re babies. They’re teenagers. They can’t wait on John to finish school and get some money and be able to finance it.”
A fund in Megoliki’s name at the Florida Baptist Foundation in Jacksonville has financed his education and personal needs thus far. He recently completed high school and plans to attend Mount Meru University in the fall.
For more information, or to make a donation, please contact the Florida Baptist Foundation, 1320 Hendricks Ave., Suite 2; Jacksonville, FL 32207.
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