SFVHC Announcements

Dear friends,

I was very excited to return for a short time to Tanzania, visiting the Lion of Judah Academy and the Faraja Orphans Rescue Mission. I helped both of these ministries with computer hardware and software. I was able to visit friends, teachers, the secondary students and the little ones.

Kurt

This little girl is as charming as her smile. She visited me frequently last year at my house to play and draw pictures. I was delighted when she came to the house this week and asked me for “ream paper”, meaning that she wants some white computer paper to draw pictures. The branches are for sweeping the dirt around the school yard. In the background you see the secondary school buildings.

This is the first chapel meeting of the term and not all students have returned to school yet. The chapel takes place under the mango tree which you cannot see here. However, a brand new chapel building is under construction. But I prefer the mango tree chapel, even when it rains.

Abia just returned from a year in America living with a family that supports the Lion of Judah school. She attended high school as a junior in Pennsylvania. This is the first time this has happened and was exciting for everyone.

Wonderful playground equipment was constructed by local workers. Part of the money for this came from SFVHC.

Ghati, Glory and Emma are some of the terrific teachers who care about the education and spiritual life of the children. Ghati has returned to school and wants to become a professor of Kiswahili language and literature. Glory teaches math and science. Emma is a teacher but is also an “evangelist” of the Africa Inland Church. He asked me if I could find support for him to get certain Bible study materials to help him in his pastoral role.

This is a scary picture because these are the Awali kids and I am their teacher. I was asked to substitute teach for them because their regular teacher had to attend an annual family reunion/business meeting. I think that not much learning took place. Because they are little, they do not know much English yet. And I don’t know much Kiswahili yet so we are even. The cute kids don’t care. I got assistance from one precocious child who kept whispering in my ear to correct me and make suggestions about what to teach.

These are three village children who I got to know last year and they remembered me when they saw me walking on the path toward the Bible college.

This is Sheila Dilworth and two of her children. Sheila and her husband started the Nassa Theological College. Her husband passed away suddenly a few years ago and she continues the work to train Tanzanian pastors. All of Sheila’s four children are involved in front-line mission work.

This is the Awali boy who helped me teach. His father is John Sweya, a vice president of NTC. Among other ministries, John helps the widows of Bulima to learn how to make a living under difficult circumstances. He was also involved in starting a church at the beach for the local fishermen.

This village girl was shy and did not speak any English, so I do not know what is in the bucket. I imagine she sits on the stool while selling her merchandise. I wonder if she attends school and if her family life is secure.

Hartford and Lynn Inlow started the Lion of Judah School and I stayed with them during this trip. Robert is a college student from Michigan. Among other complicated things, he helped the Inlows to plan and implement a necessary water pumping system to meet the growing needs of the school. There is a plan to continue the school to Form 5 and Form 6, the equivalent of junior college.

Children caring for children are everywhere.

Samuel and his wife founded the Faraja Orphans Rescue Mission. They have begun building on donated land. This will be classrooms for grades 1 and 2. If you look closely you can see two women who are carrying water (on their heads of course) for brick making. They must walk a long distance to get the water for the site.

At the paved road to Mwanza and at the bus stops the women try to sell fruit and vegetables to the passing travellers. The sign says “Assistance with toilet and washing and charging phone”. As he walks quickly, the man is balancing on his head an assortment of trinkets to sell.

These boxes are filled with one day old live chicks.

When a motorcycle is not available (or when you want to save money) it is fun to ride on the soft seat provided by these bicycle drivers. You must place your feet on the small pipe welded to the axle.

The secondary students began a garden and have shaped the plants into certain phrases. This says “God Is Good”.

These are a few of the Form 4 students soon to be the first graduates of the secondary school of Lion of Judah Academy. They must all pass the intense government tests in October. They did not have a summer break so that they could continue to prepare for the tests.

This is the new dorm to house the secondary students. Currently the secondary boys have to sleep in the school library.

Please remember Tanzania in your prayers. Thank you for praying for me and the Lion of Judah Academy and the Faraja Orphans Rescue Mission.

Dear Friends,

Everyday is new and different. I am teaching six periods per week of Form 1 math and six periods per week of Form 3 math. I am not a great teacher, I am rather boring, but I am trying. Sometimes, when electricity allows, I am able to use the computer/projector and when I do, the students suddenly become interested in math. The Form 3 students are quite mature and they love the Lord. Some of them lead worship service Sunday morning and several of the boys and girls have preached wonderful sermons for us. I also teach computer every day and run the computer lab. I also spent much time last week helping at the Bible college. Their computers had become useless because of viruses. I was able to restore almost all of the computers and I was able to restore files that the Bible students had lost to viruses. They keep all of their studies on flash drives and have no backup system, so I thank God for helping us to figure out how to restore files, it would have been tragic if they had lost all of their work.

The water is off so I cannot wash my clothes or myself. But it does not seem to matter how bad we smell. Sometimes both electricity and water are off. I was given a propane burner so that I can cook food and boil water when there is no electricity. For this reason, my kitchen is popular when electricity is off. We all have a large supply of candles and matches. When the lights go off, I can hear the children at the dorm exclaiming in dismay. Often, in the dark because of blackout, they will begin to sing to encourage one another.

In the bowl are two snacks that I like. The small packages are called ground nuts – they are sold everywhere on the streets for 50 shillings, about 4 cents in US money. Also in the bowl are nut balls. These are my favorite (and only) dessert. They are very much like Cracker Jacks and delicious. This is my radio. I thank God for BBC and Voice of America. On Voice of America there is a special program for non-English speakers of news and interesting information. The announcers speak very, very slowly and clearly in English. There are many radio stations – Kiswahili, German, French, English, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and other languages I do not recognize. But the signals fade in and out, so I have to move my body to different parts of the room while leaving the radio in one place, my body somehow helps to transfer the radio signals. The radio runs on batteries so it is available when power goes out.

We had another soccer and netball competition with a public school. This is our coach and our girls are in the white shirts. You can see the netball goal in the background. We won both the netball and the soccer competition. There was a wild celebration as we returned in the trucks, the entire dorm came out to cheer and congratulate.

These men are skilled carpenters at Lion of Judah. They make all of the desks, chairs, tables and furniture for the school. They made this magnificent cabinet for me to store my clothes. Up into now I have been using my suitcases to store my things. The director wants to eventually train students in these trade skills.

This is my friend Sabato. He is the teacher of the 2nd grade students. He is hoping to marry soon but there is always a problem of dowry. He has to wait until he has enough money to pay the dowry. Dowry might be cows or goats or cash. The parents decide how much the daughter is worth. While this seems harsh, it is one way that the parents have some hope of financial security as they get older.

The children do much work. Here they are mopping the floor of their classroom. In the morning before school, they come with brooms that they make out of branches and sweep the school grounds. They also continually cut the grass that springs up everywhere.

The children are happy. They enjoy each other and they are creative in their play. Their creative play involves no toys bought at a store. They create their own toys. They make balls out of rubber bands and plastic bags. They make cities in the dirt with sticks. They play jacks with pods from the trees.

Usually, trash is burned in the open. My neighbor burned trash one day and it burned a larger area than I think was planned. This worries me but so far my house is still standing. I take my trash to a trash pit. Along the way, these boys ask to help. So they are dumping my trash and they want me to take their picture.

Perhaps you think that I am surrounded by lions and giraffes. But I am surrounded by cows and goats and chickens. The serengeti is not far, I cannot wait to visit. The birds are wonderful. A pretty bird has built a nest on my porch, it is bright blue with long, orange beak.

The secondary students organize chapel times, choirs, devotions. They take care of themselves and they serve the primary students. During this chapel they are playing a game – you must say a number in kiswahili that does not include the digit seven and you cannot repeat a number or else you are out.

It is considered rude to take pictures of others without their permission. I was rude here and the woman saw me. The women carry water in full buckets balanced on their heads. Water is precious and we are fortunate to have the lake nearby.

There are a few western missionaries in Bulima, some at Lion of Judah and some at the Nassa Bible College. We have begun to meet every other week for fellowship and prayer. When the German girls return home in July, I will be the only westerner at Lion of Judah.

It is fun to go to Mwanza. We take “piki-piki”, motorcycle, to the road, then long bus ride, then taxi. There are many things you can buy in Mwanza and there are many things you cannot buy in Mwanza. After a long, shopping day we eat at a “pizza” restaurant, there is no meat for the pizza but it is delicious. Rabea is one of the German missionaries and she invited this street boy to have lunch with us. The boy was poor, the mother does not feed him but sends him into town to beg for money. He wanted to stay with us and wouldn’t leave when we parted. The journey to Mwanza takes 1 1/2 hours, requires a bus ticket each way of 4000 shillings and a taxi ride each way from bus stop to downtown of 4000 shillings. So total transportation cost is about $12 US. This is very expensive for most people here, yet the buses are always full of people and huge bags of rice and beans and sometimes live chickens in the aisles. The last bus I took had to stop because the police noticed an oil leak. So we waited by the side of the road for an hour while the passengers argued about how to fix the leak and what a bad bus company it was. There are many bus companies and vans.

Yesterday I also walked from central Mwanza along the lake shore to the dock where boats bring supplies. I was the only white person in this area and this area was also heavily Muslim. At one point a man was following me and that was the only scary part. I eventually was able to get away from him. Several times I saw naked men, bathing along the lake shore and washing their clothes. At the docks there are these amazing, huge pelican-like birds. There is a fish restaurant and along the entire roof these huge birds were perched. There were open markets in this area, I always buy peanuts from the people who look most needy. There is a temptation to always buy from the children, but I think that the elderly women have it harder, so I am going to give them more attention.

Thomas is the boy on the right. One day he asked me “What does ‘howdy’ mean?”. I told him about the cowboys and how they slap each other on the back and say “howdy pardner!.” Every time Thomas sees me now, I am greeted with “Howdy pardner!” and a slap on the back. His mother is attending Bible college in Kenya. I met her, she is a terrific witness for God. I told her about my friendship with her son, she eventually will be doing ministry in Africa.

The primary boys come to visit me at my house. Sometimes it is inconvenient and I have to chase them away. Sometimes I read to them and this is my joy. The church sent a box of kazoos. I gave each of the boys a kazoo. Soon the entire dorm was at my house asking for a kazoo. I got in big trouble for this. The next day the children were playing kazoos early in the morning, waking the adults and they took the kazoos to school. I had to collect all of the kazoos. Today is Saturday. So I had a better plan. After work time in the morning I handed out kazoos. I put a box on my porch with a sign “WHEN THE BELL RINGS FOR LUNCH, PUT KAZOO HERE!”. The children took the kazoos and had fun with them, returning them a few hours later.