Advertisement
Published: July 10th 2007
This week we've been working out at Hannah's Nursery School in Boma Ngombe. There is a very sweet and unique story behind this little school in this small rural village of Tanzania. I was amazed and so impressed with one of our local brethren, someone who we already knew was an amazing asset to the church, someone who is already doing so much in the way of evangelism and helping others on his own, someone who translates for us all to be able to follow along in worship in wonderful English, someone who translates for so many guests who come over and teach Bible studies of their own during campaign times and then to learn about the dedication and love that this 25 year old single Tanzanian man has for children has been such a huge blessing to me this week.
He has never attended any of the Bible schools, but he is always right there ready to go out and evangelize at every given opportunity! This young incredible man is Timothy Massawe, but with the humility of a soft spoken tender heart he will smile and shake his head otherwise. Now there are several Massawe’s
in the Moshi congregation, in fact his older brother Josephat was one of the first graduates from the Andrew Connally School of preaching with the first “Alpha” class in 2003. Josephat and his family now worship with us in Moshi as well. But Timothy, his younger brother, or as we tend to call him around here on a more personal side, “Timo” has grabbed my attention and opened my eyes quite a bit this week and I wanted to share his story of Hannah’s Nursery School with you as well.
I believe it started with his older sister Mary living in Boma Ngombe, a smaller village about 20 miles west of Moshi. She had taken in three young girls, orphans, as Timothy had come across their families while doing some volunteer teaching in the area. All three girls’ parents had been diagnosed with aids and they had been living in terrible circumstances while their parents were fighting off death. After the parents had all died, Timothy asked his sister, Mary, already a mother of two, to take in these three young girls, Rachel, Susan, & Lydia. Timothy began trying to find clothing and supplies to help his sister
take care of these girls. Mary began teaching them in her home and around that time the Rachels family had come over to be here for the Moshi campaign last year. Timothy had contacted the Rachels and asked them to see about helping find some clothing and possibly raise some money to help get school supplies to teach them in Mary’s home.
Hannah Rachel was 15 at the time and went home to raise around $500 for these kids and really encouraged Timothy to continue to do good and to see what a blessing it was to be helping others. The parents in the neighborhood began noticing Mary teaching the children from home and asked if she could take in a few more children as well. As the numbers grew, Timothy began building what is now called, Hannah’s Nursery school, very appropriately named after Hannah who had first encouraged him to do more!
Over the past year, the school has grown into what it is today. 57 students in Attendance, 3 teachers, and Timothy as the acting director and manager. They have rented a small house to hold a half day program in from 8:30 to 11:30 each
day. These are the details that astonished me the most so pay close attention to the numbers here…. With the 52 students only around 20 of them can afford to pay their school fees to attend… and the other 32 the school is supporting on their own with much difficulty, due to the fact that there is currently no backing support other than Timothy and the initial money raised by Hannah from the states which was used to buy 1 chalk board, chalk, and materials to build desks, then on his own Timothy has built 2 swing sets and 2 teeter totters for the backyard playground. This is all the school posses, no books, no crayons, no pencils…. (well, until now) We’ve brought them some great and much needed supplies this week!
But of the three teachers only one is receiving any pay and that is about 30$ a month to Mary to help with the 3 orphans she is raising at her home. One of the teachers is from the church at Moshi, named Elizabeth and she gets bus fare for herself and her son Godi to come down and help teach as a volunteer, and the third
young teacher, Judy, is strictly a volunteer as well. The children’s school fees amount to $3.00 a month.. YES just $3.00!!! And we need some help in that area.. There are a little over 30 students attending whose families can not pay this small fee, and Timothy would never turn them away!
The rent for the building is $50 a month…. So you do the math: 57 children (only 20 paying fees of $3 each) =$60 a month coming in…. 3 Teachers (only one being paid $30/month and One getting bus fare of $10/mo) + Rent $50/mo = $90 a month going out… So Timothy is working odd jobs and translating along with substitute teaching at local secondary schools in Moshi when they need him to pay the additional $30 on his own for all of these children to have a Preschool and Kindergarten level education before entering Primary school.
I asked Timothy today why he didn’t just raise his fees, he said that the people in this area, could never afford anything higher and that’s why he had started the school here to begin with, to allow all children the access to education rather than just those
who were able to afford to go! This is, from the best of my knowledge the only True Christian Nursery school in Tanzania, being run by a member of the church, and is openly teaching Bible on a daily basis as well as the normal Basics… of Math, Reading, & Handwriting. I was so excited about Timothy’s passion for these children and it made me want to get involved as well. Timothy and Mary have asked me to begin coming out to teach the children English one day a week, using the Bible.. I am very excited and I know that my kids will love it too…
There are some pressing needs here, aside from the School fees themselves and working towards paying all three teachers what would be considered a normal wage.. (Around $80 a month) The school needs several things from my first glance around, Books in Swahili being for most on the list, which I think I can go find at the local bookstores in town. Then there’s a need for shelving to hold their new supplies brought over and workbooks to do their lessons in… Here in the book stores you can buy about
10 small workbooks for a dollar…. I can’t say that I have been more excited about getting school supplies together in a long time… I brought so many over with me, but after having been here nearly a year now, my supplies are running short, I will use all that I have until it’s gone, but this is something we can all bring over in suitcases as we send campaigners or visitors… or just send the funds for, so that they can be bought from here.
It makes my head spin to sit here thinking about all that we want to do to help, seeing how much Timothy has already done on his own.. But He has a grander dream in mind of allowing this small school to grow into a much larger one and being a teacher himself full time… We talked to some local officials on the regulations for opening up a school, and it requires, owning the land and building, registering with the government and having 7 class levels, Form 1-7 each with their own teacher in place… So there is so much room to grow in the future! For now, we are looking at a
very small rented facility and Timothy running a great Christian Nursery school in an area in great need of Education of any kind! Keep Hannah’s Nursery School in your prayers, the children, the teachers, the families and Timothy as we all work together to glorify God in all that we do!
This week we are working and teaching at the school all week long! Timothy has set up a large group study with all of the Parents of the children on Thursday that Brent & Forrest Rachels will be teaching. Our over all goal being to share the Gospel truth with each and every one of the families involved in the school. The little smiles melt your heart and the hugs make your day! I know this will be a great source of encouragement and excitement for me personally as well as the rest of my family as we see what God has in store for the work ahead of us as we labor together with the local brethren here in Tanzania! Thank you for allowing us this amazing opportunity!
In Love & Service,
Julie Richardson
Advertisement
Tot: 0.227s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 15; qc: 132; dbt: 0.129s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
Cathy Garner
non-member comment
Wow! How amazing. I will pass this along. Keep up the good work, Julie. I pass along a lot of your newsletters to my friends at Johnson Street.