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Published: December 20th 2010
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Iringa Brethren
10 adults, 10 children The Samfords had not been back in the country even long enough to recover from jet lag before Carey agreed to take another journey. Carey, Joy, and I left about 5:00 a.m. on a Thursday. The goal of this excursion was to travel the 14+ hours down to Iringa in search of rental housing. Once we reached the junction at Chalinze, Charles Mwakalonge was waiting there and joined us. Charles, one of our recent graduates, has agreed to move and serve as our translator. Actually, Carey has progressed so admirably with his Swahili linguistics, his need for a translator will not be long.
Even though we stopped merely for diesel fuel and restrooms it ended up being a 14 hour journey. We must admit that the cleanest “restrooms” were the trees by the side of the road. I will also say that it was nice to be driving Carey’s Toyota Prado, since it has a turbo.
Friday morning we began our search. We drove down street after street, asking about possible houses to let. We looked at the message board at the Hasty Tasty cafe. The chain of leads often required us to find someone who may know of
a possibility. There is a road construction project that has been underway for quite some time. The workers are from Denmark, and they have already claimed most of the rental homes. We were already aware of this, so we were prepared somewhat for the heightened challenge of the narrowed possibilities.
On the Lord’s day we met with the saints of Iringa. One of the men of the congregation taught the Bible class and I delivered the sermon during worship. We were warmly welcomed and enjoyed being with the brethren. We assured them we were anxious to move and begin our cooperation with them. Iringa has three colleges, with about 4,000 students attending each. We pray these students will be one of our good opportunities for evangelism.
Our desire was to find two houses relatively close together, if at all possible. This proved to be a difficult task. Our hopes of quickly securing places slowly faded as the days ticked by. The constant driving up and down hills was not easy on the vehicle. We noticed the engine was getting hot, and then discovered radiator fluid was leaking. We phoned our son Jacob, back in Arusha, and he did
an internet search and found a Toyota service center. To our surprise and delight, they had a new water pump in stock, and installed it the same day. While the vehicle was receiving the needed repairs we walked and looked at one more rental house. Once we had the vehicle again we were back on the road - searching. Little did we expect it would take eight days, driving non-stop during daylight hours, to find two suitable rentals. One complication was the need to have phone wires in reasonable distance in order to have internet service. One rental would have been a winner, but failed the test. When we brought a technician out for a look he honestly informed us that the cable required to extend the line was not available, not even in the Dar Es Salaam warehouse. We certainly want internet access to keep you, our supporters, well informed.
We found a suitable home first, and Carey enjoyed ribbing us since there were pigs (and their smell) right next door. A couple of days later or so, Carey was busy looking over details about the rental he had chosen, when a sound was heard. We all got
a good laugh when we realized it was coming from the adjoining property - the sound of squealing pigs! Oh well, maybe we both can bring home some bacon once in a while.
The two homes we secured are both older homes but have potential. Both will require some work – mainly plumbing and electrical. A lot of elbow grease and some paint ought to take care of the rest. This was to be expected.
We were also able to do the required paperwork and photos to obtain a Post Office box.
So our new mailing address will be:
The Jensens
P.O. Box 594
Iringa, Tanzania East Africa Before bidding farewell to Carey’s new landlord, she insisted on giving Joy a chicken as a gift. We did not want to shun her generosity so we graciously accepted. Charles would be returning to Dar, and so the chicken went with him. We were not able to finalize all details until about 7:00 p.m. on Thursday. Charles stayed in Iringa, ready to catch as bus in the morning. However, we were anxious to rejoin our families, so began the drive back home. We drive all night long and enjoyed
a view of Mt. Kilimanjaro when the sun arose in the morning. We finally arrived home at 9:00 a.m. Friday morning – bone tired, but happy to be safely reunited with our families.
On a sad note, we received word early Saturday morning that Joy's grandmother (her mother's mother) passed away in her sleep. She was 89 years old and had been suffering a great deal. We rejoice that she was a child of God.
George Jensen 2010
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kup
non-member comment
WOW! I would not have believed you would find places that quickly. That is wonderful news and we are all thankful that your New work is underway and looks promising. With all those students how could you miss? Wishing you a Happy Holidays and a smooth transition in the coming months. With all love. God bless you. just ken