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Published: December 24th 2012
The Car
Repairing the carThe first semester has finally come to an end and Jeannie and I are now resting before we embark on a journey to Kenya to attend a four-day missionary bible conference in Brackenhurst, just NE of Nairobi. We’re looking forward to getting away especially since Brackenhurst is in the mountains around Nairobi, is cooler and also has no malaria. The temperatures here in Dodoma are very hot right now especially in the afternoons when you sweat just sitting. We are attending the conference with another teacher from the college, Josephine (Jo), and car caravanning with Joshua, Sarah and their three kids from the college who are travelling to his Kenyan home of Meroo, for the holidays. They will help us with the border crossing and finding our way through Nairobi to Brackenhurst. We are looking forward to meeting other missionaries from around East Africa and sharing stories. We’ve heard that the accommodations are very good and the food is great. After the conference Jo will travel with us to Nairobi and then board a bus to Mwanza in Tanzania to visit with a friend of hers there. Jeannie and I will stay on in
Heading to the Caves
Climbing up to the caves Nairobi and do the tourist thing in the city. Nairobi is much different from Tanzanian cities and we’re looking forward to getting another perspective of life in East Africa. From Nairobi we will travel back to Tanzania and take some R&R at some favourite spots visited on our last trip to northern Tanzania. We’ll then head home to prepare for the final term at school with a two-week break at Easter.
One more day until Christmas, but it sure doesn’t seem like Christmas; at least from a Canadian perspective. There is no such thing as Santa Clause here, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Christmas is very low key here, but I guess that might be because people don’t have money to celebrate the way we do back home and as the rains have begun everyone is busy cultivating and planting their shambas (small farms). On Christmas day we will attend an English church service at the cathedral with the Bishop preaching. We look forward to his gifted sermons and last year had a passionate Christmas message focusing mainly on women’s rights in Tanzania. After church we’ll come home and just like you, we’ll begin preparing a traditional
The Paintings
View the ancient paintings Christmas dinner with a turkey and all the trimmings. We ordered it from our local grocery store in town called Yashna’s and whose owners just happen to be friends of Jeannie’s family doctor born in Moshi, Tanzania. There will only be three of us this year, Jeannie and I and our neighbour Jo, as almost everyone else has departed the campus for the holidays, but we’ll make it special with some Christmas music and holiday cheer. Rob bought a bottle of Scotch just for the occasion and Jo has picked up some champagne.
A Trip to Kondoa Earlier this semester, Jeannie and I travelled to Kondoa with three of our Tanzanian students; Tito, Lamech and John. Kondoa is about 120 km north up a very rough road, the road from Cairo to Cape Town, with the only unpaved part in Tanzania. As Kondoa was so far along a difficult road, we decided to leave on Saturday and return on Sunday to break up the bumpy ride. So early Saturday afternoon, we arrived in Kondoa with our car making an awful grinding noise. When we pulled into the cathedral, it just so happened that John’s nephew, Pascali, was there
The Driver
Driving to Kolo among our receivers and he is a mechanic-in- training. After the appropriate greetings with everyone, including, Moses, the sub-dean of the cathedral, it was pertinent that we take care of the car immediately. So Pascali took us to the repair shop where we left our car in the hopes that it was an easy fix and headed out to find lodging and lunch with Moses as our escort. The boys stayed at the bible college annexed to the cathedral and had lunch there.
Upon our return to the shop, the mechanic had replaced many of our car bushings and the noise was gone. We were good to go. After paying him Tsh 15,000 (about $10), parts and labour, we were ready for our afternoon trip to the caves in Kolo, just 20 km. north of Kondoa where there are very ancient paintings.
Well, if we thought the road to Kondoa was rough, it was nothing like the road to the caves. The pictures with Jeannie driving tell the story. However, our Rav 4 was up to the challenge. When we return to Canada, Jeannie and I will be Rav 4 ambassadors, as our little car has not let
The Kids
Kids at Chemba us down in all our rough-road travels. We enjoyed our hike up the mountain and seeing the ancient paintings that the three students who all grew up nearby, had never had a chance to see. When we returned, Moses’ wife had prepared dinner for us – all part of the Tanzania ‘karibu’ (welcome).
On Sunday we had to call upon Pascali again to tighten our bushings again, as a result of the drive to Kolo, and before our trip home. He did this even in his Sunday best clothes. Before leaving Kondoa though, we were invited to a tasty breakfast at John’s home prepared by his wife. They sure take care of visitors. On the way back we stopped at Pastor Tito's village of Chemba, our original destination, where we met the Bishop of Kondoa who just happened to have a meeting there, but he also wanted to meet Jeannie and me because of our relationship with his home village of Lugala. At the service, Rob preached and the students handled the rest of the service with the bishop contributing his 5 cents also. Then after feeding us a delicious lunch, we continued our journey home. It was a
The Kondoa Gang
The students from Kondoa great experience for us to travel with these students – they are really a hoot – and we were treated so warmly and fed so well by all we visited. It was well worth the bumpy ride to Kondoa.
Food for Kigwe During the semester we visited Rob’s student Charles’ village of Kigwe along with another male student Kedmon and a female student Yuster whose husband is living in the village. We attended two church services there, one early in the morning at a small church that serviced the near-by deaf school and then later in the day we visited the main church. The students always help out in the services, but the visitor preaches, Rob, that is. After both church services Jeannie was approached by very elderly women and men (Wazee) who told her that they had run out of food from last year’s harvest and they had little to eat. Jeannie was moved and promised to help. After the services, we had lunch at Charles’ home with his wife, son and daughter, the pastor and his family, and the catechist. There, we spoke with Charles and Pastor Robert about how we could help out these hungry
The First Church
Deaf students from Kigwe elders.
We were told the best way is to provide maize. So we agreed to get 10 kg. for each of the elders that needed help and the pastor agreed to collect the names and create a list for distribution. This would get them through the Christmas season and well into January. There were about 75 elders in need of help. So Jeannie and I contracted a truck to deliver 7 one-hundred-plus kilo bags of maize to the village. This was coordinated for a day during the week and Charles and another student, Chalo, accompanied Jeannie and I to the village to distribute the maize to the waiting elders. When we arrived just past noon many, mostly women, were already waiting for us under the shade of a nearby tree, some arriving as early as 8:00 that morning. The distribution was a heart-felt joyous occasion with singing and lots of Tanzanian hugs. These people were amazing, carrying their own maize on their heads, backs or with grandchildren. Later we heard from the pastor that this gesture turned out to be evangelistic, attracting other elders in the village to come to his church. He was very grateful and the elders
Dancing
Dancing their song and pastor pass on their greetings and thanks for the Canadian support.
Anna's Village Anna graduated last June at the top of her class. Last month Jeannie and I were honoured to be invited to her village to greet her and meet some of her new congregation. We took along Baraka, one of my students and our gardener who was pleased to be asked. When we arrived at her village we weren't sure where to find the church, so we asked around the village. Every person we asked knew Pastor Anna Yohana and where her parish was. She has made quite an impact in a short while.
She had breakfast of chapatti, eggs and tea for us when we arrived in her lovely home. She had done much work on it and it was obviously well cared-for. It was very gratifying for us to see how Anna's parishioners interacted with her and what rapport she had with them. After a joyful service there was an auction of various food items which were donated and as Rob bid on one, a particular female parishioner in the back kept out-bidding him and forced him to cough up some big
Jeannie with Kids
Jeannie and the kids bucks. Then I took on another bid and the same lady had me getting up there as all the people laughed and cheered us on. It was quite a lot of fun and the church made some money for their building fund in the process.
Of course, after the service, we went back to Anna's for a tasty lunch with some of the elders of the church before we headed on home again. It was great to go and see what the new pastors have to deal with in their parishes. She has 9 churches in her parish to take care of and is hoping to get a bike soon to help her visit all these people. We were really glad we went to give her our support.
Msalato Happenings In our last blog we asked for help with two projects, one for the tractor for Pastor Peter and his street kids and beds for Daniel’s kids. We are grateful that
Daniel’s kids now all have beds with mattresses, sheets, pillows and blankets. So there is no more sleeping on the floor. Thank you so much for your support for this project.
The girls’ dormitory was
Chalo
With Charles children without water for a couple days before telling Rob of their problem. He asked why they had not complained earlier and they told him it was not a major problem because they could fill buckets with water and carry it back to the dorm for their uses. Can you imagine that happening at home! Rob called the plumber immediately and he fixed the problem the next day. However, the problem recurred and Rob only found out when he saw the girls filling and carrying water buckets to their dorm again. When we investigated the problem we found that a valve had been inadvertently turned off. Rob was amazed, but probably should not have been, that the girls did not find this to be too big an issue as they are used to carrying buckets of water to their homes in their villages.
The Rainy Season has begun with our first rains beginning in the middle of December. Everyone says that the later start to the rainy season is a good sign that rains will be consistent throughout December through to April. We can already see the difference in the vegetation around the campus with everything turning green. It is
amazing how everything changes so quickly. Two days ago we were looking out our front window at a completely bare tree and now it is full of green leaves and flowers. With the rainy season comes the hard work of preparing the fields and planting the seeds for the crops to come. This area depends so much on the rains. Last year there was a good start to the season, but the rains were not consistent so the crops planted in November died off with the drought in January. We just pray that with the later start we won’t experience the same crop failures we did last year. That is why people are now running out of food from last year’s limited harvest. Our neighbours, some of Peter’s girls, have been cultivating and planting their seeds around our property. It is inspiring to see their hard work, but not enough to get us out there; it looks too hard!
Below is a letter from Perisi in her own words, who started Diploma I this year after successfully completing the English Foundation Course and whom we are supporting through Reid’s African Mission for those two years.
Shalom<em
All the Elders
Sharing together style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">,
My name is Perisi Festo Chilosa. I am 22 years old. I am studying at Msalato School of Theology. I am in Diploma One. I come from Miganga Village. I live in a family of eight. I have both parents and young brothers and sisters. I am the first born in my family. My parents are farmers and they farm only food crops because our village has hard soil. Also, a lack of rains sometimes leads to the farmers getting few crops and sometimes they get nothing from their farms. I am very happy to be here to study because I have been called by God and my call is to be a Pastor. God has called me since I was young because I liked dancing and singing in the choir. Also I like preaching the Gospel and praying for myself, others, the church, our nation and the whole world. I am enjoying studying the Bible and I hope that my studies will be very helpful when I will be a Pastor. My prayer is to do the proclaiming of God’s word to the Nations, continents and even to the whole world.
<em
An Elder
Carrying her maize style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I am very happy to give thanks for your sponsorship. May God bless you always! Also, I thank God for his grace of giving me a chance to study here in order to get more knowledge on how to do his Ministry. I am thankful for his love and guidance to me. I am continuing well with my studies and I hope that God willing I will succeed in my exams. My belief is that your prayer to God makes you to agree to help me in paying my school fees. I always pray to God to bless all of you and your families.
Yours faithful in Christ,
Perisi F. Chilosa
We hope you enjoyed the latest news from our work here in Tanzania, and wish you and yours a blessed and joyful Christmas and New Year’s Holiday.
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Donna Svistunenko
non-member comment
Merry Christmas to all.
Hi Jeannie and Rob, Thanks for the insight into your daily life and God bless you both for all the kindnesses you provide.