The day after we arrived back
in Tanzania, we drove to Tanga to meet a group from our home congregation, St
John’s Lutheran Church in Philadelphia.
The Lutheran Church worldwide has a program connecting synods around the
world as partners. Southeastern
Pennsylvania Synod is partnered with the North Eastern Diocese of the
ELCT. Our congregation is partnered with
Kana Lutheran Parish in Tanga, a small city on the Indian Ocean. This partnership is how we came to be here in
Irente.
In Tanga, we enjoyed the
fellowship of our friends and visited Kana and it’s members. Our pastor preached at the Sunday services
and led a Bible study group in a discussion of disciples of God, especially
those called by God, who at first objected to God’s call. We visited a small sub-parish for worship on
Sunday, where they held a fund-raiser to be able to complete the walls of the
church and install a door.
On Monday morning, we visited
a sewing school, which is a project of Kana.
The school teaches young women to become seamstresses and tailors in
order to provide them with a living or opportunity to open their own small shop. These students are young women (and a few
older ones) who pay a small tuition to attend the school. The sewing machines are the treadle style and
there are far more students than machines.
We were very warmly welcomed and got to see some of the clothing they
were making.
Late Monday morning, we
traveled to Irente. Pastor Tricia and
her husband David, rode in our car and the others were in the Kana
vehicle. We wished we could have seen
all of their faces as we went the last 30 km up into the mountains from Mombo
to Lushoto. The road is narrow and steep
with no guardrails and hairpin curves.
One person told us they rode most of the way with their eyes
closed. We remember that feeling!
At Irente, we were very
warmly welcomed by the staff and students of the children’s home. They greeted us all with bouquets of flowers
and the singing of “Karibu Wageni Wetu” (Welcome our Visitors).
The group stayed at the
hostel at the home, but we had all of our meals together at our home. Veronica did all of the cooking and arranged
for a friend to help her while our group was there. Catherine did most of the laundry and helped
with cooking prep work. I believe
everyone enjoyed their meals, since we have had several requests for recipes
from Veronica.
The group consisted of our
pastor, four teachers, and a CPA.
Everyone got busy right away with various projects. Mary and Rochelle worked with the school-aged
children who were home on holiday. The
kids learned some new songs, made “books” about themselves, read stories and did
a lot of math.
Don, David, and Vickie worked
painting the kitchen at the home. St
John’s raised money in order to repair the walls and ceiling (which was
starting to fall down because of roof leaks).
The new ceiling and plaster- work were done by some fundis (skilled
workers) before we arrived. The kitchen
is now a beautiful, sunny yellow color.
It is a wonderful room to work in now.
St John’s also raised money to construct a protective awning so the
students can walk from the prep kitchen to the cooking room without getting
wet. They also donated money for the
purchase of two new tables and chairs for the dining room. With these, all of the students can eat
together in the dining room.
Pastor Tricia worked
diligently in the shamba (vegetable garden) with the students. Using a jembe (hoe), she dug planting beds
until she had blisters on her hands. She
also enjoyed time for conversation with the students while they worked. They really were impressed with pastor and
how hard she worked.
Besides painting, Vicki
joined the students with all of the work they do everyday: washing dishes, babies, and clothes (by
hand), hanging laundry, and helping with food preparation.
It was a wonderful time for
Tom and I. We enjoyed having friends
from home with us. They lived our life
for a short time, complete with power outages, internet disruption, bucket
showers, and for some, Eastern toilets. We
visited the market and they did some shopping.
We attended the early service at Irente Lutheran Church together. We enjoyed a lively game of “Nacho Loco” and
had some meaningful Bible study and conversations.
The visit was over too soon. They traveled from Irente to Arusha on Sunday
afternoon. There they were to visit some
schools through the Mwangaza Education program of the ELCT. And of course, they concluded their trip with
two days at the national parks at Ngorongoro Crater and Tarangire.
We enjoyed their visit so
much and wish others could come to see how great, but different, life here
is. We say, “Karibu tena” (welcome
again) to our friends, and also we welcome you to join us too!
