Author Archive
A new school year!
Things are hopping at Angel Secondary School as the staff and students enter into their second school year in Gamasara Village! Changes this year include hiring additional staff to match additional two classes of students we welcomed this year, bringing the student body population up to just over 240. We are thankful for our new headmaster Mwita Samson, and thrilled to have our first woman teacher, Florence, as part of the staff team.
Angel Secondary School is currently offering over 50 scholarships to the secondary students who would otherwise not have an opportunity to attend school past the primary level, because of being orphaned or severely financially disadvantaged.
Our two new volunteers, Dee Ann and Carrilea, have their hands FULL with all the exciting tasks that it takes to help both the school and the orphanage run. Holly & Lawrence continue their tour of the United States, speaking to individuals, families, and community organizations about the orphanage and the school, in search of education sponsors and ways to continue the building expansion still to be done.
We are thrilled to report that the children of Angel House and the students of Angel Secondary are growing happier, healthier, and more knowledgable about the world around them every single day. Thank you, Grass Roots family here in the United States, for your continued support of this outstanding project.
Study Tour
Recently we finished mid-term exams and have been enjoying a mid-term and Easter break since then – during this time, the top 10 students in each class were presented with a Study Tour to Musoma, a town an hour away that is on the shores of Lake Victoria and has much of it’s industry based around the lake. The students spent their day studying Biology and Geography – trade, communication and transport, marine life, etc. Many of the students had never been out of Tarime, so it was very exciting even to board the bus and head somewhere new and different.
End of the Day, Testing the Water of Lake Victoria Firsthand
Fish Dissection of a Tilapia Out of Lake Victoria
Our Head Boy Francis and Our Head Girl Benadeta
Composing Essays About Their Day Towards the End
My Sweet Girl
Lawrence and I have talked a lot about Nossi and a few of the other children, and what might be the best way we would continue to be a part of their lives in the future. At this point, adoption isn’t an option for us, since we’re both foreigners here in Tanzania and not married yet. But what we know to be true is that she will continue to be our daughter in every other aspect – whether that means helping pay for her school fees in the future, having her live nearby when she finishes her education, or just simply praying for her continuous healing and growth from now on. God is so good to have granted me the privilege of knowing this little soul, and today was truly a happy Mother’s Day for me, getting to spend it with her. May we all be so lucky.
Mwita and Menganyi, and My Possible Future
Angel Secondary Talent Show
Our students and teachers are absolutely amazing, and have unbelievable talent! We recently experienced a taste of how well rounded they really are. Our Friday afternoon talent show allowed us to hear their poems and songs, watch their acrobatic stunts and dances, and allowed them to display the gifts God has given them beyond the academic setting. How lucky are we, to be able to share life with these.
Angel Secondary Scout boys
A skit about traditional circumcision practices in the village
Our head girl, Benadeta, reciting a poem
Rosie (red shirt, middle left) with the freshmen girls ‘beauty contest’
Generosity That Comes From The Heart
On monday as I arrived to school,Ii was presented with a chicken. I am privileged to sponsor a young man named Marwa, one of our neighbors in Gamasara, to go to a nearby primary school. He has helped Angel House with various odd jobs for the last year since he failed his 7th grade exams that would have passed him into secondary level education. I told him if he’d go back to school this year and pass his exams, we’d hold a spot open for him at Angel secondary for next year’s freshmen class. He goes each morning with a renewed sense of hope, and I’m positive he will pass his exams this coming year.
Here, hospitality is a big deal. invitations come often for us to visit a staff member or student in their home, and the invite usually includes a meal and an ample amount of time spent together; on several occasions it has resulted in carrying a chicken home as well…if you go to buy a chicken in the marketplace, you pay 7,000 Tanzanian shillings, well over the average daily wage of a casual worker in the area. I am reminded over and over again about generosity, and how far I have to go in this area.
The stool in the picture above was a recent gift from mama Mgesi, a friend and one of the ladies who helped build the school. I think I wrote a blog about visiting her house (and thus carrying home a chicken) last fall sometime. This stool is a traditional Kuria tribal seat, made all from the same piece of wood, and very comfortable to sit on. It made my day to receive it, because I felt like she understood that I value their culture and their traditions so very much. incidentally, it is sitting on our porch, piled with recent produce from the kids’ shamba…some vegetables sent over in the form of seed packets a while back, now harvested.
Seeds of Hope
Thank you for the awesome seeds, Melvin, John, and the Northern California Rotary club! Mwita, our farm supervisor was ectstatic, as are we. The Angel House shamba consists of over 100 small sections, and each child is assigned a few to tend – rotating the soil, planting, watering, and weeding. All the food is incorporated directly into the orphanage food budget and saves Angel House a great deal of money. This great gift of a box of over 200 packets of seeds comes with a realization of how huge God is – this Rotary club is the friend of the grandparent of one of the youth families from Woodlawn, the church I served as a youth director for six years prior to coming to Tanzania… Melvin is a college friend of Sarah and Anna’s grandad and Elizabeth’s father John, who has become a child sponsor recently and shared with his friend about our orphanage.
Our entire goal here is to plant seeds, whether tangibly or intangibly, and water and tend those seeds to the best of our ability during the time we’re privileged to be here with these children and in this community. We’re not sure when the fruit of our work will be seen, and that’s okay, because the Master Gardener can see the whole picture, and most days, that’s good enough for me.
In other news…
Angel Secondary School has been my heartbeat and my every thought for as many weeks back as I can even remember. Because of the great intensity of time and effort put towards opening the school, most of my blogs have been about Angel Secondary and the progress within. However, there is learning taking place even outside Angel Secondary, and I wanted to share a few stories of students from Angel House Orphanage who God has provided an opportunity different from our new school.
In Tanzania, when a school is opened, it is almost always opened with Form 1 students (freshmen) only, and the school grows its own examination classes. Because our goal was to build Angel Secondary for all of the Angel House kids, of which we had a great number of Form 3 students, we opened with Forms 1,2, and 3. Which left only two students (our senior boys) without a new school beside their house. We are so happy God made a way for them, too. Mwita Magabe and Menganyi Joseph have been accepted and have already begun classes at Musoma Utalii, a private boarding school approximately 80km from Tarime. Eric and I had the opportunity to stop in and visit them last week while we were in Musoma, and they are working super hard to stay ahead of their classwork and studies. Though we miss them every day, it is exciting that Utalii is not too far from home, and that they have this fantastic opportunity to enter into a school that has Advanced Level (Form 5 and 6 are preparatory classes for someone who would like to attend university). I am grateful to the headmaster, as he is the only principal we could find willing to agree to take a student from Form 4…usually they won’t let students transfer during their last year of high school, so it is a huge blessing to us to have been given this opportunity for the boys.
Paskazia, one of the Angel House girls who lived with us until early 2010, had a baby named Junio a few months ago. Girls are not allowed to continue on in secondary school if they are pregnant, and since before Junio even arrived, Paskazia and Anna and I have been brainstorming together about a skill that she could learn and turn into a business. My colleague Pam, in addition to being a nurse, is an excellent seamstress, and had a pattern for an adorable bag; this past week, Paskazia started sitting with Pam and learning how to cut and sew, and will be starting her own small business of sewing purses made out of the local African cloth. Next up on the agenda for Paskazia is to start having a few lessons on saving and small business, and to begin the process of looking for clients and shops who would be willing to sell the purses. Pictured here are Paskazia with her first finished bag, along with Junio and Pam.
God is good. All the time. And it is a blessing to see Him in action here in so many ways.
Happy New Year!
Thank you, you wonderful Ohio and Georgia people, that came and opened the year 2011 with us. Your service here has made a lasting impression on the community…many people are smiling more these days because of the great dental service they received, the younger children have not voluntarily come off of the new swingset yet, and we are so thankful for who you are and how much you each contribute to this project. Bless you all and Happy New Year!
New Year’s Eve with Lisa and Company
Selma, Lisa, Teddy, and Anna
Holly & Holly
Dentistry by Dave
The new big toy going up in the front yard of Angel House
Painting Angelhouse Secondary
What a blessing these past couple of weeks to have had the company of Cari Dague and her volunteers come tutor the youngest children while they are on school vacation, donate all the paint for the school building and go to work getting it put on.
Getting Started
Amy’s Serious Painting Face
Angels Chacha Migera and William Painting Their Own Future School
The Leader Herself, Cari
Our Beautiful School Underneath the Beautiful African Sky