Archive for the ‘General’ Category
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.
National Geographic Africa
When people come here to Tarime and to the mission house, we tell them this is not your National Geographic Africa. Tarime is not a tourist town and the area is not a tourist area. If you like to see poor people, mud huts, people constantly walking along the road, to live without electricity and water, not bath yourself for a few days, then I guess I could be wrong.
My globe-trotting Mother came to visit us. We picked her up in Nairobi, did the tourist thing of the giraffe park, elephant orphanage, museum and a cultural exhibition of native dances. Then came the 8-hour bus ride to non-tourist town Tarime.
We visited the orphanage, on Sunday mom and Pam did crafts with the kids and Tuesday, we left on Safari to the Serengeti. Now that’s your National Geographic Africa. We entered the park and drove 3 hours on rough gravel roads to our fabulous hotel. We of course sighted all kinds of animal as we drove. I’ll attach photos of some of them. After watching animals in the morning, we drove about 5 hours to our next hotel on the rim of a crater that contains more animals, the rarest being the black rhino.
Please excuse some of the photos. This is where the animals live and it’s not a zoo. And I guess I’m kind of ruined for zoos now. I photographed the animals with a telephoto lens. The first rhino we saw was on the horizon and looked like a blob. You could barely see the outline. We were lucky enough to find a group of 5. They were a bit away, but I got some decent photos.
Pictures speak louder than words, so here you go, enjoy.
We were at the entrance to the park when this guy showed up
A Strong Woman
Zach is a friend of mine here in Tanzanian. He has worked as a translator for me and we have also practiced martial arts togehter, though he is much better than I am and just last year was able to travel to China as a Tanzanian representative at the Wushu World Games. This past weekend I was able to meet his mother. It was a good weekend in that I was able to see Kisumu (a city in Kenya) for the first time. Liz and I were able to experience some new forms of transportation and got to see the biggest Nakumaut (Wal-Mart/Mall) in Kenya. However, the highlight of the weekend will always be meeting Zach’s mom, Nereah.
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church that Nereah built |
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| Zach and his mom, Nereah |
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
It Takes a Village…
Sunday, December 5, 2010
The idea of that african proverb that says it takes a village to raise a child has started to catch on, slowly but surely…today after church we had a visit from the staff at one of our local banks, who decided to take community action in conjunction with World AIDS Day that is December 1 each year. Not only did they come to get to the know the kids and introduce themselves, they came bearing huge gifts…50kg rice, 20L cooking oil, 2 big tubs of laundry soap, lotion, and a GOAT! It has been a work in progress to get the local communities to view these children as their own responsibility; more often than not when missionaries come in, the local community considers that good enough. Through friendships with the people here in town and growing awareness about our project because of the school announcements being passed out this last month, it is exciting to see the community taking it all in and acting as though it is all of our responsibilities to nurture these precious children.
Primed and Ready
Last minute details are taking place! The entire administration block and four classrooms have been sandpapered and primed in anticipation of a group of volunteers that arrive tonight and will be here for a week and a half loving on the kids, leading tutoring sessions while they are on school vacation, and working together with the secondary students to paint the school. Furniture is shaping up and textbooks are all purchased; our headmaster and second master officially start working tomorrow, and teachers from all over the region call five times a day trying to get a shot at teaching here. We are SO excited for what is to come.
Side View of Classrooms and a Bahati Pose
Nossi Enjoying the Office Furniture and Pretending to be Second Master
