Zucchini Setback

Saturday morning. I wasn’t feeling so well this morning, so instead of weeding my garden as I should have, I just sat quietly on the stoop and watched the birds. Black kites preened in the trees while others flew overhead in all directions. Marabou storks formed large kettles, soaring ever higher into the warming thermals. Gray-headed sparrows perched in the mango, avocado, and poinsettia trees and chirped incessantly. One lone village indigo bird sang and sang from a high snag. A long winged and long tailed falcon soared by leisurely, but didn’t linger long enough for me. It might have been a Eurasian hobby or an Eleanora’s falcon, but there are so many falcon possibilities that I could not sort it out before it disappeared. The African palm swifts have such long and narrow wings that I wonder how they get enough lift to fly, but surely they were designed more for their spectacular aerobatics than for sustained flight. Eastern gray plantain-eaters laughed like maniacal monkeys as they gathered food and nesting materials. Yellow-vented bulbuls shouted their loud song from every direction and a young bird snuggled up to its parent, hoping for special attention or a little food. Three willow warblers, recently arrived for the winter after their breeding season in Europe, gleaned bugs from the overgrown hedge. Creation is full of wondrous things.

Eventually I wandered into the garden to see whether the weeds or the zucchinis are winning. The weeds are indeed gaining ground, but for now the zucchinis still prevail. There are many blossoms where I expect soon to see more zucchini-lets, but a few days ago I sadly discovered that my first small zucchini had rotted on the vine. It had not grown much at all since I first proudly described it. Maybe we had too much rain – there has been a lot. Or it could be the bugs. Inch-long grasshoppers, boldly striped in black and yellow-green, are particularly fond of the zucchini leaves, and scores of tiny flies too small to describe swarm out of the plants when I pull back the leaves to look inside. I may lose the entire crop to bugs if I don’t use insecticide, and since I have none, that is a distinct possibility. I discovered another plant in the garden that may be my only green pepper seed to have sprouted. I’ll have to watch this one to see what develops. The tiny watermelon seedling that sprouted from my compost a couple weeks back has become a blossom-laden six foot long vine and is still growing. Even as my zucchini prospects become dim, I am brightened by the thought of a few sweet watermelons some day.

Zucchini-lets!

17 November 2009. I have been avoiding the garden for a week or so, but I can easily see from the kitchen door that the weeds are starting a reclamation project. So today I went out in the cooler part of the afternoon when the sun is low and the shadows long. I like to loosen the dirt with a shovel and pull the weeds by hand, especially near my zucchini plants. When my weeding took me close to the single mound of my September 23 test planting, I peered inside. There, bright and healthy looking, was a dark green 3 inch zucchini-let. Whoo-hoo! In a week, maybe less, I’ll be stir-frying that very zucchini.

It has been 8 weeks since I planted that mound of seeds. My second planting was on 14 October, so at that rate we ought to have a second crop in mid-December. Maybe we’ll have zucchini bread for Christmas this year. Maybe I’ll try a third planting – but now there is a risk there won’t be enough rain; the short December-January dry season is coming.

My green pepper and New Zealand spinach seeds all seem to have failed. But as if to make up for the loss, a tikitimaji (watermelon) has sprouted from my earliest compost site. It is growing very well and I can’t wait to see if it produces some melons. And today I discovered another plant in the garden. It looks just like green beans my mother used to grow. I’ll be watching it, but will it produce enough beans for even one stir-fry?

Wild Ride

14 November 2009. I am so glad we always took our kids on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride when we visited the Disney parks. Nothing else could have prepared us so well for yesterday’s adventure.

In typical theme park fashion, our trip began at the counter where the people formed into a dense cue (mob, really) to buy tickets for the short ferry ride from Mwanza to Kamanga. Once there we each took a seat in the AICT (Africa Inland Church Tanzania) Toyota Land Cruiser to begin our ride. With 8 people on board (4 CRWRC volunteers and 4 church staff members) and all the stuff needed for a day or two on the road, it was comfortable, but full, when our ride began. Along the rough gravel road we sped, lurching and bouncing along, dodging bikes, cows, and potholes along the way. Every once in a while there would come from the 3 poor souls in the back, sitting sideways on barely padded benches, “ouch” and “oooh!” as the car bounded over particularly painful or exciting bumps. After about 25 kilometers of this seat-gripping ride, we stopped unexpectedly in the village of Sengerema. Sitting together in the far back, Peggy and I looked quizzically at each other – grateful for the breather, but wondering why we stopped.

Soon enough it came clear. Two more staff members, carrying their own box, briefcase, and a small suitcase, piled in. Now we were more than full with 10 people on board. There were 4 wide people jammed into the 3 not-so-wide seats in the second row, shoulders forced into alternating layers. Four more people were wedged into the back among piles of stuff. Once uncomfortably situated, off we went again. In no time at all we encountered road construction and the adventure got even more exciting. For the next 75 kilometers we watched the ever-so-enticing smooth road-under-construction pass by in our peripheral vision while our car bounced, lurched, and veered down the temporary so-called road beside it. Potholes, bumps, trees, cattle, bicycles, goats, pedestrians, trucks – every imaginable obstruction came zooming into view, only to be avoided at the last second by our imaginative driver. Could he really be in control or were we riding on tracks like Mr. Toad’s, carefully designed to avoid all the obstacles?

Finally we reached smooth roads where the car picked up more speed, and soon we were in the larger town of Geita. Thinking we were near the end of the ride, we were a bit surprised when the car took a sudden and unexpected turn off the road and came to a stop a short distance later. Time for “chai” – breakfast in Swahili. Refreshed by tea, chapattis and relief for our bruised bladders, we were off again. After another 20 or 30 kilometers we reached the first of two medical clinics scheduled for a visit that day. The time was spent quietly for us volunteers. I was grateful for the rest, but I couldn’t help but think, with just a little dread, “I think we have to go back the same way we just came!”

After the business was completed, all 10 of us, plus gear, piled back into the car and headed for the second medical clinic, about a 90 minute drive away. By now I had moved from the bench in the back to the second row because Allan developed a sore back from the second row seat. Go figure. But if he wanted the straight-backed, side-facing, barely padded, no-leg-room, high-bounce-zone back seat, I was willing to take the normal padded seat with plenty of leg room, even if it meant a shoe-horn fit and resting the back of my shoulder on the front of my neighbor’s shoulder. From this relatively comfortable position I could not turn around to look at those behind me, so it came as a complete surprise to me to learn the next day that there weren’t 10 of us, but then 11 people in the car. Just before the car pulled away, the doctor from the clinic climbed into the back with yet another box. He wedged himself in among Peggy and the other 3 people in back and stuffed the extra box into space that didn’t really exist. The doctor only rode with us to the main highway, about 10 kilometers, and then he jumped out and went on his way, leaving us with 10 again. While I never noticed he was in the back of the car, I’m sure his presence was closely felt by the other 4 back there.

The next 60 kilometers was a tame ride by comparison to the morning’s. The gravel roads were a little wider and a little smoother, and the cattle, bicycles and pedestrians seemed nimble-footed. Some of us even grabbed a little sleep between all the lurching and the bouncing on the way to the second clinic.

When the business was completed there, it was already late afternoon and the staff was eager to get started for home. But our host insisted on serving us all a meal. Our leaders being too gracious to say no, accepted the invitation and we all sat down for a very delicious meal. We ate quickly, but still had a minute to take a photo of our host family standing in front of their wall poster of Barack Obama and Martin Luther King, Jr., entitled “The Dream Has Come True.” When the meal was finished, the 10 of us piled into the car again. But wait -- now there were two more occupants to fit in. One of the staff members bought 2 live chickens, and each one “found” a place under the two side seats in the back. After cleaning up a little of what chickens leave behind when they get stressed, we got on our way, bouncing and lurching along the “good” gravel road back to Geita. At Geita we made the turn east and headed back toward home. I was anticipating (unhappily) the road under construction that lay ahead, when suddenly we made another abrupt turn into a crowded bus station. Our driver pushed ahead, honking the horn as standers-by briskly side-stepped to get out of the way. After driving in a circle around the parking lot and pulling to a stop in the middle, 8 men appeared out of nowhere shoving handfuls of pineapples into every open window of the car. Altogether our group bought a dozen of the largest pineapples – 3 for about $1.50. Where there were already chickens, boxes, bags, suitcases and no leg room we added the 12 pineapples and were ready to continue our adventure.

Still with a long distance to go and the last ferry to catch, our driver tried to make up time on the short stretch of smooth paved road leading away from Geita. At that speed it wasn’t long at all before we reached the big construction zone. He slowed down to ease the car onto the exceedingly rough temporary road, and then brought it back up to off-road speed again. “At least,” I thought to myself, “this is the worst stretch of road and it won’t get any worse than this.”

And then it got dark. Trucks, cattle, pedestrians, bicycles carrying long poles of sugar cane sideways – they all zipped by, briefly flashing in the lights of our Land Cruiser. Bumps, puddles, potholes, dips, brush – all were still in the road, but they only required a noticeable reduction in speed only if the driver could not swerve around them. And now, with the construction crews gone for the night, there was a wide-open, brand new, not-quite-finished roadway seemingly inviting us up for a lovely and fast drive. So up on the smooth surface we went, no longer swerving around potholes and bumps, but now dodging construction barricades, rocks, piles of dirt, and other obstacles purposely put in the way to keep unauthorized cars from driving on the unfinished road! When we encountered a night crew at work and the unfinished road became impassable, the car returned to the bumps and lurches of the temporary side road.

At last the lights of the village of Sengerema came into view and I felt a surge of relief. Not only was the road better after Sengerema (or so I thought), but this is where we picked up 2 passengers in the morning, and I naturally thought they would get off in Sengerema. I’m sure all of the folks in the back seat were disappointed when only one got out – it meant the lucky 3 in the middle seat (still including me!) finally got some hip and shoulder room, but there was no relief for the 4 in the far back.

Without even a break for our even-more-bruised bladders, the car turned back onto the road toward Mwanza. At the traffic circle in Sengerema we turned onto a different road out of town than the one we drove in on because the late ferry goes from a different village than the ferry we rode in the morning. My spirits quickly brightened when I realized this road, unlike the one we drove on in the morning, was paved, smooth, and fast. But just as quickly my bright spirits faded. Within a few short kilometers we ran into construction again. So with another 20 or 25 kilometers to go, it was back on to a temporary side road every bit as bad as before. It was somewhere along this stretch that one of the chickens broke loose, pecked Peggy’s feet, and fluttered its wings between the knees of one of the other lady passengers. Whoa! On and on it went like this in the dark.

When finally the dim lights of the ferry terminal came into view, I heard from the far back prayers of thanksgiving to God in at least two languages – English and Swahili. There was such a murmur of relief that it may also have included prayers in Dutch and Sukuma, but I’m not sure. My personal prayer at that moment was to thank the Lord that Allan, so many hours ago, wanted to trade his middle row seat for the bench, boxes, suitcases, pineapples and chickens in the back. I was maybe a little hot and sweaty from the crowded seating, but 10 hours later at least my butt wasn’t sore and my legs weren’t cramped.

The 9 remaining people were more than eager to get out of the car and stand quietly waiting for the ferry to arrive. Not even a little rain and a cloud of lake flies gathering under the lights could drive any one of us back into that car sooner than necessary. While waiting we came within a scale’s width of having a few fresh fish added to the carry-on baggage. One of our group looked long and hard at the pile of small fish laid out by boy fishermen in the car’s headlights. Fortunately for those in back, no fish were bought. Much to my surprise, though, when we got back in the car after crossing the lake on the ferry, another, unfamiliar woman climbed into the middle seat beside me! I wondered the whole way home who she was and why she hitched a ride with us. The 25 or 30 kilometers back home to Mwanza were spent, once again crowded together, either bouncing and lurching through another construction zone or driving at high speeds on the paved road into Mwanza. The finale of the trip was a brisk ride through the side streets of the city as we dropped off one of the members of our group at his home. We made unexpected turns to the right and to the left, feeling lost as we ventured into areas we’d never seen before, only to be surprised when we finally emerged from one side street onto our own road, not 3 blocks from home.

Like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, this one was exciting and full of surprises to the very end.

Zucchini Garden

You would not have predicted it when I (Gordon) was a child, but now zucchini is one of my favorite vegetables. I love to cook it in a stir-fry. But zucchini is quite hard to find in Mwanza. Sometimes one vendor has it in the distant big market (never in the near market) and once in a while it can be found in the vegetable stand near the U-Turn Grocery. So even before we left Tanzania last May I was planning my future vegetable garden. I figured that the way things grow here in the rainy season, a few green vegetables ought to grow, too. While we were in the states I bought some seeds -- zucchini, green pepper, and spinach. Shortly after we arrived, some rain began to fall. It seemed a little early for the start of the short rains, so I thought I would plant just a few seeds in a little test plot. Now the zucchinis in my test plot are growing seriously fast, but if the other plants germinated, I still can’t tell their sprouts from the blanket of weeds that is also sprouting everywhere.

I know I will enjoy the zucchinis and other vegetables come harvest time, but today they are nearly killing me. Encouraged by the success of my test zucchinis and with rains now coming often, today I started preparing the ground to plant the rest of my seeds. Before I began I had visions of long rows of green peppers and spinach. Zucchinis would be spreading in all directions. So much would grow that I could open my own little vegetable stand at the market. But the reality of digging out the carpet of grass and weeds with my short-handled hoe hit suddenly and painfully hard. Just one hour of hoeing, even with my alternating of five minutes of hoeing with five minutes of rest, had me walking around the rest of the day with my back slightly stooped and held at just the critical angle (listing five degrees to the right) to keep it from going into spasms!

Thank goodness the daily downpour came early today, giving me a perfect excuse to cut short my garden work and run for cover. But the job is not done. My cleared spot is only about 10 feet long, and I still haven’t pulled all the weeds out of even that small area. I have more hoeing and raking to do, and some shoveling, too, before I am ready to plant. Maybe tomorrow. Or perhaps in a few days. I might even have to think many thoughts of stir-fry to convince my back that it really will be worth it to go back out in the garden.

My visions of having my own vegetable stand are gone forever. The long rows of vegetables I envisioned have shrunk to a rather small plot. Today I gained some new-found respect for the men, women, and children that toil day after day in the fields around Mwanza with nothing but a hoe. It is a back breaking work that they do, growing food and crops. And for all their work they get very little income. Despite working very hard, they are still desperately poor. The farmers deserve more than they get. In the future I’m going to be more serious about looking for the Fair Trade label when I buy goods made or grown in developing countries.

Welcomed Back to Mwanza

19 September 2009. We arrived back in Mwanza on Thursday to a very warm welcome. It is good to be back.

We are quickly settling into the same, comfortable house, and are expecting to resume basically the same kind of work we did before. But already we have discovered some changes. The Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (“CRWRC”) development staff has moved back to the states, and for the time being we are in possession of and responsible for the CRWRC car. It’s parked right outside our front door. Someday we’ll have to screw up our courage and take it out for a drive – they drive on the “wrong” side of the road here! Also new is that the two dogs next door, Bubba and Lucky, just puppies when we left in May, are now old enough to run guard duty in the compound at night. And we are experiencing a little bit of the dry season for the first time. Things are quite brown and some (but not all) of the trees have dropped all their leaves.

Even though it’s still the dry season, it rained very hard last night. In the middle of the storm we were awakened by a sound we had never before heard on the compound. WEE-OOOH! WEE-OOOH! WEE-OOOH! It sounded like a car alarm. Could it be our CRWRC car? In just a few seconds it stopped. Was someone trying to break into the vehicle right outside our door? We got up to investigate, but in the dark silence we could see nothing amiss. So back to bed we went. Just as we were drifting back to sleep, again we were startled – WEE-OOH! WEE-OOH! WEE-OOH! Up again to investigate, more certain that it was our car, and someone was messing with it. Fearful of what we might see, we peered again out the screened windows, our flashlights sending out diffuse beams into the rainy night. In the dim light I thought I glimpsed a dark figure moving in the shadows behind the car. Could it be? There it was again! It was Lucky, one of the guard dogs. And just then Margaret caught sight of Bubba, the other guard dog. As Margaret watched, the dogs crouched down low and slinked under the vehicle, setting off the alarm yet again. Lucky and Bubba had found a fine place to get out of the rain, but it was keeping the whole neighborhood awake. Every time Margaret would reset the alarm, the guard dogs would trigger it again. Finally Margaret decided that the only way to keep the alarm quiet was to disable the sound – but that seemed OK, at least for the night. With the guard dogs lying in ambush under the car, nobody else was going to come close.

Taking a Break

A working draft of Gordon's translation work is completed, and Margaret has finished her work at the clinic for the season. We are packing our bags and saying to all our new friends "tutaonana" -- not good-bye, but "we shall meet again."

In just a couple days we will be leaving Mwanza and returning to North America for about 4 months. We will be reconnecting with our family and visiting with our friends and supporters while there. Then sometime in September we will return, God willing, to Mwanza for another longer term.

It has been a real blessing to have spent our last six months in Tanzania. We have learned much about another culture. It is sometimes amazing to see how God works in the hearts and lives of people who live a life quite different from what we are accustomed to. If our paths cross in the next few months, be sure to ask about our experiences. We would love to share something of what we have experienced in Tanzania.

April Newsletter

(click on the images for full page view)

The Miracle of Rain of Stones

The long rains have begun. Last Tuesday it was a deluge. We have not seen it rain any harder than that. Just when the rain was heaviest we heard “ping! ping! ping!” – the sound of hail hurtling against our steel roof. With a look out the window we could see it beginning to accumulate on the grass. It was a little larger than pea-sized. Only 40 minutes after the rain started, it was over and the sun was back in full force. In no time all the hail was gone and it was just as hot as before.

Soon after it stopped the neighborhood kids came by the house. I asked if they had seen the hail. Yes, they had, and they were quite excited about it. Most exciting of all – they ate some. It was “nzuri” (good) and “baridi!” (cold!)

Later we talked about the hail in our Swahili lesson. “Mvua ya mawe” – rain of stones – is its Swahili name. Such a thing happens here maybe once a year our teacher said.

Our favorite and very enthusiastic taxi driver had seen it too. “God did a miracle today,” he declared. “He made ice fall from the sky.”

Chapel

March 4, 2009. For months we have been attending chapel services before the beginning of work each day. The health clinic holds chapel at the facility where Peggy works, and the national office where Gordon works holds its own chapel in a nearby building. Most days I (Gordon) feel great about the chapel if I can find the Bible passage and read along in my English/Swahili New Testament. All the better if I know the tune of the hymn and can sing along in my Swahili song book – even if I can’t understand most of the words of the hymn. But the messages and the prayers in Swahili go by too fast for me to catch any more than a few words here and there.

Yesterday’s chapel followed the typical pattern until the end, when I was surprised by a request that I lead the chapel this morning! My friend Mr. Byemero encouraged me to go ahead and do it, even if I only knew two Swahili words. So I accepted the request and later made my preparations.

I spoke from 2 Cor. 5:15-6:1 about reconciliation (upatanisho) – the restoration of people back into a good and right relationship with God like that which existed before it was destroyed by sin. Through Christ’s death believers are made right with God. For this reason, believers no longer consider anyone in the same worldly way they did before.

First, Christ has reconciled each believer to God and has made each believer a new creation. God no longer counts our sins against us. Therefore, we must view ourselves as believers in the same way that God views us. We will make mistakes. But because we know God does not count them against us, we should not either. Instead, as co-workers with Christ we must seek to reconcile and restore whatever has been broken by our sin.

Second, believers now also view unbelievers in a different way. Because God loves them so much that Christ died for them while they are still sinners, so must we love those who don't believe. We have been appointed by Christ as his ambassadors (mabalozi) to carry the message of reconciliation with God. Some ambassadors are sent by their king to take a declaration of war, but not the ambassadors of Christ. We go with a message of peace and reconciliation.

Finally, we should not receive God’s grace in vain. In other words, we should not let God’s grace be wasted. Instead, we should do what we can each day to promote reconciliation and restoration of the world through the work of God’s grace.

My two Swahili words? Mabalozi wa upatanisho. Ambassadors of reconciliation. Big words.

Serengeti!

Serengeti! What mission to Tanzania would be complete without a safari to the Serengeti? The name means endless plain in the Maasai language. And the endless plain is home to countless animals. We excitedly watched a herd of 36 elephants walk around our car. A lone cheetah, spotted in the morning mist on the distant horizon, slowly strolled closer and closer until it crossed the road in front of us and lay down to rest in the shade of a tree not 30 meters from our car. We looked eye-to-eye with a male lion and his entire family group – and understood why it is called his pride.

We didn’t see all the animals of the Serengeti, but we saw enough to make us marvel at the variety of God’s creation. The zebra has his stripes, the giraffe her astonishing neck, and the hippos soak in the pool all day long. Each animal equipped in some special way for life in this marvelous place.

Of course, the birds hold a very special interest for us. Our guide, a most friendly Tanzanian named Ben, was able to show us not only lions, cheetahs, leopards, serval, African wild cat, and a myriad of hoofed animals, but also well more than a hundred bird species. Most of them so new to us that we struggled to find them in the bird book. Often so many appeared at once that we had to look first, and hope we could identify them in the book later. African ground hornbills, lilac-breasted rollers, white-crowned shrikes, fawn-colored lark, cinnamon-breasted bunting, and on and on. Secretary birds that somehow do not remind me of the office. Starlings so striking they are named “superb” – astonishingly beautiful to our American eyes so used to seeing only the boringly drab Eurasian starling. What fun it was!

Two days in the Serengeti makes me want to rush right back. Next time, maybe the wildebeest migration will be in the northwest part of the park where we can reach it easily from Mwanza. Or maybe the cheetah will show off his speed. Or maybe the leopard will change his spots. Or maybe not. Whatever we see the next time, it is sure to be very, very special.

Peggy's Day At The Makongoro Clinic

I volunteer daily at the Africa Inland Church of Tanzania’s Makongoro Health Clinic in Mwanza. It consists of an out-patient clinic, an in-patient hospital with 29 beds, a mother/baby clinic, and an HIV counseling and testing clinic. My supervisor is Matron Jovina Machia.



Our day starts out with a 20 minute staff devotional time. Along with all the health clinic staff, we sing praise songs, read from the Bible and hear a 10 minute sermon, all in Kiswahili. After devotions are finished we attend the morning meeting with the doctors, the heads from the lab and finance departments, and the 2 matrons (head nurses). We hear the night report, and discuss any concerns that have come up, again, all in Kiswahili. Then Monica and I dispense any medications that are needed that shift for both the out-patient clinic and the in-patient hospital.

When the meds are finished, Monica (the other Christian Reformed World Relief Committee nurse volunteer from Canada) and I usually go to work in the hopsital wards. Soon one of the doctors comes by to do rounds. We go as a group from bed to bed while the doctor speaks with each patient about how they are doing. Still, all in Kiswahili. Then the doctor makes the orders for that day, but now in English! All the patient charting is in English, and the written orders are, too. So the Tanzanian nurses love to have us do the writing in the Rounds Book, because it has to be in English!

For the rest of the shift, we work alongside Tanzanian nurses. We often dispense medications, usually intravenous quinine for the treatment of malaria. And we admit new patients, again usually with a diagnosis of malaria.

In the hospital there are three large rooms or wards, one a children’s ward, the second the women’s ward, and the third a men’s ward. There is also one “private” room with 2 beds and a private toilet. The rest of the patients share common bathrooms (one for the men, one for the women and one shower).

The hospital is on the same compound that we live on, so it is only a 2 minute walk to work. Except that on the way we must greet every person we meet. Near or far, we must ask “Harbari za asubuhi?” (“News of your morning?”), and “news of your home,” and “your family,” and “your work,” and “Mama (or Baba) hajambo?” (“Mama has no problems?”). And then we walk on until the next person we see and go through the greetings again. It is a very fun ritual, but it slows down our walk a lot. Fortunately, even our boss understands that being late sometimes cannot be helped!

Gordon's Work at AICT

This year Africa Inland Church of Tanzania (AICT) is celebrating its 100th year. It was started in 1909 by missionaries from America, called the Africa Inland Mission (AIM), which is still active in Africa today. Sixty years after its founding, the AIM turned over the ownership and supervision of the Tanzanian church to local leaders, and AICT was formed. The two organizations have been operating in partnership in Tanzania ever since.

The AICT church has about 1,000,000 members. They are spread across Tanzania, but concentrated in the northwestern part of the country where the church began. I (Gordon) am volunteering at the national headquarters under the direction of General Secretary Joseph Gisayi. I have my own office, which I share with a couple geckos and a few cabinets full of records. Lately I have been reviewing five-year plans. First the strategic plan for the entire national church. Next the strategic plan for the health department. The plans are written in English, so I am able to offer many editorial suggestions to help clarify the text and intent of the plans. Soon I will be reviewing plans for other departments of the church, like the publishing department, the finance department, and others. The health department plan is already finished; all of the others are presently drafts, or not yet even written. The church is in the midst of an intense planning process to focus its strategy and operations in accordance with its vision and mission. In summary, AICT’s mission is to spread the Gospel of Jesus to all people and to promote holistic human development to help the poor achieve major improvements in their mental, physical, and spiritual growth and development.

The five-year plans of the church are impressive, as are its existing operations. It already operates a theological college, two successful secondary schools, a nursing school, two large hospitals, two health centers with small inpatient wards (about 30 beds each), and 18 smaller health dispensaries, along with many other programs. But with much still needed to be accomplished in Africa, its five-year plans focus on improving and expanding its operations, not only to increase spiritual care, but also to contribute towards sustainable and affordable access to quality social and economic services (health, education, agriculture) for the people of Tanzania, with particular focus on the poorest communities and those affected by disasters. Among the goals AICT seeks are improvements in access to safe water, increased education for village children, HIV/AIDS counseling and education, improved agricultural practices, and greater justice and gender equality for women. Interestingly, it has chosen significant reductions in national infant and maternal mortality rates as the primary indicators of success for many of its food, health, and sanitation goals. The church recognizes that it cannot accomplish such significant changes by itself, so it expressly states that it plans to contribute to the work of the national government and other churches and NGOs in achieving these goals.

I still have much trouble understanding Swahilli, but it did not take me long to understand, even in Swahili, that the church in Tanzania believes in the power of prayer. If you will, please pray with me that the plans and work of the AICT will, along with that of its partners, be effective to improve the spiritual, mental, and physical condition of Africans in Tanzania, both now and for many years to come. As they say in Swahili, tuombe -- let us pray.

Lunch

Several days a week we share lunch with a Tanzanian family in their home. We start by washing our hands in warm water poured from a pitcher into a bowl by one of the children. After prayers we are invited to eat a simple, but well-prepared meal. The staple of the lunch is ugali, (a thick corn meal) or rice. Also there is a cooked green and a bit of meat -- kuku (chicken), n'gombe (beef) or samaki (fish) -- cooked in a sauce. The ugali is dipped into the sauce and eaten by hand. Our inexperienced fingers have some difficulty getting the ugali to our mouths without it crumbling to bits and without the sauce dripping down our chins. We enjoy the tasty food and, especially, the experience of sharing the meal with the children of our host family. Our attempts at Swahili conversation with the children and our host are sometimes very amusing. Like the day Peggy tried to tell the mama the food was good by saying "chakula ndege," which translates as "bird food" instead of "good food." Another day Gordon was taking a picture of the family and got them all to smile by loudly saying "chapati" (it means "chapati"), which made them all laugh. Now when the kids see Gordon across the grounds they wave and shout out "Chapati!" And that makes him smile.