Received Mon July 3 3:21am.
July 3 rd, Lukani Worship & Iringa
Today is Tuesday July 3rd and is our last day in Iringa. We leave midday for Ruaha national park, a 3 hour dusty drive in Land Rovers. We’re looking forward to the park visit where we may finally have some time to relax a bit. Eleven days have passed since we landed in Dar es Salaam and they have been completely filled with mission activities. We have rarely had more then an hour between events. The trip has gone very well and been and incredible spiritual experience. A slower pace will be most welcome.
Sunday we got to sleep in (no 6:00 a.m. worship) . After packing and a leisurely breakfast we participated in the worship service at Lukani to close out our visit. As expected, it was the highlight of a wonderful uplifting visit. Lots of singing, dancing, clapping, speeches, poetic songs about our friendship and a joyful spirit of celebration. Pastor Jim preached a 30 minute sermon (woe to you at St. Stephen). Ken only fell asleep twice and Betsy was crying. The service lasted about 3 ½ hours and was then followed by the presentation and blessing of Lukanis’ new motorbike. Gifts were exchanged and, especially, our team presented the new paraments to Lukani amid raucous applause. The paraments were presented to each of the evangelists who will take them to their preaching points. Thanks to the group of women at St. Stephen who sewed the paraments. After we gave them the paraments they presented us with a banner to hang at Church to remind us of our companion relationship.
The motorbike was presented in a special ceremony outside the church, following the worship service. Hundreds of Lukani parishioners surrounded the motorbike in a large circle. The gift was received with thunderous ovation and ululating. Then Pastor Comoro led us all in a dedication liturgy, and prayers were said for effective and safe use of the bike in the ministry of Lukani. Starting this new motorbike proved to be a challenge, but it was eventually accomplished. The people are very excited about this bike and are confident it will significantly improve the ministry in and around Lukani.
This trip back to Iringa was quick, one hour and 20 minutes! We all immediately headed for the showers. Thankfully MR Hotel had hot water, enough for all. It was late enough in the day that we only had time to arrange dinner at the hotel, do devotions and head off to a welcome night’s rest. The MR Hotel is very comfortable but because it is in the middle of the city, it is always noisy. So sleep came to some and eluded others.
Monday morning we went to Image Secondary School. Pastor Ngogo is an incredible visionary who began Image School just 4 years ago. They have about 450 students and 16 teachers and plan to grow to about 800 students and 32 teachers. His vision for the campus is unusual for a Tanzanian. He has laid out on paper where each of the buildings will be placed. One of their current challenges is bringing a water line 1 km from the village to the school. Right now every student spends about 2 hours every day bringing water to the school which causes loss of study time and occasional discipline problems. This mission team agreed to donate about $600 raised from bread and wrapping paper sales to help fund connection and one section of pipe for this water line. They are still seeking funding for 5 sections of pipe for the line. We all came away excited about this secondary school in Image.
On the way back to Iringa, we stopped at the Ilula Hospital (previously a health center, but just in March this year designated as a hospital). We met Dr. Sanga and were given a tour. Bill VanEssendelft plans to spend time here in an administrative capacity beginning in January. To our great surprise, we ran into Jimson Sanga who there caring for his father who was a patient at Ilula. The hospital is nothing like what we are used to in the United States but meets an incredibly important need in this region.
Again we got back late but squeezed into a trip to the market. The last couple of days we finally got the hang of ordering our dinner 2 hours beforehand so that is was ready when we arrived. Ken stumbled on a great caterer during his water board meeting on Tuesday and she prepared a dinner of barbeque chicken, American salad!, and other standard fare.
Now we are off to Ruaha. If possible we will send one more e-mail from Arusha on Saturday.
Signing off!
