Moving Mongers to Mwanza

Yes, the Mongers are moving to Mwanza! As our latest newsletter wings its way to those of you on our mailing list, we felt we should say a little more about this than would fit on the newsletter page! So as we start to prepare for our move (which is approaching altogether rather too quickly!)  here is a little bit more for you about Mwanza and what we are doing! 

Mwanza is about 900km from Iringa, so it will take us a good two days to drive there. It is about 1000km from Dar es Salaam. It is the second largest city in Tanzania, a beautiful spot on the shores of Lake Victoria. The economy is dominated by smallholder agriculture and also fishing, although more recently, mining also.



Mwanza, on the shores of Lake Victoria

Mwanza has been in our thoughts since before we came to Tanzania over three years ago, and now the time has come to actually go there. It is hard to believe we are actually leaving Iringa; we very quickly grew to love it here and are going to miss so many friends here.  But we are looking forward to a new adventure and very much looking forward to working with friends, Pastor Zakayo Nzogere and family and Bishop Charles Mkumbo of the Tanzania Assemblies of God Church. We will be starting and establishing an EI partnership with the church and doing similar work to what we have been doing here... serving the church to help them meet the needs of the poor in the area. This means both practical needs (doing things like fuel-efficient stove projects and tree planting etc.) and also spiritual needs (theological training for pastors, church planting, sharing the Word of God with people etc.). We hope to do more training and equipping in both areas and build with the Tanzanian church there. There are many poor, rural areas on the shores and islands of the Lake that the church is seeking to help by planting churches, sourcing water, establishing schools and clinics and we are looking forward to being able to help in whatever ways we can.



 

With the Nzogere Family (Zakayo, Evelyn, Belinda and Brenda)

So we plan to drive, along with as much as we can carry, to our new home in the middle of January. We arrived in Tanzania three years ago with 18 bags, but we seem to have much more than that now! Andy and Angela have very kindly offered to drive up as well and help us with transporting our belongings and see us settle in! That's no small favour! We have a friend, Dr Bernard Makori who is now on the look-out for a house for us! We are praying he can secure a good one for us and then we can move straight in when we arrive! But we have already got a new postal address: PO Box 11298, Mwanza, Tanzania.

We are going to miss all that is so familiar and comfortable here, and especially so many good friends. We will be very sad to part with Mama Lucy, wishing she could come with us! She is such a special lady to our family. And also Jesca who we would have loved to travel with us to start new ventures in Mwanza! Of course our good friends from Magozi, Ezekiel and Mendriad, but they have keenly offered to come up and help with the training of our first Mwanza stoves group, so we won't be completely on our own!

So please pray for us! Pray for us as we pack up and say our farewells here. Pray that we can find a house in Mwanza, and that in January we would settle quickly into new relationships and new work. And pray with us for the stoves project work continuing here in Iringa when we have gone! Thank you!