Boats and Baking, Painting and Pumpkin Pie

Out on the Lake

Last Sunday some of our team went together to BMCC Church. It was great to be back with Pastor Mbuke and this wonderful church and also good to introduce the new members of the team to them! After the service, we went on to have lunch together at a nearby restaurant on the lake. Often here, you can wait for rather a long time after ordering before your food arrives. The great thing at this restaurant, is that while you wait, you can go for a boat ride on the lake! It's a hard life!

Ukerewe Island

Tim was back on the lake on Thursday and Friday; this time for the four hour journey to Ukerewe Island with Joel. They were pretty chuffed to discover that a new boat had been launched which had a VIP lounge! Complimentary drinks included! Again... it's a hard life! On the island, they were meeting with local churches to discuss how the entrepreneurship project would run and could be shaped - particularly the upcoming training. It is not without its challenges, but exciting to be seeing this project move forward!

 Joel travelling VIP

At their hotel with Palapala (Director of Development) and various pastors

Baking Classes for Girls

While Tim was away, I had the privilege of going with Carol Nzogere to the home she has set up with others from MICC to help girls off the street. About 20 girls are staying there, from as young as twelve years old. These girls have been abandoned, rejected, orphaned and the life they have lived on the streets is horrendous. Three girls have their young babies with them. This home is offered to them for a set period of time in which they have a safe place to live, the opportunity to learn new skills, continue with some education and most importantly, be loved. Here they are shown the true love of Jesus. I went to start teaching a series of baking classes. We started with bread rolls and banana cakes. While I loved being with them all, the actual lesson was rather a disaster! The rains have started (which is a very good thing!) but with that comes an unreliable power supply. As the oven in the house was electric, it was on and off, then on and off again so baking proved disastrous! But it meant we had plenty of time to chat, while cooking (on the open fire outside) and eating lunch together. We also read the Bible together reflecting on verses in Deuteronomy 8 about a land in which bread is not scarce, about a life which is given by our Creator who can take us out of whatever wilderness we are in.

Upendo wa Mama Workshop

The painting and cleaning up of our workshop is now finished! Standing Voice have given us sole use of the garage, which with a bit of fixing up, is going to be good! On Wednesday, we moved all our materials and supplies in and can now focus on getting tables and chairs and also an oven and kitchen cupboard. Our only set-back was arriving to find the floor under water ... the rains come in (yes, a familiar problem!). But we have every hope this can be fixed! We set up the sewing machine and soon hope to start some sewing projects. Yesterday we got back to work, making African tie-dye again. Again the rains (which we want so much!) created havoc as we had the fire boiling a huge pot of water outside ... and the line outside ready to dry the fabric, when the heavens opened! We hung the twelve wet pieces of fabric up on criss-crossing strings in the garage and then sat in and under them to keep out of the rain! But there, all crouched on the floor in between diagonal walls of dripping fabric, we had a long and good discussion of hopes and plans for where to go from here and how the group can be a blessing in our wider community. It's great how God works things out when things don't seem to be working out!

The painting begins

Clean-up after the painters!

Back to work! Making African tie-dye!

A new skirt made from the last batch of fabric! 

Canadian Thanksgiving

Today, we had the joy of celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving with friends - old and new! We truly have so much to be thankful for and there is nothing like a delicious feast of turkey and trimmings and pumpkin pie to remind us to reflect on this!

Carving the turkey with Jannetta and Jade

The Canadians (plus a few others!)

The girls are particularly thankful for half term now! I hope they will have a bit of time this week to start up their blog again ... they have their own news of new bunnies and our first efforts at milking our goat! We head off later this week to Dar es Salaam for time with our good friends at Victory Christian Centre I will then stay on to work with a group of Albinism Mamas there which is new and exciting!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! This weekend has been Thanksgiving weekend in Canada and also this little part of Tanzania! A time to give thanks for the harvest and all the many blessings we have received!

Although we are far from harvesting here, (we are waiting for the rains to begin planting), there is no better time to stop and give thanks!

I am thankful for our new gas oven! We bought it on Thursday from friends moving from Mwanza. It has revolutionised my life! No more cooking everything over the single burner on the floor! It now takes about a third of the time to cook dinner as I can cook simultaneously on up to four burners and even use a grill or an oven if I so desire! Amazing! No more half-cooked bread or muffins started when I optimistically believed power would stay on! You may have read about the major power problems here a the moment. It all seems to come down to a serious lack of rain, technical problems with a new system and possible political games (read the news here). So with power coming on usually for a few hours in the middle of the night last week, there is no better time for my gas stove! And best of all, we could have our Canadian friends over for a real Thanksgiving Dinner last night! Roast chicken, stuffing, squash, pumpkin pie, butter tarts, maple cookies...! Truly very thankful!

Thanksgiving together in action
(and notice that thing top-centre of the photo ... yes, we even had electricity!!!) 

Pumpkin pie, Maple cookies and Canadian Butter Tarts

Boiling water AND cooking dinner at the SAME time!

I am thankful for our water tank! With the constant power cuts, the mains water pumps are often not working. This is a real problem for many people. But I am so thankful for our large tank which keeps us supplied with water.

I am thankful for kitchen drawers! At the weekend, a new drawer unit was fixed in the kitchen, after the previous drawers fell through a few weeks ago in a termite heap! In the midst of fundi fixing going a bit pear-shaped rather late on a Saturday night, I remind myself that I am thankful for a place to keep knives, spoons, measures, ladles... all organized and accessible! Small things can be big blessings!

Removing the old drawers

I am thankful for God's provision! Early the other morning, when the power went out yet again, I didn't feel so thankful. I cried out as I prepared breakfast, "Oh no! My joy is lost!" But we sat down to eat breakfast together and I asked that we all say what we are thankful for. Food to eat was top of the list at the time! And yes, joy is found! We have all we need and with a new jar of jam and baked banana bread, so much more!

I am thankful for the opportunity to live and work here in Tanzania! Yes, sometimes if feels so hard to be away from family. Missing friends and special occasions and feeling far away. Sometimes we miss the familiar things of "the other home" and get frustrated with all that is different here. But often it's through these lenses we appreciate what we do have here so much more! How thankful we are for the amazing friends we have have here. Thankful for the support we receive to live and work here. Thankful to be learning new things all the time and doing the interesting variety of things we do! Thankful to see God at work in different ways in different people and places! 

Thankful to be with this precious girl, Maria
and her little sister, Grace on Saturday

I am thankful for our family! Louisa prayed this week, "Thank you God, for putting me in this family," and I am so thankful He did! Celebrating our anniversary recently (with two cards arriving late this week!), I am so thankful for the wonderful husband I have, for the life we have together and the two fantastic, beautiful girls who share the adventure with us!

Sometimes it seems that appreciating what we have, what we are thankful for, comes that much more strongly through the lenses of what we have missed or lost, or what we have seen others go without. I'm humbled and amazed at how thankful some people can be in the midst of very difficult circumstances. I'm thankful for eternal lenses. Thanksgiving is a perspective and it's a decision.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Back-to-front Thanksgiving

Usually Canadian Thanksgiving weekend is associated with harvest. But we are back-to-front here now! In Tanzania, the week was all about planting. But whichever way round it is, it is still all about thanksgiving!

 

 

I am just so thankful that we are finally getting our hands (and a lot else besides!) dirty in these Tanzanian shambas (farms). For several years now, we have felt so strongly that if we are to work alongside people in rural Tanzania, we must understand their life and livelihood. Over 80% of Tanzanians farm and depend on their crops to live. Many people over the years have asked us if we have a shamba and what we grow. We were always the wazungu (white people) without a shamba. Now finally, (to a small degree) we can relate ... as of last Wednesday, we have a shamba here at home and we are growing maize, beans and (from Thursday) pigeon peas! And during this past week, it has been wonderful to be working alongside farmers in their fields; proudly keeping up with the physical labour in the hot sun! And despite hardly being able to move the day after the first planting, I am so thankful for the opportunity to work again in the villages, this time with Robert, Baraka and Amon and their families.

Our shamba: A measured line for planting the maize in holes at each cloth marker

Joseph helping us plant the beans in the furrow

Bean rows looking good!

For Amon Suge, last year there was no harvest. Amon and his wife and two children live in Kayenze, a village 35km from Mwanza on Lake Victoria, where he pastors a church. Last year he planted maize and beans on his one acre plot. A usual yield for an acre of maize we think should be over 150kg but the family only got 10kg. And only 5kg of beans. This is supposed to feed the family for the whole year. So this year they must buy all the food they need with the small money they get from the church offering and whatever they can raise. With the abundant variety of food our family eats in a year, it is humbling to see how thankful this family is. And as thankful people they are eager to generously bless others. They served us tea and chapatis and later in the day they shared with us their rice and few beans and incredibly, also some goat meat. Humbled and thankful. We planted maize and beans in Amon's field on Thursday; with the new conservation agriculture farming techniques we are working on with them (a new page will soon be up on the blog explaining more of what we are doing using the Foundations for Farming method), we hope to vastly increase the usual yield.

Amon and Esther's house

Getting started with Amon ... the first hole for the first seed!

Starting with the maize seeds ... and a big bucket of manure!

Holes looking good! Planting maize seeds.

Time for chai ... hot sweet tea and chapatis!

But decided to give a toilet break a miss! The advantage of physical work in the hot sun!

Getting rather dirty and itchy!

Covering the planted seeds with a blanket of dried grasses

On Friday, Tim went to Kisesa with Peter and Esther (our trainee trainers). The field had not been so well prepared there, and they were all delayed in starting due to the traffic havoc created by the President's visit to Mwanza, but after a hard, hot day of digging, they had a field of maize and beans planted with Robert, one of our four Kisesa farmers.

Robert adding compost to the furrow for his beans

On Monday, we were all back near Kisesa at the Church Planting School, planting more maize and beans with Baraka ("blessing") and his wife, Esther and youngest daughter, Anna. This lovely family who currently live in the classrooms of what will be the school, are going to care for the demonstration farm we are hoping to establish there. The students are expected to arrive in January, by which time a house should be finished for Baraka's family! Our hope is that many trainee pastors from across the region will be able to observe and learn about the farming techniques while they complete their four month intensive studies and then take it all back and put it into practice in their villages as their also train and help their neighbours.

The church planting school
 ... also a home (centre) for Baraka's family and a meeting hall (right) for the church

Mama Esther prepares tea on an open fire in the classroom!
(don't worry, the fuel efficient stove project gets going next month!)

Planting with Baraka and Esther. Baraka is digging evenly spaced holes (using the marked blue strip of mosquito net as a guide). Baraka's wife, Esther is filling each hole with compost, our trainer, Esther is following with seeds and then I am covering over with soil and mulch. A good assembly line!

Planting beans in furrows

Baraka and 4 year old Anna

Little Anna was a great helper!

Tim and Anna planting beans

We are excited to have started this agricultural work and now praying for the rains and for a good harvest in January! We are looking forward to working alongside these eight or so farmers, over the next months, training them as community trainers, that they can then be the ones helping to transform their communities in all kinds of ways! We are hoping to later include tree-planting and bee-keeping as part of this and also working with the women with cooking and health-related issues.

And still on the subject of planting ... there is a church being planted in a village called Kisamba. And it was here on Sunday that Tim preached to, without a doubt, the smallest congregation he ever has! We had been invited (many times over the past few months!) to visit a church in a village beyond Magu (about 75km from Mwanza). So we arranged to go and were delighted to have Monica (a lovely woman from Bishop Charles' church) and Matilda (a young woman training to be a doctor who also happens to be Bishop Charles' niece) with us to direct us. We had no idea what to expect, but we arrived to find a very small enclosure of sticks holding sheets of cloth around the sides, with a small section of sacking overhead at one end. We were ushered under the sheets and found the six of us sharing the space with the pastor and one woman and six children (not, as I falsely first assumed, a family!)

It was the first time in Tanzania that as invited guests we sat at the very back! We were actually given the best place to sit because the back was the only place which had a small strip of shade from the hot sun. Tim unfortunately didn't have his hat, but smothered on the suncream before standing to preach at the front in the full sun! Three more children arrived as he preached which brought the total number up to eleven. He started with Matthew 13:31 with the parable of the mustard seed which starts small and grows to become the biggest tree of the garden! Our family and Monica and Matilda also turned about to be the choir, so we spontaneously sang Michael W. Smith's song "Alleluia" which we had heard Matilda sing beautifully at her home church a few months ago and so knew it was one we all knew! Amisadai found it amusing that the whole church including all the children and all the guests individually introduced themselves and she tried to imagine how long that would take in our church in Tadley! So thankful for small seeds, praying for a big harvest!


Tim preaches under a hot midday sun!

The Kisamba Congregation with our family and Monica

 

At time of writing on Monday, we have just had a call from Amon who tells us

the plants are sprouting! Bwana Yesu Asifiwe!

Praise the Lord for his great love... 

For he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.

-- Psalm 107.8-9 --