Pests, a Permit and a new Upendo wa Mama

The rains have started! After the drought which preceded the recent dry season, this is cause for rejoicing! Farmers are now putting their conservation agriculture "classroom" training into practice as they plant. We are now working with farmers in 7 communities with around 130 farmers. So as you can imagine, Peter, our CA project manager is very busy! And there is always a new challenge ... and right now, the challenge is this ...

Pests!

These pests are proving to be a real problem in one village. The whole village has been plagued by these bugs which burrow deep into the root of the maize plant. By the time the plant breaks through the soil, the damage is already done. For these farmers who can only afford to plant once, to see a whole crop destroyed before it even comes out of the soil is devastating. We are praying for more consistent rain which we think will strengthen future plants against the pest.

There is so much going on at the moment, it is getting rather difficult to keep up on the blog! But here are a few highlights!

Dar es Salaam

We were in Dar es Salaam all together the other weekend with Victory Christian Church. Staying by the Indian Ocean was beautiful! Tim was teaching at the Bible School on the Saturday and then preaching for the church services on the Sunday.

Sunday morning service at VCC

A Work and Residence Permit

Tim and the girls returned home to Mwanza on the Sunday night and I stayed on with Pastor Huruma and the family to begin working with a lovely group of women with albinism. I am thrilled to say that finally after a long and complicated procedure, with the generous help of Under the Same Sun, I now finally have a visa! It arrived just in the perfect nick of time this week, as I was about to fly out to Malawi! In the midst of a very busy and rather crazy week, Tim helped by taking my passport into Immigration and getting it stamped with my residence permit the day before I left! While still serving with the TAG church, this visa will enable me to volunteer alongside UTSS to help with their work with women with albinism. What a privilege!

It is wonderful to be working alongside the great team at UTSS. Rahab, who helps particularly with the women's group, travelled to Canada a year or so ago and as well as attending King's Community Church in Langley, also shared a meal at my parents!

New Upendo wa Mama

I was so delighted to finally meet these ten women in Dar es Salaam after waiting so long! All of them either have albinism or have children with albinism and are wanting to establish their group for support and income-generating. Their stories as similar to those of the mamas in Mwanza. They have chosen to also be called Upendo wa Mama (Mother's Love). In our days together, as we made the beads out of strips of old paper, we started reading Genesis about how God brings light and order into the darkness and chaos. We read about being created beautifully in the image of God for a purpose. It is a life-changing message. And my prayer is that as these women work together and grow, they would be a living demonstration to others of this truth.

Making beads together

Woman Reversing but Mamas Moving Forward



The road was getting increasingly worse. I was getting increasingly nervous. The road was getting narrower, bumpier, full of holes and boulders and then it was getting steeper. It was Tuesday last week and less than an hour earlier, I had picked up our good friend, Ester and we were looking for Mama Penina who was supposed to be near the Anglican church. But after waiting for 20 minutes and failed attempts at phoning her, there was still no sign of her. Ester hopped out of the vehicle to ask around in the small duka (shops) if anyone knew Mama Penina and where she lived. A man did. He hopped in the back to direct us. This is when things started getting interesting! He kept assuring me that yes, it was a road and Penina's house was "very close." I doubted both. When we rounded a tight corner with a steep bank up on one side and an eroded drop-off on the other, to see a hill of boulders going up in front of us, I stopped the car. "We will walk from here." Our guide had certainly never driven a car and seemed to think a Land Cruiser could climb anything his feet could. I just left the vehicle, forcing out all thought of how I was going to reverse out of the mess we were in later on!

Things went increasingly better then. Ester and I thanked our guide and  continued up the steep rocks on foot, passed through a narrow alley between some houses built into the rock, crossed gingerly over a makeshift "bridge" of two logs and arrived at Mama Penina's house. She warmly welcomed us in and we met two of her lovely daughters. The youngest, Maria, the lively and hilariously funny six-year old pictured below, has albinism, and this is the reason Ester and I were visiting. 


Maria with Mama Penina

Maria poses for the camera!

Penina is a lovely Christian lady, a local primary school teacher and a mother of a child with albinism. She knows all too well the pain that such a mama carries. The pain of seeing your own child rejected by family and local villagers. Attacked and in some cases, killed. The pain of being considered a curse and a "problem" simply for giving birth to such a child. The pain of rejection and abuse by husband, family and village. The pain of seeing your husband killed as he tries to defend your child. The pain of being unable to provide enough to survive. The pain of the fear of being hunted down and found. Penina and five other mamas who in different ways bear this pain started meeting together, trying to support themselves and each other. But it was difficult and Ester, who knows these women through the work she has done with Under the Same Sun, to help their children by placing them in safety with grants for an education, asked if I could help. I know I can't help, but I do know Someone who can!

So Ester, Penina and I talked about meeting together, all the mamas and I. Every other Saturday. Reading the Bible together; finding the One who knows, understands and cares. And doing a project together; making something beautiful together, and hopefully eventually making a profit!

At the end of our planning and praying (encouraged and excited), Ester and I made our way back down to the Land Cruiser. Then it all came flooding back ... we somehow had to get out of here! I walked beyond the vehicle to check the holes and bends and in particular the drop by the eroded side of the road. A crowd gathered and with many adults and children watching or attempting to guide me, I managed to reverse back the way we had come. I scraped through the bush at one point in my nervous attempt to avoid falling over the edge where the road was eroded. All pretty sweaty stuff! But then, with what must have been 20-point turn in 4-wheel drive, I got us turned back around and we were on our way!

Now it's getting late, so more on the Mamas group (we all met together for the first time on Saturday) will have to wait for another post!

One of the mamas in the group is Jane ... you may remember her story told a few months ago here.
http://themongers.blogspot.com/2014/08/mamas-pain-and-tree-planted.html

Mamas' Pain and a Tree Planted

Last week we had a text from our friend Ester telling us that yet another person with albinism has been brutally attacked. She asked us to pray.

Brutal Attacks
Last Thursday, Munghu, a 35 year old woman with albinism, was attacked. Her left arm was hacked off below the elbow, her right arm mutilated and she was left to bleed to death. Her husband (without albinism) was killed as he tried to defend his wife and their two children. Munghu and her children are currently being treated in hospital.

Munghu recovering from the attack

Not long before, on August 5th, Pendo (which translated means "Love"), a 15 year old girl with albinism, was attacked. Attackers hacked off her right hand from below the elbow and disappeared into the darkness with it. Pendo has been recovering in hospital, in fear but "stable" condition. Police have arrested a neighbour who is a witchdoctor but they are still looking for two other attackers who have not been identified.


Pendo recovering from her brutal attack

Just a few days before this attack I was watching "White and Black: Crimes of Colour" a DVD produced in collaboration with Under the Same Sun (UTSS). It follows the undercover work of Vicky Ntetema examining the superstitions and fears surrounding albinism in Tanzania and the brutal consequences of these prejudices and the witchdoctors who prey on people with albinism for profit. Not easy viewing, but an important message communicated. So much good work is going on here to help people with albinism (PWA). Ester who works with UTSS is an incredible ambassador for PWA. Through the work of Ester and many others, children with albinism are protected and educated, awareness is spreading both nationally here and internationally about the awful truth of what is happening. And as efforts continue to push for change with the support of the UN, progress is being made to change the future for PWA.  But watching this DVD, I was struck by the effects on the whole family of a child with albinism. Families torn apart in tragedy, fear, grief and rejection.

Mamas Grieving
I have been talking with Ester about meeting with a small group of mamas of children with albinism. Just six of many mamas who have travelled the difficult and painful journey of albinism. Mamas whose young children have been brutally murdered or attacked. Mamas who live in constant fear of attack, constant fear for the life of their child. Mamas who are cursed and shunned by their family or village for giving birth to a child with albinism. Mamas whose husbands may have played a role in  horrific attacks. Mamas who have given birth only to have their husband leave them to find a wife who "is not cursed" to bear his children.

Jane is one such mama here. She has been given (by people of UTSS) a safe home in that same village where we walked the water walk and more recently held lots of babies. When she was eighteen and 5 months pregnant with her first child, her husband died. Grieving, she went back to her family and in time gave birth to her child, a child with albinism. She was immediately cut off from her late husbands family. Later, a man approached Jane and her family, asking to marry her. The family was delighted (it is incredibly hard to be a widow, particularly here in Tanzania and even more so if you have a child with albinism). But before the marriage took place, Jane was approached secretively by a friend of the man, who warned her that her future husband had dark intentions to kill the child (to sell body parts for witchcraft). Jane broke off with the man, but after escaping intruders in her home one night, she knew the life of her child was in danger, and her own life at risk as well. She now lives with her child in anonymous safety; she has been given training in sewing and is able to support herself and her child by sewing clothes which she sells here in Mwanza and also in her mother's village.

How we can help these mamas? For me, I think it will start with chai. But I hope that I can get to know some of these mamas, that we can read the story of Bible together, pray and share hope together. That we can learn new skills in crafts and cooking and set up small businesses that would support these women and their precious children.

A Tree Planted ...
Our tree planting work is now officially underway! Yesterday we went to Nyegezi Corner Church on the other side of Mwanza. This church has given us space on their land to start a tree nursery which will feed into the conservation agriculture project. We asked if there was someone in the church who we could train up to run this project and we have been given a fantastic young man!

Bahati Daudi

Bahati Daudi
Bahati Daudi (which translated means "Lucky David") is a young guy with just primary education who came to the city from a village in another region to "make a life". So many young boys do this. It is pretty heart-breaking. The city is full of boys on the street who have left their families and come from a village to "make a life" here. But sadly, it just doesn't work like this. So Bahati Daudi is here, with little education and no job, but he has a great heart - one to work and to serve! We are really excited about the potential for this young man and look forward to working with him and helping him set up this nursery as a growing business that will meet his needs, help our projects and also benefit the farms and homes of many people in Mwanza and the surrounding villages.

Bibles and Bags of Poop
Prior to Sunday, Tim and Daudi had built a fenced area for the nursery. And on Sunday, as you do, we arrived at the service with our Bibles and our bags of poop! With our bags of compost we also had seeds and metres of plastic tubing to plant the seeds in. Joseph, our young guard who is fast growing in his faith and also in the way that he helps us, came with us. He taught Bahati Daudi how to compost and then to plant the seeds. And with a few papaya trees and moringa trees in the making, we left the rest to Daudi. And a text from Daudi at 9am this morning told us he had already planted almost 60 trees!

Planting papaya and moringa seeds

 

The girls were super hungry! We crept (hot and a little stiffly) out of the long service which was still going strong at 1:45pm and got to work on the trees ... I'm not sure what time this photo was taken, but as the girls ran around with the kids, one of the mamas offered them lunch! (We got some later!)

This church has a great thing going! Each department (PA, worship team, Sunday school etc.) is responsible for an area of the church plot. They can choose to do with it what they like ... plant maize, cassava, sugarcane ...

This area is about to be filled with water and become a fish farm!

Tadley Team Tanzania

The Brits have departed. Now in the quiet, tired, rather subdued calm as we clear up and finish unpacking our boxes, I am finally re-emerging and posting a rather overdue blog update!

The team has been just fantastic! We had our pastor, Greg Whittick from Tadley Community Church here with four young people, Samuel, David, Lottie and Alex, also from Tadley. They will tell their own story here later, but here is a quick snapshot of all the things they got up with us ...



David, Samweli, Alex and Lottie with the infamous Vomiting Fish of Mwanza

Team Tadley 2014

They arrived on June 26th and jumped in immediately the next day with a seminar on discipling young people in the church. It seems this will be the start of something bigger; Tim will carry on with what Greg has started, working with pastors to help them see the potential and opportunity in training young people.


David leads "Set a Fire" at Mkuyuni Church

In their first full week in Tanzania, the team worked at two separate schools for children with albinism connected with Under the Same Sun. It was a special and moving time with these kids. A young boy shared his story with us. He and his brother and sister all have albinism and he told of how when living at home, they were woken by intruders in the night. He and his siblings managed to hide that night. But the next night, the men returned. While hiding, his sister was found and he was helpless as they cut pieces from her, including her tongue, and sat and drank her blood. Another girl, Elizabeti who is missing a finger, shared her story also. These kids, considered by many to be a curse, have lived a life of danger and rejection. They have witnessed and experienced horrific things as their body parts are sought after for witchcraft purposes. But it was beautiful to listen to these children share how God has saved them and to hear them share their hopes to become accountants and pilots and to help others like them. And it was wonderful to share some fun and laughter doing games and songs and crafts.

Arts and Crafts

Parachute Fun!



Greg's Famous Balloon Ministry!


Lunch with the children at Jellies School



After a 2-day trip to the Serengeti, camping in tents and seeing all the incredible wildlife, they were back leading services again for their second Sunday. They enjoyed a special service and lunch with the street kids of the city. It was great to all share a meal together; we all tucked into huge platefuls of rice and beans! The BMCC church is helping these kids get vocational training or more importantly, returned to their homes and reconciled with families. The work with these kids is also growing with Mwanza International Community Church; the work is ballooning really as more and more kids are coming to Sunday services! Girls on the street are also coming; one young girl arrived with her newly born twins (you can see one of them below). All are in desperate need of help, both physical and spiritual.

Pastor Zakayo (MICC) with the children at MICC

The team's second week was a trip to Kome Island. A 6-hour ferry got us all to our guesthouse, where the team experienced the joys of no running water and multiple meals of fish and saw some of the poorest living conditions they have ever seen. We "helped" in Dr Makori's clinic and did surveys in the area. The aim was to discover what the main sicknesses in the area are. From our research, the top problems were typhoid and amoeba and other stomach related illnesses (water-related) as well as the usual problems of malaria. The survey was also able to find out more about childbirth situations. Jountwa, one of the guys from Mwanza International Community Church, came with us and was able to offer counselling for people with HIV AIDS. We were able to walk around the village in the late afternoons/evenings, visiting people, praying with people and sharing the love of God with loads of children that followed us as we went! Samuel came into his element as he shared the gospel with his flock of children!  Greg and Tim were very encouraged after meeting with local pastors, talking about how the church can reach out to their community and how they can disciple young people. Tired and dirty, but healthy and happy, we returned to Mwanza via the night boat... an experience the team will never forget as they struggled over rocks through the sea of people both coming off and getting on the boat, all with sacks of rice and jabbing elbows on a narrow causeway jutting into the lake.

Attempting to board the ferry!

Greg leads the Pastors Seminar on Kome Island
 

Their work finished with some teaching at Console Nursery, the school run by Mama Minja for orphaned or needy children. We succeeded in our goal to get a smile from a little girl called Esther, whose father has died of HIV AIDS and whose mother is very ill with it. She is a malnourished and sad little girl from a very difficult home situation, but we coaxed a smile! 



More parachute fun at Console Nursery

Alex and Lottie work on making a clay stove (they later cooked on one!)

So it has been a full three weeks, but thankfully all stayed healthy and although it seemed impossible at times, all were fed and watered daily (note to self for the future... do not try and host a team after just moving house and with a small dodgy oven and without sufficient help or a washing machine!) The team was a great encouragement and blessing to us and many others and they have opened doors for the work of God here. They have worked hard, they have served and given so generously and have learned and received even much more!

Love for Kids with Albinism and Compassion for Kids in Need

I have blogged before about the great work that Under the Same Sun (UTSS) is doing here in Mwanza to help kids with albinism (Rich Life Under the Same Son). This Sunday we were at a service at Beacon Ministry Christian Centre which is pastored by an amazing man, Valentine Mbuke, who is actively involved with helping so many in this area, including those with albinism and also the street boys. But it was a special Sunday this week, as the founder of UTSS, Peter Ash was visiting from Canada ... from Langley, B.C. Canada! He came with a team of others, including a few from Langley ... sometimes the world seems so small!

Peter Ash (right)

It was a privilege to meet Peter, who himself has albinism, and over the past five years has done incredible work as an advocate for people with albinism, people often in very real danger and also facing terrible discrimination here in Tanzania. You can find out more about him and the work he and others do with UTSS on their website here.

We arrived at the church at 8am, too late for Sunday school, but in time for the service. Following the first service in which Peter shared, we had time for a brief chat with the visiting team before they left and we returned to the second service in which Tim was preaching on extending the love of God. It was a real Tanzanian Sunday ... lots of singing and dancing and we finished the service 6 1/2 hours later at 2:30pm ... with a third service about to start! We all stopped for an amazing lunch, provided by the church, for EVERYONE! It was wonderful; all the kids ... those with albinism, all the street boys (all who had been bussed in specially), the whole congregation and us! And there was no "high" table (which is usual here) ... but everyone equal together, mixed and mingling! As Pastor Mbuke said "today there will be no high table, no low table or middle tables. We are ALL on the high tables!" It was a wonderful picture of the love of God extended to all without discrimination or hierarchy. I enjoyed sitting next to a lovely girl of eighteen called Elizabeti, whose goal was to become a doctor. She was truly an overcomer!

Tim preaching on the love of God

Lunch Line-up (another multitude!)

Chakula kitamu sana!

The previous Sunday, we went to a church on the edge of the city in a place called Nyakato, pastored by Elihuruma Swai, the Director of Projects and Development for the TAG Diocese. We were warmly welcomed there and Tim preached on Isaiah 42, impressing them all with his good Swahili! After the service, I was particularly interested to hear about the bees that Pastor Swai is accumulating to start a bee project, something I would like to get going on when we move into our new house! We were also all interested to see how well the shoe project is going (run with Compassion, who works with the church to help meet the needs of children from poor families). There are five boys working there, learning the art of making shoes ... and doing a very good job! When someone discovered it was Louisa's birthday, they made these beautiful shoes just for her! They also have a knitting machine on which others are making school uniform sweaters to sell.

Louisa watching her shoe being finished!

Boys on the job!

And in between these Sundays, as you know we had the "multitudes" conference, during which time we enjoyed having Andrew with us for the week from Iringa! In the little spare time we had with him, we were able to take him up for the view at the Dancing Rocks.



The Dancing Rocks

Andrew couldn't shift the rock!

And lastly, we can share the excellent news that our good friend and colleague, Jesca, who we trained to take over the stoves project in Iringa, is now MARRIED! We were so very sorry to miss the occasion at the weekend, but so happy to see and hear about their wonderful day! And we were so happy that Ezekiel and Mendriad were able to go to the wedding! We pray God's blessing on Frank and Jesca as they begin their married life!



Jesca and Frank with the EI Iringa Team

Rich Life Under the Same Son

Marginalised, rejected, cursed, stigmatised. So many people, so much pain. It is always hard to witness, always hard to know what to do, always hard to know how to help. The team visiting us from Canada has come face to face with it this week. This week was one of exposure for them, a time for them to learn and grow and see their worldviews develop and maybe change. And they have stepped out of their comfort zones and reached out in a way they never knew they could.

We have just returned from a visit with Dr Makori (and others) to Kome Island.  It is such a privilege and so exciting for us to be working alongside him in the work that he (and many other Christians here in Mwanza) are doing, sharing his vision for the transformation of the islands on Lake Victoria. He has named his project work “RICH” (Rural Island Community Health Initiative). This island is seen to be poor. But the island is already rich in so many ways with the resources it has in the fertile land and fish of the lake. But more significantly there is the need for people to see how “rich” are the people who have God’s Life!  We long to see people on these islands have life; healthy, hope-filled life now and also eternal life. We long to see the people of these islands place a value on life, ALL life.  

Walking through the rich, fertile rice fields on Kome Island

Life for so many people is given a stigma, a curse, a rejection. The life of Jesus was the same.

We went to the home of Abbas, a young man suffering severely from what we think may be cerebral palsy. He is considered by his family and villagers to be a curse. He is hidden away in a very small dark, wooden hut on the sandy ground near the lake. He lies every day on an old foam mattress, he is only ever taken outside on Christmas Day each year. We went in, our eyes adjusting the darkness and our noses to the stench and we talked and prayed with him for just a while. He was so delighted with the company and attention; he wanted just to hold our hand, to have his photo taken, to have a glass of water. As we prayed, his face lit up with the largest smile and the sound of laughter came bursting out. We left to his insistent cries that we must remember him. I just cried as soon as we got back to our rooms. 

Abbas

Jontwa, a teacher from the Mwanza International Church taught a seminar on HIV AIDS. People with HIV/Aids are another group extremely marginalised and stigmatised here in Tanzania. As I mentioned before, HIV AIDS is particularly rampant on the island, but there is so little knowledge about it, and so much stigma, that people will not get tested or treated. Friends of one lady suffering badly attended the day seminar on Wednesday and later asked Jontwa to go out and visit this woman. He rode out on the back of a motorbike and found her very ill, very much in need of testing and medicine. But her husband would not pay the 5000Tsh ($4 or £3) to get her to the hospital on the local bus and ferry.

Jontwa teaching on Kome Island

On the mainland last week, we visited “Under the Same Sun” a group committed to ending the deadly discrimination against people with albinism in Tanzania. It is a particularly serious problem here in the Mwanza region as albinos are hunted down and murdered for witchcraft purposes, their body parts sold in wickedness for fishermen’s “spells”. We heard the heart-wrenching stories of young children whose parents have just run away from them, leaving them alone and endangered.

One girl sharing her testimony with us



Taylor making butterflies (new creations) at Under the Same Sun

While on the island we heard the awful sounds of a woman being beaten in the common (and very public) act of domestic violence. We could hear the resounding hits from a raged man drunk and the screams and cries of the suffering woman. We could see the crowd of onlookers, staring, watching the gruesome scene yet doing nothing. All we could do was pray. So we did. And we saw God’s hand extended in mercy and love in a real and miraculous way as immediately the beating stopped.

Yes, there is so much pain, so much discrimination, as people created by God are stigmatised, marginalised, cursed. In recent days with the Canada team we have seen it over and over. Yet we have also seen that God is good. Those heart-wrenching stories of desertion for the children with albinism ended in the glorious testimony of God’s grace as He saved their lives and brought them into family at “Under the Same Sun.” We saw God’s heart of love for people and I think each of us grew in our desire to see that love extended. It was exciting to see the young people on the team boldly demonstrate and show God’s love as they reached out to serve, to give, to pray. They shared the love and life of God with people as they sat with individuals and gave the hope of the gospel and had the joy of seeing that gift received! 

Jesus himself was marginalised, rejected, deserted, cursed and afflicted. Yet the story does not end there. He rose again victorious over sin and death, over pain and affliction. And this victory is ours; we can share in this hope. We can rest in the fullness of his love for us and share this love with others, however marginalised, discriminated against, cursed, stigmatised, rejected, or suffering. Coming out of this curse of darkness, in God’s Kingdom, where all things sad are coming untrue, we are truly all RICH and truly all under the same Son.

And this all said, if any of you reading this would like to help the work here, we (and Dr Makori) would be so grateful! Amisadai and Louisa are raising money through their sponsored SODIS Shake and Water Walk and the details are on the page at the top of this blog and also on their website (mongergirlswaterworks.webs.com) Any donation, however small, would be appreciated and we want to especially encourage children to get involved; this is not a large and professional fundraising campaign, but it comes from the heart of two children seeing that children can help too!