What will you do on your trip?

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Over the course of the next month, 25 Shepherd of the Valley members in three waves (see our itinerary here) will travel to visit our brothers and sisters in the Iringa Diocese and in our partner congregations at Makifu and Tungamalenga Parishes.

The number one question we are asked is, "What will you do?"


We will not be building a school, or digging a well, or going house to house inviting people to come to church.  Our Tanzanian brothers and sisters do those tasks of ministry very well all on their own.

On our trips, we build relationships.


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This year, we will have the privilege of getting to know two new pastors serving Tungamalenga Parish -- Senior Pastor Eva Mnemna and her husband, Pastor Bryson Msigwa, in addition to Pastor Nejabel Madembo of Makifu Parish and Pastor Paulo Masinga of Mpalapande.

We will renew friendships with Dr. Barnabas and Alice, Rev. Msigwa and General Secretary Nayman Chavalla at the Iringa Diocese offices, Mama Chilewa at Huruma Center.

We will meet people who face their daily life challenges with faith and hope and joy.

We will have meetings. We will plan, strategize, negotiate, and prioritize. We'll come to agreements.

We will meet the students for whom our congregation provides scholarship support.  We'll hear their hopes and dreams, and we will want to find a way to make them all come to fruition.

We will find that some of our friends are no longer with us, and we will grieve with their families and friends.

We will sing on the bus as we journey from village to village.

We will dance! even in worship.

We will walk beside our brothers and sisters, as we revisit the water pipeline to Mahove Village.

We will stumble through our introductions in Swahili and be blessed by the gracious way our hosts encourage our attempts while forgiving our mistakes.

We will have our hearts touched deeply, in so many ways by the faith and firm witness of the people we meet.

We will be changed in ways we can barely articulate.

And then we will come home with stories, so many stories, and with hearts inspired to share what we have with our brothers and sisters who share so much with us.

That's what we'll do on our trip to Tanzania.





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