Tanzania Partnership

'Tis the season.... As these final shopping days before Christmas come to their frenzied end, I'll offer a few final options for gift giving. Gifts to the SOTV - Tungamalenga Partnership can be given in honor of a friend or relative. Please contact Kirsten.Levorson@sotv.org if you would like one of our "honor cards" to send to your gift recipient. Goats for the children of Huruma Center and for the evangelists of Tungamalenga Parish. We have a long and loving relationship with the children of Huruma Center, an orphanage owned and operated by the Iringa Diocese. In the past we have given milk cows and money for corn, we have collected shoes and purchased school supplies for the children, and we have provided scholarships for the children who reach the age of secondary school. Recently it has become difficult to sustain the cows because of the high cost of feed, so we are instead purchasing goats who will provide milk for the children's meals. Goats are also great ...

Amos Kilipamwambu Amos is a student at Idodi Secondary School, near Tungamalenga. Hi father, Absalum, is one of the evangelists in the parish. Want to see more photos of the students we sponsor? Check them all out here . Thanks to Bo Skillman, one of the Companion Congregation Coordinators who staff the Bega Kwa Bega office in Iringa throughout the year, for taking the photos, and thanks to Kate Penz of the Saint Paul Area Synod staff for posting them online. You will not find photos for all 140 of SOTV's sponsored students. These are just the secondary students from Tungamalenga who happened to be at the school on the day the photographer visited. If you do not see your student here, they may be university students, they may attend a school that was not visited, or they may have been absent that day.

Still searching for the perfect Christmas gifts? Come to worship this weekend at Shepherd of the Valley! Tanzanian handcrafts will be on sale in the narthex, along with other fair trade items from around the world. Ebony cross necklaces are wonderful gifts--we've seen them worn by men, women, young and old. Handmade baskets woven by women of the Iringa region come in many colors, shapes and sizes. Fill a gift basket with fair trade coffee & cocoa from Equal Exchange, or give the small baskets as desk accessories, to hold paper clips, rubber bands, pens and pencils. Tote bags in beautiful batik fabrics are durable and distinctive. The teens who gather each Wednesday evening bought ten of them in one night after last summer's trip. The little hanging baskets in the photo make wonderful Christmas ornaments. Hang them on the tree, fill them with candy as a Christmas morning surpise. One of our members filled them with prayers and gave one to each of her neighbors. If someo...

Here's a great little blog entry at Lutheran World Relief about their work with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania educating about malaria . Tunafanya kazi pamoja = we are working together. Yes.

Here's another letter of thanks, this time from one of our students who completed both secondary and university studies as an SOTV scholarship recipient. I am grateful to hear from you. I am walking from my living room to my work place. While on my way, I have been visiting my electronic mail and reviewed your encouraging emails you sent to me when I was studying at secondary school and college. Your and other americans' messages reveal the great love of God through his people. It reminds me of the word of God that tells the world that "when you are in difficulties and in need, if you bow unto him who knows you inside and out, he will open the door of your difficulties and needs" and I believe, God does this through his people as he did and does to me. This makes me think of him and you and teaches me to love every and each person I meet. May the almighty father who is in heaven bless you abundantly for what you do for the people of my kind and throughout the Ir...

Here's a letter we received from one of the 140 students sponsored by Shepherd of the Valley, who receive financial support for tuition, room and board at secondary schools and university in Tanzania. My dear friends, I greet you in the name of God. My health, it is well . And my studies, I am still proceeding on the studies. I thank for you through God for proceeding paying for the cost of school for me. In my family, the total number of children is ten. I am the last child. At this time I have 20 years. I started the secondary school education in February 2004 at Idodi Secondary School after being selected from the students who passed the primary examination which I did in 2003. I passed the form two national examination and then the form four national examination. From those results I was selected to join form five at Njombe Secondary School for the combination of PCM -- Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. I transferred to Mwembetoga Secondary School in order to study th...

Every fall, we ask for support for the Tanzanian Scholarship Fund. When we entered into this partnership ten years ago, SOTV provided six scholarships. Now we provide 140 secondary and university students with scholarships. So far this fall, we have received funds to provide 60 secondary scholarships at $360 per year. Friends, we have a ways to go. By December 1st, we need to tell our partners in Tanzania how many scholarships we can provide in 2011. They understand that the US and global economies are struggling, and they are hoping that we can commit to simply sustaining the level of support that we have provided in the past two years--100 secondary scholarships for students from Tungamalenga Parish, an additional 25 scholarships for orphans living at Huruma Center in Iringa, plus 12 to 15 scholarships for university students. Our partners tell us that fewer than 15% of all Tanzanians are able to attend secondary school. Fewer than 10% of those are able to attend college. We need to ...