Tanzania Partnership

One of the primary areas of ministry in our partnership is supporting evangelism. Sometimes the families and friends of SOTV travelers assume that means that when we travel to Tanzania, we are going to be doing some door to door evangelism visits. No--because our partners in Tanzania do that work very effectively themselves. Instead, SOTV supports evangelism in Tungamalenga Parish by providing bicycles for the evangelists and by paying for roofs for newly built chapels. Tungamalenga Parish is comprised of 20 village congregations scattered across an area with a 25-30 mile radius. There are just two pastors serving all those congregations which are also served by lay evangelists. The pastors and evangelists often spend hours of their day walking from one village to another in order to visit the sick, teach confirmation classes, conduct worship, or hold meetings. $100 buys a bicycle in Iringa. The bikes are built for the rugged dirt roads, and come equipped with lights. They support evan...

This August and again next summer, and the summer after that, Shepherd of the Valley members will travel to Tanzania to meet, live among, and get to know our brothers and sisters in Tungamalenga. We gather to share stories of our lives, our communities, cultures, and our common faith. For two weeks each year, we live, work and play bega kwa bega or shoulder to shoulder as sisters and brothers in Christ. You are invited along on one of these journeys. Karibu sana, you are warmly welcomed, as our partners would say. As you consider taking this journey, we ask you to be mindful of a few things: This is a mission of the church. As such, the focus of the trip is upon building relationships with our partners. We will need to be culturally sensitive and aware of the difference between being tourists and guests. Traveling to another part of the world is a challenging, exciting experience. Expect to be stretched--you will not have all the comforts of home at your fingertips. However, you will ...

Since June 2001, members of two congregations on opposite sides of the globe have been partners through a Companion Congregation Covenant. Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church in Apple Valley, Minnesota, is a large suburban congregation of the Saint Paul Area Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Tungamalenga Parish is a remote, rural parish comprised of 20 village congregations, part of the Iringa Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania. Our congregations are united through the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the purpose of sharing ministries of evangelism, education, healthcare, and economic development. Our members promise to pray for one another, to learn about one another's culture and challenges, to visit one another, and to share the gifts God has given each of us. Over one hundred Shepherd of the Valley members have visited Tungamalenga since our initial journey in August 2002. In 2006, three guests from Tungamalenga made the long journey to Apple...