Tanzania Partnership

Just a quick message to let you know that we've arrived safely and are having many good connections! We hear that the Packers won and the Vikings lost...that is the extent of the home news we've heard! :-) We hope you are all well! We arrived in Iringa last night [Monday] at about 9 PM, after a 12+ hour drive from Dar es Salaam, featuring a cracked radiator on the bus which took several stops to repair. It was a very long day. Today we are reconnecting with old friends, Dr Saga, and people from the Iringa Diocese. Tomorrow we meet up with Pastor Naftal and buy six or seven bikes for the evangelists and for the orphanage. Today we purchased $2000 worth of medicines for the dispensary. It all takes a lot of time because of working with two languages and two systems of currency! My head is spinning a bit! John Mhekwa is here, and is helping a lot with getting us around town and translating! He said Mfaume's wedding was beautiful. He will help us get Mfaume's card to ...

packed and almost ready to go! Prayers of commissioning were said last Sunday in worship as three members of our congregation are ready to travel to Tanzania again. Pastor Diane Sponheim and Joan and Richard Dornfeld depart on Friday. They carry with them the love, good wishes, and gifts of this congregation. We've packed four suitcases with gifts: banners to grace the two new chapels that will be dedicated at Makambalala and Mpalapande; colorful VBS t-shirts for children and adults; assorted medical supplies; a couple hundred handmade caps for newborns (thanks to Cris Ireland and Karen Piehler-Shaw); a variety of bibles and study books at levels that range in appeal from child to adult interests; about a hundred totes and book bags, a gift from Godzone children; an assortment of flash drives for university students; a dozen 2012 calendars; laminated posters visually depicting bible verses; sundry personal letters from past travelers or from scholarship sponsors to their students....

Two newly completed chapels will be dedicated when Pastor Diane, Joan, and Richard travel to visit Tungamalenga Parish later this month. The chapel at Makambalala has been under construction since 2004, and the chapel at Mpalapande is the first completed chapel for a Maasai congregation in the parish. Amazing milestones to celebrate! Our SOTV travelers will be carrying the love and good wishes of all our members with them, and will offer these beautiful banners to the congregations. A big thanks goes out to Jane Lee for the beautiful work she has done in creating these banners. The one above, with the cross and communion elements symbolized by the grapes and wheat, matches a design she used in the stole given to Peter Harrits in honor of his ordination. This second banner, with the shepherd's staff, a heart and a lamb, matches the design Jane used for Pastor Duane's ordination banner a number of years ago. Both banners will remind our friends in Tanzania of our love for them ...

Your response to our partnership's plan to provide water to the village of Mahove was generous and encouraging this summer. We are grateful, our partners are encouraged, and step by step, the project is moving forward. It seems like a good time to share some information about an organization that is working throughout the Iringa Diocese to bring water and sanitation systems to many villages. St Paul Partners is a nonprofit organization that formed as an outgrowth of partnerships like the one our congregation has with Tungamalenga Parish. Their vision is to assist and enable the Tanzanian people to obtain universal access to safe water, community by community. Since the group's beginnings a few years ago, they have drilled more than 100 wells. St Paul Partners has invited us to their annual Fall Celebration on Saturday, October 1st, an event to be held at St Mark's Lutheran Church in North St Paul from 4:30 to 8 PM. The event is free, a Tanzanian meal will be served, free w...

A few words from one of our travelers, Susanne Miller: I guess through our prayer partnership with Tungamalenga, it has brought me through the mountain tops and the valleys. We may have different ways of life and trials and praises, but we share Jesus Christ and that is the cord that cannot be broken. I have made many relationships from our partnership with people from that village and my heart still hears the children singing and dancing. When we pray together it helps us grow together, one body in Christ. The miles between us may be very far, but our hearts are close in Jesus Christ. My life has changed forever because of God and how he crossed our paths in Tungamalenga. Soon Pastor Diane Sponheim will be traveling to Tungamalenga for a short visit, along with Richard and Joan Dornfeld, who will stay in the Iringa Diocese for five months, teaching at Tumaini University. We are also seeking travelers for the July/August 2012 trip . Please pray for our travelers. Will you be one of the...