Tanzania Partnership

The following was included in the reports of the Saint Paul Area Synod's recent assembly, representing an overview of the 70 Bega Kwa Bega congregational partnerships. The Companion Synod Relationship between the Saint Paul Area Synod and the Iringa Diocese began in 1987 through the efforts of Drs. Arne & Mary Blomquist and Bishop Lowell Erdahl.  In subsequent years Lutheran College Iringa (a theological training school) was started; this became Tumaini University and is now a newly named University of Iringa.  In 2000 (13 years after the Companionship began) the congregation to congregation partnership was started, based upon building relationships between the members of the SPAS and the people of the Iringa Diocese.   Participating congregations committed to: ·       Praying for one another ·       Visiting one another – over 3,000 people from SPAS have visited Iringa and more than 100 people from th...

This spring we received news of a big change coming to our Tanzanian partnership:   Tungamalenga Parish has become two independent congregations.   The congregation has grown enough that it can split and each congregation will be able to support pastors and operational costs. Bwana Yesu Asifiwe – let us praise the Lord Jesus! The original parish is comprised of 18 village congregations along two intersecting roads (see the map, originally hand drawn by Pastor Alfred Kikoti and SOTV traveler Randy Hurley). The new congregations will each take half of the preaching points, and will be divided geographically.   Makifu is the center of the new congregation along the road from Makambalala to Kisilwa, while Tungamalenga will remain the “main station” of the original congregation, from Namelok to Idodi. Shepherd of the Valley has been asked by the Iringa Diocese to remain partners with both congregations, and we have enthusiastically said yes!   We are gr...

We have received and are in the process of updating our list of Tanzanian scholarship students.  Here's some facts about the students on our list: 211 = the total number of names on our list 98 = female students 113 = male students 155 = students from Tungamalenga Parish   3 =  students from Usolanga Parish (Usolango lost its Minnesota partner congregation last year) 53  = students classified as "Common Basket" and who come from around the Iringa Diocese; 40 of these are residents of Huruma Center, the diocese owned orphanage in Iringa. Another six are university students, including theology students training for ordination.  Another six were orphaned suddenly this past year, children of one of our friends at the diocese head office. 50 students on this list have just completed their education.  Most of those students completed form four; three were unable to pass national exams at earlier levels.  161 = the total number of students curren...

Does sponsoring a child in developing countries really help?  A new study says yes. The BBC reported in an article last week that while nine million children worldwide receive sponsorship by Western donors, there has been little if any research into the question of whether such aid is effective. But now a study conducted by the University of San Fransisco provides some answers.  Interviewing over 10,000 people in six developing countries, researchers compared the lives of those who had been sponsored by the agency Compassion with their peers who had not been sponsored. One researcher summed it up: "As a development economist I am used to seeing very modest outcomes from aid programmes, but we were amazed at the size of impacts on kids." The BBC article stated, "The results showed that the sponsored children stayed in school longer than their non-sponsored peers, were more like to have white collar jobs and were more likely to be leaders in their communiti...

Rachel Chengula has graduated from St Joseph's College of Engineering and Technology. Hongera sana, Rachel!  Congratulations, Rachel! Here's a note of thanks we received from Rachel: On behalf of my family, I am so glad to express our hearty thanks to you, your family and all those who worked together with you to make sure I get financial, physical and spiritual help and support throughout my education journey.

The companion relationship between the people of Tungamalenga Parish and Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church is deeply rewarding, and can also be deeply complicated. We travel to Tanzania and see so many, many heartbreaking needs. We see that with our resources, we could easily meet so many of those needs. Yet we also become quickly aware that for every one individual need that we can meet, there dozens and hundreds of others with that same need. Beyond the needs of the person whom we know by name, are many others with the same or even greater needs. That is where we often face complicated choices in our partnership. When we visit the clinic in Tungamalenga and see a child suffering from malaria, often one of our travelers quietly offers to pick up the bill (usually less than $5). Or perhaps we give the family mosquito nets and instructions on how to use them to prevent the other children in the family from getting malaria. But where we have the greater impact is when we s...

I've been struggling to articulate something about the companion relationship we have between Shepherd of the Valley and Tungamalenga Parish, between people from Minnesota and   Tanzania. Crossing cultures to do ministry together is deeply rewarding and also deeply complicated. At the heart of our partnership are the relationships that develop between the people who travel from a developed country to a developing country, between people of means and people who live in poverty, between people who are unsure of how they will fare in rustic living conditions and people who offer gracious, sacrificial hospitality to strangers. At the heart of this partnership is the experience of overcoming all the cultural boundaries and challenges and differences, and coming to a place where our common faith in Jesus connects us all, across the barriers of language, culture, finances, expectations, and experiences. I don't have the words to adequately describe for you...