Meet Makifu Parish

To get to Makifu Parish, you need to drive west from Iringa about 90 kilometers or about two hours.  You'll need a Land Cruiser and an experienced driver for a safe, comfortable ride. A coaster bus will work as long as you stick to the roads, and it will take an extra hour.

You'll drive through Tungamalenga Parish -- the villages of Idodi, past the turn off to Kitisi, through Mapogoro, and then you'll see the two cell towers at the edge of Tungamalenga.  Keep driving through town, past the market and the camps.  Just after the bridge the main road continues to the right, headed toward Ruaha National Park.  You'll take the left turn.

A little ways down the road there's an elephant crossing.  It's not marked of course, but you can see a wide clearing where the elephants come from the park in search of water. My driver Esau, who is also a qualified game guide, says that elephants return to the same places for water, even places their herd visited a hundred years before.

Just past the elephant crossing, there's a turn off into the bush.  I wouldn't call it a road, but maybe a path. It's pretty rough going even for the Land Cruiser.  There's one gorge in particular where the driver stops at the top, scanning for the best route, then goes carefully down and guns the engine to get back to the top on the other side.  Following this path, we eventually get to Isanga.

At the bottom of a hill, the congregation meets us, singing and waving branches.  We walk up the hill together. There is no permanent church building yet, so we meet in a shelter made of sticks and covered with a blue tarp. 

It's a full house. This village congregation has people from both the Hehe and Maasai tribes.  There was once a small chapel in the village proper, now there is land for a bigger building on the outskirts of town where the nomads live.

We continue farther along the main path to the Maasai village of Malunde. 

We first meet in the small structure built of sticks on the left, and then move into the brick walls that will become their new chapel.  

We pray for the next phase of building -- the roof.

Back on the main road, we continue to Makambalala.  This is a lively congregation led by Evangelist Atuletye Msigwa, Mama Neema.

She leads us singing and dancing until we are exhausted and laughing.

The chapel here was finished a couple years ago and the children of our group are held up as representatives of all the children at SOTV who have contributed to this partnership - - for the water project, the mosquito nets, and now the new parish's piki piki (motorbike).  Our children stand shoulder to shoulder with three Makambalala children to symbolize the future of our partnership.

The next challenge for Makambalala is to complete the house they are building for the evangelist.  It was begun over six years ago, and the walls that were built are beginning to deteriorate as they stand year after year in the sun and rain with no roof yet.  The people of Makambalala have sent baskets and handcrafts to sell in Minnesota, and they are expecting to move forward with the construction using the profits from those sales.

The next village along the road is Makifu.

The chapel is finally almost finished.  Construction was begun in 2004 in a flurry of optimism in the original parish.  Too many projects going on at once, and it took a long time before Makifu received its turn for funding.  The building and attached office are now plastered.  Some painting remains to be done, and benches built inside.

Pastor Nejabel Madembo (above left) is the new pastor for the parish.  He grew up in Idunda Parish south of Iringa and began his career as an Evangelist in 1988. His first assignment was in Tungamalenga Parish, where he served for five years.  Since then he has served at Pawaga, Kitapilimwa, and as pastor of Lukani Parish.  He is married with four children ages 7 - 18.

Next village on the main road is Mahuninga.

The chapel here is almost a twin of the chapel at Makifu, but unfinished.  The congregation continues to take what steps it can to complete construction -- adding doors or windows, a couple each year.

In the middle of town there's a road to the left that has in recent years been improved so that traffic goes all the way to another bigger town whose name I've forgotten.  You used to have to go all the way back to Iringa and then around to reach it.

Take that left road, and you'll cross a bridge.  Continuing on the road takes you to the Maasai village of Ikwavila.  Going offroad just after the bridge will take you to the Maasai village of Mahove.

This is the chapel at Ikwavila.  The people here have developed "cultural tourism" as a source of revenue, inviting curious wazungus into their village to observe their traditional way of life.  There's a nice hike to a hot spring up the hill.  There's one woman here who always reminds me that she's really Anglican, but she worships with the Lutherans because there's no nearby Anglican church.

Mahove is our next stop.  These people will always hold a special place in our heart because of the struggle we went through together to bring water to the village.  The chapel here is still under construction -- no perceptible change since last year, but this year the floor is supposed to get finished.

The water project is working well for the most part.  There have been a few challenges, with neighbors who try to adjust the flow of the water more toward one village or another, and an elephant who knocked over the tap that was being used to water cattle.  These problems will be solved.

Both of these projects -- the chapel and the water -- came to the village because of the vision and persistence of one woman, Mama Petro.  I asked her what she envisions next for this congregation and she surprised me by saying, Now I just pray that God continues to bless this partnership, and to strengthen our love for one another.

From Mahove, we drive back to Mahuninga and continue on the main road, which now begins to climb uphill.  Misufi is the next village.  They are still a mission congregation, meeting under a mango tree in good weather, or in a rented house nearby.

They may build here, although they have learned that an Anglican church is being constructed near where they planned to build.  They may move a little farther away.

Finally, the last village in the parish is Kisilwa, at the top of the hill.

Again, we meet in a small chapel and then pray for the new construction -- another set of brick walls waiting their turn for a roof.  With so many construction projects in progress at the same time in this parish, the wait could be several years.

A short walk up the hill from the chapel site is the water tank that supports the pipeline system providing water to Kisilwa, Misufi, Mahuninga, and all the way down to Makifu, with a branch at Kialingolo taking water to Mahove.  Rain has been good this year, and the tank overflows enough to irrigate three acres of rice fields downhill.  

And there you have the nine congregations of Makifu Parish -- Kisilwa, Misufi, Mahuninga, Makifu, Makambalala, Ikwavila, Mahove, Isanga and Malunde.  One pastor, many evangelists and church elders. Hehe, Bena, and Maasai.  Many challenges in their daily lives, much grace shining through in their joyful witness to the love of Jesus Christ.