Tanzania Partnership

Your gifts to Shepherd of the Valley's Tanzania Scholarship Fund make a world of difference to hundreds of students each year.  Here are a few whose lives have been changed by your generosity. Joachim M. thanks you for your support! Joachim was orphaned early in life and raised by elderly grandparents. He attended high school with an SOTV scholarship, and he was a shining star, overcoming debilitating migraines and graduating at the top of his class. He continued his education with a degree as a physician's assistant, worked several years at the Tosamaganga Hospital, and just recently returned to school to complete his MD. Maria K. thanks you for your support!  Maria was orphaned as a young child and lives with her uncle, an evangelist in our partner congregation.  Like most Tanzanian girls, she did not expect to be able to continue her education beyond the six years of primary school.  Thanks to support from SOTV’s Tanzania Scholarship Fund, she is in her third ye

By 2015 Shepherd of the Valley Traveler Bobbie Bainbridge I grew up in Tanzania, my parents were missionaries there for 25 years, and going back was naturally quite a different experience for me than for my fellow travelers. When you’ve grown up in a country, you become familiar with it.  Some of the special aspects of it become ordinary.  And so, I hesitated to take this trip. I really wondered how I could have the same exhilarating experience that so many others have had from Shepherd of the Valley.  I knew I would not see the actual area where I grew up and so I did not expect to feel like I was back home.  But I did decide the time was right and joined the second group in August of this year.  And as we traveled, I was immediately enamored with the sights and smells and sounds that enveloped me.  And I found my own intensely wonderful experience unfolding the very moment we stepped off the plane in Dar es Salaam. I picked this first picture to depict how

During our recent visit, several of our travelers took time to have a long conversation with Dr. Barnabas Kahwage, asking how SOTV can support a long term plan for healthcare in Tungamalenga. SOTV members, you may be hearing about this plan as you attend one of the congregational dialogues for our 2015 Capital Campaign over the next few weeks. We have a unique opportunity to make a difference in our upcoming capital campaign, which includes proposals for projects onsite and projects that reach out to trusted partners locally and globally.  In 2007, a similar capital campaign included $60,000 to fund a new ward at the Tungamalenga Dispensary, an investment in healthcare for our partners that benefitted a whole community.  Here's a bit of our history of our partnership's healthcare ministry, and the details on the plans to come. This is the original dispensary as we found it in 2002, four rooms that included an examining room/office, a storage room for medicines and me

From time to time, someone asks, why Tanzania?  Why and how did Shepherd of the Valley get involved in ministry in Tanzania, and why has this ministry become such a large part of our congregation's mission? Here's what I've heard about how the partnership began.... Sometime in the spring of 2001, one of our members read an account of a fledgling mission partnership between the Saint Paul Area Synod and the Iringa Diocese. A relationship that began informally in the mid 1980s had been formally adopted as the Companion Synod program when the ELCA was formed.  In the article, the woman read that now individual congregations in the synod were being partnered with Tanzanian congregations, and people were starting to exchange visits at the grassroots level.   As I've heard the story, the woman went into Pastor Paul Harrington's office with the article she had read, and said, "We should be part of this!"   I'm told that Pastor Paul picked up

Traveler Jenny Buckley shared her photos and observations from our school visits on Facebook awhile back.  Thanks for permission to reprint here. SOTV members visited the Tungamalenga Primary School on a Saturday.  All the standard seven students were camping at the school to continue practicing for the national exam. Posted in the Headmaster's Office at Idodi Secondary School.   I love it! I find the P interesting--do we ask our students to "Pick what is good from peers" or is that something lost in our individualistic culture? The Tanzanian flag flies in the middle of the school courtyard. A typical classroom building. When the students left this classroom, they took their chairs with them. I am assuming they use the chairs in another class, but I never got a definite answer on this. The Science Storage room (I think there are few storage rooms here that look like this). The library. Students come here to ch