Karibuni sana, Mchungaji Paulo and Evangelist George!

By -
Evangelist George Kioniani

Mchungaji Paulo Masinga

We are delighted to welcome our friends, Pastor Paulo Masinga and Evangelist George Kioniani, to Minnesota and Shepherd of the Valley!  They will arrive Friday, April 1st, and be with us for two weeks.  The tentative itinerary is here - check back for updates as plans firm up.

George is a dear friend whom we met on our first visit to Tungamalenga in 2002.  He is a farmer, is married and has six children, and also cares for the children of his deceased brother. He is a lay evangelist, a member of the parish staff who ministers to congregants, assisting the parish pastors.  He currently serves as secretary/treasurer of Makifu Parish and is involved in planning and executing partnership projects.

Pastor Paulo was the first Maasai pastor ordained in the Iringa Diocese and has been an associate pastor of Tungamalenga Parish since 2004. He is married to Leah and they have six children.  His oldest son, Amon, serves as an evangelist within the parish. Pastor Paulo lives in Mpalapande village.

We are delighted to have this opportunity to host our dear friends at SOTV. So many travelers have experienced their gracious hospitality during our visits to their home, and now we are grateful to have the chance to reciprocate that hospitality. 

During the visit, our friends will meet many of the donors at SOTV who provide scholarships and financial support for projects within Makifu and Tungamalenga Parishes.  They will experience our daily life, especially our congregational life, and will understand our culture in a new way.

Here are a few tips to help our guests feel welcome at Shepherd of the Valley.
  • Greet them! If you see us walking around church, please come up and introduce yourself. Join them for pizza in the atrium on Wednesday evenings.
  • Share your SOTV stories with our guests.  Tell them why you volunteer in the food shelf, or what you enjoy about being a confirmation guide, or what's so special about our summer youth trips. They want to understand our congregational ministry.
  • Try out a Swahili greeting.  Karibu means "welcome" and Karibuni is a welcome for more than one person.  
  • When our guests say Bwana Yesu Asifiwe! please respond with an enthusiastic "Amen!" They are saying, "praise the Lord Jesus" and that is a typical opening statement when one starts a speech, especially in church.  Pastor Paulo might start his comments by saying Msisi Yesu! and your response is again "Amen!"  Msisi Yesu is the Maasai equivalent of Bwana Yesu Asifiwe!
  • Plan to attend congregational events during their visit -- there's an open house to welcome them, a partnership meeting with dinner, a congregational potluck dinner, and a farewell event the night before they leave. Karibuni sana, you are warmly welcomed.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Idodi Secondary School

By -
Image
July 10, 2017 On Monday we headed out to Tungamalenga and Makifu parishes, ready to be offline for the next eight days.  Our first stop was at Idodi Secondary School.  Idodi is the first village we come to in the parish, and we have about 75 students attending the secondary school. Headmaster Christopher Mwasomola welcomed us to his office for an introduction and update. He said that Idodi is known as a community school -- the infrastructure is built by the community (in this case, heavily supported by a group known as Friends of Ruaha) and teachers are provided by the government.  Fun fact: the Friends of Ruaha at one point received a donation from Roy Disney, whose name is included on the dedication plaque for the school's library. The school was registered in 1999 and has 889 students, 437 girls and 452 boys. There are 41 teachers. The government supports salaries, books, lab equipment, desks, and other basic supplies. There are 11 non teaching staff, wi...
Read more

Safari 2013: the journey of a lifetime

By -
Image
Safari in Swahili means journey. We'd like you to consider taking the journey of a lifetime with other Shepherd of the Valley members next summer.  For two weeks in August, you could be ambassadors from our congregation living among and getting to know our partners from Tungamalenga Parish. What's a journey like this look like? We'll fly from Minneapolis to Amsterdam, then Amsterdam to Dar es Salaam with a short stopover at Kilimanjaro (alas, it will be dark and we don't get off the plane at Kili). That's about 24 hours from start to finish, with a four hour layover in Amsterdam. Arriving at the Landmark Hotel just before midnight, we get a good night's sleep in Dar before the eight to ten hour cross country bus ride to Iringa. notice the US and Tanzanian flags on the dashboard of the bus?   Highlights of that cross country ride include driving about 100 kilimeters of the way through Mikumi National Park -- and if we're lucky, we'l...
Read more

Karibuni sana

By -
Image
Pastor Naftal & Anjelina Ng'amillo In just a couple short weeks, we will be hosting guests from Tanzania. Pastor Naftal and Anjelina Ng'amillo from Tungamalenga Parish, along with Dr Mufwimi and Dora Saga from the Ilula Lutheran Hospital, will arrive in Minnesota October 21 for a stay of just over two weeks. What better way to welcome them than to learn a few words in their language? Karibu sana or, if you are addressing more than one person, Karibuni sana , means "we warmly welcome you." It's pronounced like this: KAH ree boo SAH nah or KAH ree boo nee SAH nah. Jambo means "hello." Another greeting is Habari, which is more like "how are you," to which a Tanzanian might respond Nzuri [good], Salama [peace], or Njema [fine, well, good] and then they might add, Habari yako [and how are you?]. When Tanzanians are in a gathering, like at church or at a meeting, and they rise to speak to the assembly, they almost always start by say...
Read more