Tanzania Partnership

Another group of Shepherd of the Valley ambassadors will be traveling to Tanzania in July to visit our partners at Tungamalenga, Makifu, and Usolanga Parishes: Judy Anderson, Geri Anglin, Jenny and Peter Harrits, Dean Kremer, Kirsten Levorson, and Ken Loher.  See the tentative itinerary This group includes our oldest traveler (82 years young), our most distant traveler (joining us from the state of Virginia), one traveling for the second time, another for her third time, and another for her (lucky) thirteenth time. What brings this group together, what motivates us to endure the 24 hours of flight and airport time, followed by a ten hour cross country bus ride? We’re excited to see what God has been up to in our partnerships since our last visit! ·         We expect to worship in the newly finished Mahuninga Chapel, which has been under construction since 2004. ·         We’ll see the foundation of the Mpalapande Primary School and arrange the next stage of const

Three years ago, when we first started discussing this idea of building a primary school in the village of Mpalapande, our friends told us they had approached the local government officials with the idea.  They said, if the church builds the building, will the government send teachers and provide administration for the school? The answer they received was always yes. However, as Americans, used to dotting i's and crossing t's, we asked for documentation of that agreement.  We needed something in writing. At one point, we had a letter from the local village officials.  But that wasn't enough for us, we needed the Iringa regional officials to sign off on this.  To be fair, this wasn't just our American caution at work, it was a move advised by our friends at the Iringa Diocese. Turns out the local letter wasn't sufficient anyway, as the leaders who signed it were all voted out of office in the next election a few months later. Last fall, we exchanged a serie