Tanzania Partnership

Volunteers are setting up the Shepherd's Sale, Shepherd of the Valley's annual garage sale.  It's a huge sale, filling nearly every room in the building except the sanctuary!  What's the link between the sale and Tungamalenga Partnership?  All the proceeds from bike sales will then purchase bikes for evangelists in our partner congregation.  The bikes enable Tungamalenga church workers to travel from village to village to minister to their congregants.  Last year sales enabled us to purchase six Tanzanian bikes at about $100 each! Evangelists Shakura and George are thrilled to have a new, roadworthy bike. The Shepherd's Sale supports Tungamalenga Partnership in another way, too.  Each year organizers ask us whether there are items we can use as gifts, and the workers are kind enough to collect those items prior to the sale.  Because of this generous opportunity, we have collected hundreds of SOTV t-shirts that are given to ...

How do bikes sold at the SOTV Garage Sale aid evangelism in Tanzania? Easy. All the funds raised from the garage sale bikes are used to purchase bikes in Tanzania. When SOTV members visit our partners in Tungamalenga, we make a stop at the bike store in Iringa first. We purchase bikes specially equipped with lights, extra tire tubes and maintenance equipment. The bikes are loaded on top of our bus for the four hour drive to Tungamalenga. Then they are given to evangelists like George and Shakuru, enabling them to more efficiently get from home to church, visit the sick, and do the work of pastoral ministry in their villages. Since our partnership began ten years ago, we've given about 25 bikes. Most of those were purchased with funds raised at the SOTV Garage Sale. Thanks to all who have donated their bikes and all who have purchased the garage sale bikes!

One of the primary areas of ministry in our partnership is supporting evangelism. Sometimes the families and friends of SOTV travelers assume that means that when we travel to Tanzania, we are going to be doing some door to door evangelism visits. No--because our partners in Tanzania do that work very effectively themselves. Instead, SOTV supports evangelism in Tungamalenga Parish by providing bicycles for the evangelists and by paying for roofs for newly built chapels. Tungamalenga Parish is comprised of 20 village congregations scattered across an area with a 25-30 mile radius. There are just two pastors serving all those congregations which are also served by lay evangelists. The pastors and evangelists often spend hours of their day walking from one village to another in order to visit the sick, teach confirmation classes, conduct worship, or hold meetings. $100 buys a bicycle in Iringa. The bikes are built for the rugged dirt roads, and come equipped with lights. They support evan...