Soooo, What Happened to Thursday's Blog?? - Here 'tis!!!

Jambo (Hello)!  Habari Gani (How are you)?

Between visiting, traveling, meeting new and "continued" friends (plus eating, sleeping. . .), the amount of time for emailing/blogging is very limited.

So, our Thursday's doings:

First, we've decided to change our "Mission Tanzania" focus to include our Balloon and Soccer Ball" Ministry.  Jan Orf - along with the assistance of others - created balloon animals and hats to the delight of all (except one little boy named Norris who is the grandson of one of the congregants who hosted the dinner on Thursday).  I could see in his young, but wise, eyes:  "those crazy Americans and their idea of entertainment!!"

We have also created lots of smiles and laughter and maybe a few potential future Tanzanian professional football (not American football) team players with the almost 40 donated soccer balls - (twenty were donated by the Washington County Attorney's Office).

We boarded our bus at 9:30 am for our visit to the village of Kilolo and its church and school, accompanied by a number of Cathedral Lutheran church elders. 
Most of the roads in the Iringa area require speeds of about 20 mph so we did a little bouncing, talking loudly to be heard and hanging on tight!  But we made it and it's hard to describe the warm and gracious and joyful greeting we received - the same greeting that has so characterized our entire experience in Iringa!  We were fed, introduced, thanked and blessed.  After tea (please read other blogs to get an idea of what "tea" really means. . . ) we walked over to the church for worship together with prayers and singing - our hosts in Swahili and Bethel members in English - but sharing the same spirit of the songs, "The Church's One Foundation" and "Now Thank We All Our God".  We also shared a dialog of concerns that churches half way around the world (and 9 time zones) experience regarding the challenges of keeping our youth active in their faith and also bringing new members to add to the vitality of our churches.

Although the drive was long, we had the opportunity to be witnesses to the countryside's beautiful scenery, the picturesque hills and lush vegitation, native cows called "Zeeboos" and one friendly, but stubborn goat who has an issue about "right-of-way".

After arriving back at the Lutheran Center, we had just enough to freshen up and get back on the bus for dinner at another Cathedral parishioner's home - we as yet have never gone hungry - and once again, I'm using the same words and phrases to describe our time with the families who have opened their hearts and homes to welcome us - "beautiful", "gratious", "kind", "generous", "thoughtful", "overwhelming" - I think I could really use a Thesaurus!  I hope and pray that we at Bethel will someday have the opportunity to have these same loving expressions spoken of us as we share our families and homes with visitors from Iringa.

Asante!