Steve and Barnabas in Tanzania

Before I actually get started this week I am going to deviate-I know I do that a lot- and make a request for assistance. Rev. William Makali and his wife Martha would like to come stateside to see their daughter graduate college.  This is not an FDM USA sponsored trip so he has to raise his money for the tickets.  He currently has raised $1200 and needs $1800 more.  If you can assist, please arrange to give your money or check to William while he is in the USA from May 12 to Jun 10.  Thank you in advance for your generosity.  Just because they are not on an official FDM USA trip they would still love to meet with friends and groups that have supported them in the past, just contact me to see what we can arrange.   One of the fun parts of my life here in Tanzania is the visa process.  You cannot get a residence work permit in the USA, you have to apply for it in Dar Es Salaam which is no where near where I am.  I have found out recently you can hire a guy to do all the Dar work for yo

Just finished a month of activity trying to get a post office box in Singida-well almost finished.  This is a pretty good example concerning some of the difficulties in doing business here.  So I wanted to get a post office box here in town.  The first thing I checked was if I could use the Hotel's post office box to receive packages or mail but it turns out they don't have a mailing address or post office box.  I guess I should note there is no home mail delivery here. So I enlisted William's help to get the box because many times my visa does not entitle me to do things of that nature (like I cannot cash a check at a bank using my visa).  Between traveling attempts were made to get the forms for the post office box and get a price.  Every time the person in charge of the boxes was not in the office and no one had the forms to give us.  They all offered prices but every time we got a different price like 11,800 TSH, 28,000 TSH, 32,000 TSH, 38,000 TSH, 40,000 TSH and so f

Ok this was a blog I was holding off on as long as possible hoping that God would answer my prayers in an overwhelming positive (for me) fashion.  But apparently He really wants me to work to learn this-Kiswahili.  I have spent hours every day working through my grammar books and dictionaries.  I have created flash cards and rewritten words I feel will be important to me to the point I have filled up two notebooks.  This is all after my time with a tutor for several weeks. Let’s start with the history of the language.  Kiswahili is what is referred to as a Bantu language meaning that it was formed by combining several languages into a new language typically for specific types of work or trade.  In this case the Spice trade which ran through Zanzibar during pre-colonialism started the creation of Kiswahili along the coastal region of Tanzania and Kenya and was first influenced heavily by Arabic languages.  During the colonial period, Germany took control of Tanganyika (The original