Steve and Barnabas in Tanzania

Getting ready this to do presentations about Tumaini Evangelistic Pre and Primary English Medium School and Blessed2BlessU Ministries, Inc. and I realized that it may help folks to understand why I want to talk about this ministry so much. Maybe to understand a little of the challenges facing the people in Kiruani when it comes to education might help.  Most folks don't know until they visit that there is a government primary school just 1.5 miles away from ours.  When I visited this site for the first time, my immediate question was "Why are we building a school so close to one that already exists?"  The answer is a collection of reasons.  The first I have mentioned here before.  Primary schools are taught in Kiswahili only and then if a child gets to Secondary school everything is supposed to be taught only in English.  So a child from a non English Medium school is lost.  The second reason is that a majority of the kids cannot pass the exam to a...

This week is a little bit of an odds and end discussion as I get ready to come home while applying for a work permit again.  Last year got my visa schedule out of sync with everything else meaning it is up Thursday.  This trip will be a little more extended for several reasons.  The first being that I am applying for a work permit with the new ministry and will need to allow a couple of months for that process.  Another reason being that I have not had a chance to speak to many groups about the new ministry since I joined it and I need to not only bring everyone up to date but will be looking for some new groups to speak to.  The last reason is that school is closed in June so no real reason to rush back with nothing going on at the school. The most important of those reasons is one of the odds and end I want to talk about this week.  Speaking Opportunities.  I need to fill up my two months at home with as many as possible.  I not only want to...

This post is two parts combined because they are both about our new structure being built at the site. The official title of the project is Missionary House since the structure will serve as my housing at the site.   While our previous housing structure was anything but a tiny house, I opted to design myself a smaller structure for economical reasons and because it is really what I need size wise. The house is just shy of 200 square feet in size and is in the shotgun design style where each room is in one line from front to back.  This house will use a different window than we have in the other houses because we noticed those windows allow a lot of insects into the home and it is difficult to place insect screens over the windows because they will block the windows ability to open. In my previous housing with the other project they used interior shutters which require leaving space in front of the window clear and wall space for the shutters to open into.  The wi...