Steve and Barnabas in Tanzania

With everything that has been going on here in Tanzania, I have gotten behind in some of my stories to tell here on the blog.   While Doug and Frank were visiting, we had our end of February tests for the students which allowed them to help us present the top students with their prizes.   The grade point average for the entire school was 85.2 with the Pre-Unity class leading the way with highest class average.   We continue to see good grades in the subjects of Reading and Writing as well as Math.   Interestingly it is the subjects of Kiswahili, sports and play that they do the worst on.  While I have normally focused only on the positive, I feel it is important to share we have some things we need to work on and we are trying to address them. In our Standard 2 class, Gladness continues to rule the number one spot.   It does not hurt that her mother is a teacher at the local government primary school, and she has a brother in college as well as s...

It is Sunday morning in Kiruani TAG church, and I walk up to the church building to several kids exploding forth from their Sunday School area to greet me with a chittering chant of “Steve, Steve, Steve…”   I give each of them a hug or fist bump in greeting while trying to remember everyone’s name as I greet them back.   Today is a little different as Pastor Stephano also comes out of the kid’s area to greet and walk with me into church.   As usual we have business to talk about as much as our friendly greetings before church.   We agree to instead deal with school business after church and head in.   I look around for an open chair about mid-way down the left side.   The left side is predominately the adults in the church with some younger kids attached to their mothers in some way.   I like the middle because I can easily keep track of things without appearing to be hiding in the back.   This is a church of my community and despite...

I decided to save this story for a week so Doug and Frank can get home and forget all about checking my blog regularly before I tell it.  There is something you may need to get used to or accept if you come to visit our school.  The kids in our village area think all white guys are named Steve.  Even if they don't think it, they will run up to you yelling "Steve" until they get close enough to see you are not me. The twins getting ready for their debate speeches I have not encouraged it, did not even realize it was happening until Doug went for his morning walk and all the kids came up running yelling my name until they got close enough to realize he was not me.  I still did not realize how deep it ran until Frank started to talk to them and they kept calling him Steve.   The kids chant my name as the van rolls into the school because I am normally there to greet them when they arrive. Don't get me wrong, now that I know it is happening I love i...

It has been a busy couple of weeks here in Kiruani.   Doug and Frank from Blessed2BlessU Ministries, Inc. (the group I am working with to help build the school) came over from the USA to visit the site and set in motion our next big journey.   There are a lot of stories from these two weeks.   I cannot do them all justice in just one blog so I am going to split them up over a couple of weeks, but I am going to share a sample of the photos of some of our activities.   Frank and Doug with our teachers-Yes I am wearing my championship shirt on Friday like I am supposed to Doug with new friend Doug talking to students Frank talking to students With our Pre-School classes with our Standard Classes Normally when they come over, we spend most of our time in the valley with a side trip to see another project someone requested or to visit an orphanage they have connections to.   Normally they also stay at a house down the “road” a li...