Steve and Barnabas in Tanzania

This is the third installment talking about the Mauldin UMC mission trip to Tumaini Evangelistic Pre & Primary School in Kiruani, Tanzania.   This installment I want to talk about some of the bigger changes we planned for this mission trip from some at my previous site. First the biggest change in location is the tribe we deal with.   My new area is mainly a Maasai Tribe area and the majority of people our team comes into contact with at the site are Maasai.   So, I thought a prepared presentation on their culture would be a good thing.   We had Lucas who donated the land to the school and is one of the most respected Maasai men in the area along with our Headmaster Fredy talk about Maasai culture and then take them on a tour of traditional Maasai homes from the days they were nomadic.   They also talked about why the feel the school is important to the future of their tribe.   I was not sure what I was going to get as Fredy continued to ask me questions about what th

This is the second blog concerning the recent mission team from Mauldin United Methodist Church to the school I am currently working with in Tanzania.   This was a first time a team had visited the school since it became a real school.   There is a difference in visiting a preschool and a full fledge school with actual classes going on.   This was also a first for the staff at the school.   The weeks leading up to the team had some rocky moments as the headmaster did not want to give up class time at first.   This is one of those moments where his desire to make the teacher’s like worked in my favor as the teachers all were willing to give up a week of teaching. But once they got on site everyone was happy to let the VBS program take over the school for the week.   With an actual school we had multiple classrooms so we could split the kids up into groups, easily enough by their class designations with just the two standard classes combining since Sta

What a whirlwind this trip back to the site has been after the June break at school.   Since arriving back, it has been very much a non-stop work week that somehow became a month without much of a chance to catch my breath.   I was only back for a couple of weeks to do final preparation for the team coming over before they arrived. While they were here for almost a week and half, it seemed to fly by all too quick.   And since they have left, I have been working at going through all the wonderful items they brought over for the kids, teachers, school, me and the community at large.   Because they were listed as a mission group on their plane ticket contract, they got to bring over three bags each.   I have spent over a week and half in the room going through and sorting items and I am not done yet.   The teachers and students look wistfully into the room as they pass by hoping they are going to get the bounty they see before them.   Unfortunately, I need to count everything and