The Mauldin UMC team visiting Kiruani TAG church

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 create a plan to make it last for the remainder of the year.  When I give the teachers a mass of something for prizes, they simply give it all away first chance they get instead of saving some back for future needs to give prizes.  So, I have to keep everyone out while I take the slow road and create a plan that will be fair and keep us set up for at least several more months. 

In the middle of all this we are also doing tests.  So, I had to come back early and start typing the tests up and everyday this week I must stop counting so I can enter the test results one block at a time.  This has kept me from coming in to do a blog since the team left and I am sure many of you are wondering how it went.

There are no single words that can properly describe what there week at the school and Pastor Stephano’s church were like for me.  I have asked if any of them would like to guest blog so you can get a different perspective than mine, but until I get those you will have to settle for my viewpoint.  So many wonderful things happened during their week at our school that I feel I must break down their trip into segments to tell you about them properly.  While I would love to give you the day by day photo albums (I think I did that mostly on Facebook already) I realize you may get bored about me talking about their trip.  So, I am going to break it into four groups:  Church, the week of VBS, the presentation to the parents, and the safaris.

So, onto their first real day visiting the village of Kiruani with their visit to Kiruani TAG church.  This church is used to getting visitors with Doug and Frank making regular visits, my presence in the church, an evangelist couple that visits the area every year.  So, they know how to put on a show, and they did not disappoint.  A show is not the right word because that implies so level of fakeness and nothing could be further from the truth.  They sing with a love for Jesus and God and it shows.  The team did well to keep up and did not miss their chance to shine when they sang for the church as well, pulling out a classic that many in the church knew and sang along with.  Jim delivered the message and did well for his first time using a translator and his photos that he passed around were a big hit as well. 

It was a church service that I feel everyone will remember but more importantly it was perfect for starting off our work in the Vacation Bible School and for the community to see members of my church and one from NC.  Unfortunately, the two people many in the community wanted to meet, my parents, were sick from the travel and did not make it out to church that day. 

The team consisted of several who had been before and a couple of seasoned team members/leaders but the majority had not been to Tanzania or to visit me at the other site I was with.  I loved watching them during the church service, because there ain’t no church service like a rural African church service.  From the kids wandering around and all grouping up to get as close to the visitors as possible.  The fact that 65 or 70% of the church are children and most of the adults are related in some way makes it a close-knit group of worshippers.  The act of taking your donation to the front instead of waiting on a basket to come down your row is easier to get used than some of the other items like a lady next to you doing the “lu, lu, lu, lu” as loud as possible without warning.  Now imagine a group of Methodists (except for the one from NC who was Baptist) who just started clapping in church since I was a boy.  I was afraid they might come out of their skin, but they just smiled and kept on clapping or rocking back and forth to the beat.

Overall, I believe everyone left blessed.  Then we hauled the extra luggage pieces up to the school and I gave a quick history of the school after we unloaded.  Then we went to the TPC club (TPC is the sugar plantation I ride through every week on my way to Moshi) to eat lunch.  We had preordered and had invited Pastor Stephano and his family which in Tanzania meant we also invited a couple of others who may or may not have been related to them.  The food was excellent, and everyone had a great time just relaxing at the comfortable and beautiful club just off their golf course.    They even got to see some monkeys that hang around the plantation and golf course area.

That night we tried a restaurant at the hotel that I had only been to once, but it was fantastic as well.  They ate really well on this trip and we stayed on budget.  But eventually I figured out the best way to order for a group.  I just ordered a Kilogram of this type meat and a Kilogram of this and some fries along with fish and we just ate family style.