Tanzania Missions Trip, Summer 2007

  On this trip, I flew from Detroit to London, from London to Nairobi, from Nairobi to Kiliminjaro, and finally from Kiliminjaro to Mwanza. This map tracks my flight from Nairobi to Kilimanjaro to my destination Mwanza.
  When I arrived at Mwanza, I was glad to see Rob Howell’s face. The flight is a long flight when there are no problems, but given the fact that I was forced to layover an extra day in Nairobi, it took me more than two days.
  Here is a picture of Mwanza. This is the city that I flew to.
  Rob took me from the Mwanza Airport to his house, which is south of Mwanza in the fishing village of Sweya. There are less than 10,000 people living in this village. It is about 1/4 of a mile between Rob’s house and the church at Sweya. When we walk to school, it is normal to see chickens, ducks, goats, cows and dogs freely roaming the streets. Many children wander about aimlessly.
  This is the front of the Howell’s house. This was a welcome site when I arrived.
  This is the Howell’s Guest House. This is where I lived for two weeks. It was comfortable place to lay my head at night.
  This is a picture taken in 2006 of the Howell family in front of their house.
  Rob is translating while I am teaching on the Pentateuch. In this picture, I am responding to a question and Rob has just translated. Apparently, there was some humor with the question.
  Chapel time included “spirited” singing.
  Bible Institute students love to sing, as this picture indicates
  On Wednesday, June 27, I spoke in the Shadi Church. Because we got in quickly to the church and also left before the people actually started to pray, I have only a picture of the old and the new Shadi church to show of my presence there.
  As of 8/1/07, this is a more advanced stage of the building of the Shadi Church. However, we do not want to loose sight that the church is a group of believers and not a building. In the following slide, check out the lively way an offering is taken at the Shadi Church.
  Picture of Howell family at Tilapia Hotel
  Picture of Howell family at Tilapia Hotel, with inlet of Lake Victoria as backdrop.
  Here is a picture of the Bismarck’s Rock off the shore of Mwanza This is quite a sight from the Tilapia Hotel.
  This picture is a set up for our trip to Nyakaliro. Rob often travels the three hour trek to Nyakaliro on motorcycle. After mounting the bike, he knew that riding with me on the back was a prescription for disaster.
  Crossing a ferry to get across an inlet of Lake Victoria to get us to Nyakaliro.
  In reality, we took the Land Cruiser to Nyakaliro. We took furniture down and away from Nyakaliro. Here the Land Cruiser is parked outside of the Prophet’s Chamber at Nyakaliro.
  This is a picture of the outside front of the Nyakaliro Church
  This is a picture of the Nyakaliro Church when people are initially arriving. The service starts at 8:30 am but the church does not fill up until around 9 am. On this morning, the church ended up with about 100 people.
  After the church service, the congregation was outside singing.
  After preaching in the morning at the Nyakaliro Church, Elias & I are standing outside the church clapping & singing as congregation leave the church.
  This is a picture of Richard and I right after the church service at Sweya.
  During the second week, I taught a survey of the Old Testament Poetic Books class. Rob is diligently translating.
  Singing in Chapel is accompanied with Instruments.
  Here is a shot of Rob singing with some rhythm.
  Here is a shot of me singing with some rhythm.
  July 4
  The Howell’s and their dog’s love lizards. The children like to play with lizards and the dogs like to eat lizard. I learn to love lizards because they dine on insects like spiders.
  A final picture of the the Bible Institute students, Rob and I.
  Rob standing outside of Tumaini Children’s Home.
  This is a picture of the play area and front side of Tumaini with some children in the background.
  The multiple acres include buildings connected to children’s home, Bible Institute, classrooms, parsonage, the early stages of building a new structure for the Shadi church, parsonage.
  A picture of the Howell family & I the night before I departed for home.

To gain fuller knowledge of the work being done by Rob Howell and his family as they evangelize and establish Tanzanian believers into indigenous local churches, you should follow his following his two blogs.

As I prepared for my trip to Tanzania, I found Pastor Jon Trainer’s following commentary and pictures of his 2005 trip to Tanzania to be helpful. Check out the links for his trip.