Tanzania

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.
Here is a picture of Mwanza. My flight started in Detroit. From there to London, then to Nairobi, and finally to Mwanza, Tanzania.
When I arrived at the Mwanza Airport, I was taken to a missionary’s 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 the house where I was staying 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 missionary’s house. This was a welcome site when I arrived.
This is the Guest House where I lived for two weeks. It was a comfortable place to lay my head at night.
I taught for two weeks. The first week I taught the Pentateuch and the second Old Testament Poetic Books. Each day we had a time of refreshment in chapel. I would give a short message followed by some ???spirited??? singing.
Bible Institute students love to sing, as this and the above picture indicates. I would try to sing with the students. Since I am tone deaf, I was not good at keeping time with the music.
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.
One evening we ate at the Tilapia Hotel. While there, I took a picture of Bismarck???s Rock, just off the shore of Mwanza.
After my first week in Mwanza, we made a trip to Nyakaliro, about three hours away from Mwanza. Along with a Land Cruiser, we took a ferry to cross an inlet of Lake Victoria to get us to Nyakaliro.
Though we could have traveled on a motorcycle, we took a Land Cruiser to Nyakaliro. We used the Land Cruiser to transport furniture to 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 a church service at Sweya.
During the second week, I taught a survey of the Old Testament Poetic Books class with the help of a translator.
Singing in Chapel is accompanied with Instruments.
Here is a shot of me singing with some rhythm.
Not only did I have a chance to teach in the Bible Institute and visit a few church plants, I also was able to see the 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.
Before I departed for home, we took a final picture of the Bible Institute students and me.