Jan. 17th, 2010

Another Perkins breakfast, then off to church. There are visitors from Tumaini University in Iringa, a Finnish Minister and his wife and an African minister. There is to be a power point but there are electrical problems in spite of Mohammeds best effort. The time is filled with extra singing and dancing. The youth choir does 2 numbers with some dancing. The students from secondary school continue in their excellent leadership of services. When they realize the electricity won’t work they decide to do a vocal explanation of the Holy Land. The Finnish minister speaks in English while Pastor Bennet interprets. Shortly thereafter the electrical problem is resolved and we get the power point after all. After the service there is an auction of many items. The most impressive being a huge bunch of bananas. After church we return to the house to wait for the safari humans.

When they return we are all happy to be together again. They had a most wonderful time. We looked at pictures and heard stories. Sounds like it was well worth it.

Marcia and Greg visited Jenro’s home, where Marcia was given the honor of holding 3 week old Mary. Jenro and Tupenda have 5 children, the oldest is at Dar at a university. There was also three or four orphans and Tupendas mother living there. They have goats and pigs and there are many pots of flowers around the yard.

We return to the house for a presentation by Barnabus, ward education director, on the education system. We have a wonderful conversation about differences of the two systems. We also talk about other aspects of American life.

Barnabus joins us for supper that includes the chicken that Kayli and Danielle hilariously chased around the yard.

As this will be my last entry, I want to note how thankful I am for the work of Edward, Mohammed, Mama Toni and Ben. You are all special people. To the women on the team, including Mama Mark, it has been great getting to know you. You are very special human beings and you have shown great compassion. It is my hope that you all have a most wonderful life.

-Greg