We celebrate Easter Day in a Village Church

7th April 2005
Today is a newly proclaimed holiday so I thought I would celebrate by sending another short tale.
I think I have solved the email problem we should be ok from here in. I apologise to all those whose birthday I have missed, the motherboard on my computer died after 3 days and I am still waiting for its replacement.

We now have internet access ! And thank you to Andrew Cooper for his invaluable help in solving the final problem! The main use for this currently is email on the school MAF accounts – now that we don’t have to dial up several times a day to send and receive email, this will save the school a significant amount of money each year.

On the 20th of March 2 of us went to hear Kath Budden preach –(in Swahili) at Igondola parish near Mvumi ( of Jungle Doctor fame ) which is about 40 km away from Dodoma. The trip is quite interesting as you pass over a mountain range and into the next valley the landscape changes quite markedly and it is very beautiful. When we finally get there find someone to show us where the Pastor – Julius Chiswagala lives we are invited in and I bump my head on the low lintel as there is a step up from the ground to the door way.
Julius has 5 churches in his parish each of around 40 -70 people (plus their kids) and 3 catechists who lead the out lying churches. After a drink and some Japati we leave for the service - when we arrive at the Church building the building is packed about 150 people they have combined 2 of the 5 meetings in the parish to listen to Kath preach. The congregation is already singing with great enthusiasm and gusto in true African style. We are met & greeted by the elders outside the church and then process inside behind the pastor.
After some more singing we are welcomed – which involves standing at the mic and introducing yourself – your name and where you come from and anything else you care to say in bringing greetings to them. – in Kiswahili of course. One of the elders got up and then thanked us at length in English which must have taken him some time to prepare even though his English was good.
As this is a rural parish almost all of the people are farmers and are subsistence farmers,
But when it came time for the collection they all had something for the collection. – even if it was only some of their produce. as I mentioned in an earlier TT, in Tanzanian churches at collection time they don’t pass the bag around, the bag is up the front and all those with something to give file past and put it in. Seeing this especially when their area had been badly effected by hail reminded me strongly of the story of the widow’s mite in the gospels.
I was even more blown away to hear that the parish runs a kindergarten for 250 children and feeds them lunch every day. Of these 250, 35 are AIDS orphans and 24 come from single parent homes. Once a month the congregation takes up a special collection to raise money to pay the fees of the orphans and give the 2 teachers a small allowance.
It struck me that many of our churches are struggling for funds – why is that when many of us are incredibly rich. Yet in this parish where the people have demonstrably so little, they give so much.

The service is close to 3 hrs which is normal especially when you have a special guest preacher and during the service several of the church choirs sing. After leaving the church we line up outside behind the pastor to be greeted by everyone in the church while greets us – while the
Choir joined by others sing in a large group facing us.
After church we went back to the house where Julius stays for lunch of chicken &rice followed by watermelon – very nice, I go outside to the pit toilet and on the way in bump my head only harder this time – Julius is very apologetic, pole sana but its my fault for not watching.
After lunch, we go for a walk to the local shops where Julius’ friend owns a small what passes for a ‘café’ here. On the way we pass the local equivalent of a home made brewery where they sell the pombe – which is very potent but apparently tastes awful so people only drink it for one reason. At his friends café we had a very long and interesting conversation about the visible fruits of the Christian life. Julius speaks quite good English and has a great sense of humour, never the less, Kath is very tired by the time we leave as she did most of the work “alisema” ie “He said……” On the way we pass through a storm, but this didn’t get over the range so Dodoma got very little.

Tuesday: Rain woke me up around 12:50am as I lay there it kept getting heavier and heavier
But it stopped by early morning.
Wednesday Rain again until lunchtime this time and we had a blackout as well. But power outages are commonplace here and the kids and teachers took it in their stride. There is concern that the Primary school Easter production of Godspell (for which all the classes had been practicing for 6 weeks) which is being performed outside – the school has no hall. May be disrupted – so we organize with the cathedral to perform there if it is raining tomorrow morning. However we are blessed with fine weather on the Thursday so the performance goes ahead as planned and both the children and parents really enjoy the show.

Good Friday: Went to the service and back to the Horrocks for lunch.
Because we are so close to the equator Swahili speakers have a biblical approach to telling the time: their day starts at 6am so 7am is 1 o’clock so on Good Friday the Swahili congregation has their service from the 6th to the 9th hour.

Easter Saturday night we have dinner at the Dodoma Hotel where there internet is really slow but the food is quite reasonable – they do good steaks $6.00

Easter Sunday we leave after the English service for the Ukwata - (like ISCF- a national School Christian group) conference in Mpwapwa about 2 1/2hrs away – It has been raining and we have to go the long way – fortunately we have the patrol which has low range 4wd – there were some mighty big puddles and parts of the road very rough and would be impassable by a normal car.
We arrived the Teachers college complex - a big place and the oldest teachers college in Tanzania. After lunch we waited for the Choir competition to start – the program was running a long way behind schedule even by Tz standards and we were only able to stay for 2 of the 10 choirs that were performing. Because it had started to rain and we wanted to be back by dark if at all possible – driving after dark out of town is to be avoided if possible here.

The next school holidays start next Friday afternoon for 1 week, also I am moving house as Mark & Liz Williamson are returning from language school in Iringa to start their ministries here.
Jeremy’s wife Jill and their girls leaving for Australia via Switzerland this Sunday so next Friday
afternoon I am moving in with Jeremy until we leave in June -.
Next Saturday I am going to Dar to catch a plane up to Mwanza and then a bus to Musoma to visit the Vinks who are involved in Youth Ministry there. Musoma is on lake Victoria and I am told it is very nice.