The following post comes to Christ the King from Roger and Trish Blomquist. The Blomquists are serving for three months in Tanzania. Please check back often for more updates from the Blomquists and continue to offer your prayers for them, Tanzania, and the Nduli Parish.

It’s hard to believe that we have been here a little over a month as time has flown by.  We have had very busy schedules with lots of people here from the St. Paul Area Synod and we have reconnected with so many of our Tanzanian friends that we have met over the years.

The second week we were here I worked with the Lutheran Center staff to complete the 2012 budget projection and present it at the Diocese meetings. Tuti, the accountant, was very proud as they complimented her on how well the budget had been developed and also on how well the reports had been submitted this past year.  I guess my work has paid off – I was proud of her as well!  They asked why I didn’t come to the meeting and I said, I wasn’t here to steal someone else’s thunder!  As soon as I finished that, I started the annual audit of the BegaKwaBega finances or maybe I should say I started to reconcile/finalize all the monthly financials for 2011. 

Next week we start paying school fees for over 1500 students.  More than half of those students will be paid for individually,  meaning we will write out a separate deposit slip with carbon paper for the bank for each student, get funds from one bank and then take the funds to the next bank.  If the students are attending a Diocese secondary school (slightly over 500), we pay half the fees for the whole list, then sometime in March we will visit those schools and take a roll count of every student.  The second payment is adjusted to reflect the actual number of students in attendance being sponsored. 

We have had several large dinners at the Lutheran Center because of the number of people visiting here, including many who came to host “Day of Grace” for the Diocese pastors.  They conducted three one and a half day sessions and approximately 180 people attended making it a huge success!  In addition, the doctors in the group are doing some work at Ilula Hospital and medical students from the Univ. of Minnesota are with them.  Then there was a group of 20 students and their leaders from Gustavus Adolphus College here for a little over a week.

The group of nine from Christ the King arrived Jan. 18 for 5 days and I was their “BegaKwaBega tour guide.”  I made all the arrangements for each day in advance and then kept tabs on the daily changes.  Probably the most difficult was communicating with the bus driver who didn’t speak English and I lack confidence in directions to all places.  They as well as Roger and I had an incredible time with Nduli, our companion congregation.  On the Saturday, we had the laying of the cornerstone to the new parsonage, the dedication of the oil milling machine house, the storage silos, the grinders and peanut butter production, the processing of the honey from the beehives, etc. 

Nduli members are very business oriented and they have taken advantage of every resource they have asked our church for and made it into something profitable.  They are extremely proud of their efforts and we do whatever we can to reinforce that, including lots of praise!  Another memorable experience (not soon to be forgotten) at Nduli was “a time for building together”!  We formed a long line, one of us, then a couple of Tanzanians, and passed bricks from a pile to close to where they would be needed next for building the house.  They danced and sang up a storm and it was quite moving.  The idea seemed so simple but it was really an opportunity for “should to shoulder” (That’s what BegaKwaBega stands for!) 

During our visit to Tumaini University, we were able to meet with the 2 Diploma in Theology students being sponsored by Christ the King.  They continually expressed their gratitude for our sponsorship and I know that they were very pleased to have the opportunity to meet everyone.

I have heard from both of them since everyone left and we promise to continue staying in contact with them.  We were sorry to have the CTKer’s leave as we had a wonderful time together, especially in the evenings talking about the day’s events.  This is part of what we enjoy when we are here, the special times with everyone, to listen and enjoy the feedback we get from groups as they go about developing their relationships with their partners.  They also reflect on visiting the other projects here in Iringa, especially Neema’s, the cooking school operated by the Consulata Sisters (Catholic) from Italy and the Huruma Orphanage.

Roger and his staff have been running as fast as they can trying to get the bean seeds and fertilizer delivered to 47 villages – all to be done in this month.  Obstacles have been a new employee and the lack of one vehicle and then a driver needing to take classes to get his license renewed.  The middle of last week the new/used truck finally arrived and they were able to create two teams to go each day to attempt to catch up and get everything delivered or almost before the end of January.  The challenges of Tanzania are forcing their schedule to be flexible from one day to the next. 

In the afternoons, after visiting a village, he has also been taking people who are visiting here and wanting to see the demonstration plots near Iringa. Everyone that sees a plot, and the storage silos comes back quite impressed.  This project is truly a success and we keep hearing farmers are getting 3 – 5 times the number of bags of maize from their farms (shambas) – even with the poor rains last year.  This year everyone should have bumper crops as everywhere is getting rain frequently.

It’s now week 5 and we have Steve Clark from CTI in the Twin Cities staying with us for the week.  He is working with the Ag. Institute on storage for corn.  Since CTI makes the grinders that are used for making peanut butter and other things, they are also making visits and getting demonstrations on the products as well as how to assemble, un-assemble and clean the grinders.  I think Steve has been thoroughly impressed with what he has seen and we are proud that we had worked with them on how to take care of the equipment.

We are getting rain often, it has been cool compared to previous years and everything is very green.  We don’t have the power outages that we had last year but every now and then the power goes out, like last night.  It was a game of getting out the candles and lanterns, getting them all working, then the power would come back and as soon as everything was put away, out it went again. 

The jacaranda trees with their gorgeous purple flowers are still in bloom, the flame tree in front of our apartment is beautiful and the Greater Seina with their yellow flowers are a sight to behold. 

This Sunday we will be attending Ordination for 9 pastors.  Our “adopted son” Owiny Request will be ordained and I know that it will difficult for me not to shed a few tears.  He is originally from Uganda, has a smile that doesn’t stop, has no parents and is truly inspiring and will make a wonderful pastor.  We also know one of the women quite well as she was an intern at Nduli year before last so it will be a special day.  Since we have participated in other ordinations in previous years, we know from experience that it will last at least five hours and they will serve food afterwards. 

We appreciate your love, support and prayers – keep them coming!

Mungu Akubariki (God Bless You!)

Roger and Trish Blomquist

Roger and Trish are Christ the King Members serving on a three-month mission trip in Tanzania, to read their first blog installment, please click here.