If a child in Australia and Tanzania was asked why do we have Easter, we would likely get two completely different answers. In Australia it would be Easter Hat Parades, Easter eggs and Easter bunnies. In Tanzania it has a religious meaning as children understand Easter is about life and how to live it to the full. It’s about Jesus, a cross and a resurrection from the dead. In this culture where the spiritual realm still dominates peoples’ thoughts and where the spirit world is evident in behaviours that deny the worth of humans, the message of Jesus is a message that gives life meaning and purpose. Death was defeated on that cross and Africans know that this world is not all there is.
The Easter weekend here was for me relatively quiet. Good Friday I preached at the English service using Exodus 12 about the Passover as my text and linking the Passover Lamb with the Lamb of God at Easter. On Saturday I remained home just resting, apart from a walk to Rehema Cafe where there are always expats. There were two new lots of volunteers with GOMAD – Go Make a Difference. A mother and son aged in their sixties and forties and a lovely family with four girls aged from 10 to 15 joined four gap year young adults from the UK whose three months ends in a week.
COVID having shut down tourism meant Rehema had no income for years until recently. It is the only western cafe for hundrds of kilomtres between Mwanza and the Kenyan border.
Sunday was a big day with a four houchurch ervice and afterwards lunch at Matvilla on the shores of Lake Victoria. Te music in the service is always amazing with African voices ululating and dancing as they sing. The after church auction resulted in me being the winning bidder for a 100kg sack of maize, 4 chickens and a length of material. All given to others – a widow with five kids and an aged person. The cloth went to the tailoring centre and the maize to Mothers’ Union for distribution to the poor.
Lunch at Matvilla
After churc the bishop and his wife Janet and I headed to Matvilla Beach Resort about a kilometre from his home. We all ordered tilapia and what was served was almost as large as the largest fish I have eaten years ago.
However the interesting thing about the place was the number of Chinese eating there. A group of six told me they were working at Butiama and some had been in the country nine years as road builders. The other group were with a tour company. The first group were very friendly, offering me a beer, sunflower seeds and other food.
Monday turned out to be a day of confirmations for thirteen young people aged from 11 years to late teenage years. I was asked to preach again and had time to edit my sermon as Max who was translating for me was learning new words like hail. “Ice from the sky,” I told him. Anyway we managed to get through and I had reduced much of it otherwise we would have been there much longer.
Back to work Tuesday. My focus has been the tour group of 18 who will be here from 22 April. A major task was obtaining 18 SIM cards. In the end it required four people to buy up to five cards each to give each person 4gbs of data for their week here. Each cost about $7. I have learned a lot about organising travel through this process and do not begrudge travel agents charging a service fee now for what they do in bookings travel for people.
Finalising the itinerary. A meeting with staff about the visit and the logistics and prepping the itinerary rounded out my week which ends Wednesday as Thursday I head to Kigali, Rwanda by bus for a conference.
However the week ended on an interesting note on how small this world is. There is a gardener named Daniel who occasionally comes and takes tea in the hostel kitchen canteen and sat with us this morning. Establishing I was Australian he starts mentioning all the Australians he knows including Howard Spencer who I know personally from my role at Anglican Aid. Now in Brussels I looked him up on Facebook and messaged him. Daniel was his Godson. Daniel is 60 years old and was 24 when he was baptised. He also worked for Howard in his home at Buhemba. Imessaged Howard on Messenger and received a reply to say hi to Daniel. I then had Daniel record a message to Howard who repled later after we had left. Small world.
Tuesday night we all wentto dinner at the GOMAD house in Bwerri about ten minutes from town. It was a relaxed meeting of volunteers, the GOMAD staff of Calire and Graham who set up the charity which has brought over 1500 people (not all young) to Tanzania and Kenya to do some work and have an African experience. After dinner we went round the table to hear what the highlight of the day was. I was impressed to hear of teenage kids visiting the leprosy village (I need to get there) and doing things such as massaging limbs, lifeless and free of feeling due to the disease, testing villagers for malaria and planting trees. Planting trees is big over here. Whatever volunteers do they pay for so they contribute not only time but money. Such a great program. If you want to experience the real Africa in a safe place and dispel everything you think about the continent, rather than tourist Africa Go Make a Difference is a well organised program and recommended by me.
And finally some photos of Serengeti contributed by the Bible College which took studnets on safari on the weekend and a mission to Mugumu. Seeing an aeroplane is a big deal for these guys as they mostly will vever get on a plane or fly.
Definitely finally Philbia. You may remember last year I started a fundraiser for 23 yo Philbia who needed heart surgery. On Monday this woman sidled up and asked for a selfie. After the photo I asked who she was and in great suprise that I did not recognise her, she said Philbia. Well what a heart operation will do for you as you will see in the following shots.
And as Bugs Bunny famously said “That’s all folks till,” after Kigali.
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