trips.schrull.us

I hadn’t realized that I haven’t blogged since Thursday.

 

Friday was an extremely busy day, starting with Communion in Chapel at 7:30, a quick breakfast of coffee and bread in our hostel rooms and then leaving at 9:00 to go with the Bishop to Ruhita to install a regional Dean.  Ruhita is “off the beaten track”.  In fact the Land Cruiser had to ford a small river to get there (good news is that it is now the dry season).  Electrification has not made it out to the village, so after chai of fried bananas and chicken, we entered the church where the sound of the generator provided background “music” to the entire service.  So many places we go now are electrified that I had all but forgotten that typical sound that accompanied so many of the church services we have been to here.

 

The Installation of a new Dean at Ruhita.

It was a joyous service with two choirs, of course, along with Bill and myself singing twice.  As with all services of installation, the installed couple (the pastor and his wife) were presented with many gifts incuding three lovely katangas (brought down the aisle in formation like an awning and wrapped around the couple) and length of fabric for pants, a 5 gallon bucket with lid and a goat.  (And let me tell you, I was delighted to see that the goat was presented to the installed couple).  Following the gifts, we listened to the parish report, which is always given when the Bishop visits, and then the Bishop was presented with a few gifts, which included a live rooster.  (And THIS is why I was delighted that the goat went to someone else.  I was not looking forward to driving back to the compound sharing the back of the Land Cruiser with a goat!). We went back to the pastor’s house for another meal (rice, potatoes and chicken with some fruit this time) and there was a big to-do as the installed Dean’s wife was carried into the house wearing a new dress of a pretty pink pattern with gold sparkles…a fabric that I had seen several other parish leaders wearing.

 

The Ruhita church will be opened during the Jubilee in June.  Bill had visited it before in 2008 when he was here with our daughter, Abbie, for one of the choir camps.  Abbie took some beautiful pictures of the building as it was then:  the walls standing open to the sky, grass and other plants growing in the floor space.  It is good to see the building complete with roof and floor.

 

We left Ruhita a little before 2:00 pm, and made a “small” detour further up the road towards Mwanza to another church that is under construction that they hope to be able to dedicate during the Jubilee.  This church was also “off the beaten track”.  In fact we had to go through a high stand of grass to get to where we would park.  After a 10 – 15 minute consultation, it was back on the road to the the compound.

 

Bill took a 20 minute “power nap” while a finalized finances with Cannon Wilson Mafumbi and then it was in to our borrowed car to pick up Emmanual Bwatta to go to a Bible Study at a new church new the center of Kasulu called “Bethany”.  Again two choirs sang, we sang and then Bill taught.  As he’d did last week, he taught on Ephesians 2:1 – 10.  There is always a time for questions after a Bible Study;  Bwatta fielded those.  We sang again, the “Youth” choir sang again and the Mother’s choir was getting ready to sing again but was having trouble getting their act together.  We were visibly tired, so Bwatta and the Paster called the service to an end. We enjoyed dinner in the Pastor’s house and made it back to the compound as the sun was setting.

 

Bishop Makaya and his wife Edita came over for a short while to have tea and a visit with us.  Edita was suffering from a bad headache and we were very tired, so they soon left and went to bed – our last night in Kasulu.

Our Kitchen in our “Tanzanian Timeshare”

 

Saturday morning, after a breakfast where we tried valiantly to use up a lot of the eggs that Cannon Wilson had brought us earlier in the week, Bill headed down to LTTC to go over the procedure that will need to be followed when the new cellular modem arrives.  I stayed in the compound to start packing us up and put our “Tanzanian Timeshare” to bed until the next guests arrive.  Our sheets were washed and hung on the back fence to dry by our housekeeper.  I sorted through the American food we had brought and we’re leaving for the next guests and the food that would not last and needed to be given away.  I packed my duffle and got Bill’s clothes folded so that he could pack them when her returned.  The sheets were dry (execept for the corners of the fitted sheet I had brought, which were still damp), folded and stored in the wardrobe shortly after Bill returned from LTTC.  We said good-bye to our housekeeper and made a final meal of egg-drop sautéed onion and tomatoe with shrimp ramon noodles.  Two more of those eggs used up and it was surprisingly good.  Did the dishes, turned off the gas, unplugged the mini-fridge, closed the Windows and the curtains (as much to prevent the sun fading them in uneven streaks as for privacy).  The Bible College Land Cruiser arrived and it was time to load up and lock the door.

 

The road out of Kasulu.

Last night and tonight were spent in Kigoma at the Coast View Hotel, that they now style as a resort (where’s the pool?  If it’s a resort shouldn’t there be a pool?).  Dinner was late – which turned out to be a blessing – and the menu limited as they had no beef and about 2/3rd of the menu is beef-based.

 

This morning started early before we could even get coffee at the hotel.  Pastor Calibu picked us up for a 7:30 service at St. Michael’s.  It was morning prayer.  There were three choirs, we sang twice and Bill preached with Pastor Calibu translating.  The service ran very long.  There was a fund-raiser for doing more work on their conference center and everyone who came up to make a contribution got a few minutes to say something.  The initial large contributors got to sit up front and said a LOT.  These folks are NOT Mic shy!  We got out after noon, and needless to say, were VERY Hungary.  Fortunately, they had the traditional church Sunday morning breakfast laid on for us and various elders of the church:  excellent chicken soup, japati, sliced cucumbers, cooked bananas, if we wanted them and chai.  Fulfilled in more ways than one, we are back at the Coast View, enjoying the afternoon breeze and the view of Lake Tanganyika.

We really are enjoying a pretty relaxing time this year in Kasulu.  This morning after chapel, I made a breakfast of scrambled eggs and veggies along with some of the fresh bread that Esther (Andrea’s House Keeper) made yesterday.  We were just finishing up when Bill got a call from the Theological College asking for help with something on the server. 

 

We drove down to the college and I headed for the library side of the building while Bill went into the computer side.  He immediately called me over.  “Here’s you cat fix.”  He had almost stepped on the little creature.  Of course I scooped it up and started cuddling it, much to the amusement on the computer class students.  The cat actually belongs to Emmanuel Bwatta’s family, who live right next door to the college.  I did have to wash my hands after petting her as she is actually quite dusty; not surprising considering the time of year.

 

 

After Bill answered the server questions, we decided to come back to the compound for chai, after which Bill working on diagraming the network and saving off some Christain music for Cannon Wilson while I was very lazy and read, after putting up the three remaining pictures in the sitting room.  The Bishop’s grandchildren, Lisa and Adam, paid us a couple of visits.  Lisa proudly announced that she had gone to her kindergarten today.  Adam (aged three) was full of energy and Bill obligingly chased him around the compound circle a few times to try to bleed off some of his excess energy.

 

At 6:30 we returned to the chapel where members of the diocese shared a “Thank you” meal with us.  It is not yet to say goodbye, we don’t leave Kasulu until Saturday afternoon, but we have a very full day tomorrow:  The Bishop wants us to go with him to a church about 20 kilometers away for a special service in the morning; Bill will be leading a Bible Study at another Parrish in the afternoon and somewhere in the break in the early afternoon, we want to settle accounts with Cannon Wilson.  Back to the dinner tonight:  it concluded with speeches of thanks on the Bishop’s part and thanks on our part, and they presented Bill with a shirt and me with a shirt and skirt made from Jubilee Katanga cloth!

 

Life has been pretty low-key here the last few days.  Our section of the compound is very busy – a veritable construction zone, but with out the noise of power tools that you would find back home.  Yesterday was “door day” when they installed the outside doors on all the other rooms (with the exception of the free-standing room next to us which is still in the wall-construction stage).  Today they continued to work on the plumbing, did some electrical work and delivered, if not installed the bathroom doors.  They have decided to add a sitting room to the front of the freestanding room that is still being built, so yesterday they were laying out the string to mark the foundation for that room and started to dig out where the foundation will go.

Yesterday morning we went briefly to the Bible College where Bill was working with various network configurations and discovering that to keep things really solid we need a new cellular modem that can be hardwired to the network to replace the wireless cellular modern that was purchased from some British missionaries a couple of years ago when they headed home.  These modems are now available in Dar Es Salaam and we hope that one can get here before we leave so that Bill can be on hand for the final configuration.  Even if he can’t, he will be leaving detailed documentation and should be able to help them via Skype calls to get it configured correctly.

We came back to the compound where we had tea with our friend Festus and Bill spent a large part of the afternoon downloading some software that will better allow him to document the LTTC (formally known as Kasulu Bible College) network and setup.  And Cannon Wilson arrived at our door with two dozen eggs!  I don’t know how we can possibly eat them all while we are here as we keep getting invited to the diocesan lunch room for chai, which means that we don’t then want any lunch.

Edita (Mama Makaya) asked me if I would like to join her and say hello to the Mother’s Union, so I went down to the Cathedral with her later in the afternoon.  I almost drove for the first time here, but she found a driver.  The Mother’s Union meeting was a prayer service and Bible Study, which was of course in Swahili, so I understood one word in 500.  Edita taught and it seemed like she did an excellent job.

Dinner was at Andrea’s, which is always enjoyable.  She made us “spaghetti lasagna” with real cheese!  It is a blessing to sit a talk with her and get her perspective on what is happening in the diocese and hear about her ministry and that of the other German missionaries in the area.

Today was again laid back.  Bill spent a lot of time in the DWT offices setting up some laptops to be able to talk wirelessly to a printer and other network-related things.  Cannon Mafumbi supplied us with an an initial estimate of funds spent by the diocese on furnishings for our rooms.  The Bishop and the Cannon both thought that these rooms should have a fridge and Edita thought that there should be a bed in the work room.  We gave Cannon Wilson the funds to buy a small “dorm-sized” fridge and that was delivered today.  

They also tried to deliver the bed.  With everything that is going on in the work room, there is not enough space in there for anything larger than a single bed.  The local wood furniture shop only had full sized beds but said that they would make it smaller.  Their way of making it smaller was to drill new bolt holes (and make narrower bed boards) in the full (double) bed head and foot boards to the that single sized mattered would be centered on the head and foot board….which meant that the bed would take just as much space as if it was a full bed, plus you would probably trip on the extended head and foot board!  Needless to say, the bed frame went back.  We kept the mattress.

It’s strange to think that we only have two more full days here in Kasulu.  Saturday we will be heading to Kigoma so that we can worship and St. Micheal’s Church there, and then Monday we will be flying back to Dar Es Salaam.  I still have a few pictures to put up, and then I intend to “stage” and take pictures of our rooms so everyone can see our “Tanzania Timeshare”.