Village Schools International (English)

We have never run out!

2010-03-06T21:21:00.000-08:00

Although sometimes it seems that everyone here in our villages is HIV positive, it's not always the case of course. But the truth is that the vast majority of the very sick who my students and I visit do indeed have AIDS. And so it almost catches us off guard if someone who is very sick turns out to not be HIV positive! My friend Mzee Filipatale is one of those folks. Two years ago, he showed up at my door to show me a bullet-size hole in his shin. He had used all of his money over the course of a half a year, selling just about everything he had, trying to get this wound to heal. And finally he came to our house saying that he didn't know what to do anymore. And so for the last nearly 24 months, we have sent him to various hospitals in search of someone who could cure him, always without success. For months now we have been going, or we have been sending someone to go to his house every day to change his dressings. Dear, sweet, very old man. In December while I was in America he had a skin graft done by a European doctor who used Godfrey's living room as a makeshift hospital. And then Godfrey and his wife had Mzee Filipatale stay in their home for three days as he recovered. When I got that news in America I couldn't wait to get back to see my friend and his skin graft! I was full of hope that by the time I got home from America that it would all be healed. My joy just turned to utter grief when I was told that the skin patch had fallen off a few days after it had been set. When I went that day to his house, the wound had doubled in width and doubled in depth. As I unwound his bandage, the smell of decaying, putrid flesh slammed me in the stomach. After three months in the States, the realities of life here had caught me off guard. But since that day we have been back to tending his wounds, and the wounds of our other friends. We still don’t have an answer for Mzee Filipatale and perhaps we never will. But I'm not responsible for finding an answer to his suffering, but I am responsible for showing him love and concern and for caring for him -- and that is what I want him his family and his neighbors and my students to see.

Hideous wounds are even more commonly found in my HIV+ friends. The key to living a good life with AIDS is getting tested early, following the rules, and taking the medicine faithfully. If people mess up at any point, the consequences are grave. One of the nastiest of consequences is Kaposi Sarcoma, a skin cancer that affects so many of our friends here. The black spots on the skin initially look benign. Eventually those spots take on different forms: some of them just look like large black spots, other spots turn into holes, other manifestations are the grotesque swelling of hands or feet that eventually fester and open up into crater type wounds. Slowly but surely Kaposi Sarcoma takes over the person’s body. But if we catch it early enough, even this horrible cancer is so very treatable, and that's why I impress upon my students that it's so important to be out visiting people in their homes and to be on the watch for it. The people in these villages don't know what it is, and even if they did know, they wouldn't know where to go until it would be too late. One of our friends who is so blessed is 25 year old Skola. Her mother accompanied her here to my house the moment she learned that her daughter had AIDS and Kaposi Sarcoma. We were so thankful that we were able to get her documents signed quickly with a medical referral so she could get into the cancer treatment program at the Muhimbili Cancer Center in Dar es Salaam. We helped her make three or four trips all the way to Dar, and now the black spots have healed and she has her old bouncy personality back. She is even learning how to sew! But others of my friends aren't so fortunate. Jeska is one of those. She is only 19 years old. Last year, her hand was swollen as though someone had pumped up her hand with air to four times the normal size leaving her incapacitated. Now it is moving into her feet, swelling them up and splitting them open, leaving huge infected wounds. And with all of this, fungus takes over between the swollen infected toes. Even her legs are starting to get holes. We are so blessed though that Dr. Leena comes every few weeks, leaving all of her work at the hospital, to come spend a few days traveling around with me to visit those people who would never get to a hospital. How wonderful to have a dear doctor, a real missionary, who will give of herself to travel around with me and make so many "house calls", to advise us on how to better care for our friends who have no where to go and who would be totally without help. Jeska is on the ARVs, but although I want to hope that it is not so, often I fear that she got on the drugs way too late. AIDS doesn't actually kill a person -- but it opens the door to so many infections and cancers that left unchecked the body is simply overwhelmed and overpowered. Young, lovely Jeska -- my friend -- a dear, young woman, who never learned to read or write, who doesn't know what a virus is, she probably has only has a few months left. What she knows though is that we will not leave her. We'll do everything to keep her as comfortable as possible.

I wish I could tell all of you who help us with your prayers and who give so generously month after month that every story here "had a happy ending", that all of my friends lived, that we had figured out a way to keep every last one of the babies from getting HIV, that we got to everyone in time, that everyone healed up and got stronger, that all of my friends found peace with God, that no one was hungry anymore, that everyone's wounds were healed. It isn't that way. But still I thank you for helping make it possible for us to comfort those who are dying, to ease their pain, to show them love right up to the end and to help them, even to be able to do the little things like keep them warm in this bitter cold here. I thank you too for the medicines that enable us to help so many. I thank you that we have our busses and that those who would never dream of having enough money to ride on a bus can ride freely to that hospital where they get he medicines that enable many of them to live. Do you know how wonderful it is to have baby formula so that there is hope that we can keep some of the babies from getting HIV from their mothers? How different things are from a few years ago when the situation seemed to everyone to be so lacking in hope. What God has done through all of this is to create a true feeling of hope. And more and more people are coming to see that it has to be God who has done this. And what I know is that it is God who has done this through you, my friends and my family. Those of you who prayed that God would send us a doctor -- well God sent Dr. Leena who is far beyond any normal doctor. Those of you who prayed that we'd be able to somehow get my friends to the hospital -- well God sent us not just one bus, but two busses. Those of you who prayed that God would give strength when we are weary -- well God has turned us into a team of people here, my dear Sarah, wonderful Veronica, my many students -- so that as huge as the burden grows, He makes the burden light by giving us many hands and hearts and feet to help bear it together. And to those of you who give of your treasure, my cabinet overflows with medicines, we have blankets, mattresses, there is always diesel fuel for the busses, New Testaments to share, food for the desperately hungry. Since we have begun, we have never run out. Can you believe that? We have never run out! How wonderful. May God bless all of you for all of this. I do thank you.

In His service,

Susan

Mama wa Wengi

2010-03-01T13:22:00.000-08:00

They've started calling Susan a new name, Mama wa Wengi (the mother of many). I came across a note Susan had written about three of the little kids who are part of her life at Madisi, and thought I would share it with you all so you can get a glimpse of why ...

Little Abdoni’s angry cry could be heard 10 minutes before he ever showed up at my door. As the howling approached, we wondered what was yet in store for us that morning! Abdoni was indeed one angry boy -- which is a good sign for a baby who we learned from his mom had lost almost half of his body weight in the past 2 weeks. What we've discovered in this war we're in is that babies born to moms with HIV/AIDS and who contracted the disease at birth are very difficult to help. HIV testing for infants has yet to make it to our little part of the world, and so it has been a kind of a hit or miss approach with the hospital to get these babies on on the ARVs before they die. Last year, we lost 12 babies but we're already two months into this new year and we haven’t lost one yet.

Little Abdoni’s angry brown eyes dared me to do something. His mom said he had diarrhea and had been vomiting. What that meant was that if he could, or would, drink the oral rehydration fluid, he might have a chance. And so there it was on my porch after a few painful sips that emaciated Abdoni decided that, even he didn’t like me one bit, he sure did like the orange flavored drink! He finished a half a liter in no time and kept it down. In the meantime, I sent text messages to Dr. Leena at Ilembula hospital to ask what to give this dying baby, and I prayed. And wonderfully the Lord provided everything that we needed. The text messages went through right away from my village to her village, something that only happens on "good days", and each medicine she told me to use we actually had in stock there in my little pharmacy. Godfrey & Emmanueli had just replenished me with another big supply of medicines on their way back from their trip to Rukwa and Mbeya and I lacked for nothing! A few days later, I picked Abdoni up at his home and took him to as special baby clinic Dr. Leena was doing in the village of Mdabulo, and as she and the clinical officer looked him over, they agreed that as soon as the next batch of ARVs come in March that little Abdoni gets to get enrolled in the program with or without the lab tests! How blessed we are. In the meantime while we're waiting for the ARVs he'll be on co-trimoxozale to sustain him. Given the very large number of HIV+ people, there is a painful lack of co-trimoxozale -- a drug that wonderfully helps fight off the so-called "opportunistic" infections which are often responsible for our friends’ deaths. But they've got enough on hand for Abdoni and for that I am very grateful.

Unlike little Abdoni, we have 2-year old Benedict who got on the ARVs at 9 months of age in what I can only a miracle from the Lord. His beautiful Mom so desperately didn't want to lose her only son. Unlike Abdoni who was totally emaciated, Benedict when I first saw him was totally swollen with fluid to the point where his skin was all splitting open. But just like Abdoni, Benedict's eyes said that he wasn't going without a fight. And as I think of Abdoni, I see again that it was the kindness of Dr. Leena that God used to save a life. She had been given cans of special, lactose-free milk from Finland, and she had shared with me part of what she had been given so that I had them in my car "in case I ever needed them". Some kids with Kwashiorkor can’t handle milk or formula once they have become lactose intolerant and to save them we need something special that isn't found any where in this country -- and I remember the joy of knowing that what was simply not available to purchase no matter how much money I would have been willing to pay to get it, there it was in the back of my car -- cans of lactose-free milk from Finland that someone had sent to Dr. Leena. I see him now and am thankful for how strong little Benedict seems to be getting. His family sure has been hit hard by AIDS. Four of the five family members have the virus. I marvel at the women with such courage and love as Benedict’s mother who refuse to give up in spite of her nearly unbearable circumstances. I’m not sure what I would do if I were in similar circumstances.

Five year old Amani came into my life last summer. His grandmother had asked me if she could take our bus and go to Mafinga town to find Amani as he was sick. I learned that Amani’s baby sibling had just died and his mom was sick and his grandmother had purposed in her heart that she just wanted to go get her grandson. Our bus exists to transport those who are sick and need to get to the hospital, but I had Abeli add her to the list to go into town and then to add her and her grandson to come back. As soon as Amani got here to the village we sent him to the hospital for HIV testing and sure enough he tested positive. We tried to find his mom, but I didn't get to talk to her before I left to take Jonathan to America for his surgery in October. I learned when I got back to Tanzania in mid-January that she wouldn't go get tested. I found her a skeleton with eyes just too tired to care anymore. We cared for her the best we could, bringing food, doctors, medicine, blankets and anything else that would give her a boost until she could start the ARV’s. The last afternoon I saw her alive I brought her a beautiful knitted blue hat that a friend of mine had made in America and I helped her put it on to keep her head warm in the terribly cold night. As the extended family members gathered around the house I knew that they knew that the end was coming soon. They could see death in her unfocused eyes and hear it by the rattle in her chest. When I returned the same time the next afternoon, Amani was wearing that beautiful blue hat, standing beside the bed where his mother had died. His mother was only 25 years old. Her young life started to end when she got married to Amani’s father. He gave her the virus, though neither of them knew that at the time, and she then passed the virus on to Amani, most likely through nursing him. After Amani's father died, she re-married but the pregnancy and then the birth of a new baby caused this immune-compromised woman to go down hill fast. In the last year, she lost her new baby, then she lost her second husband, and it was obvious her whole family had been infected. And it was then that her mother went to town to bring her home to the village, to try to care for her and for little Amani. Five years old this dear little boy. Wearing his mother's beautiful blue hat.

Last week we had 26 Finnish missionaries in our home for a special Sunday afternoon worship service and as we shared with them about the work that God has brought us to do in these villages. We talked of starting schools. We talked of sharing the Gospel. We talked of leadership. But we also talked of the wonderfully good things that their dear Finnish colleague, Dr. Leena, and Susan, and Sarah, and Veronica and so many of our students are out there doing day after day to help the children who without a doubt Jesus would call "the least of these my brothers". I wish all of these kids would grow up, that somehow Susan and her little team could save them all, that they'd all get to go to school one day, that down the road someone somewhere would find a cure in time for these kids. I found another one of Susan's notes, a reminder for me of just how painful this life is that she has chosen to lead.

It was 12:45 p.m. and the text message from the Kibao clinic read, “Sorry to inform you that the child called Anet Makombe just passed away.” Anet was just 14 months old and she and her mother first came to me last week. Her little body was swollen with fluid and the fluid was bursting through her skin. She was breathing quickly and she looked near death. I got her the needed medicine, the right kind of nourishment and we made all of the arrangements for Abeli to take her on the bus to my wonderful friends at Kibao clinic. She was too far gone that little girl, and four days later, today, she died and the sisters sent me the text message from the clinic. I called Abeli and asked him to buy a mat and a cloth to wrap baby Anet in for the trip back home to the village to be buried.

Soon after I talked with Abeli a huge storm passed through our area, leaving those of us who were out on in vehicles to slip and slide off into ditches. I was far from home making my rounds visiting people and my little vehicle Panzi (Grasshopper) managed some very steep mountains sliding down sideways. If we were going to slide off I kept telling myself at least I was planning to go off very slowly! But we made it back to the village safe and sound and that is where I met up with Janerose who let me know that Abeli and the bus was stuck on that same mountain that I had slid down. And yes, he was stuck there with Anet's mother and little Anet wrapped up in a mat coming home to get buried. I sent word to her family in the village of Ikaning'ombe to have them send someone on foot to get them because I couldn't bear the thought of that mother spending the night on the bus with her dead child at her side. Not long after though I heard our car Yatima leaving. I learned that it was Emmanueli who was at the wheel. He didn't come home for several hours. He had made it to where the bus was stuck, he retrieved Anet's mother from the bus and drove her to her to home in the village. I would have never dreamed on such a stormy night of asking Emmanueli to do that. I didn't have to.

No none of us would have ever dreamed of asking Emmanueli to take the car out that night on those terribly muddy roads. The beauty of what is happening here in that no one would ever have to ask him to do it.

Every single one of our students passed!

2010-02-11T01:00:00.000-08:00

February 9, 2010

Two days ago Godfrey began getting messages of congratulations and phone calls from around the country concerning the rumors that were spreading everywhere about the national exam results for our Form 4 candidates. But it was not until yesterday that we were able to get the official results that indeed every single one of our students had passed! We've been holding our breath, hoping that the rumors might be true, but wary of celebrating because what people were saying seemed to be too wildly good to really be true. But now that it has been confirmed, it is with a great deal of thanksgiving that we want to share with all of you who have helped in this effort the great news that a rather extraordinary thing has indeed happened. The first of our schools to ever present candidates for the Form 4 examinations outperformed by wide margins every government school in our district and the celebrations going on everywhere are massive indeed.

Had even a handful of these kids passed it would have been, by any standard, quite an achievement. After all, the government chooses all of the best students every year from among the kids who finish the primary schools. Our schools are designed to take all of the rest -- we take the kids with the Bs, Cs, Ds. We even take the kids who have failed and our doors are open to the orphans, to the poorest of the poor. Our schools are for those who have been rejected and passed over, those who are known here in Tanzania as "the unchosen ones" -- and we purposefully seek out the poorest of the poor, the kids who have lost their parents, those who are in the most difficult of straights, who have often been out of school several years. So when vast numbers of those in the government schools designed for the best of best end up failing, it would only be reasonable for most, if not all, of our kids to fail. As one government official said, if even a mere quarter of our students had passed it would have to, under the circumstances, be considered a real miracle. So what do we call it when every single last one of them passes? All you can do is laugh and cry and jump and dance and that's what everyone is doing, because it simply is unexplainably wonderful.

I have often asked myself what it would be like if I had been born poor in a village, if my parents died when I was still young, if I weren't among the chosen few who would get to go to secondary school and I had to face a life with nothing more than a 7th grade education, with younger brothers and sisters to try to help survive. There are many times of course when I've asked God to help me, but I only remember twice in my life crying out to God in utter helplessness because I felt totally trapped with absolutely no way out. Once was during the war in Congo, and once when Jonathan was born with his heart problems that looked totally hopeless -- and I remember the exhilaration afterwards when God had heard the cries of my utterly desperate heart. I remember both times my whole body going hot and cold at the same time. Years ago at a conference I explained to people that one of the things I learned after living so many years with the poor of this planet is that they often cry out in utter helplessness somehow believing that God will open a way where there is no way, believing that God will somehow answer, because they simply have no other option. My faith unfortunately ends up by comparison becoming weak because I am so self-sufficient in many ways that just like muscles that I seldom use, my faith atrophies and I miss the exhilaration of watching God do the impossible. And so I imagine the cries of the poor in these villages who see no way out of their situation, simply no hope. And then out of nowhere, the bombs and the guns stop, the doctor tells us the surgery has been successful, the child sees his whole village work to build a school and suddenly he has a place to study. And so yes, our teachers do teach harder, we do have discipline at our schools, we do teach Christian principles, we do concentrate on English, we do do everything we can and more to help these kids. But just as there is something that changes inside of the man who doesn't die in a war, something that changes inside of a parent whose son lives, there is also something that changes inside of a kid who never believed he'd get to go to school and then inexplicably gets to go.

Last night we slept in the village of Kising'a. Later this morning after the sun comes up we'll meet with the parents and the students and teachers at this school. But last night I got to meet with one of our students who is doing his internship at this school. I had of course seen the results, I knew that his school had beat out all of the government schools, and I knew that he was the one who had graduated first in his class. But I said nothing then of his results because we were here lost in the middle of nowhere and word had not yet reached this village and so he didn't even know that I knew. So I limited myself to just asking him how the internship was going. He beamed as he told me of how he loved to teach math. He told me how he had the students come after school to do extra math problems with them. He was clearly so excited to teach. Where do you come from son? He told me that the name of his little village was Ikwega and I knew it was quite far actually from our school at Sawala. Why did you come all the way to Sawala to go to school? I failed, I didn't get chosen, but I wanted very much to go to school. Your parents? They're farmers Mzee. I knew it was a huge sacrifice for them to send their son to school. He stared at me and I stared back at him. How proud his parents are going to be when they learn that their son, the boy who wasn't chosen to get to go to school, would end up confounding everyone with his amazing results! You could tell looking into his eyes that he was bright. He had that look. And how I wanted to blurt out the news right then and there and let the celebrations begin! Instead, we talked about what he wanted to do in the future. If I get to go to college Mzee, I want to study economics and then I want to help Village Schools Tanzania reach our goal. Our goal. How wonderful it was to hear that.

You know over the last two weeks the results for the Form 2 exams have dribbled in and brought us all great joy. In Godfrey's home village of Nankanga, every single student had passed and the school had taken third place in the entire Rukwa region. Susan almost cried when she learned that all of our Form 2 students at Madisi had passed. Overall out of 516 Form 2 students in our 8 schools, we had 490 pass -- 95%. But those Form 2 national exams, as important as they are, are not the real benchmark. What schools are measured by are the results of those who finish -- those who obtain their Certificate of Secondary School Education -- and while the wonderfully printed certificates won't come for months -- the fact that 133 out of 133 of our students will receive their certificates is a matter to marvel at.

So my friends, please know that your efforts in helping us build these schools, in giving so that girls, and orphans and the poorest of the poor in these villages get to go to school, have not been in vain, and I write to you all today with sincere thanks. Those who have a chicken will kill a chicken tonight, but even those who have no chicken will celebrate in their hearts tonight. For a great and good thing has come to the students of Madisi and Sawala. But as word spreads throughout all of our other schools, it is clear that this victory is the victory of all of those who were without hope, those in village after village who rejoice today with the knowledge that if the students at Madisi and Sawala could do this, then there is hope for them, there is hope for their children. So all of you who have had a part in this, sometime in the next couple of days, maybe you don't have to kill a chicken, but you can find something a wee bit more culturally appropriate to do to celebrate wherever you are -- celebrate and know that the Lord has taken what you did and blessed it and multiplied it and caused it to bear great fruit. You did something good for those who used to have no hope.

Steve & Susan Vinton

Village Schools International

Box 1929 Tomball Texas 77377

www.villageschools.org

What memories!

2010-02-10T01:12:00.000-08:00

Steve & Susan Vinton

Village Schools International

Box 1929 Tomball Texas 77377

www.villageschools.org

February 1, 2010

We had been in the boat for nearly an hour before someone pointed for me to look far off there on the shore to see the new metal roofing glistening in the sun. There it was -- the new school that had been built in the remote fishing village of Kazovu. And as we got closer and closer to landing, I could not help but marvel at it all. This place that could not be reached by road, the village where every sack of cement and every piece of metal roofing had to be transported by boat, the place where no one could imagine that a school would ever be built -- there it was for us all to see. Godfrey was sitting up at the front of the boat -- as the Director of Village Schools Tanzania he was coming to officially open this new school -- our seventeenth here in Tanzania. Emmanueli was sitting at my side -- he didn't know how to swim and it had taken an awful lot to convince him to get in the boat and to make the trip all the way to Kazovu -- but I was glad that he was there with us because I wouldn't want him to miss this for anything. And it was good that Hadji was in the boat with us -- he had brought the boat from Kazovu to Kirando to pick us up and was returning with us -- because he was the man we had sent to this village to organize the community and to build the school. And I knew my role -- as the Mzee it would be my job to give the big speech to all those who would come the next morning there to the school. The school that would be a magnet, drawing young people from all of the other fishing villages up and down this coast. I would have the whole night to let my thoughts percolate in my mind and in my heart.

But as I looked out at the building, and marveled at its true beauty, I was suddenly sad for the one person who wasn't in the boat with us. A young man named Francis. I had seen him again the night before, a good two hundred miles away in the village of Komba where we had shared a meal together. He had come from the village of Myomba to bring us a report of how the work was progressing on the school that he was in charge of building. He should have been here with us. Kazovu was, after all, his home village. He was the young man God had used to bring us to this village in the first place. I got off the boat, we walked up the beach, they ushered us into the freshly built teachers' house. I knew we had to eat first, but as soon as all of that was over I had to get out my laptop. I knew it wouldn't be hard to find the email that I had written about Francis. It was from the week before Christmas 2008. And sure enough, it only took me a few minutes of searching through the emails of that week to find the email about Francis. What memories it brought back to read it again!

December 17, 2008

Maybe it was because we were so close to Congo that I decided to tell the people of the fishing village of Kazovu more of my history than I've ever shared with people in any of the other villages we have visited. Maybe it was because there was so much time on that hour-long ride in the boat on Lake Tanganyika as we went past one fishing village after another until we finally reached Kazovu. Maybe it was because I spent most of that time staring out across the water, looking out over across the huge lake to the hills of Congo, my mind remembering so many things from my past. Maybe it was because the guys in the boat were telling Godfrey and Anyisile the stories of the war that had come to the towns and villages on the other side of the big lake. And while they were telling their animated stories of bombs they had heard and of a war that they happened far across the lake in a world they had never visited -- for me, it was a war I had lived through, a war that I had survived, a war that seemed like it was so long ago to them, and sometimes like it was only yesterday to me ...

... The bay in which Kazovu was located was nothing short of beautiful. I could imagine Jonathan swimming in the beautifully clean water. The beautiful white sandy beaches one day will probably be discovered by some tour company, but for now the place is a hidden gem. And unfortunately for the folks who'll be looking one day to put in a resort at this place, the village has chosen positively the most beautiful place on the whole bay to build the school. I could see from the boat the brick kilns of already burnt bricks. I could see the huge pile of stones for the foundations. And so I knew before we ever came ashore that the meeting we would have in this village would be a good one ...

... The town meeting was held in the shade of several huge mango trees -- mercifully -- because it was indeed hot. They clearly already understand the gist of our program for partnering with them. It had all obviously been explained to them by someone who knew the details and who had hidden nothing from them. They knew that there would be no silliness that we were going to come build a school for them. They would build it with their hard work, they would build it for their own children, they would work for months and months, hauling stones, making bricks, carrying sand and water, it would very definitely be a huge effort that would involve the entire community ...

... I spoke of my grandfather who eighty years ago had left America because he was not content to know the true and living God himself alone, to have good health himself alone, to have a good education himself alone, to have clean water himself alone -- he wanted to make sure that the people in villages in Congo also had those same blessings! I told them that my grandparents had lived their whole lives in a village, that my father was born in a village and grew up in a village, that I first met my wife in a village, that she taught school in a village, that we now lived in a village and that our sons were growing up in a village. I spoke of how it was thirty years ago that I came to see for myself that while it was wonderful that I knew the true God, that I was educated, that I had good health, that I had clean water and everything else that made life good, that it was not right for me to have all of those blessings and to not share them with those who did not yet have them. I told them that I believed with all my heart that it was wrong to be blessed and to not care if others are not blessed with those same blessings.

And then I paused. And even though there were probably more than a thousand people there it was dead silent. And I let us soak up the silence for a few important seconds.

And then I spoke of Francis.

Francis, the boy they all knew who had grown up in the village. The boy whose father had sent him hundreds of kilometers away to a school, who had traveled first by boat as I had traveled to day, then by bus, and finally on foot. The boy from the village who got to go to school. Who clearly also believed that it was wrong to be blessed and to not care if others were not blessed with those same blessings. That's why he returned to the village with the news that if you made bricks and carried stones that he would take a letter from the village elders to us to ask us to come so that one day there might be a school in this village.

And then in front of everyone I turned over and asked Francis how much it has cost his father simply for the boat fees and the bus fees for him to get to school. 37,000 shillings. The crowd gasped. Now I know that 37,000 shillings (about $35) is not a fortune to me, and probably not to you, but for those in the village it clearly was. Just for him to go far away to go to school. His father didn't know when he put him on the boat and gave him that money to travel far away, where he would sleep that year he would be away at school, or how he would eat, and paying for school fees was a burden, but still he had saved money and sent his son far away so he could get an education.

I looked out at the hundreds of kids in the village and asked the obvious question -- who would ever have the money to pay 37,000 shillings for each of these children to go hundreds of kilometers away to go to school.

Francis could have simply taken his blessing and kept it for himself. He could have smiled at his good fortune, studied hard, made something of his life, and forgotten about everyone else left behind.

He certainly could have done that.

Instead he refused to be blessed alone.

And so he was the one who returned to the village, brought news of what we are trying to do in this country, spoke to the village leaders, encouraged people to make bricks and haul stones and for the village leaders to write to us and invite us to come.

As I got back in the boat with the sun setting I looked over across the lake to the hills of eastern Congo and I was glad that I had spoken to these people of my grandparents. I was glad I had told them about my wife and my kids. But I was so glad that I got to tell them about Francis. The boy who refused to be blessed alone. They'll forget the stories of my grandfather.

They'll probably soon forget about me. But for all of the hundreds of students who will study at the school that will soon hopefully be built on a beach on Lake Tanganyika I hope that they will always remember about the boy named Francis, the boy from their village, the one who purposed in his heart not to be blessed alone.

That day in Kazovu I saw in Francis a young man who cared enough about all the kids in his village who would never get to go to school that he would actually do something about it. I never dreamed back then that Francis would be the young man who Godfrey would send hundreds of miles away to the village of Myombo to build a school so that all of those kids in that village would also get the chance to go to school. I closed down my laptop. I can't wait until Francis sends word to tell us the school he has built is finished and that he wants us to come officially open it as well. And then I see us sitting around a table, eating good food together, and discussing which will be the next village we'll send Francis to. Francis. The one who purposed in his heart not to be blessed alone.

When I look at things from my own perspective ...

2010-02-09T06:40:00.000-08:00

Steve & Susan Vinton

Village Schools International

Box 1929 Tomball Texas 77377

www.villageschools.org

January 30, 2010

At first I was just simply so angry I knew it was best that I keep silent and say nothing. And then my anger transformed into frustration, wicked pounding frustration, where I felt that I just wanted to run up the mountain and be alone and scream. So much goes so wonderfully in the work here that it normally crowds out the things that are negative -- and yet sometimes the things that are negative just keep stacking up higher and higher until it just seems that enough is enough. And there I was staring at the new building there in the village of Haraka after having come to the painful realization that they had built much of the building without using a level, without using a tape measure and I felt the waves of frustration wash over me and pull me down. We're building 23 schools in this country and this was the first place that I had ever seen such a disaster -- on any other day, during any other week, I really would have handled it all in a better way, but inside it just tore me up. The wasted cement. The wasted time. The zillions of other pressures left and right and now this! I spent a half hour trying to understand how it had even happened, another half hour trying to figure out a solution, but it was just so obvious that all of those walls simply had to be ripped down and rebuilt. I recovered, of course. Of course I recovered. Because I knew I had to recover. I had to make myself come back down the mountain, I had to speak to the thousands of people who had assembled, I had to tell them that when you start a journey sometimes you get get a flat tire, but you fix the flat tire and you drive on, you don't throw the car away, you don't abandon your trip. I had to tell them that sometimes people make mistakes when they build and it's like a flat tire and you just have to pick yourself up and fix and repair it and go on. I had to say all of those things because I am who I am here and I have to do and say the right thing, but in my heart, it had just been one too many things. I could feel everything all closing in on me. How many more things could possibly go wrong?

And I found myself again wondering what were the specific things that Paul was refererring to when he said that He felt hard pressed on all sides, that he was in despair, that the pain of it all was too much. I decided that he was led purposefully by God to not tell us the details, because, I'm just guessing here, some of the details were big and some of the details were petty and seemingly trivial. At times like this over the years Susan reads the Psalms. Paul wrote epistles and sometimes I find inspiration in them; David wrote psalms and there are times when I find inspiration in them. I know where to go to in the Scriptures when I need that kind of inspiration. But occasionally I stumble across something in the Scriptures that I've missed before. And occasionally I stumble across something written by someone of a lesser stature than Paul or David, something written that certainly is not inspired in the sense that the Scriptures are, but nonetheless inspired in such a way that God uses it to speak to hearts. I was thankful this morning by the writings of one of our missionaries here. I read it through quickly the first time, more slowly and thoughtfully the second time, and then because it was something that she wrote in her native tongue and I liked it so much, I resolved to slowly translate each line into English, partially so that I could keep it, partially so I could share it, partially so I could force myself spend some time thinking about each line. Psalms 145 and 146 are timeless, the words crowd out everything around us ...

How great is our God!

When I look at things from my own perspective, I can easily see the difficulties, the frustrations, the failures. When I look at human nature and my own heart, there are times I can only be sad, angry, hurt.

When discouragement is there and prevents me from seeing all of the blessings around me, when things are dark all around me, I take refuge at the school between the buildings under construction and the classrooms we use. I turn on my MP3 player to listen to praise music and I fix my attention on heaven. Nothing around me exists anymore. There is only me, God and this school. As if the three of us were speaking to each other.

And I come back to all of the reasons that my heart is convinced that Village Schools Tanzania is doing what is right, what God demands be done. And in that moment, I want nothing more in this world than to be here.

Behind each brick: a student, a parent, someone from this village. Behind each wall: a teacher, a group of students. In each office: copies of exams, books, notebooks, people giving of themselves for this work that is Village Schools Tanzania. Behind this school: hope, joy, an education, a Biblical witness, work, courage, a refusal to give up, victories, lives transformed, conversions.

There are also the words in the text message I've saved in my phone announcing the wonderful results on the national exams this year: Thanks to our God, to you, and to all those who prayed for us, we are today in a great joy. A message from Erasto who I taught English to in 2007. It has been so long since I have talked with them. After their great victory on the national exams, many have called to share with me their joy.

I think again of the great joy that it is to enter into the classroom every morning and to see the faces of all of these young people. I think of words of the families we visit in the village as they say over and over again how much hope this school gives them for the future, the joy and the pride that it brings to their village. I think of the things we talk about, my students and I, when we study the Bible together. I think that among these students are those who are fathers of families, those who are orphans, those who had no hope, those who are among the poorest of the poor.

A huge work this is, a total commitment, difficult battles. But beyond all of that is a conviction, a profound certainty that God is here and He is at work. A conviction that God asks us to transmit His love in this place, that the Lord is shaping each of us and walks at our side to help us to glorify Him. None of us here can do this in our own strength, but it is through God who is at work through us.

And then after this long moment in the presence of God, after having given over to him all that hurts and to allow Him to show me all the wonder that He is doing around me, my heart is in joy, moved by this wonder, and thankful that I am allowed to witness it.

Some might say to me that the walls do not speak. I will respond to them that our walls that belong to us in Village Schools Tanzania, these walls speak. They tell us of the plans of God for the poorest of the poor in Tanzania. And what they tell is full of love, and brotherhood and hope.

I am profoundly thankful to every one of you who support this ministry. I would want to send to you the greetings of hundreds of my students who walk to our school every morning, of the parents who have found joy in thinking that there is a future for their children, and all of those who work day after day to make all of this possible. From all of those who see in their lives the goodness of God through Village Schools Tanzania, thanks to all of you.

Be certain in your hearts, be totally convinced, that our Lord, our Master, is at work here in Tanzania, that He has chosen to show His greatness to the poorest of the poor and that all of us who are serving in this work are thankful to Him that he has allowed us to have a part in the construction of His Kingdom.

Our God is a God of Love, let us give Glory and Honor unto Him.

They will tell of the power of your awesome works, and I will proclaim your great deeds. They will celebrate your abundant goodness and joyfully sing of your rightenousness. The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.

Psalm 145:6-9

Extravagance

2010-02-07T05:46:00.000-08:00

Steve & Susan Vinton

Village Schools International

Box 1929 Tomball Texas 77377

www.villageschools.org

January 25, 2010

The meal was without question an extravagance -- and even though I knew it was an extravagance, an outrageous extravagance even, I was so tired and so hungry that I found myself simply savoring every bite. The chicken was perfectly cooked, the spices delicate and wonderful, the rice had been specially prepared, I ate slowly, the conversation was wonderful around the table, there was a lot of food, and it was good food, and I was enjoying myself. But in my heart I knew that this was not where we were supposed to be.

We're a lean organization -- and we're known for that here in Tanzania. No one in Village Schools Tanzania gets what is known here in Tanzania as a "night allowance" -- instead we stay in the homes of our teachers, we eat just regular food, and if we can't make it to a village, we normally just stay in cheap hotels that cost a couple of dollars, or in church guest houses, and it is our custom to just eat at the cheapest of the restaurants. We're cheap -- frugal I guess is the kinder word -- but I'm not embarrassed or ashamed that we don't spend a lot of money. Our object is a simply one -- to spend as little money as possible on what is not important, so that money can be spent on what is important -- metal roofing, cement, desks, girls going to school. Everywhere we can save even a little money we do.

And yet here we were in the newest and fanciest hotel in the city of Mbinga, dining on a superbly cooked meal, totally delicious in all ways. It had happened to us not by any design of ours that's for sure! It was nothing that we had planned, and yet all explanations aside, the fact remained that we were sitting in this fine restaurant, eating delicious food, and the bill I knew in my heart was going to be simply a lot of money. It wasn't supposed to have happened this way. We had left at a little after seven in the morning, but the trip across the country had simply been long, and then on top of it all, it had started raining, the road was muddy, and it became clear that there was the risk that we would get to Mbinga and it would be too late to get any food at all, of any kind. And so Godfrey called ahead to our good friend Hyera and told him that that we were still an hour or more away from the city, and he was afraid that by the time we got there, all of the restaurants in town would either be closed or wouldn't have enough food left for all of us, and we were all hungry. And so we drove on, content in the knowledge that Hyera would arrange to make sure that somewhere in town there would be a restaurant that would have saved us some food.

As hungry as I was though, I knew when we showed up that we were in the wrong place. And when they brought the wonderful feast to the table -- so wonderfully prepared with nice delicate spices -- I felt a bit out of place. We had stumbled into eating at the kind of place where we don't eat. I thoroughly enjoyed the food, we had fantastic conversation, we all enjoyed ourselves, it was a wonderful evening.

And then when we got in the car, I dared finally to ask Godfrey how much it had cost us. Hyera wouldn't let me pay Mzee. I didn't know what to say. He said to tell you welcome back to Tanzania. It was an unthinkable extravagance! We still had two more hours to get to the village where we would sleep but his act of extravagant sacrificial generosity was all that I could think of as I slipped in and out of sleep over the bumpy roads to the village of Maguu. It was after midnight when we arrived and I fell asleep I think within minutes of hitting the bed and I woke up late the next morning, but this act of extravagant generosity was all that was on my mind even then.

Hyera never ceased to tell me every time we passed through the town of Mbinga how thankful he was that we had worked with the people of his village of Maguu to build a school. He always received us with a smile, with joy, his wife was always exceedingly kind to us, everywhere he used his influence to cause government officials in the town to be helpful to us, he convinced businessmen in town to give us discounts, he had other businessmen let us use their store rooms to store our construction materials, he has given of himself over the last three years in ways big and small, an effort upon which it would be impossible to place any kind of monetary value. I remember telling him once that all we are doing, we are able to do because of the gifts of people and churches and school kids in America who want kids in Africa to get a chance at an education, who want them to get a good quality education, who want them to hear the gospel, to learn to improve their lives. And that every dollar he saved us through all of his hard work meant that the dollar could be used to buy cement and metal roofing for other schools in other villages. I remember once telling him how much I appreciated his kindness to our teachers -- our Tanzanian teachers anytime they had to come to town, our missionary teachers every time they had to pass through. He has without a doubt been one of the most significant of those who have given of themselves to help us stretch every dollar people give to do more than we could normally imagine.

What our friend did was an extravagant gift of total kindness. It won't mean that one more child will go to school, it won't result in an extra classroom being built, and yet somehow knowing all of his reasons for doing it, I have to believe that the extravagance was pleasing to the heart of God. And I learned something through what he did. I looked back in my life at the times when I've been extravagantly kind -- and I smiled as I remembered a few of those magical moments in life when I had actually done something extravagant for someone else -- and yet all I could think of then was that I wished that somehow I had been lavishly extravagant a few more times than I have. My friend Hyera spent his money on something wonderful that night -- something far more than just a wonderful dinner.

9th Grade Algebra

2010-01-18T06:42:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning we were up before the sun came up, in the car and on our way to Iringa town. Part of me was simply eager and excited about having the chance to speak again here in Tanzania after being gone for so long, and part of me was happy that we were going to drop Josh off in Mafinga with Zamu so that the two of them could spend the day shopping for Susan to restock the house with food and everything else, but part of me just wanted to spend the day with Godfrey and Emmanueli. To laugh is a good thing. To talk of serious things is a good thing. To get to be together again the three of us after all these months is indeed a really good thing. I truly have simply missed being with them these past three months that I had to be in America.

We were to visit three high schools, to share with students about Village Schools Tanzania, and to challenge those who would be graduating next month to get involved with us in this ministry. When we got to the first school, it was quite obvious that Justin had definitely done his job -- the room was already packed before we arrived and more people were crowding in as we entered. It was the same thing at the other two schools, and I felt all the old energy coming back to me as I rose in each place to tell them the story of my life and how I came to see that what God wanted me to do was to spend my life me to serve Him. To give those who would otherwise never get the chance to go to school that opportunity to do so. To share the Gospel with my students and with their families. To enable others to join with us in this great and grand effort to change the course of the history of their country. To make sure that one day all children, no matter how poor their parents are, or whether or not they're parents are already dead and unable to help them, they all at the very least get the chance to go to school. Would they not want to examine their own lives and ask God if maybe He didn't want them to be a part of this work as well? It was the same challenge I had taken countless other times to churches, universities and schools, here in Tanzania or in America, but I never tire of telling of what God has done these past years in villages across this country of Tanzania, and I never tire of speaking of the truth that God wants His people to help the poor and the needy. It doesn't matter if the rest of the world doesn't care, God wants us as His people to care -- and to do something about it!

Godfrey and Emmanueli and I have spent many a Saturday speaking these past few years. But this was truly a unique Saturday. Part of it, certainly, was because the results of the national examinations had just been announced and the crowds of students who had gathered to hear us speak, already well aware of the rather stunning results of some of our schools, clearly were overjoyed and showed so in their applause and their energy and their enthusiasm. Part of it, certainly, was that there truly does seem to be this intangible and yet real desire among Christian young people -- and I sense it on both continents -- to make their lives count for something other than just getting a good job, and instead to make their lives count in God's sight by doing something of value for the poorest of the poor. But as I think back to what I remember about the meetings at those three schools, what particularly stands out was the fact that Justin was there.

Justin was the one who had gone to each of the schools and got the students to ask the school authorities to invite me to come and speak -- and he was the one who had met with large and small groups, talked to individuals, spoke in classrooms, to personally invite people to come on Saturday to hear me speak. Justin and I go way back to when he was a 9th grader and I taught him algebra. 9th Grade Algebra -- how I loved it! How tall Justin was now after all these years! He looked like the university student that he is today and it felt good in my heart to know that he is now in his first year studying. What made Saturday special at each school was when I stopped in the middle of my speech and turned around and asked Justin to stand up and tell them how many classrooms he and his students and the people in the village of Idiwili had built. In each place he managed to pause just the right number of seconds so that he had the crowd hanging in anticipation for his answer.

12 classrooms Mzee. At each school the room errupted in applause, and I allowed myself to just look at Justin and smile while they clapped and clapped. How many young men on this planet can say that they organized the building of 12 classrooms for a school? And all I could think of was the scrawny kid in 9th grade who himself was never supposed to get to go to school, whose father had died, whose older brother had died, who we kept in school against all odds, and here he was standing before a group of hundreds of students telling them that he had built 12 classrooms in a little village.

And how many students at your school took the Form 2 national examinations? 146 Mzee. At each school, I let them applaud that answer, and I turned back to the crowd and said, listen, we're talking about 146 students who were never chosen to go to secondary school, 146 students who were told that there was no room for them, 146 students who were told that they would never ever get to go to school again, 146 students who worked with Justin to make bricks and to haul stones and to build those classrooms. Those are the 146 students Justin is talking about.

Now Justin, how many of your students passed?

All 146 of them Mzee. The applause and the real joy and the excitement on people's faces was a sight to see. At each school I let them show their joy and then when they quieted down, I asked them the tough questions. What was it about Justin's school that caused all of his students to pass when everywhere else in the country we know everyone is in sadness over the truly poor results this year, and last year, and every year. How is it possible that in the government schools that they can choose the very best of the best out of each village, the kids get fed every day, they have electricity to study with, and yet still they fail the national examinations in droves? And then we have VST schools and we take everyone, the B students, the C students, the D students, the kids with no shoes, the orphans, those who have been out of school for years, and we tell them to all come, that together we will figure out a way for them to stay in school. How do they end up passing? How did Justin's school end up beating out every other school in its district in Mbeya? "How did that happen?" I demanded of them. And I let their silence be defeaning so that the fact that they had no rational way of explaining it was evident to all.

And that was where I got to talk with them about the special nature of our teachers. Hezbroni who came and taught geography for six months teaching every period and extra periods after school, exceling at teaching because he was on a mission to make sure that in those months he could give his students the very best understanding of gegraphy that was possible. Anderson who was determined to do the impossible -- to teach kids who were convinced that they couldn't understand physics to not only understand that subject but to excel at it. Missionary teachers who came from across the ocean to teach English. It is a calling. It -- is -- a -- calling! I let myself punctuate every word for emphasis. It is looking deep inside of ourselves and asking if God wants us to give of ourselves for a semester or two, to live in a small village, to work with the poorest of the poor of this country, and to somehow against all odds, cause them to understand things no one would dream that they could understand. I let them all applaud and then as the applause finally subsided, I was blunt with them. Bu do us all a favor, don't come if you are looking for a good salary, don't come if you want an easy life, don't come if you're looking for thank-yous, and don't even come even if you are a very strong Christian and you want to serve the poor and you want to share your faith ... that's right, don't come even if you really want to come and to do good for those who are in great need. If that's your only reason for coming then we don't want you and we don't need you. Come only if you are convinced in your heart that this is what God wants you to do and you can truly say that you are coming out of obedience, obedience to Him. Come and we will serve together, we will run schools that will serve the poor, we will run schools which share the Gospel, we will run schools with discipline, run on Christian principles.

Most of them, I know, won't come. But some will. I am confident that God will indeed call some to come and serve Him, because the fields are ripe unto harvest and the workers are few and more workers are needed. Some of those workers are going to come from amongst His people here in Tanzania and some are going to going to have to travel by airplane to get here. But He will call some to come serve with us.

One of those who is going to serve this year as a teacher with us is my son Joshua. In fact, today was his very first day of the new school year and his very first day in the classroom. I know that he's a little young -- he's only 15 -- but he's as tall as I am, and he really wants to teach, and he's awfully good at Math. He'll take two hours of his own school day so that he can teach here at Madisi. The irony is not lost upon me that he'll be teaching 9th grade Algebra. There will undoubtedly be some Justins in Joshua's classroom this year, just as there were in my 9th grade Algebra class many years ago.

What I never told the Minister of Education

2010-01-12T21:28:00.000-08:00

Steve & Susan Vinton

Village Schools International

Box 1929 Tomball Texas 77377

www.villageschools.org

January 12, 2010

When Godfrey and Emmanueli came to get me this morning and we got into the car and we turned right after we came out of the big forest I began to suspect what their big surprise had to be. When after a couple of miles they turned on the road heading towards Mudabulo village, and then made the turn heading up towards the 55 acres of land the village had given us to build our college, I smiled inside, convinced that I knew what surprise they had prepared for me. And when we came through the woods into the meadow near the top of the hill my eyes saw the walls of the first three lecture halls, so beautifully and wonderfully built, and I was thrilled to the depths of my soul. Godfrey and Emmanueli just smiled. And then we bounded out of the car and the three of us ran and danced together hugging and banging each other on the back. What a tremendous sight it was to see. Glorious. All of the truckloads upon truckloads of stones that our students had hauled, the hundreds of thousands of bricks that had been carried during these past three years, the mounds of sand, the huge piles of gravel that had been pounded painstakingly by hand, it was now after all these years of waiting so patiently and sometimes so very impatiently, it was all being turned into our college. Our dream college.

But that wasn't their special surprise. It certainly was a surprise -- but it wasn't their special suprise. And Godfrey didn't succeed in making my eyes well up with tears of joy until from behind one of the walls out walked Festo. He's the one Mzee who we chose to do his internship working under me and Emmanueli supervising the building of this college. I was so happy that I did indeed feel my eyes well up in tears. You see it was Festo's father who welcomed us to the village of Igoda in 2005 and he was the one who gave the land, the whole Madisi hill, where we built our very first school, where we all live together now, where VSI first started taking shape. Festo was yet another kid who was never supposed to get to go to secondary school. The year he finished primary school he wasn't chosen to get to go to the government school and so Festo got married, he farmed, he planted trees, he had children, he was a good member of the village. Until the year his father gave the land for the building of the school. That was the year that Festo became a student again. And now five years later, Festo has finished his ordinary level studies (with honors near the top of his class no less), and while he waits for the results from the national examination council so he can do his advanced level studies, Festo is building the college. We have two years to build this college Mzee. I smiled. We will get it finished Mzee. I smiled again. It will be a lot of work building this whole campus. This is where I'm going to go to college Mzee. That succeeded in causing my eyes to well up again.

I've built two colleges here on this continent -- both of them in Congo -- one, a teachers training college, and the second one, a theological college. They both continue to this day to produce young men and women with five-year degrees who are building their country and changing lives. But those colleges weren't anything particularly special. I was young back then and I just wanted to train teachers and I just wanted to train pastors and any curriculum would do. But this college, my third college and I suspect my final college, this will be my dream college. It will be special.

This college will train leaders. We don't have a name for it yet. But it's going to be a leadership college and it is going to train leaders. Principals for schools. Project managers who will be able to lead communities to build schools. Chaplains who will be spiritual leaders for teachers and students. And of course teachers. This will be a Christian college that will train a leaders with an entrepreneurial spirit committed to being used by God to transform lives and to transform society. Our graduates won't just be mere principals, they will be leaders committed to inspiring their teachers and their students and leading them to greatness. Our project managers won't just be overseers, they will be catalysts for change, people who will have the vision of inspiring individuals and communities to go beyond what they thought possible to successfuly complete projects. Those who study at this college won't be theologians -- oh they'll know theology, they'll know their Bibles, but we intend for them to graduate with a vision for sharing the Gospel with students and being spiritual leaders for them as they grow in their faith. And we will indeed train teachers. Teachers who will want to be leaders in their field, trying to find new and creative ways to make sure their students understand. I remember promising the Minister of Education in 2005 that ours would be the only college of its kind to be built in a village. That ours would be a uniquely Christian college. That ours would be a pre-eminently practical college with our students using our network of secondary schools as their laboratories to practice what they would learn in class. What I never told the Minister of Education was what I never knew until today. That our college would be the only college to be built by Festo, a young man who is among those known here in Tanzania as "the unchosen ones", a young man who when he finished the seventh grade was passed over, was told there was no room for him, was told that he wasn't good enough, that he wasn't among on the one or two kids from his village that year who were chosen to get to go on to secondary school. A young man who was born in a small village to a poor farmer and he was to never get any education beyond the seventh grade.

Today Festo stood in that lecture hall with his muddy boots on. One day two years from now it is very possible that he will indeed sit in that lecture hall as a student. And who knows, one day a decade from now he just might stand in that lecture hall, not as a student, but a professor, giving lectures to his students.

It was good of Godfrey to keep stringing me along for all of these months making me wait all of this time for my surprise.

Festo is one of the 73 of our graduates chosen by Godfrey and Emmanueli to participate in a special 4-month internship program they designed for our students while they wait for their national examination results. Many of them are teaching in our special Intensive English program throughout our 16 schools. Some of them are overseeing the building of new classrooms. A few of them, like Festo, have been chosen to work closely with Godfrey and Emmanueli in positions of leadership.

And we were home

2010-01-11T22:37:00.000-08:00

Steve & Susan Vinton

Village Schools International

Box 1929 Tomball Texas 77377

www.villageschools.org

January 12, 2010

Yesterday was a long, long day, but last night was wonderful. A true treasure.

The day began in Dar es Salaam at 5 in the morning, we were already at the bus station by 6, and then we were traveling across this great land, up mountains, through rain storms, across the plains and plateaus, seeing herds of elephants, watching our sons bargaining for maize from the sellers who held forth their tempting roasted treats on long sticks reaching up to the windows of the bus. We shared roasted meat that Josh & Jonathan bought at the roadside stands, we drank fruit juices that we had missed the months we were in America, we met new friends on the long bus ride. We were going home! And then suddenly the bus rounded the bend and came up the hill and we were in the town of Mafinga. And there were Godfrey and Emmanueli to greet us and receive us and welcome us, their faces beaming, and we were home. We were already home even though we still had a long journey to actually get to Madisi.

The two-hour ride in the car was wonderful. It had been raining for days, and the roads were soupy mud and I was glad that Emmanueli was driving and not me. I loved seeing Emmanueli's smile again. The conversation was animated and bounced all around the country, punctuated with text messages coming into my phone with greetings from all of our schools after Godfrey let everyone know that we were in the car heading for Madisi. It was wonderful having those hours slipping and sloshing around in the mud to catch up on all of the news. Our poor truck Mwanaume was still stuck in the mud. Edgar would bring his bride to Madisi on the 23rd. Justin had spoken to large groups of students at four different schools in Iringa and we were to meet with all of them on the 16th. The District Medical Officer had come to inspect Susan's Community Treatment Center and was just waiting for us to return to organize the ribbon cutting and the grand opening. And at school after school, Godfrey had stories to tell of the special things our students had done to work with our dump trucks and push forward on a grand scale the building programs in our schools. It warmed our hearts to hear the news of our recent graduates out doing their internships, teaching our students, organizing people to build more classrooms, learning the ropes of running this work, and both the guys chimed in with great stories of how they were doing.

And then we were at Madisi! They must have spent all 86 days we were away scrubbing our house and it was so filled with flowers that it smelled almost like a flower shop! They had stocked the house with everything from rice to green peppers and carrots, the generator was on and we had lights and electricity, and it was just wonderful giving and getting hugs and simply being home. And then they walked with us up to the school where they had prepared a wonderful feast, a huge party, a time for us to all be together. It was all organized like a wedding, complete with the DJ and music, the wedding cake that Joshua and Jonathan were to cut and to feed me and Susan, and there were mounds and mounds of food, goat and chicken, rice and pilau, fruits and vegetables, sodas and so many gifts wrapped in brightly colored wrapping paper -- everything from wonderfully delicious imported apples from South Africa and two beautiful cucumbers from Mbeya, to a huge pig for Jonathan that will soon become ham and sausage and grilled pork chops. But what was best was the mood of the evening. It was indeed a time to rejoice that we were home and we were all together again. It was a time to truly thank God for having very graciously granted Jonathan a successful heart surgery and a wonderful recovery. It was also a time, as Godfrey noted, for reflection. So much had indeed changed -- the school at Madisi had been painted, the huge herd of goats was gone from the Madisi hill and the flowers could finally bloom in peace (the goats we learned were in exile at a farm a couple of miles away), more classrooms had been built, the students had even redone the road through the forest so it would be passable during this rainy season -- but for as much as so many things had changed, one thing had clearly not changed. And that was very evident for all to see in that room last night. There was still that same great joy of being together and that same real spirit of love. Last night was a spectacular display, a real living image of what Paul had written in 1 Corinthians 13, for yes, truly, "the greatest of these things is love". It truly doesn't matter how many schools we build, how many students we enroll, how many kids we share the Gospel with, how many widows or orphans we help, if there is no love in us and in what we do, it really is all nothing, we are nothing, and the whole thing is nothing. Now some people might argue with that and find the statement a bit of an exaggeration. But in God's eyes, Paul tells us, even if we give up our bodies to be burnt, but we have not love, we gain nothing! We can give everything we possess to the poor, we can have a faith that can move mountains, we can fathom all mysteries and have all knowledge, but without love, it is all nothing.

I am up early this morning, several hours before sun up. Part of it is just that my body has yet to adjust to the time zone changes. Part of it is that I just wanted to watch the sun come up here at Madisi because it really is one of the most beautiful sights in the world. Part of it is that I just wanted to bask in the joy of thinking about last night. No matter how many more schools we open, if we have not love, it is nothing. No matter how many more kids we pluck from the ash heap of history and give the chance to study, if we have not love, it is nothing. No matter how many times we share the Gospel, if we have not love, it is nothing. No matter how many widows and orphans we help, if we have no love, it is nothing. Some people say that the greatest thing about VSI is how rapid it has been expanding, the great number of schools, the thousands of students. Some people say the greatest thing about VSI is that we share the Gospel so effectively with our students. There are those who are thrilled with the huge amount of community participation that goes into every classroom that gets built here. Others are drawn to how well our students end up doing on the national examinations. Some like the fact that we have a completely volunteer staff and that it means that not even one percent of people's donations stays in America to run an office. There are a lot of people who are so attracted to the fact that it seems evident that it is God who is at work in producing all that is happening because things have gotten so big so fast clearly no human being could take credit for it all.

But last night what came into focus for me is that while all of those other things are good, truly the greatest thing about VSI is the love. The love is what is truly the greatest thing about VSI. Susan is loved by the people of these villages. We could see people's love for Joshua and Jonathan last night and how happy they were to see Jonathan healthy and us all back here in Tanzania. Godfrey & Emmanueli's love for us was beaming from their faces. And all of this is happening because God in His great love for the people of these villages chose to orchestrate things so that we would all be together in this little corner of the world working and serving together towards the goal of giving every kid the chance to go to school and trying to make sure that every person gets to hear the Gospel. Love is priceless, it is immeasurable and unquantifiable, but it is also very real. God's love is real. Our love for each other is real.

And today is the day that I get to learn the surprise that Godfrey has promised me. He said it would make me cry with joy to see it. I can't honestly think of what could be better than what I saw and felt last night. But I head into the day with anticipation -- I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just wants the time to go faster -- I'm ready to be led around to be shown what is this great thing that they did while I was in America that he is convinced will bring me such a great amount of joy and happiness. Today is truly going to be a great day. This is going to be a great year!

The incredible suprise

2010-01-07T06:40:00.000-08:00

We were in America for 86 days. We managed to cram into those days open-heart surgery for Jonathan, a whirlwind of meetings in churches and colleges, in schools and in the homes of our friends, a few quiet dinners just me and Susan. We celebrated Thanksgiving, Christmas and the beginning of a new decade, and together with our friends and family we spent a very special Saturday evening together celebrating five years since the founding of Village Schools International. Susan turned 50. Josh got to spend two months attending an American school and in case we hadn't noticed we had impressed upon us that our little boy has been growing up into quite a fine young man.

In Texas someone taped an interview with me, and then taped a second one with Susan, and for the first time she and I have our faces and our voices on YouTube. I can't wait to watch both of those videos with Godfrey & Emmanueli (you all can have a look as well at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ3FpBivxMs and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5w8eHYWyIU). But even more than watching those videos together I want to share with Godfrey and Emmanueli about the conversations that we had with the man who made the videos, about the words that Natalie, one of our former missionary teachers, spoke the evening we shared those videos publicly for the first time, and about all of the other memories that I have of that very special weekend in Texas. In North Carolina I ended up on YouTube yet again, and I look forward to showing that video interview to them as well (you can view it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGX0JM3Ykfc). It's short and to the point. but what I've got to tell them won't be! I want to share with them about the rather amazing organization in North Carolina whose offices I was sitting in for that interview, and how inspired I was to get to visit with them the day that I was in their city, and all of the ideas that have been floating around in my brain ever since.

Godfrey and Emmanueli will enjoy the videos, but I know that they're going to want to know all about everything that happened in America, and I know it will take one of our very long trips traveling across the country to share with them all of the details. There's no question that we have to hit the ground running once we get to Tanzania so telling the stories will have to wait until we have hours and hours in the car and no one to interrupt us and nothing else to do. I'm sitting on this airplane flying from Houston to London right now, but I'm imagining driving down the road on a long trip with the two of them to visit some new village somewhere where we've been invited to start another new school. We'll be eating boiled peanuts and sweet bananas, there will be plenty of time for laughter and for moments of seriousness. And I'll get to re-live with them the things that happened during these nearly three months that I've been gone

But as much as I want to tell them about everything that happened in America, I'm infinitely more eager to hear about all that I've missed by not being in Tanzania these past three months. Godfrey and Emmanueli have given me little tidbits in their emails. I know that they sent out 73 of our graduates to do internships in our schools. Godfrey has shared with me the draft of the speech he's working on to give to the Prime Minister when he comes to visit us. I know that our students at school after school have truly outdone themselves working with Fenet and Redford and Moses and our construction vehicles to tremendously push forward our building projects. So I know a lot of good things have happened while I've been gone. But Godfrey has repeatedly let me know that they have a huge surprise for me when I get home and I can't wait to see what it is. He won't give me much of a clue except to say that I will weep with joy, and he's clearly beside himself with pleasure over what they've orchestrated and very happy to be tormenting me by dangling the knowledge that there is a surprise out there waiting for me without telling me what it is! I can't wait to see Grace, Godfrey and Veronica's little girl, and to see how much she's grown. I look forward to little Christian (Emmanueli and Harima's little boy) coming down to the house to visit and ask for fruit. I want to see all of our students and teacher again. I'm eagerly anticipating the huge party that is planned to celebrate Jonathan's heart getting fixed, Susan's latest birthday, Sarah finishing her masters, and just the simple fact that we'll all be together again.

But I'm dying to know what the surprise is that they've been working so long on. I don't think that they bought another truck. Opening another school or two would of course be impressive, but even so, after opening 16 schools already, opening a couple more isn't something that will cause me to weep for joy.

One thing I do know -- the last five years have been years in which every single thing that we thought we understood that God wanted us to do, turned out to be a mere glimpse, a little fraction, of what He had planned to see accomplished. So I do look forward to the next five years with great anticipation. Godfrey says that I will weep with joy over what they have done while I've been gone. I can't imagine what it could be that would make me weep with joy and so he certainly has succeeded in arousing my curiosity. I can't make the airplane fly any faster and I can't make the clock move any quicker, but Sunday night we hope to finally be home at Madisi, and Monday morning Godfrey and Emmanueli have promised me that I will get to see the incredible surprise that they have to show us. It's going to be good to be home.

Time to reflect

2009-11-10T12:46:00.000-08:00

This morning I went for a long walk with Jonathan, thrilled really with the progress that he's made, thankful in my heart for how blessed we truly are, and in a reflective mood. I've been running so fast for so long I think I haven't had a chance to just pause and think. And as I look back on the last ten days I can't help but do so without a real sense of awe. Jonathan had open heart surgery last Monday, was out of ICU on Tuesday, was released from the hospital on Wednesday and went on his first half-mile walk with his grandfather on Thursday. I'm still amazed, and as Jonathan and I talked about that while we walked I came to the conclusion that I've got every reason to be amazed. They know what they're doing at the hospital, this is all a whirlwind for us, but they do these surgeries day after day and they were the ones who told us to prepare for Jonathan to be in the hospital for 5-7 days. And here he was out of there after only two. We return to the hospital tomorrow so they can take out his stitches and we'll learn how much longer the doctors want us to remain here in America before we can go back to Tanzania, but based upon the way Jonathan is feeling we are beginning to truly believe that we're going to be able to go back to Tanzania as planned in early January.

But I've been reflective about the news I've received from Tanzania in these last few days as well. I find myself living for those emails from Godfrey and Emmanueli, hanging on for every one and reading them over and over to draw meaning out of each little word, picking through what they write, trying to read between the lines. The truth is that no matter how much they do write, it never seems to be enough. The news this past week has been exceptionally wonderful.

To know that they all waited up past midnight in Tanzania to get word about Jonathan's surgery and then they launched into celebrations certainly touched my heart because I know that they really do love that kid they all call their little brother.

To hear from Godfrey and Emmanueli about our 73 graduates who are out in our schools doing a 4-month internship was truly amazing -- some of them are teaching the Intensive English program to kids who have just finished primary school, some of them are serving alongside our project managers who are building new schools, a few of them have been chosen to work along side Godfrey and Emmanueli themselves and to travel with them as they go from village to village. It's simply amazing that this is happening. All of these kids who were to be thrown on the ash heap of history, to be told that they would never get to go to school again, not only have they finished their O-level exams (we follow the British system), but they are out serving in villages other than their own doing wonderful things.

And I've been thrilled to get not just pictures from Anne (Godfrey asked her to make a whirlwind tour of all of our schools and take pictures) but I've also gotten glimpses of her enthusiasm as she has recounted in place after place the incredible work that our students are doing, not just in studying, but in making bricks or hauling stones so that we can build even more classrooms so that there will be a place for their little brothers and sisters to go to school.

But of all the emails that I've gotten from Godfrey this past week, there is one that will forever be a treasure for me and I've taken the time to translate it for all of you. I've savored each sentence as I've translated this letter. It is a reflection for me of the immense blessing that God has given to me and Susan.

Mzee I got to talk to my wife on the phone yesterday. She told me how she has been traveling with her students to visit Mama's friends [people with AIDS in our villages are now referred to almost by everyone as Susan's friends]. They visited one woman named Blandina who has two children left, one who is in first grade and the other who is still too small to go to school. That woman told Veronika that the medicines are working and that she truly has hope that she isn't going to die anymore, that her children aren't going to be orphans, but she doesn't know how she is going to get out to farm this year because her legs are still not strong enough to walk all that way. And with the rainy season ready to start she is afraid that she won't get well in time and she doesn't know how she is going to feed her children this year if she can't get out to her fields to farm.

Mzee I'm writing to you today because I want you to tell Mama of what our students at Madisi did. My wife told them about this woman and her children. Mzee our students went together and worked to completely hoe her entire field for her. In my heart I am very happy and I know Mama will be happy for her friend Blandina and for her children because her prayers were answered and there will be no hunger in her house this year. It makes us all happy when the deeds of our students cause those who are poor and in need to give praise to God. God heard the cries of that woman Mzee! I am thankful that my wife went to her house that day. I am thankful that our students listened to my wife when she told them. But what is best is that they did more than listen, they did something about what they heard. Mzee this is another example that we are not just building schools, we are building up people. Tell Mama that we all miss her but she should know that my wife and the other teachers and all of our students are continuing on with the work. We love you, Godfrey

We are so blessed. It is no exageration to say that when you are sitting in that hospital waiting room and your son is having heart surgery that you cry out in desperation and ask God to just let him live -- you can see that on the face of every parent there at the hospital and you can feel it on your own face. It is just like the poor woman sitting in her house in Tanzania knowing she simply isn't well enough yet this year to go out and farm and so she cries out to God, wondering in desperation how she will possibly feed her children this year. And God sends an army of students to take care of her farm in a single day! Godfrey is right. To build schools is good. But what is really important is what is happening inside of those schools, in the lives of our students.

It's good sometimes to slow down and take time to reflect. I'm glad I did.

Two weeks from tomorrow

2009-10-14T23:06:00.000-07:00

Our son Jonathan is scheduled to have open heart surgery two weeks from tomorrow, on October 29th. We’ve known about this for several months and so we’ve been able to slowly do what needed to be done in Tanzania so that we could make this trip back to America and be away from things for the two months that they tell us Jonathan will need to recover. It would be nice to focus on all of the wonderful things ahead of us – the chance to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with our families, the chance to visit with so many of the people who are partnering with us in this work in Tanzania, the chance to meet new people and share with them about what we have seen and heard and felt. But the truth is that as nice as all of those things are, it’s impossible for us to even think of trying to focus on them. Not now anyway. The inescapable fact is that the reason we’ve come to America is so that Jonathan can have surgery. We can look over that wonderful document that’s been prepared with all of the things we’re going to with the 84 days we’re going to be in America – the churches where we’ll be speaking and the schools and universities we’ll be visiting – but even if October 29th isn’t marked in bright red on that calendar, it is marked in the brightest of red in our minds.

Before we left Madisi, one of the little churches in Igoda sent word that people will be gathering every day to pray for Jonathan. The sisters at the Kibao hospital where Susan sends so many of her sick friends, they called the day before we left home to say that they would personally be praying, but that they also wanted us to know that they had sent word to all of their churches throughout the area to ask people to pray for Jonathan. My phone is full of all of the little SMS text messages that came literally from all around Tanzania, from our Headmasters and our teachers, from former students, from people in government, from people in the Church, all to say that they will all be praying for Jonathan. Many people walked to say their goodbyes and to let us know they’d be praying for our son. Our friend in the city of Mafinga sent us meat three days before we left for us to enjoy before our trip because we wanted us to eat more than just beans before we started the trip. Susan’s sick friends in one of the poorer neighborhoods of Igoda collected together three and a half buckets of corn and gave us a chicken to make sure that on our long trip to America for Jonathan’s surgery that we would feel no hunger. Only those who have known hunger would think to do something so kind! Godfrey and Emmanueli insisted on making the long trip down to Dar – sure they found a lot of productive things that they’ll do since they’re in town, but the truth is that the focus of their coming was to make sure there was someone to go with us all the way across the country until there was no further that we could be accompanied.

It simply is true that you can’t possibly ever truly know the depths of how much people care if you don’t have a problem that’s bigger than what you can solve yourself.

And so, it is on this incredibly long flight from London to Houston that I have come to see the paradox central to our lives right now: If Jonathan’s problems were something Susan and I could solve on our own, then we wouldn’t need people to help us by praying hard and we’d never know what we know now about the way people feel about us. If building schools in these villages were easy then we could do it ourselves and we’d never need so many people to join together with us doing something that is incredibly bigger than ourselves. Certainly all of mankind needs God’s forgiveness and God’s salvation, but it is the person who is convinced that he’s really sinned and sinned so badly that he can’t ever be forgiven by God and who recognizes how utterly hopeless the situation is, that’s the person who is overwhelmed and truly senses the immense love that God has for mankind and who is exceedingly grateful. Everyone says they’re thankful for their education – even I say it – but I can’t be thankful for my education like the kid in a village whose parents have died and who gave up all hope of ever going to school and who suddenly gets that chance. We thank God out of habit before every meal, but when we eat three meals a day and we’ve done so for so long, we lose the real thankfulness to God that a person who has been hungry and knows hunger and then sees before them a plate full of food.

Jonathan’s problem is bigger than what we can solve. And so we are needy. More than needy actually.

You are our friends and you have partnered with us in this ministry, helping in so many ways, giving of yourselves and your money and your time so we could build schools in Africa and send missionaries to those villages and help the sick and the widows and the orphans. And so now we ask you, just as you have helped so very much with the work God has given us to do in Africa, to also help us personally by praying for our son. We would indeed be grateful.

His smile as he walked out said it all

2009-07-30T21:23:00.000-07:00

Godfrey turned off his phone as he walked into the Ministry of Education so we've been sitting here for the past nearly five hours waiting. His smile as he walked out said it all: the decision to not register our three schools had been reversed. The students who have been waiting to find out if they would be allowed or not to take the national exams will be beside themselves with joy, as will be their parents, and everyone else who has played a part in helping build these schools and to give these kids a chance at an education. It seemed like almost a cruel joke last week, that after having been for years known as "the unchosen ones" -- the students who were not among the lucky few from their villages who were sent away to government boarding schools -- only to have the door so unexpectedly opened for them to go to school, to work hard, study harder, and now after all of that work, after three very difficult years of much sacrifice, to be told last Thursday that their schools wouldn't be accredited this year and they wouldn't be allowed to take the national exams. It somehow seemed so unjust, so simply wrong, so cruel even, that in my heart I wanted to be angry.

What happened over the weekend is difficult to explain really. There really wasn't much we could do. Yes an important phone call had taken place on Thursday night, yes we had spent hours discussing how best to make our appeal, but in the end what stands out was the hundreds of emails that came in to say that people were praying that somehow the decision would be changed.

We are thrilled of course. The work is not over and we still have to wait for the actual physical piece of paper -- it's never over until it's over as they say -- and then we'll have tons of forms to fill them out (it's a lot of paperwork for so many students!), we'll have hours of standing in line at the bank to pay the exam fees for the kids, but our burden is lifted, we'll do it all with a bounce in our step, and I suspect that when it is all finished, we'll take a very deep breath and sit down and have a very, very long meal together.

Susan says all the time -- if it were easy it would have already been done. She's right of course. But really there's something sweet about staring defeat in the face, having no real hope and no way out, and then to see something totally unexpected unfold in a such a wonderful way. And the July 31st deadline is only 3 days away.

We sure have a lot to thank God for!

A few thoughts to share

2009-05-30T11:29:00.001-07:00

"And now Mama Vinton has a few thoughts to share with us," the village
chairman loudly announced in Swahili. I certainly hadn't planned that this
morning I would be in a cemetery, but Mjei had been at my door first thing
in the morning to let me know that Lidia had died and would I please come.
Lidia was from the village of Mkonge, a tough place where tea picking is the
local occupation and AIDS reigns. People drink a lot and really my Mkonge
friends are a troublesome lot. When I arrived at the pre-burial, I was
invited in to talk to a group of the village leaders. The conversation, of
course, quickly moved to the whole matter of AIDS. I said that as
Christians, since "Christ will always be with us," that we should lead the
people through this time of fear and be the first to go and get tested and
to show the way, and that if we don't have the virus, following Christ's
example, we have to help our neighbors who do. Really, I didn't know that
morning who my audience was (Christian or not), so I was a little surprised
when the village chairman asked Mjei to go call the village "catechist" (as
in most villages here, the little catholic church in Mkonge doesn't have a
priest so they have a man called a catechist who normally leads their
services) so that we could talk about that! It was a great conversation,
and that is how I ended up, at the catechist's insistence, next to Lidia's
grave telling the crowd about HIV/AIDS and the special responsibilities that
those who are Christians have during this terrible time. I let them know
that it affects absolutely everyone: the good, the bad, the Christians, the
pagans, the Muslims, all ages and every color of person alive. I asked them
to recognize the miracle that somehow God in His great mercy and brought
right here to our villages - we have free testing, free transport, free
medicine -- all we have to do is to not reach out and accept it. Just as it
is with God's gift of salvation - free - all we have to do is reach out and
accept it - so it is with help in these villages for those who are sick. I
asked them to be part of the solution - to go get tested, and to help those
who are ill, and those who are widowed, and those who are orphaned. The
women cheered wildly, and a few men chuckled, and a few others looked away.

Lidia left her twin sons who are in the 7th grade. It breaks my heart.

And then there is Luka. I was about to leave for his village of Lulanda
when we learned that we had lost Luka's mom. On Friday, I had sent Luka
home from school with a small gift and greetings for his mom, only for Luka
to arrive home to the wails of family and neighbors. He was the third
student of ours to lose a mom or dad this month. The obstacles to getting
our "high risk kids" through school are great, but I am convinced that they
are one of the reasons that God sent us to these particular villages at this
time. We packed up and started on our journey because I wanted to make sure
Luka would return to school, and wouldn't you know it after a few kilometers
into the journey, there was Luka and a few of our Lulanda kids looking
slightly like refugees, carrying huge bundles on their heads so that they
could return to school. We packed them all into my car and took them back
to our village. Luka's future isn't bright, it isn't bright at all, but
there is hope, hope in our loving Father and His goodness.

This whole AIDS outreach is a walk in faith in which I can't pretend that I
know all of the answers. Sometimes I don't even know what to pray for. I
remember while Steve was in the States, our bus Huruma ("Compassion") was in
serious need of repairs, so we made the decision to pull her off the route
and to borrow the big Fuso truck so people could get to the hospital. That
was a very hard month with so many complications and frustrations and
heartaches that I just asked God for help without even knowing how to
propose to Him what help I thought I needed! You can only imagine my
overwhelming joy and relief when Steve returned from America with "Namba
Mbili" (Number Two is what they call our new bus). And to top it off, that
beautiful new bus was carrying 25 cases of baby formula! My heart sang,
"Thank you Lord, .." And it hasn't stopped singing.

Because this second bus looks just like Huruma (hence the name Namba Mbili),
a lot of people thought at first that perhaps we had just bought some new
curtains to spruce it up a bit, but after hearing its motor going down and
around the hills (every vehicle has it's own distinctive sound, something
you learn when you're in a place with so few vehicles), they knew that God
had indeed sent a new bus. Another intervention. Without the continual
interventions that I know in my heart has come from Him, these people would
not have free transport and free treatment, and very few kids in these
villages would still have mothers and fathers. Every time I see our bus
filled with people heading to the hospital, I recognize the miracle of it
all. These folks would all be dead had He not intervened.

But God intervenes through people! And so I want to thank all of you who
over the past three years have helped in one way or another. I really do
thank you. You have done a great thing.

In His service,
Susan

The Lazarus Effect

2009-05-26T21:39:00.000-07:00

During the last four months of this year's particularly wet rainy season, people worked tremendously hard to get the foundation in for our Community Treatment Center. Had it been just any old building, or any ordinary project, we might have simply waited for the rains to eventually peter out and stop. The trucks carrying stones and bricks often got stuck in the mud and on many a day could only come within a half kilometer of the building site and had to drop their load, which meant then that our students had to do the incredibly hard work of carrying those stones and bricks the last distance.

But the Community Treatment Center is by no means an ordinary building. The sooner we get it built the sooner hundreds of sick people in these villages will be spared from traveling all the way to Lugoda Hospital to get their medicines. Many people, perhaps even most people, will still have to go all the way to the hospital, especially when they come down with the weird opportunistic infections that plague those with AIDS. But when we have more than 850 people having to travel every month, sometimes twice a month, to get their ARVs, it will certainly be a huge blessing for hundreds of them, once they are in the system and healthy, to be able to get their medicines right here in our village.

The hard and time-consuming work of laying out and then building the stone foundation is finished. The huge task of filling up those foundations with special "landfill" has been completed -- thanks to our students who used the two days that we called off classes and the free reign that we gave them to use our two trucks to literally work from morning to night! And now, with the rains finally over and the sun shining here at Madisi, we are wonderfully able to begin building the walls of the Community Treatment Center. It's a monster of a building, centrally located -- just as our school is -- between the five villages of this area -- so that people throughout the area will be able to walk here to get their medicines.

One of the most wonderful things that our students did was to carefully place all of the bricks in small piles all around the building which means that the builders can build at an incredible speed because the bricks are literally right within their reach. And indeed they are building at an incredible speed as the walls seem to rise before our eyes. Susan and I have taken to walking down there two and three times a day just so we can revel in the progress that has been made.

But there's something else that we revel in each time we go there. It's seeing that among the builders is Mateso, a wonderful man who a year ago when Susan first met him was literally on his deathbed. But he got on that bus, he made it to the hospital, he got the medicines and today his wife is not a widow and his little girl is not an orphan, and he is no longer in bed waiting to die. Instead he walks every morning from his village of Luhunga and is at work bright and early. They don't call it the Lazarus Effect for nothing!

There will be thousands of people who will come from all over the day the building is finished in a grand celebration. I'm looking forward to Mateso's daughter being in that crowd and seeing the building that her father will have worked very hard to help to build. He reads every night to his daughter from a Children's Bible that Susan gave him. He loves her. He wants her to have a future, he wants her to go to school, he wants her to grow up. How wonderful that he might be around to see it all happen.

Imagine that we get to live here!

2009-05-21T21:22:00.000-07:00

I'm home now. Susan and I were going to go away for a few days just the two of us but, in the end, we decided not to do that and instead we've just been enjoying things getting back to normal. I can't think of what has made me smile more than coming back from a nice walk together around our little lake here at Madisi and seeing Jonathan flying his new kite and obviously enjoying himself so very much. How really blessed we are!

So much happened in the month that I was off in America with Jonathan. The people in the village of Haraka began at a feverish pace the building of their school towards an admittedly impossible goal of having their kids start school in September -- it is impossible, and I know that, but I also know that there's no point in arguing with a mob of 1500 very determined people! Rather spectacular progress was made on the building of Susan's AIDS Community Treatment Center, and it happened in spite of the heavy rains of this rainy season, mostly because our students really gave of themselves in a tremendous effort this past month. James has taken on with incredible gusto the challenge of getting the building projects at Nankanga, Memya and Imauluma finished so that we might register those three schools in time so our students there can take the national exams this year -- and there's hope, so much so that today Godfrey is in Mbeya talking with the Chief Inspector about setting dates for our schools to be inspected. The amount of work that James has produced at those three schools in the last 30 days just makes my head shake. If we had five men like James! And that's just the big picture stuff!

They've made great progress on getting the books sorted and boxed up to go to our schools so that students in our schools will have library books. Susan has seemingly unending tales of good things happening in the lives of this grandmother and that widow, and that kid, and these sick people. She's been to villages further and further away with her little car. There seems really to be no end to all that has happened in just a month.

But some of what happened while I was gone is immensely personal. It might sound trivial, and perhaps in the big scheme of things it is, but I returned from America to finding out that I can flip on a switch in the middle of the night and make it to the bathroom without a flashlight anymore. And I can use my computer any time I want during the day. Because we now have lights and electricity 24 hours a day at our house, and 24 hours a day in our office up at school. I looked at Godfrey and almost didn't know what to say. I honestly didn't know how to really say thank you. Susan said work began almost as soon as I was out the door heading for America. Godfrey had evidently been plotting this for months. Susan and I talked about all of the meat that Godfrey conveniently brought to the house time and again while I was gone, all of the little things that he and Veronica did, and we talked about all of the big and little things that people are continually doing here to show us how much we truly are loved.

Yesterday, Justin brought us goat ribs to enjoy, Damas brought me a goat to raise, and as always, this and that at our table came as gifts from this person or that person's garden. This morning little Christian -- Emmanueli's little boy who can't be much more than a year old -- wandered up the path to greet me -- he's just learning to talk and could barely get the words out as I bent over and he put his hand on my head in greeting -- Shikamoo Babu ("I kiss your feet Grandfather"), handed me a little bit of his corn to share with me, and we walked back to the house so he could pick out an orange out of Grandmother's cupboard.

I know that what everyone knows of our lives here is the work that is happening, the wonderful things that God is doing as all of these schools get built, and all of these kids come to school, and as they begin reaching out and helping the needy in their villages. And I'm thrilled with all of that as well, I truly am. But the truth is that Susan and I have such wonderful lives here and that's all I can think of right now. It truly is good to be here. There are those whom God calls to serve Him in very difficult places, who really suffer as they serve, and who are called to make tremendous sacrifices. I really admire them and their obedience. But for us, we have such a wonderful life here, and it truly is because this place is full of love. Our house was built for us by our students, so much of what we eat every day comes to our table as gifts, and my heart is happy when Susan and I walk and we look out over it all and she says with a smile ... "Imagine that we get to live here!"

It is good to be home. Very good.

Absolutely wonderful and totally unexpected news

2009-05-21T20:15:00.001-07:00

We just got the absolutely wonderful and totally unexpected news from the
doctor in Moshi that they had an opening to do Sifa's surgery, it appears to
have been a total success and she's all fixed, she's still in ICU and in a
little pain -- which is obviously normal -- but she's going to be ok and all
is incredibly and wonderfully great. Not sure how long they'll keep her
there in Moshi before she's allowed to come back with her grandfather, but
those are the little details that don't hardly matter even a little bit,
this little girl got her heart fixed and she's going to come home. It's
time to drop absolutely everything and shout from the mountain tops and
celebrate!

2009-05-21T20:14:00.003-07:00

Friends, we just learned today that the doctors have scheduled little Sifa
for heart surgery on Monday. We would like to ask all of you to join us in
praying for her. She's a little ten-year old from the village of Luhunga
near our school here. Her parents both have AIDS and were too ill to travel
with her the hundreds of miles that it is to the hospital in Moshi, so it is
her grandfather who made the trip with her last month and has been staying
with her. Many thanks, Steve & Susan

Young life

2009-05-21T20:14:00.001-07:00

It gives me great joy to share with you that for three days in mid-July 72 of our teachers will be gathering together for a time of worship, spiritual renewal and challenge. Young Life has agreed to organize, and host a special retreat for our teachers, and thanks to the many generous people who support the ministry of Young Life we are not being asked to raise any funds for the retreat and the training that our teachers will receive!

We want to invite you to begin praying now for those who will attend this retreat. For over four years, we have been asking people to pray for open doors – and it is clear that God has answered those prayers beyond all we could have imagined or dreamed of. We have asked also for people to pray for workers – and God has provided us with a wonderfully large team of teachers both from America and from all around Tanzania. Now we want to ask you to pray that God, at this retreat, will do a work in the hearts of our teachers and to give them a compelling desire to share the gospel with their students and to help them grow spiritually.

Because so many of our teachers are planning to attend this retreat, we have made the decision to close all of our schools July 16-20.

I had no idea what "help" looked like

2009-05-13T19:48:00.001-07:00

I really wanted very badly to surprise Susan, but in the end I just couldn’t wait any longer to tell her. I had managed to hold out all of ten minutes!

I remember cringing after I got to America when I got Godfrey’s email telling that me that Susan’s bus was going to need to go into the shop in Iringa for probably three to four weeks for some major repairs and that he had made the decision to pull one of our construction vehicles out of service and to use it instead to transport people to the hospital every day. Susan has now nearly 850 people who need to get from our villages to the Lugoda Hospital two and a half hours away to get their ARV drugs. With those drugs they live, they are able to work in their fields, they are able to take care of their children – but if they can’t get to the hospital every month to get those drugs they’ll all die within a short time and we will have another 3000 orphans in our villages. I tried to imagine seventy maybe eighty people, many with young children, riding for several hours each way to the hospital in the back of that truck. I thought of how difficult it would be for many of them even to climb up into that truck. From the sudden comforts of my world in America it all seemed rather surreal, like a black and white movie with grainy pictures crowding into my brain. But I wrote to Godfrey to say that it was without a doubt a wise and compassionate and good decision that he had made, and that I was glad that he had made the right decision, but what were we going to do when the truck inevitably got stopped by the police? His answer was a pithy one: “Even a policeman, Mzee, is a human being. No one would dare deny these people the chance to get to the hospital.”

Every day I worried about it though. It was without a doubt the right thing to do. But I worried about an accident. I worried about the truck getting stopped by the police. I worried quite frankly about everything. I read Susan’s letter that she wrote to a friend of hers: “Thank you for praying. This week I have about 200 people traveling in the back of our Fuso truck. They will be divided between three trips Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please pray that God will divinely protect all these trips. The trip is hard enough in the bus for some of these folks, but for the really ill, I cringe thinking about it.”

I cringed every time my mind wandered and I found myself thinking about it.

At our VSI board meeting on May 1st we discussed many matters of importance for the overall running of this ministry that God has given to us, but as important as all these things were and are, I know that much of what we talked about will soon be forgotten. But I will not forget the words of the chairman of the board when in answer to someone’s question it came out that with Huruma in the shop for a month Susan’s friends were being transported to the hospital in the back of Chapakazi, our construction truck. Obviously moved by genuine compassion, he told me quietly but firmly to get a second bus for Susan’s friends. It was a miracle of course, but it was easier said than done. I phoned Godfrey from America to ask him what he thought. God would not provide us with the money for a bus and then not provide us with a bus to buy Mzee. We have to believe that the bus for us is already there in Dar es Salaam and it is just waiting for us to arrive.

And so Friday morning Jonathan and I boarded our flight in America, and Godfrey, Emmanueli and Joshua boarded a bus in Iringa – all of us heading for Dar es Salaam. Friday night Jonathan and I slept on the airplane; Godfrey, Emmanueli and Joshua slept in the home of a new friend of ours in Dar es Salaam. Saturday while Jonathan and I made the long flight from Amsterdam to Dar, Godfrey, Emmanueli and Joshua visited every import yard in the city and found Namba Mbili (Number Two), a beautiful bus that looks just like our first bus, that can seat 29 people comfortably, a bus that someone else had already agreed to purchase, a bus that had already cleared customs, had all of its documents in order, a bus whose original purchaser had backed out on the deal a couple of days prior because he couldn’t come up with enough cash, and so they signed the papers while I was still in the air, and on Monday morning we withdrew the money from the bank and drove away with the bus. The bus. The one that clearly had been prepared and was just waiting for us. Me of little faith.

What began with Susan borrowing one of our cars in 2006 to take the sickest people to the Lugoda Hospital and then mushroomed into that car going every day, then twice and then three times a day, not with 5 or 6 people in the car but with 12 or 13 every time, that had morphed, thanks to the wonderful provision of God, into a bus that could comfortably take 29 people each trip, that started making two trips, and sometimes 3 trips a day, taking not 29 people, but often 35 and then 40 and sometimes 50 people. And now God has provided a second bus. Two buses to carry people so that everyone will get a seat now, so that no one has to make the trip standing up. It will make life easier for everyone, and it will mean that even if there is a day when one of the buses breaks down at least there will be another bus that can continue to make the trip to the hospital. Chapakazi (Hard Worker) will haul bricks. Huruma (Compassion) and Namba Mbili (Number Two) will carry people.

What I will remember though is not just the story of how God provided us with a new bus to help these people. What I will remember is what Susan wrote: “I never even hoped for another bus. I sent a prayer for help but I had no idea what “help” looked like.” Tomorrow evening we begin the long journey across the country, by Wednesday night we should be in the village, and Thursday morning, Moses and our truck Chapakazi will be off hauling sand, and Namba Mbili will be making his first trip to Lugoda Hospital.

Just as Godfrey had said to me, Namba Mbili had just been waiting for us to arrive.

This sweet little boy

2009-05-06T19:34:00.001-07:00

Little Amani was loved by his grandmother, held in her arms until he passed into His arms on Friday. He is one of the many babies that are born with this terrible HIV virus. Amani's father died last May, his mother last month, and now this sweet little boy was also dead. His two other young siblings remain at grandmother's along with a handful of other children. Never has this dear old woman mentioned her difficult circumstances. Her mud walls are falling in, plastic bags cover the places where the thatch no longer exists, and there seems to be many hungry stomachs to fill. Her circumstances are desperate, but when you are in her presence you know you are with a great and wise saint. We went to visit today to give our condolences, a small gift and our friendship. Really, words didn't come easily.

During the past two months, we seem to have lost a baby almost every week. They tell me that nearly three quarters of the babies born with the virus are dead by their first year unless there is some kind of intervention. Great strides have been made to prevent mother-to-child transmission, but moms often aren't suspicious that they have the virus until baby starts getting sick all of the time and by then it is too late. We have been blessed to have Dr. Leena come and visit with us for a several times each month for a few days at a time. As she accompanies us through the villages to visit our friends, she is able to not only assess the situation but do something about it. We were together at Amani's house on Tuesday and, after seeing so many babies like him in our villages, she has made it a priority to help our HIV babies to get on the ARVs early so we won't lose them. Really, we have seen what is like a miracle happen with the one baby that as started ARVs at just a few months old. He is no longer sick, but is instead smiling, and learning to crawl and doing other type of normal baby things. They will be normal kids who just have to take their medicines twice a day.

One of our stops was to visit Mama Baraka who lost her baby last month. We were checking in on her husband who has been making a slow recovery. At the end of the visit, she asked if we had just a little more time to look in on one more child. Her neighbor's son Devidi turned out to be one of our younger friends -- that I didn't know it as he travels on his mother's back during his trips to the Lugoda Hospital so he doesn't actually have a seat on the bus! He is six years old and he has been on the ARVs for two months now. Although emaciated and covered with the lesions, there was a smile and a twinkle in his beautiful eyes as we showed him a new toy that we "just happened to have" in the car. We were able right there to arrange milk for him and Dr. Leena "just happened to have" the medicines he needed in her little medicine kit, and really, it was a divinely appointed visit for little Devidi. I am humbled by beautiful women like Mama Baraka who have time to think about and serve others during their own time of grief.

One of my favorite verses in the Bible these days is "Trust in the Lord and do good" from Psalm 37, and really I cling to that as we venture into unfamiliar terrain to serve. Last time I wrote, I shared about Sifa and Lucia and sending them onto Moshi for heart surgeries. Both of those little girls are still there in Moshi. Sifa doesn't weigh enough yet so she can safely have the surgery so she is waiting -- and eating! -- there in Moshi. Lucia, on the other hand is waiting for the doctor to come up with a plan. Getting them there was a worry for me, and the whole idea of sending them off hundreds of miles away to a city was frightening to me. But Moses, a new friend of ours who has a taxi, was waiting for them at 11 pm at the bus stand, took them home, fed them, and put them to bed at his own house. The next morning he got them to the hospital where they have been waiting for the last 3 weeks. I can only imagine the overwhelming work load of the few people who know cardiology in this part of the world. I admire them. Everyday as I teach my students, I imagine the future with these kids using their God-given potential to make this country and this world a better place.

Please keep my little girls Lucia and Sifa in your prayers as they wait to hear the plan for their heart surgeries. It would be so wonderful if this is finally the trip when they come back to me healed. Thank you.

In His service,

Susan

Perfect in a much more important way

2009-04-14T14:15:00.000-07:00

Jonathan and I are here in America now and so it is emails like this from Susan that take me back in my mind to Tanzania. I like America – as I always say, how can one not like a place that has so much ice cream? But I miss Tanzania, I miss when Susan comes back excited and bubbly wanting to share about her visits with her friends. This email of hers was on a flash drive for me to send out after Jonathan and I got to Dar, but things were too hectic in Dar and so it’s only now that I’m here in America that I can send it out to you all. Re-reading it brought back the memories of that day …

In the twilight of the evening, I returned home from Lulanda. Could I possibly be more content than I am now? A day of visiting students’ families in this far off village, escorted by a team of students who showed me over and again how much they loved me, welcomed into the homes of their parents who all seemed just to beam when we showed up, really could a person desire more than this?

The village of Lulanda is really a long and strenuous walk for the people, but this year it seemed that there was a wave of new kids at our school all coming from this village, and so I was intent on coming this far and visiting the village and seeing where they had come from. Up until recently I have had only a little contact with the village of Lulanda and it has happened because of the many people from the village who have AIDS and who have come all the way to Madisi to see me. I rejoiced with every person who came, but I wondered about those who I knew were being forced to choose death rather endure the long distance on foot to get treatment. So I went on this trip with a dual purpose. Certainly I wanted to greet the parents or the relatives who were taking care of these students of ours, but I also wanted to let them know that I very much wanted them to live and to raise their kids, to be alive to see these students of theirs graduate and to somehow help the younger ones make it to school as well. It started with getting tested and that’s what I wanted them all to do. I wanted them to know how hard it was at our school, the huge burden we carry as the teachers when we have so many students whose parents have already died. I wanted them to know that we really couldn’t afford to lose any more parents. I wanted to encourage them to do everything to get tested, to start treatment, and to stay alive so that they could keep their kids in school and give them a future.

The day didn’t start out as planned. Not at all. My little Panzi (The “GrassHopper”) was ready to go at 9 in the morning, and up and down the mountains we went until we got to Iyegea where the mountains are really steep. And right there in the middle of two steep inclines, Panzi decided to not move forward. Of all the things, the gear box went out. I suppose there’s no good place for a car to break down, but if there was one place on this road that was “perfect” for a breakdown, this was indeed it. It was possible standing on the car’s bumper on my tip toes to get reception on my phone! A divinely perfect place, I thought, for the car to die. At first I tried to call Steve, but the call couldn’t connect, and then I realized, he was the wrong guy to call anyway -- as gear boxes are not in his vocabulary. But my phone did connect with Godfrey’s and the moment I said “help”, he dropped everything and was on his way with Redford, one of our mechanic drivers. It made me feel so loved. Their world stopped for a few hours so they could help me and they did it with cheerfulness and an eagerness almost. That warmed my heart.

The place where Panzi’s gears decided to stop working was perfect though, and not just because it was the one place where I could get reception to make a phone call. It was perfect in a much more important way. Because out of a little stick and mud house came a woman quickly running towards the car. It was Zuhura, one of my friends with AIDS! Quickly she welcomed over us to sit down and fed us bananas. There on the mat next to us, though was her sister Flormena, and right away I could see that her hair was way too fine and her body way to thin. Her skin was covered with ulcers. I learned that she hasn’t been able to walk since she was a child of 11. And now at age 40 she exhibits every sign of AIDS. She’ll be going in a few days to be tested. I had traveling with me two doctors from Finland and I could smile with the realization that I could have never had dreamed of even proposing that they make a “house call” to this place to examine Flormena, but what I could never think of doing, God could orchestrate into happening.

We also got to meet Adamu, a youth of 17 with horrific ulcers on his legs who was walking slowly along that road. Peter, the Peace Corps Volunteer who was also with me that day, pointed him out. Adamu, a shy, quiet young man looked clearly as though he carried a much too heavy a burden for a man of young age. I cleaned and bandaged his sores and asked him to come to my house when he had a chance so we could better care for his sores. I learned more about him. His mom died four years ago, his dad was ill and couldn’t work, and his little brother also had sores and other symptoms. Adamu had started treatment for AIDS but dad and his younger brother hadn’t been tested. The Catholic priest, a few hours from his village, had put Adamu in a carpentry school, but Adamu’s family needed to provide food and pay for his rent (about 3 dollars a month) and that is where I met Adamu, heading on the road to talk to his father. He was doing the right thing to see his father, but I knew from the way Adamu looked and from he told me of his family that there was no way that his father was going to have anything to help him with. One might say that what Adamu needed now was some supplies to feed him and clothe him until we could work out a more permanent solution – and in some sense that’s true and that’s why I made sure he got those things. But what Adamu really needed was not just the food and the clothes but the sign that the food and clothes represented, the sign that there was hope that if a little of his burden was lifted, then the incredible offer he had gotten to maybe go to carpentry school just might really become a reality. The doctors already want to go traveling with me again another day and we have the appointment with Adam to show us how to get to his house so we can check on his father and his younger brother.

And so just as my “divine appointments” in Iyegea were finished, I was rescued by Redford and Godfrey who had come with Yatima (The “Orphan”) to help me get to Lulanda. Once in Lulanda, the welcoming began. We started at Taday’s home at the top of the village. This sweet, silly 14-year old, is all smiles. He is in school! And we’ve come to his village to visit his family. His dad died last year, his mom is sick and their thatch house is falling in from the top and through the sides. Yet his dear mom whipped up ugali and greens and we ate together chatting about life and her sweet son. When all of the other guests from homes nearby cleared out, we talked about the realities facing her, and how she needed to go get tested and get the medicines that would keep her alive. If she and I can just keep Taday in school, it will be a great victory. We left her house with a bag of squash greens to make at home, but more than that we left knowing that she was going to get tested and she was going to get help and she was going to live.

Then we moved on to Neo’s house. They beamed when we arrived. Neo has been our student for four years now and he is the first in his family to ever go to secondary school. And a large family he has – 16 brothers and sisters! Not from the same mom though. His dad is 70 and Neo has three mothers. To the great delight of his father, Neo and I could communicate perfectly in English. The father just couldn’t believe that his son was so proficient in that ever-feared language – English. He did want to let me know though that his third and youngest wife (age 50) went to get tested and she tested negative, so he decided all was well. And that it is! We left their house with a huge regime of bananas.

Then on to other homes, and at each one we collected stories and gifts and made new friends. But one home visit that I will never forget was Mika’s. His father’s utter emaciation spoke volumes. I had seen him on a previous trip and remember his hollow eyes locking onto mine. They looked as though they pleaded with me not to leave. I was hoping to find him this trip. And sure enough I did, and this trip I was able to put the pieces together. Turns out that Mika’s mom is one of my friends and she’s been getting the ARVs and she is healthy as can be now. After greeting all in Mika’s house, I talked to them about AIDS and testing and then left. Afterwards Mika’s father followed me at a distance and when there was a break in the crowd he approached and said that he needed to get tested too and wanted to know what he had to do. I signed him up right then, and as soon as our bus goes, he is on it!

We visited, talked and ate all day. And that evening as we returned with Mika, Luka and Andrea, Mrs. Jenkins (their teacher and my aunt), squeezed in amongst all of the gifts of food, it was like Christmas. Not because of all of the gifts, but because it was just so joyful that it felt like Christmas. As we reach out into these new areas, as we head out into villages further and further away now that I have a car, our hope is that we will serve Him well. Gathering up the kids who need to go to school, gathering up those with AIDS, making sure those in great need are not overlooked and forgotten. And thus we begin making the people of the village of Lulanda a part of our lives. What a joy it really is to serve here. God could have chosen anyone to get to come here and do this and to make the inroads to bringing the Gospel to people in this village. How blessed I am that I get the joy of getting to do this. After they get Panzi fixed I’ll be able to travel again and again to this new village. And eventually to villages further down the road as well.

Many thanks to all of you who help in this work. I hope you all are as happy as I am!

In His service,

Susan

Urbana 2009

2009-03-22T14:13:00.000-07:00

Once every three years more than 20,000 college-aged Christians from the United States and Canada who have a particular interest in serving as missionaries gather at Urbana – a conference sponsored by InterVarsity. We were thankful to have been invited to attend in December 2006 and we are looking forward to participating again this year. We want to ask you as our partners in this work to consider when you think about it in the coming months to pray with us about this conference. Jesus told his disciples in Matthew 9:7 that the harvest is great but the workers are few, and then he told them to pray therefore unto the Lord of the Harvest that He might call workers into His harvest field. When I talk with my students about that verse I am honest with them that in some sense I do not know why Jesus told His disciples to do this, because after all, God is surely well aware that the harvest is great, and that the workers are few, and He is certainly not ignorant that workers are needed for His harvest field. And yet I cannot fathom that Jesus would have told His disciples to do something that is meaningless and without effect. Somehow in the way that God has ordered His world and the way that it works, it matters if God’s people pray! And so I am coming to you and asking you to pray. God has opened doors for us here in Tanzania – we now have 16 schools open and another 3 we are building, and the opportunities to place missionary teachers in these schools is full of tremendous potential. We’re looking for people who will be willing to live in these villages, who will be willing to intertwine their lives with the lives of their students, who will give of themselves in service to God and to these communities, and who will in the end get so involved in the lives of their students that they will love them, and they will want to help them when they are sick, they will want to share the gospel with them, they will want to encourage them to dream big dreams and make plans for the future.

I will go and speak anywhere. I’m coming back to the US in April and I am open and willing to speak anywhere at any time – and I will. And there are many of our other former teachers who are out there speaking in churches and at gatherings on campuses. And we have people who have never been here who are showing the DVD of the story of VSI and encouraging people to get involved. And all of that together is having great effect. But there is something wonderfully unique about this huge gathering of Christian young people which will take place December 27-31 of this year. Would you pray with us that God will use our efforts there as we speak and meet with students to call some of them into service here with us? We would be grateful for your help.

In His service,

Steve & Susan Vinton

A very special and unique need

2009-03-09T21:24:00.000-07:00

I think everyone knows that we continually have opportunities for those who want to serve as missionary teachers to come to Tanzania to serve with us. Today, however, I'd like to share with all of you a very special and unique need that we have. Then I'd like to ask you to get involved with us to spread the word so that perhaps one day soon we would have two young people come to do a very special job that would be outside the classroom.

Village Schools Tanzania currently has eleven vehicles - three large trucks used for transporting construction supplies, a bus, and seven passenger vehicles.

In addition to building more schools, we have a number of strategic initiatives in our plans for the next two years - everything from solving the water problems in our schools to getting our schools hooked up to the Internet - and a lot of things in between! One of the strategic initiatives involves the starting of a "school for mechanics". Not to receive students who would come full time to study mechanics, but which would instead have as its purpose to train our current students in the basics of maintaining and fixing vehicles - and to work with them to keep our fleet of vehicles in good shape. That's why we're looking for two young people who would be willing to come serve with our team - to do everything the rest of our team does - to get involved in the lives of our students, to share the gospel with them, and to help their families. The only difference is that rather than teaching our students English or math or whatever, these two individuals would work with our students to teach them how to maintain vehicles and how to fix them.

Why do we believe that doing this is so strategically important?

Well, on one level, the obvious one, we see this as another "door opener" to the establishment of relationships with some of our students who may find it hard to "open up" to their physics teacher, or who don't excel at playing volley ball, or who have no interest in learning computers – but having the opportunity to tinker with a car just might be the thing that clicks with them.

On another level, a more long-term strategic level, we must look to the future. Four years ago we were just starting to build one school in one village. Today we have fifteen schools open, spread out over four different regions of the country, and we have another six schools under construction. No one would have dreamed when we started this in 2005 that in four short years we would already have eleven vehicles. Now that we can see what is happening, we can see that within a few years we're going to need twenty or thirty vehicles. We are not interested in hiring drivers from the city for these vehicles! We want our students to be driving the trucks and the cars. If the work of Village Schools Tanzania is going to continue to expand, those who are our students today need these skills so that they can serve in this work in the years to come. Our students need to have these skills - the skills to be good drivers and good mechanics - just as they have to have the skills for using a computer, for constructing buildings and running programs. It simply isn't enough for example for Godfrey to know how to lead this organization and travel to all of these villages and hold meetings with people. He also has to know how to drive and maintain and, yes, fix the vehicle he drives to do his job! In our schools as we prepare our students to become leaders who will propel VST to doing even greater ministry in the years to come, these future leaders need to acquire these skills now while they are still students.

Therefore, we have a special opportunity.

As I said when I began, everyone knows that we need people to come serve as teachers. Well, now we want people to know that we also need a few people come to teach mechanics. When we asked our students who would like to learn how to use a computer, many hands went up. When we asked our students who would like to learn mechanics and how to fix our vehicles, again many hands went up with equal enthusiasm. No offense to those who, like me, are math teachers, but there's a lot more attraction for these young people to learning computers and mechanics than there ever will be to learning math!

We look to the day when we never have to take our vehicles to a garage in town to be fixed, when such good maintenance is done on our vehicles that we can drive anywhere in the country with a great deal of confidence. If you would share this opportunity in your churches and schools, if you would pray that God would indeed call a couple of young people to come help us, we certainly would appreciate it. It is a very special and unique need - and, hopefully, there are a couple of very special and unique people out there who could help us!

February 26, 2009

2009-03-01T20:18:00.002-08:00

Our bus couldn’t make its trip to the hospital yesterday. After more than a year of almost extraordinarily faithful service, Huruma (the bus is called here “Compassion”) finally broke something that they couldn’t fix. And although we had people look in Mafinga, Iringa and Mbeya for the spare part, new or used even, we came up empty handed. And we had to simply tell Susan that the part was going to have gotten in Dar es Salaam, that we wouldn’t have it until the weekend, and therefore that the last four days of this week the bus simply would not be able to make its runs to the hospital. We simply would have no way to get all of the people to the hospital who were on the lists for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Word traveled fast though. With hundreds of people depending on that bus to get to the hospital to get their AIDS medicines word evidently made it even to the doctors at Lugoda Hospital that Huruma was out of commission. Wednesday afternoon Susan got a message from the hospital to tell her that they had made the rather extraordinary decision that they would send their doctors to Madisi, they would bring the ARVs on their motorcycles, and they would distribute them to Susan’s friends who were scheduled to get them this week. After all, even though the building of our new Community Treatment Center isn’t finished, work has begun and they already have government permission to distribute ARVs at Madisi.

I think often of those things I used to see in newspapers when I was a kid. On this day in history, such and such a thing happened, this war started, or this momentous event occurred. It’ll never make it into any newspapers anywhere, but for every person who ever prayed that one day Susan’s friends might get their AIDS medicines right here in our village, please know that today, Thursday, Feburary 26, 2009, for the very first time, the medicines came to the people of these villages. Today 31 people didn’t get up at 5am, they didn’t spend two hours in the bus getting to the hospital, they didn’t wait all day at the hospital until the last person got their medicines, and they didn’t ride the bus home late at night. Instead, the got up in the morning, sent their kids off to school, cleaned up a little around the house, made their way from their homes and gathered at our school. And the doctors used Jobu’s office as a makeshift clinic room, gave people their ARVs, watched them all walk home, and then before heading home themselves took a tour of the site where the new Community Treatment Center is being built.

I’m in Mbeya with Godrey so I, like you, can only imagine it all in my mind. Susan’s message on the phone says it all though: “Wonderful day. I am overwhelmed with thankfulness.” February 26th. A wonderful, wonderful, and very historic day