27 July 2008

Today we went to church with our teacher and good friend Steven. The church was called African Mission Evangelist Lutheran. About five years ago this church broke of from another church because of corruption. So they are in the process of building a new church. They have been working on it for 5 years and have a ways to go, but my favorite part is that it is being built by the people. Every Sunday they have an offering just for the building and the money they collect goes into buying more supplies for the church on Monday. Like today they collected 386,000 shillings and tomorrow they are going to buy more cement to finish the walls. Even though we could understand very little of the service it was still nice to have the feeling of being in a church and we were warmly welcomed. After church they had an auction of different items that we brought like fabric and t-shirts along with donated items from the community (even two live chickens :) Then we broke up into small groups to have lunch at the homes of different community members. My new family has a mother, father, one son, and two girls. The father is currently studying at the University of Dr es Salaam so was not around during our stay. The son Laurent will also be studying economics at the University this fall. Since, Laurent's father is not at home he has taken the car battery out of the car, hooked a converter to it so he is able to make his TV work. He said that his father would not be upset because he was using it to watch the "news" . . . and sports along with Spanish soap operas that were translated into English. Our lunch at their house was wonderful, rice, stew, mashed potatoes, spinach, oranges, cucumbers, avocados, tomatoes, tea, sodas, water . . . I am still full from all the food. After lunch we went to visit another family member who offered us coffee and biscuits. Culturally if you are asked if they can prepare you something you must say yes even if you are full. So I had some coffee and crackers. I wish I could post some photos because as we were leaving the sun came out and the kids were out playing soccer and the parents we laying around talking, cows were grazing on the green grass, with the mountains in the background. It was so beautiful, everyday I fall more and more in love with this place and the people!!