|
| Home: | Site Map: |
On the Road in Tanzania... The team travelling from Dar-es-Salaam to Mpwapwa I had to keep pinching myself. Was I really in Tanzania, with friends from my church and Deanery? It all started in 1985 when Christ Church, Dartford began to support a Tanzanian Church Army student.  Anderson Madimilo and family
He - Anderson Madimilo - completed his training, and we continued to support him. I visited him in 1997 as part of my sabbatical and nearly two years ago we began to talk about my return with members of Christ Church. you shall be free indeed’ Thank you to everyone who supported my appeal for the cathedral roof. When I first visited, it did not have one. Now it has a lovely roof, for which USPG are owed £29,932! This is what is left ofthe cost after subtracting the £3,410 that my appeal raised. After a week our group split up and went separate ways. Two travelled to Dar-es- Salaam; Colin led a group on safari and four of us headed north to tackle Mt Meru, with the help of porters and a local guide. Three of us set off for the summit at 2am, struggling up an endless slope of rock and ash. The air was thin and, as dawn broke, we were thousands of feet above the clouds.  A picture of our porters, silhouetted against a sea of cloud below us. We are at 8,200 feet, with the bulk of Kilimanjaro looming up 25 miles away. The view was stunning, as we looked across the clouds to Mt Kilimanjaro, behind which the sun rose. We sat on the summit for an hour, feet away from the 5,000ft drop into the volcano’s crater, trying to absorb the awesome panorama. We hope to continue a link and to help where we can, especially to pay off the debt on the cathedral roof! We took out computer equipment provided by a company who were happy to give this away (and perhaps could do so for other good causes). One of our number just ‘happened’ to be a computer expert and installed it in the Bishop’s office. Our party contained school workers, hospital workers and an optician. Each saw how great the need is out there. The musician (centre right in the picture below) is blind and has a hare-lip. We saw huge numbers of people with eye-defects and preventable blindness. Eye care there is virtually nil.  Another packed church! One thing Tanzanians could not understand was why English churches were so empty. I talked to some theological students, who said... "In England you have cars, good roads, television, plenty to eat, electricity, running water, computers - how on earth is it that your churches are not full with people coming to thank God for his goodness to them?"
...written by Rev. David Kitley |
|
Local Christian Charity...
