Kiliview: Colossians 3:17 "Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him"

Pre-primary classroom

Shoe "fundi" (means repair person) fixing shoes

We thought you would like to know a little more detail about what day to day life is like here for the two of us. Recall that at every Rafiki village (there are 9 others in sub-Saharan Africa and we all operate the same) there is a Village manager who is called the village administrator, a headmaster for the school, a child care director and a director of the teacher training program. Our village administrator is farmer from Illinois who has been here with his family for going on six years. His wife teaches in the school and directs the Widows program that provides products for the Rafiki Excange in Florida. Our headmistress of the school is a retired school teacher from Florida and our school goes up to the sixth grade-each year we add another class until our orphans are ready for the university. Our school has about 160 children in it which includes some day students to make for a normal class of 18 students. This would include three levels of pre-primary since school starts here at 3 years old but they only go half day, leaving after lunch. The classes also serve as training sites for our student teachers. We are fortunate to have with us for this school term a music teacher from the States and her husband who assists me as the director of the teacher training institute.

Buying fruits and vegetables at local market after night of rain.

Line up for marching to school.

One Mama shaving heads

We have about 45 national employees which includes cooks, maintenance personnel, guards, mothers for the resident children (our orphans which numbers 60 at the present time), assistants to the mothers called “aunties”, teachers for the school, grounds maintenance and administrative assistants. This last category is important because they help us relate to the parents of the children who are not residents in the village and take care of purchasing and procurement. Can you imagine how much food these growing kids eat each in a week and how many clothes and shoes they go through? Nearby there is a large market where we buy many of the clothes and shoes which are shipped in bales from the States as no longer fashionable. The clothing items are good quality and hardly used, if at all. Cloth is reasonable and we can hire street seamstresses to make clothes if necessary and they usually produce good products. The children

Children working in the garden

have three sets of clothes for school, play and church. Our site is fifty acres directly viewing Mt. Kilimanjaro, is totally fenced and patrolled for security, including about 30 acres which is usually cultivated. We are hoping to soon have a chicken house and there is a large space for the mothers and the children to do their own garden cultivation. Our site is furnished with a 100 meter deep well which gives abundant pure water, our own generator which we try not to use unless necessary and a water tower for pressurization.

My morning begins about 4:30 when I get up for some time with the Lord and prepare for the Bible study which we have daily (not weekends) for the student teachers. We just finished a wonderful study on Colossians and are starting the Gospel of John. This study has good notes which we pass out to everyone with adjustments considering education level and English skills. Peggy uses the same study for training the child care staff. There are sometimes in the notes complex vocabulary so we have to spend a lot of time explaining the English. One requirement for joining the national staff is at least modest English skills. Visitors are usually surprised at how well the children speak English and of course they have regular instruction in their native language Swahili. It is still dark when I go down to unlock the gates. (Because we are only 2 degrees below the equator, our daylight is mostly 12 hours with 12 hours of darkness. The sunrise and sunset times only vary 20 minutes a year). The guards do not have keys to the night locks so I make another trip to the guard house after dark and take advantage of the opportunity to speak some Swahili with them - they laugh hilariously at all my mistakes and kindly correct me. Breakfast is about 6:45 and we get ready for the day. Just before going off to school at 7:15 the gardener comes and gets his instructions for the day. Peggy often goes over to breakfast for the children, to see if the they are behaving and there is no disorder. Peggy’s days are much more irregular than mine because of all the unexpected things that happen like warts which need attention, abscesses needing lancing, colds, rashes, fights, and school discipline. The kids are usually well behaved but occasionally waves of things happen like sassing teachers and violating dress codes with new ideas of what is thought to be fashionable. She spends time training the young women who act as mothers, shaving heads and thinking of ways to make things run more efficiently.

Sunday morning Bible Study for kids 10 and over

Sunday morning Bible Study kids

Peggy also has significant responsibilities in tracking finances all of which come through free will offerings from the States. She has to make trips to town almost every day to get some kind of supplies. A good example would be a whole bag of shoes which all need repairs (we make them last as long as possible redoing the soles of shoes and are constantly amazed at what the shoe repairman can do). Many trips to the bank are necessary because there are few electronic features and most of their operating procedures are like the States in the 1950’s.....all in CASH! My day is spent coaching the student teachers after our morning Bible study. Right now there are about 18 but with the new building coming on line soon there could be up to 180 divided into ten levels of training. The instruction is by computer and all kinds of unusual things happen like accidentally resting an arm on the keyboard while the computer is turned on. Sometimes I can’t imagine how the student gets the computer into such odd configurations. If it is really bad, Peggy often helps me figure out the problem after I get home. I usually get home around 5:30 after a one hour Swahili lesson. The day at school ends with sweeping and often moping the floors and checking out books for the students to use at home for the evening.

I usually try to work outside for a little diversion and have just finished after months of working a drip system to irrigate all our growing shrubs, flowers and young trees. Darkness falls around 6:30 pm. We have planted a lot and realize we may not get to see the full enjoyment of our efforts even though we are still hoping that God will give us 7-10 more years of work out here. We sleep well at night :).

This gives you a glimpse of our days but the real way to see what we do is come and help us for a time. The weather is great and the company fun!! As they say in Tanzania "Karibu sana" .. Very Welcome!