A Busy Life

March 16, 2008 by Stephen Day.

Greetings on this Palm Sunday. Things are settling down at Msalato — on Friday Fall/Easter Break began. This will be a two week break during which students will return to their villages to celebrate Easter and hopefully find some money for their school fees. I will be using this time to take care of some computer work and also to plan out what I will be teaching during the remainder of the semester, which ends in mid June.

I am glad to have a break right now because it has been a very busy month or so since the campus woke up from its long break. One of my first priorities is to produce a newsletter covering everything since the new year. It has just been a very busy couple of months and I have also been trying to learn my new computer and the Mac OS. I will get out the newsletter before the end of the month and perhaps before Easter.

Well, I wanted to take this opportunity to share a few tidbits about life here. First, I am pleased to announce that the Anglican Church of Tanzania has elected a new archbishop and primate. I have nothing against the current primate, but I know that he was adamantly opposed to my Church, The Episcopal Church (TEC) or Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA). He has refused to accept any money for the US Church for some time, which limits some of the work my church can do here. The new archbishop and primate of this church will be Bishop Valentino L. Mokiwa of the Diocese of Dar es Salaam. I have heard very little about him, but I know that he comes from the part of the Tanzanian Church that is considered to be “high church” liturgically and that he is opposed to women’s ordination (I will talk about that a little later). The new archbishop will be installed on May 25 at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, here in Dodoma. The cathedral is just the diocesan cathedral and, to my knowledge, holds no special significance to the province as a whole. I assume that it was chosen simply because Dodoma is basically the center of the country and easier to get to for more people than Dar es Salaam. There is some hope that the new archbishop might restore relations with The Episcopal Church.

So women’s ordination… yes there are ordained Tanzanian women serving in the Anglican Church of Tanzania. I think there are only about a dozen or fewer in the Diocese of Central Tanzania, which has over three hundred parish priests, but that is more than I would have thought. There are a few other diocese in this Church that have ordained women, but they are few. This new archbishop wants this to stop, but supposedly his power does not allow him to prevent this at this point.

A slight correction about my previous post and the shift in the future of missionaries in the Episcopal Church. After further reading of the announcement that came from the Mission Personnel Office of The Episcopal Church, I have come to some different conclusions. So before this announcement the Church had three different missionary programs - the Young Adult Service Corps (which I am part of and is a one-year program for people from 18 to 30 years old, Volunteers for Mission (who got logistical support from The Episcopal Church but were largely responsible for all of their funding) and Appointed Missionaries (who got most of their funding directly from the Church and were appointed for three year terms). The new plan for missionary work has just two programs YASC (which will continue unaffected because it has funding under two different programs) and Missionaries. The former Appointed Missionaries and Volunteers for Mission are now one program. Everyone in this new program will get health insurance and pension contributions, but beyond that… not much else. This is an increase for former volunteers but a dramatic cut for former appointed missionaries who will now have to find funding for living expenses, language training, and transportation to and from their post. This is a dramatic shift and a sad one. Other Churches and missionary organizations provide a great deal more funding and provide for four months of language training and cars and many other things. I encourage each of you to ponder these shifts in policy and consider the best actions to take.

Well, I need to go into work and take care of a few things and then hopefully get a haircut. I hope that all of you have a blessed and special Holy Week. Thank you for your continued prayers and support.

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