Back in Tanzania

Greetings from Msalato,

First, I wanted to let people know that I have posted a sermon that I delivered in January at one of the parishes that support my work here in Tanzania. I wanted to share this so that others could hear about my experiences. It is available in both a Microsoft Word and Adobe PDF format.

A little over a week ago I arrived back at Msalato Theological College in Dodoma, Tanzania. It is nice to be back but a lot happened while I was gone. In early January there was some kind of very serious electrical surge or spike (either due to problems with the electric company or a lightening storm - I am unsure which) that fried the computer network here. At least seven LCD monitors have been killed (those cost about $350 here in Dodoma). We also have several computer power supplies that have been fried as well, but those are only about $15 here. The wireless network has been off-line which has not pleased many people. This is all amazing because there is a huge voltage regulator protecting all of those things - it is rated for 10,000 volt-amps.

Anyway, it appears that there was not much rain here in the Dodoma area during January. This is the only time of the year when rain is even possible; however, since I have gotten to Msalato it has rained considerably almost every single night. That is very good. The people of Tanzania rely on rain to grow the food they live on.

The new semester will begin in one week and I am eager and nervous. I will be teaching two church history courses that I taught last year. Also, I will be teaching a couple of computing courses and an introductory theology course. This will be a busy semester.

I am also going to be working to finalise my master’s thesis for my history degree and try to seek employment for when I return to the United States on July 31, 2009. I would appreciate your prayers for me during this time and also for the people of Msalato, the Diocese of Central Tanganyika, and Tanzania.

PS - you might notice in this and other postings that I am “misspelling” some words. In actuality I am using British grammar because that is the standard used in Tanzania. I have changed my computer’s dictionary to conform with the prevailing standard so that I do not confuse the students and staff here.

This entry was posted on February 8, 2009 at 5:44 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.