June 20, 2008 by Stephen Day.

The semester has ended and some students have already left. The students in the pre-degree and pre-diploma courses have graduated and all have been accepted into the full degree and diploma programs. I have a fair amount of marking to do, but I am pleased with the semester. I really enjoyed teaching and look forward to teaching three academic courses next semester - two Church History courses for first and second year diploma students. I will be teaching third year diploma students ecclesiology and mission theology (which is actually mostly systematic theology). These will be interesting challenges.

I have been taking a lot of pictures and will share them with you as soon as I can sort through them. My father is leaving the US next Tuesday and will arrive in Dar es Salaam late on Wednesday night next week. I can’t wait for him to arrive so that I can share this experience with him.

That brings me to my final point - I would like to take this opportunity to thank my parents for all of their support for my work here. They have spent thousands of dollars in support of the work I am doing and without their help I would not be here (in Dodoma, not in the metaphysical sense) today. They are very faithful and loving people who have taught me so much.

Well, goodbye for now. God bless.

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June 12, 2008 by Stephen Day.

I have uploaded even more pictures. The pictures are of some of the staff and students here at Msalato Theological College. View them at: http://stephencday.com/TeachersofMsalato/. Enjoy!!!!

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June 9, 2008 by Stephen Day.

I have posted two more webpages of pictures. The first is a set of pictures from a service at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, which was led by a missionary here at Msalato. The second webpage is a collection of random pictures from the past few months. Enjoy these!

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June 8, 2008 by Stephen Day.

I wanted to let you all know that I have posted some new pictures to my website. You can view them at: http://stephencday.com/Prayer%20Walk%20Page/

These are pictures of last Friday’s Prayer Walk. It was a day of prayer here at Msalato and the day began with a prayer service in the chapel. The service was followed by a prayer walk around the campus. The pictures on my site show the staff and students of Msalato walking and praying around the campus. Enjoy!

Also, I have just posted a video from today’s service at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit here in Dodoma. The service was led by the Pre-Diploma and Pre-Degree students of Msalato. The video is from the Offortory when the students sang and dance. You can view or download the 20 MB video at www.stephencday.com/Students-Singing-Dancing.m4v You will need Quicktime version 6 or better to view it. You can get Quicktime at www.apple.com.

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May 29, 2008 by Stephen Day.

Hello Blog-afficianados,

Life is going pretty well here at Msalato. Some money has been found in New Zealand to help cover some of the fees of the students. This will hopefully keep the school afloat for a few more months. I ask your prayers for the continued support of Msalato and for the school to find a long term financial plan.

Today during my Diploma in Applied Ministry, Year 2 class I had an interesting experience. I was teaching about the Roman Catholic Church during the 20th century and in particular the rule of Pope John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council when all of a sudden from the ceiling a small creature landed on my desk. This was… an itty-bitty lizard. The lizard crawled around the table for some time and then crawled on me.

This reminded me that we have a lot of lizards here. I can’t imagine that there is anywhere on earth where there are more wild lizards. Every day when I approach the library there are several that scurry along the sides of the building. They are gorgeous and sometimes quite big.

Well, we have only a week and a half left before the end of classes for the semester. I will be giving essay assignments to both of my classes instead of a final exam. For my Reformation Church History course I will ask my students to write an essay explaining the theology of Martin Luther and to explain what they agree with and disagree with. I am not certain what I will ask my students in Modern Church History course to write about.

I ask that you pray for Moses a student here whose father just died. He is at his home village now and should return to Msalato soon. I also ask your prayers for Timothy, a friend of mine. Finally, I ask that you pray for teachers everywhere as they work to conclude their terms and semesters.

God Bless!

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May 22, 2008 by Stephen Day.

Greeting brothers and sisters!

I hope that all of you are doing well. Life is going very well here. I have been very busy teaching for several weeks and so busy that I have not had a chance to blog in a while. I am really enjoying teaching. The two Church History courses I am teaching are progressing nicely. The class on the Reformation is finally now at the Reformation (I had to catch up the students to the Great Schism, the Crusades, and the Middle Ages). My class on Modern Church History has finally reached the 20th century. I know understand why so many of my history classes never finished all the material we were supposed to cover — history is big!!!

There are now two and a half weeks of teaching left. I have a lot to cover in this time period. After that we have a reading week and then an exam week. Following the exam week I will have a special visitor. My father will be arriving in Dar es Salaam on June 26th. We will come back to Dodoma for a few days and then we will go on safari at Ruaha game park.

In early July I will be setting up a new server for Msalato that will be used to create an email system here that lives off the internet (saving our precious bandwidth) and backs up the main server (to protect from human and software error). This server will be purchased in parts from the US and paid for by donations from the great people of the Diocese of West Virginia. This purchase will use up the last of the extra money donated in support of the work I am doing here. So I would appreciate it if all of you could prayerfully consider donating more. You can send checks to the Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia, PO Box 5400, Charleston, WV, 25361. Be sure to put “Stephen Day - Tanzania” in the memo line.

In other news, I have scheduled a return date to the United States. I will be leaving Dar es Salaam on December 12, 2008 and return to the US on December 22. Where will I be in the interim? I am going to spend a week in Europe with my mother. This is going to be a wonderful birthday and Christmas present. I have never been to Europe and look forward to spending a few days in Paris and London. I look forward to being back in the USA once again.

Well, I just wanted to share these bits of news with you. I pray that all of you are doing well. Please keep Ed, a family friend in your prayers.

-Stephen

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May 4, 2008 by Stephen Day.

Today I preached at two services. The first service was at 7 am and the congregation was the Msalato students and staff. That service is in English, but my sermon was translated for the non-English fluent students. It went very well, except I almost slept through the service. I had awakened at 4 am and not gotten back to sleep until almost 6. The second service I preached at was at the same building but was at 10 am and the congregation was made up of people living near Msalato. This was a more interesting service since it was all in Swahili. I preached basically the same sermon at both services. I left out some talk about eschatology and a little bit about the Greek word used for sharing. It went pretty well. I am uploading to my site my sermon as it was edited for the second service (although it still has the Greek thing). Enjoy! Just click on the link below.

May 4 2008 Sermon.pdf

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May 2, 2008 by Stephen Day.

Written on May 1,2008

Happy May Day (also Ascension Day),

Yes, in Tanzania they celebrate May Day. It is a holdover from the socialist era of the 1960s. Anyway, I wanted to share my experience yesterday shopping for a water heater. Ever since I learned they existed and were relatively affordable, I have longed for a water heater for my shower. Finally, I have decided now is the time to do it. I have used the advice of another missionary and am working with a “fundi” (expert/craftsman/technician) who also teaches at a local technical or trade school. Yohana, the fundi, teaches electrical students and earns only 60,000 TSh (about $45 a month) so he has to find outside work to support his family. I am also using a plumbing teacher from the same school to help with that part of the job.

So, yesterday Yohana, the plumbing fundi, and a student from their school arrived at my place at 1:30 and we hoped to use the college’s one working car to do our shopping. However, the principal needed the car to go to a meeting, but he did offer to give us a ride into town. So we left around 2:45, when it was convenient for the principal, and got dropped off in town. So we went from store to store tying to find the different parts that were needed. It took trips to many different stores to find the right parts. Things were complicated by the fact that the plumbing in my house was very old and not standard so most of the plumbing in the bathroom had to be replaced. The hardest part to find was the right size water heater. We found some that were far to large and eventually we found the right one. It was an interesting experience because a lot of the places we went to are not frequented by westerners so I got quite a few interesting looks. We walked all over town — it was quite an interesting experience. Eventually, we left town via a taxi with several pipes and some wire cover tied to the side of the taxi.

A long, but productive afternoon. I hope all is well with y’all.

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April 28, 2008 by Stephen Day.

I wanted to share some interesting observations about life in Tanzania. I was on the phone with my dear sister last night and she asked about my students. I explained that they are, on average, in their mid to late thirties and very few are younger than me. She asked if they respected me since I was younger than them. I replied yes, but explained that much of that respect might be simply due to the color of my skin.

This idea comes from past generations views of wazungu (which is slang and derogatory Swahili for white people). Back in the era of slavery and later colonialism Tanzanians and many Africans were forced to greet and respect Europeans. This most commonly took the form of using the greeting “shikamo” to whites from Tanzanians. The word actually means “I bow down to your feet” and was required to be said by all Tanzanians to all whites. Now the term is mostly used by younger people to their elders (regardless of races).

Despite the changes in the use of the word shikamo, the heritage of slavery and colonialism is to show special deference to Europeans. I would like to think that my students now respect me for more than my background.

Well, I need to get back to work. Have a great day!

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April 27, 2008 by Stephen Day.

Click the link below to view the lecture notes from a recent class with Diploma in Applied Ministry, Year One.
Lecture 3.pdf

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