Week 1

Hello Friends!

We are writing to you from the office of Hananasif Orphanage Center, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania!
We arrived late Sunday night. Everything with the airlines went very well. No problems there ~

We have spent most of our week at the Shamba Center, about 55 Km outside Dar es Salaam. We have been teaching English, math, guitar, and science.

A typical day:
We wake up around 5A.M. and start the day by watching the beauitful sunrise while we collect sand for plaster. We have worship and then we begin classes. There are two class levels, form 1 and Form 2. After about 2 hours of class, we take a break for breakfast, and then classes resume. After classes are over, we have lunch and then free time. This is when we teach guitar (the kids are very excited about it - thanks to all who donated instruments!) and play football. The kids teach us Swahili during this time as well. At 4:00, we have irrigation. We collect water from teh river and irrigate the garden. The river is about 100 yards away. Then we have more worship and eat dinner. The generator turns on at about 8 and powers the lights. We study with the kids, giving special one on one time to students who want help. At about 12:30 we go to bed and rest for the next day!

The worship is incredible. All the kids gather in a classroom and sing their hearts out for 45 minutes. They all have beautiful voices. One student will start a song in Swahili, and all of the others will quickly join in. It is very beautiful.

Our diet consists of a LOT of Ugali and beans :) It is very filling, we have not been hungry yet.

The Shamba is a beautiful place. There are about 70 students there in secondary school.

We have been healthy all week. Last night we returned to the center in Dar, but got caught in a horrible traffic jam. It rained very hard during the day, which turned the dirt road into a mud road. We ended up stopped in traffic for about 3 hours, which included a good stop for a dead batttery. The entire trip took a little over 5 hours!

We will spend the weekend here in the city gathering supplies for construction. Then we will return to the Shamba and begin work.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers. Pray especially for: Dennis ( the headmaster of the shool ). His baby son just passed away from pneumonia. Dietrich - may be suffering from malaria. Work with the government, that we could get things up and running and licensed as soon as possible.

And if anyone has a spare $20,000 for solar power....it would be greatly appreciated. yo.

-paul and lee

Here we go.....

Lee and I are sitting in the Orlando International Airport, awaiting our 12 hour flight to Amsterdam which is supposed to board at 8:05. We'll have a 24 hour layover (in the snow?.....crazy!) And from there, we will connect for another 12 hour flight to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. 

We're really going. It's insane.

Emotions are running crazy for me right now. I hate to leave everyone I love, but I am so ready to go. It's going to be a crazy couple of months. 

Please keep us in your prayers. Things have run so smoothly so far, and we're praying that will continue. 

We're going to be updating our blog  whenever we get internet access and a few minutes to write. Hopefully some pictures will be up there before too long.  So stay tuned!

We are so appreciative of the love and support we have gotten from all of you over the last weeks and months. It makes leaving difficult - but knowing we are supported every step of the way is invaluable. 

Mungubariki Friends! Kwa heri.




-paul

Preparations

Hello friends and family! Welcome to the weblog for the Hananasif 2008 Mission teams. Here we will keep you updated with our progress and goings on in Tanzania.

Lee Gordon and Paul Benton are just 8 short days from leaving for Hananasif. They got their immunizations last week and are getting their packing lists together. We are very excited! They will fly to Amsterdam, wait 24 hours for the next plane, and be in Dar es Salaam by Sunday. They will take over the updates on the blog once they arrive.

Thank you to those of you who have donated guitars for Paul's guitar class at Hananasif. He is looking forward to getting plenty of use out of them and leaving them at Hananasif so the kids can continue to create and enjoy music.

Chris Kirchman and Scott Robertson are leaving for Tanzania on May 6th. They scheduled their immunization appointment for April 1st. Hopefully the clinic won't try to pull any April fool's jokes on them.

Thanks for reading and keep checking back for updates from Gainesville and Tanzania. You can subscribe to the blog, also.

God bless!