Iringa Hope visits 2014: If this is Sunday this must be Ihemi

On Sunday we took a drive out to Ihemi, our partner parish, for church services. Going along with us were our roommates, Randy and Rose, and our friends from MN, Alan and Susan. We also took along our intern, Pastor Request, so that we would have a second translator with us.

Before going to church we had to first have chai at the pastor’s house. Ihemi has a new pastor this year; her name is Aneth Fweni. After 22 years as an evangelist at Kihesa she went to school and was ordained last month. Pastor Fweni is the mother of two sons, Evan and Charles. She seems to be very competent and is an impressive lady!

After chai we were off to church. The church was full, and Pastor Mhekwa, headmaster of the Ihemi secondary school, told us they were eager to see us today. (Pastor Mhekwa visited Minnesota last year and spoke at the Tanzania fall festival.) The service started off with singing and dancing. It was a lively two hour service with many choirs, village announcements, and two offerings. Tom preached today with Pastor Mhekwa interpreting. At the end of the service the offerings in kind were auctioned off outside the church.

Many people used to bring crops, animals or eggs as offerings since they did not have much money. This has changed with the growth of their SACCOS. (Since they got a SACCOS the church offerings have doubled). Today there are only two items to auction.

After lunch we went to have a look at the demonstration silo. The silo was built a few years ago to demonstrate how to store crops. Unfortunately people can’t afford to store their crops; they need their money as soon as the crops come in. They also do not want to mingle their crops and the silos are too big for one of these small farmers to fill by themselves. Tom bet Alan that the silo was empty. “No – it must be full, there are sacks of grain stacked around it.” So we took a look – sure enough, the silo was empty. TIA (This is Africa)

On the way back to Iringa we stopped at the home of our friend Aloyce. Aloyce is a very entrepreneurial person. He has started many small businesses. Unfortunately he has health issues which keep him from reaching his full potential. He is one of the first people we met here. When we were teaching at the University in 2005 we spent Easter at Ihemi. We took the occasion to introduce the Sunday school children to the American custom of coloring Easter eggs. They were a big hit; so each year we send Aloyce’s wife money to color 150 eggs for the children of Ihemi. We paid Aloyce for this year’s Easter eggs and bought a hundred eggs for the Huruma Center, an orphanage in Iringa.

We received a warm greeting when we stopped at the orphanage to deliver the eggs. Mama Chilewa wasn’t around but we were given a tour by Sofia, one of the house mothers. When we were here last year they gave Sandy a chicken. Since we had nowhere to keep a chicken, or to slaughter one, Sandy asked Mama Chilewa if we could keep our chicken at the orphanage. Sofia told us that unfortunately our chicken had gotten sick and died. The good news was that the chicken had lived long enough to have chicks, one of which had survived. So Sandy was introduced to her “Grand-chicken.”

Our friends, Alan and Susan were leaving the next day, so we had a final dinner with them at a restaurant with beautiful views overlooking the city. As we were eating, a torrential rain went through and knocked out our power. We were without power until late Monday forenoon. Alan and Susan had an early flight out, so in the morning we showered and dressed by candle light before taking them to the airport.