Howdy from Iringa, Tanzania.
This month we are staying in a city called Iringa. Iringa is a neat little town a bit off the beaten path from the Tourist but still a gorgeous town none the less. The city is actually a fairly large one with surrounding areas making up a population of supposedly around 100 thousand. We are about a mile in elevation with hills/mountains all around us. My team mate Chad and I climbed to the top of one yesterday to get a better view of the city. It was a good one indeed.
The weather here is significantly cooler than in Uganda though still pretty warm during the day. The nights are about perfect though to sleep with the windows open.
We actually have beds this month which has been a blessing. Its nice to actually get some sleep after last month.
We are working with a decent sized church in Iringa. We are staying at the Pastor’s house which is fairly nice. We have our own little guest house even, complete with electricity and running water – spoiled I know. No hott water though, actually we could go ahead and say the water is pretty cold. Have gasped and inhaled water in the shower on a couple of occasions.
Iringa is an interesting town and I can’t say I entirely have a beat on it. There is a pretty heavy christian population, but also a decently sized Muslim population as well. There are definitely more white people floating around here than other ministry place we’ve been in Africa.
It seems to be a fairly normal city, whatever normal means anymore. They do have a fairly american restaurant here called the Hasty Tasty Too, where I even had a hamburger today.
This month it looks like we will be going to church pretty much everyday, I know mother would be proud. During the mornings we do somewhat random things. Everything from door to door evangelism, to visiting the elderly, to visiting hospitals.
Our contact, Pastor Chacha, or that’s how I pronounce it anyways, is the pastor of the church we are working with. The church has an attendance of about 150 people on Sunday and a good turnout during the week even. It seems to be a very healthy body and they even have several branch campuses in the surrounding villages.
The people here are generally very friendly. Our contact does not speak English so we work with one of the “youth” in the church when we need to make plans and things of that nature. He is 24 and his name is Peter. Peter is a super nice guy who speaks about as good of English as anyone we’ve come across the past few months. He is a very intelligent man who will be graduating with an Economics degree in July, very young for Tanzania to be graduating, and hopes to one day study in America for his PhD. Something that I think he can and will do. He has been a huge help. It has been a good first week, but seems hard to tell what kind of month this is shaping up to be.
We have found out that July 1 is an important date. We will either be coming back on the date or atleast leaving. So around that time I will be finding my way back to US of A. We also know that our last month in Thailand will be a manistry month, a.k.a. all guys. So that means I only have 2.5 months left with my team. Weird thought.
But we are all doing well right now. We are very close to a national park so we might use our day off next week to go see some African animals – exciting stuff. We saw elephants, giraffe and water buffalo from a distance on our drive down, but might get a little more close up exposure. Something I would really love to do.
I hope everyone is back home. Miss everyone and would love to hear how things are going back home.
