Heading Home!

The computer lab is up and running! The church has 11 working computers and all have internet access. Additionally, Bishop has his own laptop with an internet camera and the lab has a new scanner. Great job Doug'er and Jason!

We have returned from our safari adventures in the Mt. Kilimanjaro region. We saw elephants, giraffes, buffalo, wart hogs, wilderbeasts, lions, dikdik, monkeys, impalas, gazzels, hippos, and many more! After the 15 hour bus ride back to Dar es Salaam, we were all ready for some rest.

We finished the trip on Friday with shopping and relaxing. It was a perfect way to end the week.

Team Fanta!!
Nothing like ice cold Orange Fanta, one more for the road...

We are leaving for the airport in an hour to begin our journey home. Pray that we have no delays and arrive back to SFO with no obstacles.

Upon our return, we will post our safari pictures and provide more detail. Thank you again for your comments and for keeping in touch with us through this blog.

God bless and see you all soon!

Completion of Zanzibar Projects

Greetings Family and Friends:

We are now back at our hotel in Dar es Salaam. Our time on the island of Zanzibar has come to a close, and we spent part of the day viewing some of the sights before our 2+ hour ferry ride back to the mainland of Tanzania. The time on Zanzibar was amazing, and the team is still absorbing the events of the past week.

Update on the projects:

Medical: Supplied medicine for 600+ patients at Mnazi Mmoja Hospital. Doug Miller was invited by Dr. Ikongo to visit a near by village clinic to assess equipment and patient needs for a future medical mission next year.

Press Conferences: Headlines were made in the local paper after press conferences were held on live TV throughout Tanzania. Kathy represented Crossroads along with Bishop Mgullu and Doug-em as medicines for the Mnazi Mmoja Government Hospital, wheelchairs for the disabled and Operation Christmas Child shoebox gifts for the government orphanage were presented to grateful officials from the the Chief Ministers Office and the Minister of Health and Social Welfare. Kathy received a Certificate of Appreciation for Humanitarian Assistance on behalf of Crossroads Bible Church as did Bishop Mgullu on behalf of Christian Mission Fellowship.

Two Nat King Cole fans!
With Msham Khamis, Deputy Principal Secretary
Chief Minister's Office
The Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar

Construction: Efforts continued on the new feeding center building for the orphans. Footings were dug and concrete was poured in preparation for the setting of the blocks. These blocks are part of the building foundation. The team had to improvise in making some tools to complete the construction tasks. All of the water required for the mixing of the concrete was drawn from the village well, bucket by bucket, and carried over 300 feet. We worked side-by-side with the local day laborers, many of these were Muslim. We had the opportunity to share our faith with them. We took many photos and made many new friends and hopefully planted a lot of seeds.

VBS: Nearby, VBS attracted over 111 children. We gave the children new shirts (sewn by CBC women) and new shoes (a gift from our team member, Martha). This created much fanfare! The children loved playing games, singing songs, and listening to Bible stories. We made many new friends and at the end of the week, it was difficult to say good-bye.


In addition, the team had the opportunity to hold Women's Health classes for the local village women and also provide a water purification kit to the church planter. Both were well received and will hopefully increase the health and preventative care for the local people.




Today we received a private tour of the island's beaches and wildlife with the government officials of Zanzibar. The resorts on the island were a sharp contrast in comparison to the living condition of the local people. The beaches are really beautiful and we enjoyed seeing the monkeys at the park face-to-face!




TMI...TMI!!! YIKES...


The remaining project to accomplish in Dar es Salaam is the setting up of the computer lab at Bishop Mgullu's church. We will be working on that at 6:30AM tomorrow morning (so we need to get to sleep!). We plan to have 6 computers set up with internet access and the remaining 6 computers used for computer learning classes.

Thank you for the comments. It is wonderful to hear from all of you. When time permits, we will obtain photos from all of the team members to post on the blog. Unfortunately the speed of our connection is very (very) slow, so it takes a while to upload photos. We will try to add as many as possible, time permitting. Overall, the health of the team has remained strong and morale has been high as we do our best to stay flexible to "African Time". The people here have been amazing and will never be forgotten. Thank you for your prayers and continued support!

Zanzibar Projects in Full Gear

Tuesday was a great day! The day started with a breakfast of eggs, fruit, toast w/ Nutella (the main highlight was the Nutella brought by Miriam and Brandon Madeiros).

All of the Zanzibar projects got off to a great start! The team was divided into three groups. Doug M. (aka Doug-em, not be to confused with Doug R., aka Doug-er) and Cindy traveled with Kathy, Bishop Mgullu, and the additional doctors and nurses to the local hospital where the Minister of Health had scheduled a press conference. They had a chance to share the purpose of the visit to include the medicines and affiliation with CBC and CMF through Bishop Mgullu. They also received a tour of the hospital and were joined with the local doctors to assist with the patients. (Pictures to come as available...)



The other part of the team traveled to the local church site, where they assisted with Vacation Bible School (VBS) and the onsite construction of a new feeding center. Though there was a small mix up with the VBS supplies, the group did a wonderful job improvising with what they did have. Needless-to-say Karyn's animal balloons were a huge hit and Duck-duck-goose is universal. The entire team was blessed in working with the children, who had enough energy to lighten up the whole room!



All the commotion at the church also attracted the interest of local village women. They stopped by the church and observed the Vacation Bible School program with their children.



The feeding center construction was off to a great start. The team met with the lead contractor and assisted the day workers in laying the foundation, which included placing the rebar and adding the mixed cement after drawing water from the nearby (and deep!) water well.











After a full day, the team was able to enjoy dinner together at a local resturant and enjoyed an amazing sunset!

Onward to Zanzibar!

(Let's start by saying 'thank you' to everyone who has left comments on the blog! The team has enjoyed reading them!)

Today we take the two and a half hour ferry from the mainland of Tanzania to the island of Zanzibar. No one became seasick...unfortunately we have no pictures because the team was passed out on Dramamine (SP?) and slept most of the way! We were well received and with the help of the local health minister had a smooth transition through customs and a bus waiting on us. While the bags were being loaded, we enjoyed watching the locals unpacking goods from the ferry, such as the colorful mattresses like the picture below. We were very impressed with how high they stacked them!

We checked into the hotel which is within view of the Indian Ocean. We have enjoyed seeing the various boats coming in and out of the port. See photo below.

Sunday Service!

We were greeted warmly at the Sunday service. The time was filled with fellowship, good teaching, and lively worship music. The team all had a chance to share their personal stories and to meet the many people of the congregation. By the way, the kids here are really cute!

The rest of the day was filled with reclaiming our lost luggage (Thank the Lord, most of the luggage and supplies for our projects arrived, and now we will be able to continue on to Zanzibar tomorrow!) We will continue to update the blog when possible....

We Made It! (Finally!)

Family and Friends: We received a warm welcome from our friends here in Tanzania! What a long journey! We will update and add pictures soon!

JFK...The Race for the Gate

….Just…got in…to….JFK..only 39 minutes before the next flight leaves!....how far…oh no! Stay together! Here we go! Up the escalator!...now down…oh, another hallway…up…down…left…up…okay, AirTrain to Concourse 4! What? Just left? Next one…in 10 minutes! (Hmm, probably not good.) Okay, on, off, Concourse 1…2,3…okay..OFF! Down, up, through….where is Emirates Airlines? Hey, why are they taking the signs down? Can we still get on? No? Okay. Hurry..check in, no nevermind, just go! Through security…no peanut butter jars! (Why didn’t it matter in SFO?) Leave it! Okay…to the gate..on the flight…hmm, what seats are we in, and why are all these people in the ones that match our tickets? Oh well, we made it!!!! (Hmm…what about the luggage and boxes of supplies?)

And so it begins....!

The team started out fresh and ready to go at the San Francisco airport called SFO. All of the bags and supplies were checked in with care, the excitment was building, all the team members were there. When up on the screen low and behold, the 10 PM flight to JFK was now on hold! (reference photo below....notice the one flight delayed until 2AM...that was our flight!).

So what do you do when must stay up late? You all sit around and play games at the gate!Through cards and "I've never," "2 truths and a lie!", and watching small movies, time soon would fly by. Then a brilliant idea came to us as we sat, let's photograph the team all wearing this hat!

Doug'er? Doug'er is that you?