Big challenges provide us with big opportunities to prove ourself. That was something I truly grasped for the first time when I was in the military. The bigger the obstacle, the nastier the problem always saw people of true worth step up and do something. This is one of those challenges. In today’s blog I am going to share one such story of a group who faced a challenge and rose to the occasion. Please read all the way through because I am going to ask for your help at the end of the story and I am going to give you updates on Tanzania, the school and myself personally.

You hear a lot about how the Coronavirus Pandemic and the stay at home type orders have impacted people. One such impact happened to a group of teens and their adult mentors who normally go on mission trips both stateside and typically one outside the USA. Their group is called the Teen Leadership Project and is based outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

When they could not go on a planned local mission they started to look for other ways to help while staying at home. That was when they came across my blog about Virtual Mission Trips. So while I was in my 14 day self quarantine after leaving Tanzania, I got an email asking me about it. Then we scheduled a conferencce phone call for the next day and after that we were off to the races so to speak. They were interested in working with our ministry on the virtual mission trip. I was excited because to be perfecctly honest, I have not had the overwhelming response to this program I had hoped to have.

Within a week we had a video conference with the teens that make up the project. After we finished they had told me they were going to work with us and were shooting for between 15 and 20 videos that I could use. Somewhere as they were building the webpage and getting some of the first videos, they decided to expand the idea and make some videos to entertain senior citizens with some music.

It has only been two weeks since we had that video conference, but it has been an amazing response. In fact I would go so far as to say if you never understood what I was looking for then please check their site out because they nailed it. Videos of them singing, how to play a chord on a guitar, art lessons, reading books, information on twins, information on snakes, virtual field trip type videos, even a video on how to make friendship muffins. If you have kids they will love about everything in the Tanzania section and if you are an adult you will like the Fun for Seniors section. Check out their videos at the link below:

They have at least 50 videos they have made themselves. This was not an easy task. I can speak from personal experience that is tough to stay motivated to work on things while you are home alone. The self discipline they had to exercise to make this many videos is excellent.

They saw a challenge and they meet it head one and worked together to overcome it.

Now comes the part where you can help me and this group. Because I am not in Tanzania where I can set the videos and up and take pictures to provide feedback to them, I would like to get them some recognition and some photos of people here enjoying the videos.

If you or members of your family watch the videos, please send me a picture or post it on facebook and tag me. Also when you post those photos on social media please tag them #somegoodnews #wyff4good #teenleadershipproject #virtualmissiontrip I would also appreciate if you would share this blog on your facebook, twitter, linked etc. to let people know about this resource and the great efforts of this group. Please also tag any shares with hashtag items above. If you don’t do social media then just share the story because this is what Christianity is supposed to look like-helping others any way you can.

Thank you in advance for helping me out.

Updates

At the school we continue to be closed for students on site per Tanzania government order. We are not closed to trying to help the students. Currently we have a program where our teachers come in weekly to prepare activity packets (basically a page or two of exercises on each subject) which we print using our new printer (Thank you Deborah Circle). They are then distributed to the students via drop off points to maintain safety and social distancing. We are currently paying our staff so while some costs are going to decrease significantly such as food for the kids and transportation we still have the biggest expense of payroll going forward. We do not expect to be getting any Tanzania sourced income during the shutdown so pretty much everything going forward will be paid for by Blessed2BlessU Ministries, Inc.

We have had new playground equipment installed. This was donated by the Mauldin UMC Men’s fellowship. They were almost finished construction on the new equipment when we had another flood (for those new to my blog the floods happen along the road cutting off or limiting travel to the city from the villages). They will complete construction after the water recedes.

We continue to move forward with building plans. We have quotes on the next five buildings we want to build. These include a new classroom building with two classrooms, an administrative office with secure storage for tests, a dining hall, a potential new headmaster house so we can use the big one for groups visiting and a small workshop building. The majority of the buildings (except the workshop) cost around $17,000 each. If you are looking for a fundraising project in the future this would be a great one. We need to build the classroom building and administration building this year. You may have noted I specified the test storage be secure. They government tests at Grade 4 and 7 are brought using an armed guard (military) and they require a room with only one door and no windows to secure tests in.

We are taking this time to do some repairs and maintance around the site. For example we have a small leak on the large elevated tank outlet and this is a great time to drain it and fix the leak.

We are looking at ways to help the community. We have offered to let them use our TVs and solar batteries/inverters and van to drive around and show videos like the Teen Leadership Project did and Akili and Me but also if they close church services this may be the only way to deliver church service to people. We have also sent instructions on sewing masks so the sewing ministry at the church can make them for the community. Again these are things being considered at this time.

In Tanzania, it remains difficult to understand where they are at. Unlike many countries they are only issuing case updates once a week instead of daily like the other countries in the area. They have had significant increases but still have not closed church services or buisness or the mass transit systems. As mentioned in p revious blogs it will be difficult to close business for people who live day to day for money to feed their family. It is difficult to maintain social distancing when several hundred people share the same water spigot. All flights in and out of Tanzania Internationally are grounded.

As they face the upward hill of the beginning of the coronavirus curve, they are also bracing for the coming of the second wave of locusts which have destroyed crops throughout East Africa. Food security will be a big concern for the remainder of the year.

My personal situation is as always fluid. With no flights I have no plans to return I can work on. I still plan to return. I did have my 3 year vacation with the family canceled by the cruise line. So it will be 2023 before my next planned extra time off to get a vacation in. My brother asked me why I can’t do one when I come home twice a year. Well those months are dedicated to working on fundraising for myself and the school ministry. I have to leave every weekend and Wednesday night open for any potential talk opportunities. I typically plan extra time at home every three years to accommodate some time off with the family. It worked out that way when three years ago I had to switch ministries and found myself at home unexpectedly.

I had talks scheduled in May and now will have to learn a new way of doing them. Yep that is right I am having to learn how to do Facebook Live and I am not excited. I used to be up on all the technology but now I just don’t want to keep up. So I am going to push through a lack of motivation to learn how I can speak to a church while sitting at home. I will keep you up to date on those activities in case you want to tune in. Right now I had a date to speak at my church on Sunday May 17 in the evening so I will be setting that one up in the next week as well as one that was scheduled for St. Mark UMC in Greenwood for the 13th.