The Chicks are growing up

I cannot believe how much these chicks have grown.

It has only been about 2 weeks.

Back Home

The Chicks are here (Tanzania) and we are done....

We all are now back home from Tanzania. Some of us are in Florida, Georgia, and now one of our team members are in Colorado. God had put this group together for a reason and every person that came played a special part in making this chicken farm happen. God had really blessed our trip. No one was seriously injured or sick. We all got back to America safely with all 10 fingers and toes.

Last Days and Recap

(We are back in America! Now we have fast internet, and we can upload pictures. Sorry about the lack of color in our blog.)
This post is going to be long because now I have time to fill you in. I think I will touch on several of the highlights of our trip.

Chickens
So, let me start from the first few weeks of the trip. It was very helpful having Geophrey Mbatta on our team. He grew up in Tanzania and went to the University of Dar es Salaam to get his undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering.
His connections were invaluable. One of his friends owns a large scale chicken farm that we got to tour with Hezekia. It helped give us a clear picture of how the local farmers run their farms. It was nice to confirm most of our research and answer some of our practical questions. One of our questions was how do locals provide heat without electricity. As seen in this picture, they use coal burners.
The head veterinarian at the large chicken farm came out to our site to inspect the environment and our work. He was pleased, but he had several suggestions for us to help improve the farm. We learned how important it is to keep local chickens separate from broilers because of the disease transfer. Cornell, one of the students that is being trained by a local expert to care for the chickens, and I had a long meeting about daily care and vaccinations.
We had a very busy last week. With final preparations for the farm before the chickens came, we got to paint, install doors, window shields, and a disinfectant foot bath. After finishing the construction side of the project, we begin to prepare for the first batch of chickens to arrive. Richard, the new staff in charge of the chickens at the school, and Cornell took charge of disinfecting the house, laying the deep litter, cleaning the feeders and water troughs, and setting the coal heaters.
The greatly anticipated chicks finally arrived the last day we were at the school. Woot Woot!
We had a chicken party, the last night we were there to celebrate. However, there was some miscommunication and dinner ended up not being ready until 1:30 A.M. because we had to fry up 110lb of potatoes (chicken and potatoes is a typical meal when you eat-out in the city)

Engineering Class
One of the other projects I was working on was an introduction to engineering course. Many of the students I met two years ago expressed interest in become engineers. They enjoyed math and science so they were told that engineering would be a good fit. I wanted to take the knowledge I have learned so far at FSU and create a course that would give an overview of what civil, electrical, industrial, mechanical, and environmental engineers do.
I made a booklet to handout to my class and we went through each topic. Every other week we would have a lab where we would build something that we had talked about the week before.
These pictures show students working on their bridge project. The goal was to make the strongest bridge out of 100 popsicle sticks and Elmer's glue in one hour.
One team made a bridge that could hold the weight of 22 liters of water. Their use of triangles and reinforced joints worked!


One really encouraging gift we got to present was scientific calculators. We gave the calculators to the 20 students in the advanced physics class, the most challenging class at the school, as an encouragement to study hard. I need to give a special shout out to Mrs. Chomate's class at Fairview Middle School in Tallahassee for their hard work and support. 6th and 7th graders raised money to buy these calculators. The teachers and students greatly appreciated your gifts.


Local Churches
Another interest of mine is the spiritual aspect of the Tanzanian culture. I wanted to understand specifically how Christians are different in Tanzania. I wanted to talk with pastors to understand their vision for their church and see how it may be different then many churches here in America. We got to meet with three pastors, and visit four different church services.
We visited an African Inland Church (AIC) in a small village outside of Mwanza. It was a small block building with over 200 people flooding out of it. We were treated like honored guests when we arrived. Sitting at the front of the room, we enjoyed the dancing and unique high-pitch singing that is very typical in this sort of church. Geophrey translated for us as the pastor conducted the service. After the conclusion of the service, we got to visit with the pastor and deacons for a meeting about our inquiry. We quickly learned that learned this pastor is the pastor of 9 other churches in the surrounding villages. He visits each one on bike once a month for a few days. He expressed a concern for a lack of pastors and the wild growth in each congregation. With mens' groups, womens' groups, and family groups, the structure of the church is very community building focused. However, the lack of pastors makes it difficult to raise up other pastors.
We talked with the college pastor at the University of Dar es Salaam. He was very encouraged by the leadership and passion of the students. They are very active in reaching out to the community all over Tanzania. On breaks there are groups that travel to schools to help teach and share the gospel to villages all around Tanzania. One interesting dynamic to the university setting is that there is very little segregation among denominations. They all work together in unity.
We also had a meeting with a Pentecostal pastor. He has occasionally been involved in the work at Hananasif orphanage. One of his passions is to mobilize young people to be involved in their community. With a large church that is continuing to grow, the Pentecostal church of Dar es Salaam has a desire to reach their country through community groups, worship services, and church planting.
It is fun to see how God is working all over the world. I did notice that there is a much more real sense of spirits, both evil and good. Several of the female students at the school have experienced very vivid spiritual attacks. So real that the only thing we could turn to was prayer. It is a fairly common occurrence there. One thing that I could not help but notice was that although we are in different ends of the world, we are all serving the same Lord Jesus.

Team dynamic
Last time I was in Tanzania, it was just me and my good friend Paul. The two of us would work together to accomplish whatever we were working on. However, this time there was between 4 and 8 of us. I was responsible for filling our schedule and making sure we were on track to finish our projects before we left. So, coordinating masons, carpenters, supplies, and labor was my daily task. It was a good opportunity for me to learn to plan ahead and delegate.
My team was so wonderful. Although there were some 12 hour work days we put in due to the time sensitive cement, we never had major conflict. I think a major reason we were able to stay focused and united was because of our daily time in the morning to study the Bible together, then pray and layout the plan for the day.



This summer has been such a wonderful experience. I got to work with my friends from Tanzania to help start a sustainable source of food, income, and fertilizer, lead a team from FSU across the world to make it happen, apply my engineering knowledge to such a project, and learn a little bit about how God is moving on the other side of the world.

I came to the city alone for the weekend to help Baba (Hezekiah, the director) with a grant proposal. There is a foundation here that helps small non-profits with projects, I think through funding from different embassies. The first time you apply you can only apply for the grants of $7.5 million shillings, or $6,000 USD. But it seems like once you prove you're a good organization through that they can help with up to 125 million shillings. So hopefully I can help them write a good proposal.
In other awesome news, I started a relationship with one of the other team members, April. I had asked her to pursue a serious courtship-type relationship before the trip, and she was part of the initial 3-week team. She called and gave her answer after returning to the US. Talk about a long-distance relationship - 9,000 miles! Haha, so that's pretty awesome, I'm excited.
I am returning to the school in the countryside for the last time on Monday or Tuesday. Hopefully we'll be taking the initial batch of chickens with us, but they are proving more difficult to purchase than the staff had anticipated. So we may not see the first batch put in, but we expect to essentially finish the construction by Tuesday with the exception of the outside paint job (which isn't too essential).
It's really cool to see it all coming together. It's amazing what can happen in 9 weeks. We'll be sure to post pictures and tell you all about the end-product as soon as we can.
Oh, and this Wednesday to celebrate we are buying chickens to eat as well, as a kind of going-away present for the kids. So they'll all get to have some chicken for dinner and we'll christen the chicken farm. They don't get meat very often, so I know they're really looking forward to the "Chicken Party"

last supplies

I had to come to the city these past two days to gather the last supplies before we bring 1000 broiler chicks out to Shamba! Exciting.
We had a professional chicken farmer come to the site to inspect the progress and give us suggestions of what we need to do before our first batch comes in. He was very encouraging. He is very optimistic about the project.
I have gotten to talk with Dietrick a lot recently about how God is moving here in Tanzania and how God will use each of us to reach the world for Christ. It has been really fun. Whether I am here or in America, God has a huge vision to see the world reached and I am a part of that. wootwoot!
I have to go get chicken feed and vaccinations now. Then I am out to Shamba.
Lee

Moving Blocks

Hello Friends,
One of the big tasks the students at Hananasif are assigned to is moving blocks. When there is a construction project in progress, concrete blocks are needed. Usually over 2000. These blocks are solid sand/cement blocks that are made at Shamba. They weigh between 30-40 pounds. On Friday, after school all the guys at school were asked to move about 1000 blocks from the site that they make the blocks to the new girls dormitory. With very little complaining, we began the endless task. Because I am the tallest, it was easiest for everyone for me to pick the blocks up and put them on each students shoulder. So, my job was to check the block for centipedes (which are very poisonous here), then lift the block on the the head or shoulder of a student. Wow! My friends here have amazing endurance. We moved them all in about 2 1/2 hours. However I was virtually useless about 2 hours into it because my arms just stopped working. I really appreciate the hard work the students put into their school. They play a large part in building their school. With out them the school could not continue to be built. They are very committed and involved in each part of their school.
I will let you know how things finish out when we are back in the city on the July 1st.

Lee

Good Times

Hey everyone, this is Rachel! So after the longest day known to man spent in Amsterdam Tiff and I got in a couple days ago, and so far it has been amazing. No, really, amazing. I've already learned my numbers up to 10! Hahahaha! The kids are so eager to teach their native Swahili and learn English, too. We're on our way to Shamba later this morning and I can't wait for our 3+ hour trip out there. =] Too much to write in and not enough time! I will write more later. Take care!
~Rach