Out of This World, that was truly my experience in January 2007 as I visited Zion’s missionary, Dennis Murnyak in Tanzania. Dennis partners with Heifer International and World Mission of the ELCA. He has directed fish farming in Tanzania for 24 years. This was to be an inspection tour of one area. I was most privileged to go along as we bumped and lurched over rocks, sloshed through water and slid through greasy clay. Only by a great stretch of the imagination could these be called roads.
After driving as far as we could we walked another km to view fish ponds. This is an area still alive with spirits and witchcraft. One farmer suspected someone had poisoned his pond, killing many of his fish.
One hard to get to village honored me, an American, because as they said, they were so remote that even their own governor had never visited. Their houses were mud walls and thatched roofs. The door a hole in the wall. If they cook inside the smoke rises through the thatch. Men and women tilled the soil with grub hoes. Backbreaking! If rains come there is food, if not? There is no way to store a good crop for next year. Water is distant and very precious. Life is bought with a great price, it is not cheap.
A meeting at one village was held under trees, in the shade. There were 2 chairs, one for Dennis and one for me. The rest sat on benches. In thanks they had harvested some coconuts. A man with a big machete skillfully opened one end so we could quench our parched throats on delicious coconut milk and then chew on fresh coconut. How he avoided chopping off a finger I don’t know. They gave us the best they had and took none for themselves.
In another village, Noel told us he was chosen to keep the male goat. The very feisty goat had wrecked his pen. Noel had to try to rebuild but had no money for nails to repair the damage.
At another location all stood in rapt attention in the rain as they listened to Dennis advise them. Another village was planning for the future by planting trees for their children, besides raising bees and growing peanuts along with building fish ponds.
We met Richard, very sick, looking like a stick figure (AIDS?). He had a flock of chickens, eggs for his family and a few to sell. Then there were the very successful woman who had fulfilled her contract with Heifer and now had two cows of her own, was able to sell milk and to buy clothes so her children could go to school. She had built a brick house and now was building a larger shelter for her cows.
There was the special thank you service by the Mkuranga Lutheran Church when they heard that I, a representative of Zion was coming to visit. This was on a Saturday but the pastor called together the choir, all the congregational officers and others for a service of thanks and appreciation to Zion, for helping them with a $5800 gift to complete their church. Congregation members had done much of the labor themselves. The spirited choir sang five songs, the pastor preached and I was presented with a letter of thanks to bring back to Zion (in Swahili, on the main Zion website). After a 2 hour service the women of the congregation prepared lunch. Afterward the service continued for another 45 minutes and then an inspection tour. This lively congregation of 130 members now plan to build a secondary boarding school for their children.
How to tell of all these experiences? They have to be lived rather than told.
Contemplating all of this, I must ask myself, how am I using God’s abundant gifts in view of the dire poverty of so many.
Howard Burgdorf
