We have new cows! Yesterday we brought two new cows and a calf to Mavuno Village. Our dairy program is in its infant stages, and going through “growing pains”. Slowly we are figuring out how to deal with all the aspects of having a dairy. The hope is for this program to become a profitable part of Mavuno. We would love to see our five cows, and two calves, grow into a full size dairy, with enough animals to be exporting milk. But for now we are trying to keeping the Mavuno staff, employees, and families satisfied.

Refined by Fire (we pray and hope)

Last night we had another grass fire at Mavuno. During the dry season it is normal to have a few fires, since all the grass is very dry. The fire came up from the beach, from near one of the fishing camps bellow our property. It burnt mostly grass and mango trees. We had been hoping for a nice mango harvest this year, but we will probably not get very much, sadly. We have a lot of burnt land now.












Thankfully the fire did not cross the road, if it had the whole hill would have burnt down.


Pray: for wisdom and patience as we continue dealing with the fisherman who probably started the fire.

Preschool with Milka Mbugua

Every morning Milka Mbugua does Preschool with her children. They were coloring pictures on this day.


Aika



Michael and Milka



Esta (Esther) concentrates on her art work- she had a small school break two weeks ago



Helena thinking hard



Jonathan



Milka helping Aika



Michael shows his picture to his Mom



Mariamu



Thumbs Up (Mariamu, Milka, Helena, Michael, Aika, Esta, Jonathan)

Psalm 27: 10

Two weeks ago Mavuno received two more kids from Social Welfare in our Off-Campus Program. Twins, Veronica and Victor Joseph, moved in with a pastor, Kabulimoja, in Lamadi, a town about 70 kilometers from here. Veronica and Victor were the fourth set of twins their mother had given birth to, from as many men. She had been moving around, and on her move to the Mwanza region she left behind all the children with there fathers except these two. Lack of funds caused her to depend on men, and to go into debt. Six months behind rent, deep in debt, and desperate she moved again, leaving behind her twins, but taking her four year old daughter. Her neighbor told the local village leader who informed Social Welfare, and they began searching for her. The local village leader fed the children for two weeks as the search for their mother or any relative continued. The twins had never met any relatives and did not know who their father was. On the 17th of last month Social Welfare contacted Mavuno Village and on 23rd the twins moved in with our recently accepted Off-Campus foster parents.


Victor and Veronica



The Family: Mama Kabilamoja, Reuben, Veronica, Baba Kabilamoja, Victor (Kabilamoja's other two sons were at school)

Bethany Tanner went to see the kids the day they moved. They insisted that they were seven years old, but Bethany guessed that they were some where between 10 and 13 years.

Water!!

Praise the Lord- yesterday night, a little past ten, the pump finally pushed some water into our almost empty tanks. None of the houses actually ran dry. The Helsby house and Mbugua house almost did though. They both had only the water in their pipes left. This morning we filled all the tanks and now we are all catching up on laundry, and enjoying not being quite so stingey with our water. Thanks for praying.

PLEASE PRAY: our water pump is broken down right now. Dan Tanner is working frantically to fix it, but until he does we are out of water. Pray that he will be able to fix it quickly.

Corvallis Team

Hi, this is Wilbur Nisly and I am here in Tanzania for two weeks. We come from Montana and have had wonderful and growing time here. I spoke at the parenting seminar that Mavuno Village put on and that was an awesome experience. John served as translator. There were about 45 people attending, mostly pastors and their wives. The subject material we used came from Ted Tripps book ‘Shepherding a Child’s Heart’. The people were very gracious and receptive of the teaching. Of course I needed a lot of grace extended for my very limited Swahili, which they were so good about. It was a crash course on the local culture but was a very pleasant experience. The seminar was well organized and the enthusiasm of the people for fellowship and teaching from God’s Word was very refreshing. I so enjoyed their singing. It seemed such an enthusiastic expression of the joy in there hearts. I praise God for the opportunity to study and worship with this segment of God’s family.
Our team helped with several projects here at Mavuno Village. Among them were developing a watering system for their crops and garden. The ladies cleaned, sewed curtains, watched children, and such. We worked on the new house being built, running conduit for wiring, helping put on the steel roofing. Carol Webber, one of the ladies of our group, shared at the parenting seminar on praying for our children, and praying scripture for our children. Some of us had the opportunity to go for dinner to a local village home. We were almost overwhelmed with their generosity and gracious spirit. It was the kind of evening that made you think that sometimes our priorities need some major adjustments.
Here at Mavuno Village the work is moving ahead. The people here are driven by their love for God and a passion for providing good homes to orphan children. It was a privilege to be a small part of helping them in this pursuit. It’s a wonderful, functional community with lots of challenges and yet the patience to allow God to work in His timing.


Don and Larry welding on the pump house fence



Carol with Esther



Larry and Rollie working on our water system



Larry enjoying watching Rollie work on our water system



Bev loving on a child



Larry helping Dave Helsby roof Family House 3.



Wilbur speaking with John Mbugua (our first foster father) as translator.



Deni loving on a baby



The Team having a good traditional African meal. Ugali: stiff mixture of various types of flour, with some Daga: very small salted dried fish



They also got to visit our village church; in this picture the choir is dancing, which is just as important as singing here.



We were very happy to have the team. They were a huge help around here, and in the Parenting Seminar they were a huge encouragment.