Dinner with a friend and a visit to Ihemi

 Last night Rev. Doricus Kimbavala stopped over.  We had brought him a laptop and wanted him to come out to Ihemi with us on Sunday.  We met Doricas in 2008 when he was the new, young pastor at Ihemi, father of four, his youngest an adorable infant.  In 2010 we learned that his wife had died suddenly, at age 34.  As with so many deaths here, we will never know the cause of her death.

When we last visited Doricus we were working with him on starting a SACCOS (micro finance bank) at Ihemi.  One was started at Ihemi in 2008 with 35 members.  It now has 108 members with many on the waiting list!  This is perhaps one of the most successful SACCOS to date with close to 100% repayment, an increasing capital base, and some good savers.

Our visit to Ihemi today (Sunday) was a social one.  We briefly discussed SACCOS, but we are coming back on Tuesday to do a review of their SACCOS with the leadership and members.  Today we went to church (a 2.5 hour service with two offerings and many announcements and talks).   Upon our arrival, the Sunday school children sang for us, after which we joined the pastors for tea.  Following the service we were joined for dinner at the district pastor’s house by several of the church leaders.  It is sad how many of our Ihemi friends have died in the past few years – but it is good to see how well Ihemi is doing.

Looking around we are struck by all of the changes that have been made here since we first came in 2001-2.  For example:

·         There is running water available now (the Well drilling project)

·         They have a flour mill that is producing income for the church (the “mill” project)

·         They have built a new home for the pastor

·         Their crop yields are up 2-3X (the Ag Project)

·         They are planting larger areas and increasing their incomes (their SACCOS)

Everywhere we see signs that things are improving.  The people are better dressed, there are more bicycles, there are cell phones all over (so we can call out), and people can go to Iringa Town to get online.  Of course many things are still the same, and Ihemi, though improved, is still far from prosperous!

At the end of the day we stopped at Aloyce’s house to visit, buy eggs, and pay him for our Easter egg project!  Aloyce and his wife have been dying Easter eggs for the children every year since we started during our visit to Ihemi in 2005.  He tells us that they will need to have 150 eggs this year (each child gets one egg – a big prize that will bring non-members  to Sunday School on Easter Sunday).  Since their Sunday school is about 40 children, there is clearly a big draw here!

Tomorrow we will spend the day going over records at Tumaini University – then on Tuesday we start with SACCOS visits.

Doricus and Sandy watching a video of our visit to Ihemi when he was the pastor there.

We often are welcomed by dancing and choirs.  This time we had asked to meet the Sunday School children (Tom likes to give them candy) so they all came out to sing and dance us a welcome!

Sandy and Mama Imbembi share greetings (she is the widow of the first pastor we met at Ihemi)

The SACCOS building at Ihemi.  We will meet with them here on Tuesday.

The church members sing and dance as they give their offerings.

We stopped and visited Aloyce and his family