Sunday, March 11, 2012

Back To The Future At Itungi!


For those of you who may recall we visited the SACCOS group at Itungi on the 1st of March.  At that time we found that the group was anxious to do something, however the leadership seemed to have grown tired and disillusioned.  We had suggested that they needed new leadership to revitalize their efforts – so today we went to church at Itungi and stayed to have a meeting with the group afterward.

The church service started on time with a full house.  The pastor here seems to be a real fireball at preaching accompanied by lots of “Amens” and ululating (making noise by swinging your tongue from side to side) by the women.  The pastor invited all of the parishioners to stay for the meeting after church – and to our surprise they all did.  At one time Itungi had 100 SACCOS members, but the number had decreased to 30 when the SACCOS failed to get outside funding and the leaders did not know how to use savings to fund loans.

At the SACCOS meeting Itiweni presented a brief seminar on what will be in a new constitution.  Enock then conducted a session on what makes a good leader.  We polled the members to see if they agreed that they needed new leaders – it was unanimous.  Itiweni conducted the nominations, insisting that there be at least two nominees for each position.  The members voted and the Itungi SACCOS now has new leadership!

While this was happening the other congregation members were watching and listening.  After the vote the pastor told them that this was the future in their parish and they should think long and hard about joining.  We think there will be more members before too long.

We made arrangements for the three new leaders to attend our training session.  We also gave them a list of things they need to do before we can enroll them in Iringa Hope.  Specifically they will have to complete and vote on a new constitution (we will help of course), certify their votes and list members; complete our training courses, and contribute their required savings and share purchases.

As we were finishing one of the women stood up to speak.  “God bless you for seeing the need here in Itungi.  God has blessed us all this day by giving us the opportunity to improve our lives.  With this good start I believe our SACCOS will progress well.”  There was much applause and she was clearly very pleased.

We had a quick lunch with the pastor then headed for town.  Itiweni had some work to do at home, Enock wanted to see his wife (she has been gone to school in Moshi for the past several months), and we needed to do some shopping (also just crashing sure sounded nice).  These 7 day weeks just seemed to fly by!


We were back out to Itungi this morning.


They have a very pretty brick church.


The service was packed.


Itungi has many subsistence farmers.  As a result they get a lot of offerings "in kind."  This means a big auction after services.


To our surprise most of the members stayed for the SACCOS meeting - even though only 30 of them belong.




At the close of the meeting this woman rose to speak. "God bless you for seeing the need here in Itungi," she began.


We had a quick lunch with the pastor - it was starting to pour outside.


The pastor here is a bachelor so the men did the cooking!

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