Tanzania Water Well Update (Day 1 & 2) Saturday, Feb. 14, 2009

Ed Lusk, Grant Miller, John Simmons and I all arrived safely to Tanzania without incident. Thanks to all for your prayers.

As you know, one purpose of our trip is to improve our water well evangelism. To this end, one of our tasks was to evaluate a new water well drilling contractor. Today we were able to visit the site of a water well that is being drilled for another Christian group. The well is being drilled by a company called Majitech (maji is Swahili for water). We stayed for about an hour, observing and talking to the drilling rig operator (driller). We were quite impressed with both the equipment and the driller. We were also reminded that “this is Africa” when the well construction operation had to be shut down because the PVC well casing had not been delivered (it was supposed to be there last Monday…). We hope to meet the owner of this company before we leave here. Please pray diligently that we are able to find a long-term solution to the water well drilling problem as the need is very great.

After lunch, we drove from Dar es Salaam to Morogoro. It took us almost 4 hours to make the 100 mile drive. The drive was slow due to the traffic being very heavy. I got to make the drive with Bishop Jacob Mameo and a missionary who works for him, Barbara Robertson. Our time together was very rewarding.

Tomorrow we’re going to go to the Massai cattle auction which is always very interesting. Thanks for your continued prayers.

In His grip, Mark

Day 2
This morning was spent planning the rest of our days here.

In the late morning we went to the Massai cattle auction which is about a 30 minute drive north of Morogoro. This was my third time to go. I had a good time watching the expressions on the faces of Ed Lusk and John Simmons who had never experienced anything like it. Somehow being in the middle of hundreds of Massai warriors and their cattle all in one place just never loses its awe factor.

Tomorrow we will worship at Gezelole.

Mark