Age is no barrier….

Martha Fetting, Hot Springs, Arkansas resident and member of, First Lutheran Church has a gift. She knits/crochets beautiful hats. She is 85 years young and has not forgotten the lessons learned living through the war. She is a very frugal person and instead of buying new balls of yarn prefers to use odds and ends of yarn left over from other projects to make hats. She has made over 1000 hats and they have found their way to hospitals, to the less fortunate, to California and Afghanistan. Now they will likely be Tanzania where they will be a “hot commodity” with the adults and children in the villages. The next mission trip will find members gladly making room in their luggage to carry these colorful hats to the Sukuma people. What a treat they will be! The people, in this country right under the equator, love to have anything western and will cherish the brightly colored hats
Mrs. Fetting is very modest but her talents lie not only with knitting. She speaks five languages having been born in Lithuania. She was often called to the local hospital to help with translation to non-English speaking patients. What an example of using her senior years to continue to bless others with her talent to benefit people around the world.

Nyakato

Nyakato, Tanzania! Is a place of great hope in the Mwanza area and in the East of Lake Victoria Diocese? Denny and Paula Lofstron have done such a great job in creating interest in providing health services to the people in the Nykato area. They have been great in sharing their enthusiasm with Church in the United States. As a result congregations in Indiana, Iowa, Kansas and Minnesota and other states have raised funds, shipped building material, and built medical clinics, isolation hospitals, and birthing hospitals. What a great story!

The clinic continues to grow as they are seeing 60 - 100 patients a day. They see more when special teams come and it seems that there are always special teams from such locations as Germany, Norway, The United States and more. Their goal is to give quality efficient care and it means being involved with every part of the process of seeing patients from chairs, water, charts, labs etc. It is a complex process but its reputation is growing every day. People are starting to come from far away as well as our own neighborhood. And we still strive to provide this care at low cost. To see the doctor is the equivalent of about $1.30, and we help out those who cannot afford that.

They are looking forward to starting the maternal child health unit...seeing moms to be, new moms and babies. They will start out slowly but everyone tells them they will be flooded as soon as the Bogumil birthing center is finished.

This week will see the beginning of the building of the eye center. The crew is starting to finish the inside walls of the birthing center with the rough concrete. Plastering will come next, and then finishing when the team from One Community Spiritual Center (formerly Christ Church Unity) in Kansas City arrives in June. Consider being part of this ministry. Contact me if you have an interest in a trip in 2009.

Mwamanyuda

Colossians 1:9-14
For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. 10And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God.

Mwamanyuda

She loved him so much, daily she prayed for him to become a Christian so they could share their life together not only in this small village but also in eternity. Finally, after years of prayers, pleading and encouragement the Holy Spirit sparked a flame in his heart. He was baptized. He started a bible study with other local men and the prayers of this wife that he be filled with wisdom and understanding led to the church in Mwamanyuda.
The church was not finished, in fact, it was only 4 walls. The people had been working hard for the last year. The year before 200 were baptized and the congregation leveled the spot where the church would be. They hauled in stones for the foundation and began making bricks by hand. The bricks were baked on the building site and the walls were begun. We were meeting inside the walls to celebrate the church building.
The pastor preached to the people sitting in the hot sun and asked for those to be baptized to come forward. That day three lines of people came to be baptized and 280 new members were added to the congregation. It started with one woman praying.....the spark and then the flames......there is no apathy in Tanzania for the gospel.