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Tearfund: “Poverty does more than exhaust, starve, trap and kill people. It destroys their sense of worth, limits their horizons, and robs people of the chance to reach their full potential. Tearfund’s call is to follow Jesus where the need is greatest. We do whatever it takes to end poverty and rebuild poor communities. We work through local churches, because they’re Jesus’ body on earth, ready to care for the whole person – and the whole community – inside and out.”
Background
St. Stephen’s Church has a long history of working with mission partners in Tanzania. Supporting the Rayners through Tearfund in Gairo, the Northway’s through Crosslinks at Berega Hospital, and most recently the Rev Bob Hurley at the theological college in Morogoro.
Rather than continue to finance individual missionaries as in the past, the PCC and the Mission Action Group agreed to move St. Stephen’s mission giving to a more relational one with a community, with the aim to have teams or individuals visiting the partnering community to help establish and maintain an active and on going relationship.
Having considered the Diocese of Rochester’s “Overseas Partnership Programme”, and having had Tearfund as long term mission partner it was decided that a hybrid option of sponsoring a village in our link Diocese of Mpwapwa through a Tearfund “tailored relationship” as a connected church would tick all the boxes nicely, and Tearfund proposed that we consider developing a partnership with the village of Matongoro in the district of Kongwa, through their Church and Community Mobilisation Process (CCMP).
Purpose of Visit
Initial progress proved somewhat slower than had been expected, a possible indication of how early St. Stephen’s are into the Tearfund CCMP programme with a “tailored relationship”.
The decision to send Rev Mark Barker and Stephen Barbor from the Mission Action Group to visit the project in the Diocese of Mpwapwa was in part necessary to ensure that the decision to join the CCMP was appropriate, to see existing CCMP projects and to visit the proposed partnering community at Matongoro to begin to advance the relationship with them.
Achievements
Mark and Stephen were hosted throughout the visit by Rev William Msaki who is employed by the Christian Council for Tanzania (CCT) in Dodoma, an agency that partners with Tearfund across Tanzania. William is a young man with a lot of energy and a great sense of humour, but also a man with a real passion for CCMP as a tool for making a difference in transforming communities.
In Iringa, Mark and Stephen were escorted by William, along with:
· Ibrahimu Abdu the CCMP Co-coordinator for the Diocese of Ruaha, and
· Patrick Sosopi a Masai who also works for the Diocese providing practical and technical support in the field of solar energy.
In Kongwa, the support team from the Diocese of Mpwapwa included:
- Rev Agripa Ndatila – the Director of Mission and the Link Partnerships,
- Rev Boniface Mpembeule – Diocesan Director of Development and
- Rev Stamford Chamwiyega – Pastor of St James’s Church, Matongoro
It was really helpful having the opportunity to meet and spend time with Agripa, Boniface and Stamford as St. Stephen’s relationship with the Mpwapwa clergy will be key in the success of our relationship with the project.
The visit to the village of Magozi in Ruaha Diocese, where they had been in the CCMP process for 10 years was very helpful, stimulating and encouraging, and we came away having seen a community that had been transformed by the process and was continuing to be transformed. Whilst we recognised that we would have been taken to see a successful project, and that there will be other villages where the process won’t have worked so well, we did see what was possible and it answered many of our questions about how the process works and the benefits of it.
We then went to Mpwpwa Diocese and visited the proposed partenership village of Matongoro, and saw how much in need the village was in comparison, but also as this was the childhood village of the Bishop, how he was wanting to base the first CCMP project in his Diocese here and then spread it out further across the Diocese and even the country.
In the light of our visit, it was agreed that the project in Matongoro was practical, and honoured biblical principles in caring for the poor and the disadvantaged.
Next Steps
On Sunday 30 March, Archbishop Jacob along with David Taylor from Tearfund will attend St. Stephen’s for the morning service in order to sign a Memorandum of Understanding between the three parties, and the process will begin with the training up of facilitators from the village. They then start training the church and helping the church to recognize the biblical calling to work with the community, before involving the village leaders in working out a plan for how the resources around the village could be utilized to help transform their community.
We witnessed the failure of earlier projects – for example classrooms where walls had fallen and not been replaced, and water bore holes that had not been adequately maintained and had consequently failed – but much of this had been done for the community rather than encouraging the community to work together to transform their village. The relationship between the community and proposed process will require encouragement to ensure ownership is retained by the community, so ensuring effectiveness on a long term basis.
It was also decided by the Archbishop and CCMP that they would start the process in 5 villages – Matongoro (our partnership), and 4 other neighbouring villages – Mlanje, Nolimi, Mkoka and Songambele ‘B’. The reasons given for this were that when training facilitators they may as well train more as there is little extra cost, that the villages would urge each other on in the process as none would want to be seen to be doing worse than the others, and that there would be a way of seeing what worked best and how the process could be honed in other places in the Diocese.
Glossary of terms:
ACT Anglican Church of Tanzania
CCMP Church and Community Mobilisation Process
CCT Christian Council of Tanzania
Compassion Compassion International is a Christian child sponsorship charity
Dar Dar es Salaam (coastal port, and former capital of Tanzania).
Magozi Established CCMP community in the Diocese of Ruaha
Matongoro CCMP link community for St. Stephen’s in Mpwapwa Diocese
Mpwapwa The Diocese in which the district of Kongwa can be found
Teams:
Tearfund – Connected Church, UK (http://connected.tearfund.org/en/)
|
Tim Malcolm |
Connected Church Manager |
|
David Taylor |
Church Relationship Manager |
|
Joanne Dew-Jones |
Connected Church Team Administration |
Tearfund – Tanzania
|
Justin Nyamoga |
Country Representative for Tearfund, Tanzania |
|
Ezra Kanyankole |
Administrative support for Justin Nyamoga |
|
Fr Canon William Msaki |
Christian Council of Tanzania |
Diocese of Ruaha
|
Rt. Rev. Joseph Mgomi |
Diocesan Bishop |
|
Revd. Canon Charity Nyagawa |
Diocesan Secretary General |
|
Ibrahimu Addu |
CCMP Co-ordinator for the Diocese |
|
Patrick Sosopi |
Diocese ‘solar energy’ consultant |
Diocese of Mpwapwa
|
Rt. Rev. Jacob Chimeledya |
Arch Bishop of Tanzania, and Diocesan Bishop |
|
Rev Canon Michael Zacariah |
Diocesan Secretary General |
|
Rev Boniface Mpembeule |
CCMP Co-ordinator for the Diocese and, Director of Social Development for the Diocese. |
|
Rev. Agripa Ndatila |
Director of Mission and Evangelism, Diocesan Links Co-ordinator, and Tutor at St. Philips, Kongwa |
|
Rev Canon John Maninda |
Principle, St. Philips College (ACT) |
|
Janet Allen |
St. Philip’s Theological College administrator and tutor |
|
Rev Stamford and Marian Chamwiyega |
Vicar, St Jacobs at Matongoro |
|
Sylvester Chiamwela |
Links Co-ordinator for education projects, including Queen Esther’s School, Mpwapwa |
Thank you for all your prayers for both of us whilst we were in Tanzania. We kept safe and well, and we both believe that this trip has been a very positive visit, helping us to understand a lot more about the CCMP process and how the Connected Church partnership we wish to establish might work, and this visit allowed us the opportunity to get to know players in the programme in Ruaha and Mpwapwa Dioceses.
To see full report with diary, please see attached media file Tanzania visit report March 2014
Mark Barker & Stephen Barbor
14 March 2014