Out of Tanzania - from the McKays

We have enjoyed the start to our time at St John's University of Tanzania.  Walking around the dry and dusty campus reminds us a lot of our days at Maningrida in Arnhem Land.   Our house in Tanzania

  • It’s comfortable but basic and functional and we are settling in well. We are surrounded by open country looking to some hills.
  • Our yard is rather bleak but some new plants are starting to grow.  
  • Our neighbour keeps goats, cows, pigs, chooks, ducks, guinea fowl, so we sit down to dinner with the sound of the guinea fowl nesting in our tree for the night.

Work is an interesting challenge

  • We share an office with a secondhand computer each and there are no phones, no printers.  
  • The five departments of the faculty have a computer per department and there is a printer and a data projector for the whole faculty (31 academic staff).
  • Education classes are all in excess of 700 students. 
  • Alison is the only admin person in the faculty - there was NO admin before her -and I will begin teaching soon.

Our colleagues

  • Still early days, mainly meeting people and understanding the processes.
  • The university's second-ever graduation since its foundation in 2007 was yesterday [Saturday] with over 1000 graduating.  A HUGE success!

Faith

  • We attend chapel weekday mornings at 7.30 on our way to work and also go to the 7.30 English service in the chapel on Sunday.  
  • The chaplain is Bishop Francis Ntiruka, who studied many years ago in Australia.  
  • This last Sunday we also went to the English service in the Dodoma cathedral, where lots of the expatriates in town go to church.
  • Following that there is a Swahili service and we are planning to go to that some Sunday not too far away.  
  • We have joined a Bible study group on Wednesday nights.  
  • At this stage we are just keeping our eyes and ears open for opportunities to contribute, whether to students, staff or whoever.

   

The view from the back yard

Welcome

  • Shopping in the market is a very different experience, but we have also been grateful for those who have helped us find our way around.
  • We have been made very welcome by, everyone, both Tanzanian and expatriate members of the university and were especially helped in settling in by CMS missionaries Elmari and Malcolm Buchanan and also CrossLinks missionaries Sharon and Robert Heaney and CMS affiliate (like ourselves) Heather Kerr.

Please Pray for Us

  • Praise God for the way he continues to show us the way and take care of us in many ways.
  • Pray for resilience in the heat and long days.
  • Pray for us to develop good relationships with colleagues and students at the university.
  • Pray for the university as it struggles with being a Christian university rather than just a church university, and especially Graham as one of the senior leaders.

 This comes with our love and daily prayer for you and Cheryl and for the people of the church at CottesloeGraham and Alison    

MusingsSherrie YapGraham McKayComment