Our December newsletter: 
As we come to the end of the year, we reflect on a year of firsts and lasts as we are preparing for our journey to Tanzania in Spring 2015. But first we set off on a road trip to the great white north for Christmas. read more...

In Tanzania this week, 47 countries gathered to talk about reducing deforestation and forest degradation. According to one Tanzanian spokesperson, the most effective way to reduce deforestation is to improve people's lives through income generating activities like agroforestry and fuel efficient stoves -- a very cool affirmation of the work we are doing in Tanzania!

“The rate of deforestation would greatly reduce if alternative income sources are provided to the local communities,” he said, adding that rural communities will gain more money and improve their lives if they are trained and made to carry out profitable beekeeping, agro forestry, ecotourism and the making and using of fuel efficient stoves. 

[Mahmoud Mgimwa, Tanzania’s Deputy Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) Parcipant Meeting (PC18), Arusha, Tanzania]

About 40% of Tanzania is forested with about half of that in reserves and protected areas. Only about 10% of Tanzania's forests are actively managed and the remaining forests are on village land; and this is where deforestation and degradation are most severe. With approximately 40 million people living on the land as subsistence farmers, the major contributors to deforestation are clearing land for agriculture, overgrazing, and especially a persistent reliance on wood fuel for energy. [more on Tanzania's forests here]

Tanzania has committed to planting millions of trees in the next 16 years [UN-REDD], which is definitely good news, but I'm not sure how they will ever manage such a large campaign or how effective it will be when people need to cook their next meal today. Like Mgimwa said, what is really needed is alternative sources of income for subsistence farmers to improve their lives so that they can move beyond survival to actually caring for the land and planning for the future. 

From our experience in Malawi, it is community based organizations like churches and dedicated interest committees that have the potential to make a real difference because they already have a mandate to change lives and change their communities. With a hunger and a vision for change, they are able to utilize even their very scarce resources to make improvements in their communities. That's why we want to come alongside churches and other community based organizations to empower them to make a real difference where it counts. And that's what we love about Emmanuel International's grass roots approach. 

We're having a dessert evening to share more about what we'll be doing in Tanzania on Saturday November 15. So if you can make it, come on out for some Tanzanian coffee, dessert, and social evening to learn about Tanzania and our ministry there and how you can be part of it. We'll also have some coffee and jewelry for sale. Please RSVP via our facebook page.

Africa is a daunting place, a place where most westerners don't dare to visit without a pharmaceutical arsenal of anti-malarials, antibiotics and anti-diarrheal tablets. Now, thanks to ebola, they don’t dare visit at all. [worse than ebola]

What makes the current ebola epidemic especially devastating is that it's just one more debilitating setback in a region plagued by HIV/AIDS, malaria, maternal and child mortality, and a plethora of other contributors to poverty in Africa.

As we're preparing to move our family to Africa, one of the most frequently asked questions right now is if we aren't worried about the ebola outbreak? So we did a little research. Our home base in Iringa is over 7000km or 100hrs driving time from the epicenter of the ebola epidemic (double the distance from our current home to the nearest case of ebola in Dallas, TX).

We also came across an interesting diagram of the leading causes of death in Africa [VOX]. Having lived in Africa, we would have identified the top killers as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and cholera. We're not far out, but interestingly, respiratory infections is the leading cause of death after HIV/AIDS.

Including illnesses such as pneumonia, bronchitis, and tuberculosis, a major contributor to respiratory deaths in Africa is household air pollution. The World Health Organization (WHO) calls it "the forgotten 3 billion" who still cook and heat their homes using solid fuels (wood, crop wastes, charcoal, dung). [WHO] Smoke is the silent killer in Africa. Can fuel efficient stoves make a difference?

At this time of Thanksgiving, we will indulge in a decadent feast with our family and give thanks for our health and wealth. We are thankful for so many things, and mindful of the abundance we are privileged to enjoy and often take for granted in this part of the world. We give thanks to God for how richly he has blessed our family and we will pray, "Make us a blessing even as you have blessed us."

We also give thanks to the farmers who produce the variety of delicious foods we get to enjoy for Thanksgiving dinner. We remember that so many around the world don't have such a surplus of food to indulge in and feast on, even for a special occasion with family. Many are subsistence farmers scraping a meager existence from the soil that barely feeds their family.

Farmers in Africa and throughout the developing world are striving for the same things our farmers work tirelessly for here: the resources and skills that enable them to grow nutritious, bountiful food to feed their families, their neighbors, and their communities. In Africa, most farmers -- the majority of whom are women -- are striving to achieve these goals on a budget of less than $1.25 a day, without adequate training, supplies or access to markets. With farming employing nearly two-thirds of the population of sub-Saharan Africa, a focus on training farmers and providing them with sustainable agriculture skills has the potential to move millions out of extreme poverty and onto the path to a financially sufficient and stable life. [huffingtonpost.com]

In Tanzania we hope to help farming families access nutritious food through sustainable farming so that they can escape poverty and experience health and prosperity. We share only from the abundance that has been entrusted to us.

We are thankful for the opportunity to serve in Tanzania. We are thankful for a supportive community of family and friends. We are thankful for those who have already partnered with us. We are thankful for prayer warriors. We are thankful for God's beautiful creation; for abundance, diversity, resilience, and creativity. We are thankful for God's redemptive plan; for hope, transformation, renewal, and abundant life.

Praise the Lord for his great love... 

For he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.

-- Psalm 107.8-9 --

As you can tell from our blog, a big part of our mission in Tanzania is these cool little clay stoves. Although Alex may be able to lay claims to being a great cook and Andre can appreciate a deliciously prepared (western or African) meal, neither of us are potters or experts on fuel efficient stoves. But the Monger family is! They have spent the last four years in Tanzania promoting these stoves, with Tim working with communities on the production of these stoves and Rachel doing cooking demonstrations with local women (check out their blog, "What's Cookin' in Tanzania?"). They have also trained Jesca, a Tanzanian community development worker, to continue their work with the stoves. There is definitely a strong need for this simple cooking technology, as was recently highlighted in the news with some newly published research (see previous post).

But it's not all about stoves. We will be joining the EI-Tanzania team to build on the success of these simple clay stoves through complimentary agriculture and forestry interventions. The beauty of these stoves is that they tie in to so many other aspects of community development.

FORESTRY: The stoves help address the issue of massive deforestation and the diminishing supply of cooking fuel, but need to be combined with afforesation efforts. Tree planting initiatives can help reforest the area around a community to rebuild forest habitat, prevent soil erosion, and provide a source for firewood and timber production. But some species of trees can also be planted in farmers' gardens through intercropping methods to actually increase their crop yields while also providing a steady supply of firewood close to home. And planting various fruit trees around community wells and schools can provide nutritious fruits and the trees are less likely to be cut down.

FOOD PROCESSING: The promotion of fuel efficient stoves is also combined with cooking demonstrations that focus on nutrition, health, and hygiene. Food processing can also be incorporated, such as utilizing nutritious crops, preserving and storing foods, etc.

AGRICULTURE: Cooking takes the subsistence farming community back to the garden, naturally leading to improved farming practices, such as kitchen gardens, crop diversification, composting, conservation farming, small-scale irrigation, and so on.

SMALL BUSINESS: The goal of the stoves project is to establish a sustainable supply of energy efficient stoves made of local clay in the rural communities, in which the income prospect for local stove producers is the incentive to produce more stoves. This income generating aspect has in many cases resulted in the development of local community banks, also known as Village Savings and Loans (VSL) groups. As communities pool their resources, they are able to give out small loans to enable its members to start small businesses and generate additional income. There are numerous success stories of improved livelihoods -- school fees for children, improved farm inputs such as fertilizer and tools, bicycles for transportation, etc.

CHURCH: Working in close participation with the local church, the community will be able to identify its specific needs and address those needs through appropriate technologies and practices. That means that in one community we may focus on some aspect of agriculture while in another we may collaborate with our water and sanitation team to provide a community with clean drinking water or build proper latrines at a local school and in yet another community the focus might be on strengthening its church leadership. Regardless of the means, the local church will build its capacity to meet the spiritual, emotional, and physical needs of its community. We believe in community development through the local church because of its shared mandate and local presence as an agent of change in the community and we feel privileged to have the opportunity to come alongside rural Tanzanian churches to be part of building God's Kingdom in Tanzania.

Cooking on open fires fueled by wood or charcoal made the news this week, as The Lancet Respiratory Medicine Commission published research that shows the health risks for about 2.8 billion people in the world who cook on open fires.

A third of the world's population uses solid fuel derived from plant material (biomass) or coal for cooking, heating, or lighting. These fuels are smoky, often used in an open fire or simple stove with incomplete combustion, and result in a large amount of household air pollution when smoke is poorly vented. Air pollution is the biggest environmental cause of death worldwide, with household air pollution accounting for about 3.5-4 million deaths every year. Women and children living in severe poverty have the greatest exposures to household air pollution.

CBC News reports, "Clean cooking technologies, such as advanced cook stoves and solar powered systems, exist. But they need to be affordable, efficient and long lasting to replace traditional methods."

The portable clay stoves that we will be promoting in Tanzania are made entirely from local resources. They are relatively simple to produce, affordable, and convenient to use. It's a sustainable technology that drastically cuts firewood consumption and significantly reduces the amount of smoke produced.

The researchers hope their research "will provide the impetus to drive change and tackle what is a preventable, but devastating, burden on the health of the world’s population." Glad to be part of the change in Tanzania.

We went camping at Ross Lake on the August long weekend. It's a beautiful spot to go camping and we can't believe we've never been there before. Other than feeding a lot of mosquitoes (at least here they don't carry malaria), it was a great camping trip. We were thankful for being able to have campfires on the US-side campground while the fire ban was in effect at the BC campground just across the border!

Going to fill up our water jug at the tap to take back to our campsite, Talia (8) exclaimed, "Camping would be boring in Africa, wouldn't it? They have to do this every day." With that simple statement she captured the harsh reality for so many people living on the continent of Africa.

Women and girls, who are responsible for common household duties, walk an average of 6 kilometers to bring home water, which may or may not be clean. They often carry up to 20kg (44lbs) of water on their heads. In addition, these same women and girls are responsible for collecting firewood to cook the family meals. Living in communities where poverty has led to deforestation, these women and girls have to walk further to collect firewood, taking away time they could have spent in other activities to improve their lives, such as schooling or small business. And as firewood becomes more scarce, fuel prices increase, driving on the vicious cycle of poverty.

That's why a simple clay portable stove can have such an impact -- healthier families with greater opportunities!

The video gives a snapshot of the Monger family’s work with Fuel Efficient Stoves in Magozi in Tanzania.

our EI Tanzania team

We're thankful for the EI team that is in Tanzania and is already welcoming us as part of the team through email and skype. They seem like a great team and we look forward to joining them. (You can meet some of the team members here)

EI Tanzania country directors, Andrew and Miriam Wingfield, recently gave this recommendation:

“From our first contact with the VanWoerden family, we recognised that they have a heart to serve local churches, equipping them to share the whole Gospel with their communities, addressing people’s physical, spiritual and emotional needs in an integrated way. This is something very close to our hearts too, and as EI’s work has developed here in Tanzania over recent years we sense God at work sharpening our focus to equip local churches to be effective agents of grassroots transformation. Andre and Alex’s backgrounds in natural resources management, business management and seminary, coupled with their experience serving with EI in Malawi provide an almost perfect fit for the needs we have in our small team right now. We look forward to seeing how God will use the gifts, skills and experience he has already given them, as well as developing new ones as they work alongside Tanzanian Christians and rural communities. On behalf of the EI Tanzania team, we are very excited to welcome them as part of our team here, and to learn together as we serve.”

The Monger family is part of the Tanzania team, but they recently moved from Iringa to begin a new work in Mwanza. It has been a blessing to be able to read their blog archives to learn about their experiences in Tanzania, which has been great for preparing us and getting us excited about joining the EI-TZ team.

This is a test post. We're preparing for Tanzania, working out all the details, almost ready to begin raising the support we need for our mission... We're excited about going back to Africa, and our girls are ready to go, which is amazing. We're excited about the ministry we will get to be part of -- working closely with local churches in Tanzania to transform their communities through simple grassroots interventions like fuel efficient cooking stoves and the planting of trees and improved agriculture practices. The project started with the fuel efficient stoves, which are portable clay cooking stoves made from local resources and use much less firewood -- the same stoves we promoted in Malawi. The stoves have been a great success so now it is time to expand by building on this simple intervention with forestry and agriculture practices that will further improve the lives of the people in these communities and reduce deforestation. Anyway, great stuff to be a part of. Stay tuned for more to come...