Christmas greetings from Tanzania! We wish you and yours God's blessings during this Christmas season and in the New Year! [click to view/print full size]

For us it certainly does not 'feel' like Christmas. It feels a lot more like spring here in Tanzania. The rains have just started, farmers are busy preparing and planting their fields, and the landscape is turning green after months of no rain. There is no commercial Christmas atmosphere here in Tanzania, no decorations, no mad rush for Christmas shopping. But regardless of whether it feels like Christmas or Spring, we will take the opportunity to celebrate the amazing gift of God's grace through the birth of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. This quite and simple Christmas holiday reminds us of that day when Jesus was born in a stable without much fanfare except the shepherds and wise men paying their respects to this unlikely Saviour.

Our latest newsletter was also sent out today. You can read it here for the latest updates and prayer requests.

We wish you a Merry Christmas and God's blessing on the New Year ahead.

Our latest newsletter is out with an update on what we've been up to and the upcoming election in Tanzania. 

Please pray for Tanzania on election day this Sunday October 25 and the week following when the election results will be released as there is a real chance that the opposition may win this election in the first time in Tanzania's history.

We are looking forward to the rains when everything turns green and comes to life, when farmers will be working their fields and planting their crops.

We have received a very warm welcome to Tanzania and we are extremely grateful for the time that we've been given to focus on our family settling in to our new life in Tanzania. An unexpected camping trip in a most spectacular spot we would never have found on our own was a real treat. International school and language school starts next week...

our August newsletter

check out the entire newsletter

We'd love to hear from you!

Our contact info:

Andre and Alexandra VanWoerden
Emmanuel International Tanzania
PO Box 962 Iringa
Tanzania 

Andre mobile: +255 763 119 580
Alex mobile:   +255 753 067 789
skype: alexandre.vw
(but facebook messenger works better and uses less bandwidth) 

facebook.com/vanwoerden.tz 

Okay, so our blog got stuck on our departure for Tanzania... Sorry about that! It was a very long journey but we safely arrived in Iringa 3 days after we left and we've had time to settle into our new home over the past 2 weeks now.

We have received a very warm welcome here in Tanzania, thanks to our awesome EI Tanzania team! We're making new friends, learning how things work here, finding our way around town, getting used to driving on the opposite side of the road again, and struggling to get by with a few words of Swahili. But we're grateful to have this time to settle in and focus on our family, helping our girls feel at home before they start school at the international school in town.

We have been posting photos on our VanWoerdens in Tanzania facebook page. We're trying to do a photo a day to capture our life here in Iringa (again, sorry if you've been checking our blog for updates -- we will be posting here more regularly once we figure out our internet - and life ;)

We're on our way to Tanzania! After a stressful week of packing and goodbyes our journey to Tanzania is really happening! We are currently hanging out in Toronto, meeting with our mission's team from head office, sleeping in, and hanging out at the pool hotel before we continue on our way to Dar es Salaam via Amsterdam...

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• Tuesday morning leave from Vancouver
• Tuesday evening, dinner with EIC team in Toronto
• Wednesday morning, sleep in and swim
• Wednesday afternoon, fly out from Toronto
• Thursday morning, coffee with Andre's grandma at the airport in Amsterdam
• Thursday morning, fly out from Amsterdam
• Thursday night, arrive in Dar es Salaam
• Thursday night, spend the night in guest house
• Friday, 10-hour drive to our new home in Iringa

Thank you to our amazing family and support team for making this mission possible!!

Only a week to go till we leave!!! And it's time to say goodbye...

We have 2 goodbye parties to get together with our friends one last time.

1. Friday (17th) 5.30pm at Earl and Jennilee Pauls' place
2. Sunday (19th) after church at Rod and Anne Heppell's place 

Please let us know if you are joining us for one of these parties (and for the address).
Please bring a salad or dessert to share. Burgers are provided. Also bring chairs or a blanket to sit on.

We just got back from a 2800km roadtrip! And we have only 11 days left to pack up before we leave for Tanzania!

We are thankful for some great family time with both sides of our family. We spent a few days at our annual Otter Lake holiday with Andre's family and then continued on from there to spend a few days with Alex's family in the Fort St John area. It was good times spent with family -- we are grateful for the opportunity, sad about saying goodbyes, and thankful for safe travels.

Now it's time for some intense packing action as the countdown is on! Only 11 days to go! We have a lot of packing, sorting, and cleaning to do, figuring out what's suitcase worthy, what's worth storing for 5 years, and what to get rid of.

It's also a season of goodbyes as we see people for the last time before our departure date. If you're in our area, we do have 2 farewell parties coming up to say goodbye: July 17 bbq at the Pauls' place, and July 19 missions bbq after church (send us a message for details).

We fly out of Vancouver on July 21 and hope to arrive in our new home in Iringa on July 24!

We have booked our flights to Tanzania!! We fly out of Vancouver BC on July 21 and arrive in Dar es Salaam July 23 and finally in Iringa on the 24th!!

That's only 4 weeks away and we have a lot to do before we can board that plane! We are spending some time with both our sides of the family (which includes a roadtrip to Fort St. John), packing and selling and storing and getting rid of stuff, and putting things in order for our time away.

We are about 97% supported so we are still looking for a few people to join our support team.

We have good flights, just over 21hrs flying time plus stopovers in Toronto and Amsterdam. Then there's a 10 hour drive from Dar es Salaam to Iringa. So about 4 days of travel. Anyone want to come visit?!

Matching Campaign update:

• $395/month already matched! $250/month left to be matched! (that would take only 5 people at $50/month)
• Matching funds have grown from $505 to $645/month!

Our supporters have put up $645/month to be matched by new donors joining our Support Team! That's nearly 10% of our budget to be matched by new supporters to bring us up to 100% Support!

Would you help the VanWoerdens get fully supported so they can book their tickets by the end of the month? 

Your monthly gift of $10, $25, or $50 makes a huge difference! Thank you!
Matching opportunity ends June 30.

Our goal is to raise 100% of our support by the end of June!! And with this exciting new opportunity that may be possible yet!

Every dollar you give will be matched dollar for dollar!

From now until the end of June, every new monthly donation will be matched dollar for dollar by a group of supporters who are committed to seeing our family get to Tanzania fully supported.

Without this matching campaign we are at 80% of our support. But if every dollar available is matched in this campaign, we will be at 95% of our support -- so close to our goal of reaching 100% by the end of June!! Half of that is already pledged, as long as it is matched up by new donations...

If you're like a lot of other people, you have probably thought your $10 or $20 per month is just not going to make a difference. But we're here to tell you that it does make a difference and especially now that every dollar you give will be doubled! 

$10 = $20 | $30 = $60 | $50 = $100 | $200 = $400

(on monthly/regular donations, not one time gifts)

So, here it is again, every donation matched dollar for dollar on all new monthly or regular donations, up to $505/month until June 30!

Download and send in your response now or contact us to learn more!

We're counting down the days but still have to come up with some numbers to reach our goal of 100% support by the end of June. 

Exciting new announcement coming up on Sunday!

vw-tz.blogspot.ca & fb/vanwoerden.tz

Help us reach our 100% SUPPORT GOAL by the end of June to send the VanWoerdens to Tanzania!
We need supporters who will support our cause monthly/annually to keep it going but we can't go to Tanzania until 100% of that support has been pledged!

 

DONATE: Download a support form or donate online through CanadaHelps. THANK YOU!

A big THANK YOU to the 140 people who joined us for spaghetti dinner Friday night and helped us raise over $1600 to help get our family to Tanzania! A huge THANK YOU to Teresa S and her boys, Arlene R, Darlene W and the many others that made this evening possible! and thanks to George E for donating the delicious sausage for the farmer sausage fundraiser! We appreciate all your support!

If you missed our spaghetti dinner fundraiser you can still be part of our Coffee Fundraiser and Farmer Sausage Fundraiser if you're in the Lower Mainland, just send us a message with your order. A variety of fair trade coffees, teas, dried fruit, cane sugar, coconut oil, etc available from Level Ground Trading. Farmer sausage from Johnstons Local-Quality comes in 3 varieties: ready to eat regular, ready to eat garlic, and uncooked.

If you're in the Chilliwack area on April 24, join us for spaghetti dinner!

What I love about our mission in Tanzania is not that we get to do some great stuff to help people there, but that we're helping churches be change agent in their communities.

Partnering with churches makes sense because it's an effective strategy for community development. That, and because I also believe in a God who want to use his church/people to be agents of transformation in our world. I believe in a God of mercy who loves justice and whose heart is broken by the plight of the poor and the suffering in our world. A God who entered into our suffering to redeem his broken creation through his Son Jesus Christ. A God who invites his followers to be his hands and feet and join in redeeming this broken world. That's a powerful reason to believe in the church as an essential element in community development. But I want to focus on why it makes sense to do community development through the local church from a practical perspective. Something we can all relate to regardless of faith or worldview.

Community development is most effective when it comes alongside people who are already trying to help themselves. It's empowering people who already have a vision and maybe even a plan and helping them achieve their goals. Sometimes a community might form a committee to address a particular issue. Like a community based orphan care center to give orphans an early childhood education and provide some respite for their extended family caregivers. Often churches are behind such community based initiatives. The local church is usually in a position of respect and influence. The church is aware of the needs in its community and it has a mandate to care for the poor, the widows, the orphans, and the suffering. As an outsider it takes a lot of work to discover the story of a community -- who's who, the history of certain problems, what's been done, what's available, etc. That's why it makes sense to partner with a local influential organization that wants so see its community flourish.

Tearfund: The Church and Community Mobilisation Process from Aaron Koch on Vimeo.

This model for community development is what's exciting about the work we will be doing with Emmanuel International in Tanzania. Tearfund is an organization that has championed this model of community development and summarizes it as follows:

"Church and community mobilisation involves mobilising a local church to act as a facilitator in mobilising the whole community to address their own needs.

This approach is different from the ‘church mobilisation’ approach because, once the local church is mobilised, it becomes a facilitator rather than the provider. The local church seeks to envision and empower community members to identify and respond to their own needs, rather than meeting those needs for them. The local church therefore works with rather than for the community. The community is in control. The local church can provide ongoing support to the community, and the community may call upon Christian organisations for technical support where necessary." - tilz.tearfund.org

Umoja, which means ‘togetherness’ in the Swahili language of East Africa, is an exciting and transformational church and community initiative. It helps church leaders and their congregations work together with the local community to bring about positive change for the whole community.

Umoja helps local churches and communities build on the resources and skills they already have. It is a process that inspires and equips local people with a vision for determining their own future with their own resources." - tearfund.org

 

Most people in Tanzania are subsistence farmers. They grow just (not quite) enough food to feed their families. Many of them live in poverty. As a result, farming is not viewed as a profitable opportunity. Tanzania's youth don't necessarily aspire to be farmers. It's only a means to survival.

But what if farming could lead to abundance? If a career in agriculture could be profitable?

Agriculture can be an essential driver of economic development and an area of great opportunity for Africa's youth. However, most young people in the region do not see agriculture as a profitable opportunity. Photo by: The MasterCard Foundation on Devex

Increasing productivity and improving crop yields is essential for changing perspectives on agriculture and effective community development in Tanzania. By implementing conservation agriculture practices farmers can build the productivity of their soils through composting and mulching. By building up and taking care of the soil on their farms, the soil will become more fertile, maintain soil moisture, and protect the soil from the effects of the hot African sun and the torrential rains. Many farmers can't afford expensive chemical fertilizers but these fertilizers only feed their crops and do nothing for the soil. Improving the farmer's soil provides long-term sustainable productivity with minimal inputs. In addition, farmers can incorporate certain species of beneficial trees into their gardens through agroforestry and Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) to draw soil nutrients to the surface where they're accessible to crops, fixing nitrogen in the soil, and providing mulch, in addition to reducing soil erosion, providing a source of forage and fuel wood, etc.

These are just some of the practices that we might promote to help farmers in Tanzania realize abundance on their farms. You can be part of the transformation. Would you consider supporting our work among Tanzania's farmers?

read more...
devex: envisioning agriculture as a business for youth in Africa

Africa's beauty is rivaled only by her destitution, her richness in natural resources comparable only to the suffering of her people. Farming God's Way empowers farmers to break free from the bondage of poverty and make use of the natural resources that surrounds them. By empowering farmers to trnsform their farms into economiclly viable ventures, it moves farmers from sufficiency to abundance, from subsistence to surplus.

Last month we posted a diagram that showed the support we still need to raise before we can schedule our departure for Tanzania. Thanks to those who joined our Support Team in February, we are currently at 60% of our monthly support. We have another ambitious goal to get our support up to 75% by the end of March so that we can be on schedule to have all our support pledged by June!!

Would you consider joining our Support Team? Schedule a coffee with us if you want to learn more about our mission or download a support form to be part of what we're doing in Tanzania.

Yesterday marked a year since our official acceptance with Emmanuel International to serve in Tanzania, launching us into the "rallying" phase to build a support network that will make this calling a reality for our family. We want to thank everyone for the support and encouragement we have received along the way. We are currently at 58% of our monthly support needed to leave for Tanzania and we have been encouraged by the recent influx of supporters joining our team! Thank you!

Our goal is to have 100% of our support pledged by June. Please let us know if you can join our support team or would like to learn more about what we're doing in Tanzania!

Are you interested in what we're doing in Tanzania but want to learn more?

Join us for an informative dessert evening in Greendale on Friday February 20, 7-9pm.

Learn about Tanzania and what we're doing there while you enjoy a cup of Tanzanian coffee and a dessert with friends. There will also be some items for sale with proceeds going to our mission:

• fair-trade coffees and teas from Tanzania and other places
• hand-made jewelry from Malawi and Haiti
• Epicure spices and goodies

If the date doesn't work out for you, give us a shout and we'll grab a Starbucks or Tim's coffee and share our mission with you (if you're in the Fraser Valley, otherwise maybe just a phone call?).

Thanks to everyone who has already committed to supporting us, we are nearly halfway to our required support level to make our mission in Tanzania a reality. We are trusting God to provide for our needs as we aim for our departure goal in June. We did some calculating and we figure we need 60 more people who will support us financially (based on the  support scenario below) and at least 25 more people who will commit to praying for us (the more the better).

Would you consider joining our Support Team? >> download a support form here

Last week, I (Andre) had the opportunity to take a course in Tropical Agriculture Development with ECHO in Florida. It was an excellent course that I wish I had taken a few years ago before our time in Malawi. I spent a week at ECHO's 50-acre Global Farm that is home to tropical trees and plants from around the world and demonstrates agriculture practices in the tropical lowlands, highlands, rainforest, semi-arid tropics, as well as urban gardens. It's an amazing setting for learning about sustainable agriculture and community development from a devoted team of staff and teachers who have a wealth of experience in agriculture missions.

more pictures on our facebook page

I gained a greater appreciation for soil life and why conservation agriculture is so important for subsistence farmers. I learned about Moringa and Katuk and Chaya and many other underutilized plants and multipurpose trees that can make a huge difference for farmers (for lunch one day we handpicked leaves and fruits from over 40 species of plants on the farm -- amazing diversity!). And we got some good exposure to integrated animal production and numerous appropriate technologies. A lot of good ideas and information packed into a week!

As we look forward to Tanzania, I'm excited about trying as many of the agricultural crops, practices, and technologies in our own backyard as we can. We will see what will be most helpful to the farmers we work with in each village as we learn what their real needs and wants are. It might be conservation farming and composting to rebuild the soil and improve crop production. It could be planting some underutilized crops to improve nutrition. Or some form of agroforestry to reduce erosion and improve growing conditions. As we anticipate working in a number of villages to address the complex issues of poverty, I am thankful to be part of the ECHO Community of development workers around the world and to have access to the vast network of knowledge and expertise it represents.

Thanks to our supporters for making it possible for me to take this valuable course.

January newsletter

You can find our latest newsletter in our newsletters archive. 

• some interesting facts on tropical agriculture
• Missions Fest Vancouver this weekend
• support update and prayer and praise items