Tumshukuru Mungu!

Tumshukuru Mungu—We thank God—is a phrase we often hear in Tanzania. Tanzanians don’t celebrate Thanksgiving as a once-a-year national holiday, yet, in their everyday lives, they often express gratitude to God for their blessings. Nearly every church will have a special Sunday for Thanksgiving, usually around the time of the corn harvest in October. Also, people who want to show their gratitude to God for a special blessing, such as recovery from an illness, will often make a special offering. They will come to the front of the church to present their gifts, receive a special blessing and perhaps give a testimony of God’s goodness in their lives.

Recently Deborah was visiting Sumbawanga, the headquarters of Lake Tanganyika Diocese, one of the newest dioceses in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania. When it came time for the offering, people came singing and dancing up to the front to place their offering in a wooden box. The photo above is of the box labeled, Shukurani—Thanksgiving Offerings. There are other boxes for different kinds of offerings, such as tithes and pledges.

As is often the case in Tanzania, people also brought up sacks of corn, watermelons, eggs, and even two live chickens. The women of the church had baked about a dozen loaves of bread. Some people brought handcrafts they had made themselves. These items were auctioned off after the service and the sale price was added to the offering. In this way, people with little cash on hand could still contribute to the work of the church. Church in the U.S. might be a little more interesting if we had this custom!

As we approach Thanksgiving, we are especially thankful for visits from folks from the U.S., including a group from ELCA Mission Advancement in Chicago who came to visit projects and missionaries sponsored by the ELCA and to make some videos of mission work in Tanzania. We are also thankful for safe travels around Tanzania, a trip to Nairobi to visit the Kenya Evangelical Lutheran Church, and a safe journey to South Sudan, for the dedication of the new Lutheran Center in Juba. We are especially thankful for our wonderful supporters in the U.S., many of whom we got to visit this past summer.

Whatever you are thankful for, we pray that you will have a blessed Thanksgiving. Remember, Tumshukuru Mungu!

Top Photo: Offering box at church in Sumbawanga, Tanzania labeled Shukurani (Thanksgiving in Swahili).

Middle Photo: Offering boxes at church in Sumbawanga, Tanzania labeled Fungu La 10 (tithes) and Ahadi (pledges).

Joe and Deborah are missionaries living in Arusha, Tanzania, where they are the East Africa Regional Representatives for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and work in Tanzania, Kenya, South Sudan, and Uganda. Their daughter, Christa, is a sophomore at the University of Southern California this fall.

Joe and Deborah can be contacted at Joe.Troester@elca.org and Deborah.Troester@elca.org

Troesters to Visit Supporting Congregations in the U.S. in Summer 2017

This summer we plan to visit congregations and other community gatherings to give a presentation on our work for the ELCA in East Africa. We will concentrate our visits on our supporting congregations in Illinois, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Our itinerary is below; however, there are still a few events pending. We are greatly looking forward to meeting new people and greeting old friends.

Thank you for your prayers and support.

Joe and Deborah Troester

East Africa Regional Representatives for the ELCA

P.O. Box 1770, Arusha, Tanzania 

Troester Itinerary

·         July 9: Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jonesboro, Illinois

·         July 16: Christ Community Church in Columbia, Illinois

·         July 20: Supper Club at First Presbyterian Church in Carbondale, Illinois

·         July 24 to 28: Summer Missionary Conference near Chicago, Illinois

·         July 29 and 30: Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania

·         July 30: Trindle Spring Lutheran Church in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania

·         August 1: St Peter's Lutheran Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania

·         August 2: Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Pearl River, New York

·         August 5 and 6: St John Evangelical Lutheran Church in Oak Harbor, Ohio

·         August 20: Epiphany Lutheran Church in Carbondale, Illinois

·         August 27: First Presbyterian Church in Carbondale, Illinois

Other events pending

Photo Caption: Map showing the states we will be visiting this summer: Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York

Joe and Deborah are missionaries living in Arusha, Tanzania, where they are the East Africa Regional Representatives for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and work in Tanzania, Kenya, South Sudan, and Uganda. Their daughter, Christa, will be a sophomore at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts this fall. 

Happy Mother’s Day from Tanzania

Happy Mother’s Day to all our friends and supporters, especially those of you who are moms. Here in Tanzania Mother’s Day is not as big a day as it is in the U.S., but people here do honor their mothers in many ways. Often a mom is referred to using the name of her first-born child. For example, I might be called “Mama Christa,” since our daughter’s name is Christa. 

Mothers in Tanzania and throughout Africa are often expected to do the main tasks of childrearing—not only cooking and cleaning, but also providing much of the food for the household and paying for school fees. This is especially true in the case of widows or those who may have been abandoned by their husbands.

When our colleague ELCA missionary Bethany Friberg arrived in Tanzania over twenty years ago, she noticed that many women struggled to put food on the table and often the family didn’t have money to educate their children. Bethany and her husband, Dr. Mark Friberg, live out in Maasailand near the border with Kenya, where Mark serves in Lutheran health clinics ministering to the Maasai.

Bethany admired the beautiful traditional beadwork that the Maasai women make. These items are often sold to tourists, so she had the idea of forming a women’s cooperative to make and sell beadwork. Twenty years later, some thirty women are working together in the Naapok Bead Project. Between them all, they have sent over fifty of their children to school, some of whom have even graduated from university, a goal that in the past only seemed a distant dream. They earned money to buy goats, seeds for gardens, and other agricultural projects that have enriched their families’ diets.

Recently, Joe and I attended the dedication of Naapok’s new center, where they now have a cement building where they can meet to work together and can safely store their bead-making materials. They also built an outdoor shelter, suitable for holding meetings or church services, and even constructed restrooms with flush toilets—a real luxury in the Tanzania bush! The women served us a delicious lunch of beef, goat, vegetables, and rice—typical for this part of the world.

We are happy that as the ELCA East Africa Regional Representatives we can encourage Bethany and Mark in their work.

Top Photo: Bethany Friberg and members of the Naapok beading group. Our ELCA Land Cruiser is in the background.

Second Photo: Joe and Deborah receive beaded key chains as gifts from a member of the Naapok women’s cooperative.

Joe and Deborah are missionaries living in Arusha, Tanzania, where they are the East Africa Regional Representatives for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and work in Tanzania, Kenya, South Sudan, and Uganda. Their daughter, Christa, will be a sophomore at the University of Southern California this fall.