Visiting Nickson's Village

Friday 

Today we went to Nickson's village. His village is normally about an hour 1/2 away from Arusha, but they are resurfacing the road so there were many diversions. Which meant that you had to drive on the bumpy dirt road next to the main road. This made the trip four hours! AAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH! It was not fun traveling.

We finally reached the village and we picked up Nickson's brother, Vincent. We checked into a place to stay for the night. Then we went shopping at Vincent's shop. He has a small shop that sells paintings, carvings, necklaces, and a few other items. As soon as all the people saw that were in Vincent's shop, they were lining up outside to try and get us to buy from them. They did not like that we were doing all our business with Vincent. We all bought something and even put in a large order for some items to sell back in the states.

The first thing we had to do was deliver a suitcase of medical supplies to a church. When we got there we found out the person was from America. She was just in Madison, WI making connections with some nurses and teachers there to connect in with the school she works at here in Africa. What a small world!

Then we went to visit Nickson's mom. It was so nice to finally meet her. His younger brother was also there. Vincent's little girl was there and she recognized Karen right away. It was so cute how she came running to the car and gave her a big hug! After some greetings and family photos, we began handing out some shoes, t-shirts, and pillowcase dresses. It didn't take long before all the neighbors heard we were there and they all came for clothes. Pretty soon there must have been 50 kids trying to get shoes and dresses. We gave out all we had. We also gave some soccer balls to Nickson's brother. He was really excited about them.

After that, we went to Vincent's house and met his wife and two year old daughter. He took us on a tour of his place. He had a nice two room place with an extra room for cooking. He moved there this past year and is planning on building a house for his mom next to his.

Finally back to our place for the evening. We had a nice dinner outside.

The next morning, we went to visit Vincent's church. This church is also a partner church with Hope To Others ( the organization we came with). Last year the Muslims came to the village and burned down their church and the pastor's house. So right now they are in a temporary building and they are in the process of building a new church. The have a two year bible program being offered through Joshua Nations that Vincent and his wife Sophia attend. Vincent is studying to become a pastor. We are so proud of the change we are seeing in Vincent. He is growing spiritually and prospering in his life. 

After we left the village, we had the long bumpy road back to Arusha. When we got back to Arusha, we had to attend a rotary club meeting. This is the first rotary club in Arusha and they are partnering with the rotary club in Sun Prairie. They are all hoping to partner together to have a medical clinic built at the New Life Band School site this year. The rotary club shared several stories with us of how the clinic would benefit their area. They are excited about anything that will help their community.