There and Back

We returned yesterday from a week long trip across country from Mwanza to Dar Es Salaam on the east coast of Tanzania.
We left from Mwanza on the 5th with another missionary young lady, Lisa, to travel to Dar. We had two Tanzanians with us, Mabesa, a single lady teacher from the Bible College and Salome, the teenage daughter of one of the other teachers. The trip across takes two days so we arrived in Dar on Tuesday evening. After dropping off our three passengers at their destinations we drove to the home of our missionary hosts.
All of the other TZ missionary families were present for the 3 day TZ missionary meeting. During these meetings we take care of necessary business, make plans for future events/ministry, spend time listening to ministry/family reports from our colleagues and spend some relationship building time together. It was a very busy three days; there are 12 missionary units on our field now so it can get a little chaotic but everyone enjoys the opportunity to see our team mates and the children love the time they spend with their "cousins".
We have single men and women, married families with small children, couples with grown children and a couple who are actually past retirement age; the common denominator is a deep love for Tanzania and it's people and a desire to see the people of Tanzania reached with the Gospel. The way that we accomplish our part of this process is as diverse as we ourselves are but it all fits together under one main goal; to reach the lost of Tanzania.
We arrived back in Mwanza Sunday evening very tired and ready for a day or two of rest after four days of travel and 3 full days of meetings...oops, we have guests arriving first thing Monday morning!(today)
So, we are up and running to get groceries purchased, the house in order and guest rooms ready...such is the life of a missionary!