Bill Schrull
This will be my last post from Kasulu. Tomorrow morning we leave at 8 AM to head back to Kigoma for our flight to Dar Es Salaam. In Dar we will stay at the Kunduchi Beach Hotel. I got a really low price for our rooms there. Usually it is more expensive than staying in the city, but when I found the low price I jump on the offer. This will be a nice place to spend our last day in the country. It’s right along the Indian Ocean. It’s a beautiful place to stay as you will see when I get to write from there.
Today in Kasulu, we had early morning chapel at the college. Bob preached and I sang a couple of praise songs. Both were received well. It was nice to meet some of the newer students at the college. The last time we were there was two years ago, so most of the students from that time have graduated and gone on to ministry and other things. For me the rest of the day was spent at the college doing some last minutes upgrades and such. There was one computer that was originally the college server before we started bringing Mac Mini computers as servers. It was a Dell computer with good spec’s and a pretty good processor, so we decided to recommission it as a work station rather than a server. That meant a completely new installation of the Windows 10 operating system. 
The installation went well and over the course of the morning and afternoon I got all of the software loaded they needed to make use of it. Afterward, Bon (he is the computer tech for the college) and I went over creating backups of the Windows servers we are running on the Mac Mini computers. That pretty much completed all of the work I had to do for the college on this trip.
All in all, I’m really pleased with how everything has worked out on this trip. We got plenty of times to visit with various churchs and congregations together, I got everything done on the computer systems. I think Bob had and exceptional time here experiencing the people and the culture of Tanzania. And Cathy was very well received and appreciated for being here because of her fight with cancer over the last year. You know, in Tanzania most people think of cancer as the kiss of death, and for the most part they are right. There simply is no medical facilities and procedures here for someone to do battle with the disease. So to see someone who has survived cancer is a big deal!
Tonight we had dinner at the Bishop’s house with several of the DWT leaders. The received a lot of thanks from our friends for the things we have done for LTC and for the diocese. We in kind thanked them for their hospitality and helpfulness. They really made it easy to be here and to do the things we hoped to do and accomplish. One thing in particular for me was having a car available to us so that we could drive to and from various places in Kasulu so that we did not have to depend on having a driver to do that for us. The independence to move about as we needed to helped to maximize our time here.
So now it’s on to the business of getting ready for our travels home. I’ll write some more tomorrow from the Kunduchi Hotel. Until then.
Bill
Wow, the time is going fast. Too fast really. I enjoy being here in Kasulu very much. I know it’s going to be hard to leave on Friday. So let’s not focus on that Bill.
Since I did not post anything yesterday, let me bring things up-to-date. Monday was the first day we had a ample amount of heavy rain. Yup! The raining season is finally upons us here in Kasulu. The season will last for many months (October – May). That’s not to say that they get rain everyday or even with some breaks for several days. But, it is the time when crops get planted, things grow and this part of East Africa gets greener. It also helps to tamp down the dust. Dust is everywhere in this and other parts of the country.
And it gets into everything, most especially computer equipment. That’s one of the reasons I like the thin client networking model for this part of the world. Thin client are small, free of cooling fans and are pretty much all solid state in design. That means they attract and collect a much less dust than the average computer. Just need to blow them out everyone once in a while to keep them running for many years. Not so with keyboards and mice. They really take a beating. I noticed that several of the keyboards in the computer room have keys that are sticking and are difficult to type on. We did bring 10 new keyboards and mice with us, so those replacements should help a bit.
Back to Monday…. I spend a good part of the day at LTC working with the computer systems. Cathy used her time catching up on blogging (@ http://trips.schrull.us) and Bob worked on his prep for Tuesday morning chapel and hung out with me, looking over what I was doing on the computer systems. Lunch was at the LTC Canteen, which is run by the college as you might guess by the name. It’s a small enterprise that they got into to serve the community and also to generate some funds for the college as well. In fact, that is also what they are up to with the computer lab at LTC. They run many classes through out the year on applications like Microsoft Word, Excel as well as others. Right now they are in the process of getting certified for vocational training in computer applications by the Tanzania Government because of this. What’s really rewarding about it all is that I’ve had the pleasure of seeing them take this gift from Encourage, Inc (a charitable Christian trust that gave the intial grants to start it all) along with St. Paul’s and other sources and really put it to good use. My understanding is that the Tanzanian Government approached LTC about becoming certified because they have a good facility with good equipment and a great reputation around the Kasulu area. Honestly, I could not be more pleased for them.
On to Tuesday… Today was similar for me. Just working at the college. This morning at chapel, Bob shared a scripture and gave his testimony, which seems to touch the hearts of those listening. Bishop Makaya in particular commented on his appreciation of what Bob shared and gave thanks to the Lord for his strong witness. Later today, we had time to get together with KCC, which is the Kasulu Cathedral Choir. We shared some songs back and forth and then had dinner together with some of the leaders from the choir.
Now it just about time to hit the sack. Tomorrow morning we get together with Bishop Makaya and head off to a new church that recently started over near Musagara for confirmations. I’m sure we’ll be asked to share a song or two and perhaps a testimony or two as well. Should be a great day. I always enjoy going off to events like this with the Bishop. I know that Bob will enjoy it very much. I’ve not said a lot about his experiences here in my blog, but I can tell you that he is having a fantastic time in Kasulu.
That’s all for now.
Yours in Christ,
Canon Bill