Well this is it. Our final flight home. We’re on the plane right now some where over the Persian Gulf. It’s been a great journey. Of course for Cathy and I, everything was very familiar. I’ve learned a lot about the culture and the geography of Tanzania. And I never tire of it. In particular, I love the sense of close community I experience in Kasulu. Even with the population growth in Kasulu over the past 13 years, our friends at DWT have kept a deep sense of “belonging” in their particular branch of christian community. That’s not to say we don’t experience that back home. It’s just different. I think in a small way it has to do with a sort of protocol to everyday speach. For instance, how they greet each other follows simple, repeat patterns of speak. “Habari” (which literally means “news” for “How are you”) is always answered by “Nzuri” (good). “Jambo” is aswered by “Sijambo”. In worship if you say “Bwana Jesu Asifiwe” (Praise the Lord Jesus) the answer is always “Amin’ (Amen). And no matter where you go, people address each other in these or a similar manner.
Today we spent the morning at our hotel by the beach. 
As the tide was going out, the sand bars were exposed so Bob and I walked along them to get a better view of the ocean and shoreline. It was a beautiful and re-energizing place to be at the end of our time in Tanzania. And or course it was much better than staying in a hotel in the city.
In some ways I’m glad to be getting home, but in other ways I wish I could just stay for a long while. I so much enjoy the work I’ve been doing for the diocese and for the college over the past 13 years. I’d to do a lot more. And of course now there is the similar work I’ve done resently in Kenya, and I have a open invitation to come to Rwanda from the Diocese of Shyira. What can I say. God is moving us in this direction. We just need to work on the response. But for now, I need to get home and take care of my aortic problem that needs surgery to fix. I looking forward to getting it done so I can recover and resume the work that the Lord has called us to in this part of the world. Please be in prayer for us on all of this.
Bill
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