Sorry my friends that I did not get a post off yesterday. Cathy and I had a very busy day down at the Bible College and then were out to dinner at one of our friends home’s, Ephriam Ntikabuze. Ephriam is another of the first people I met back during my initial visit in 2005. He is currently the Diocesan Youth Director. Once we got home last night, we were so exhausted that we just went to bed right away. So let me catch you up on what’s been going on.
Wednesday was more or less a work day for us at the Bible College. After scanning the main server, I found that it had been damaged enough by computer virus / malware that it needed a complete reinstallation of the Windows operating system. That’s not unusual really. I’ve been working systems like this for a long time and have found that either through malware or just too many installs and uninstalls of one thing or another that it’s best to start over. The malware got into the system because it’s been hard keep the protection software up to date from such a long distance over a relatively slow Internet connection. This was work that I had not anticipated so I was glad that the installation went quickly. Everything is running very well on the server now. For those of you who are “techie” types, the reason for a server computer is because I 
have employed a thin client architecture for the KBC Network. Back in 2006 when I was spec’ing out the systems for them, I realized that managing electric power consumption was going to be our biggest challenge. KBC had an old diesel generator that did not work well and consumed a lot of costly fuel to run. Battery stored solar power was our best option but we needed then to work on lowering the normal power consumption that typical PC’s require to run. We wanted to have at least 10 workstations, but that would have required a lot of solar panels and many costly batteries for storage. So I went with thin client computing. Thin clients allowed me to a multi user system whereby the thin client computers would simply open up individual user sessions of Windows with each working independently from the same single server computer. The thin clients computers themselves are basically low power consumption terminals. Using those along with flat panel monitors made it possible for us to run the systems with 8 solar panels and 4 deep cycle batteries. In fact, during the long sunny days during the dry seasons, we can run the entire operation from the solar panels while charging the batteries at the same time. Was that techie enough for you? I’ll stop here. The point is there are ways to bring computer technology to places like Kasulu that are efficient and affordable. We were able to accomplish that.
Moving on to today; we again spent the majority of our time at KBC working with the computers doing post installation setups and user session preparation. With those completed, we got the good news that our new DSL connection was ready to be connected. We completed that and are now able to connect to the Internet through faster land based provisioning, leaving behind our faithful but expensive satellite connection. Things sure have come a long way in the last 6 years. I’ll be running some tests tomorrow and making some adjustments to the network to optimize the new connection.
After working on the computers most of the day, we took a break at about 6:15 PM to meet with KCC (Kasulu Cathedral Choir). They were just finishing their practice time. We will be singing a song with them on Sunday at Murusi Parish. This will be yet another long and awesome worship service we will attend along with Bishop Makaya. Cathy and I will be singing and leading the song “He Reigns” from the Newsboy. Great song and it’s got a chorus that was easy to teach to KCC. We hope to have the congregation join in as well. There is a counter melody in the chorus “Glory, glory, glory, glory, halleluia, halleluia”, which is easily translated into “Utukufu, utukufu, halleluia, halleluia”. That’s the right number of syllables and the correct word meaning (Utukufu means glory) to make it work. It was great to be able to work together with them again. They promised to work out a dance step to the song as well. In Tanzania, you don’t sing unless you dance too. I love it!!!!
Lastly today, we visited our dear friend Fred Kalibwami and his daughter Katherine. Fred recently retired from the diocese as administrator and bible college principal. He had a very difficult year for some personal reasons that I am not a liberty to post on the Internet, but I will say that he has been on my mind, in my prayers and close to my heart throughout this past year. It was so good be with him, have a meal together and chat and pray together before we came home for the evening.
And so here we are again, at the end of a long and spectacular east African day. I thank God for his presence with us and the energy and resources He has given us to do what we are doing. This is a special place and a special people for me. I know many of you reading this who are in mission feel similarly about the people you know and worked with in countries all over the world. That’s pretty awesome, isn’t it; how God has taken each of us out of our comfort zone and given us an opportunity to serve Him by serving others in places we otherwise would not have considered going to. Honestly could it be any better than this? I seriously doubt that it could be. We have often sung the song “Open the eyes of my heart” at St. Paul’s. It’s a prayer song really. We sing “Open the eyes of my heart Lord. I want to see you”. I have taken this to mean that we are asking the Lord to open our eyes to see “what he is up to” so that we can join in, follow and be in sync with what that is. Being involved with DWT is very much that for Cathy and I; being in sync with what the Lord has given us eyes to see and has given to us to do. In fact, what caused us to be here in the first place is one of those coincidences that can only be attributed to the Lord’s leading in our lives. Tomorrow I’ll share with you how that came about.
Blessings to you all.
Bill
Today was our day to meet with Bishop Makaya and spend some time together to get an understanding and vision for where we go from here. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been working with the diocese for 6 years now, focusing the majority of my attention on supporting Kasulu Bible College. Bishop Makaya has been leading the diocese for just over a year now. With that in mind, I felt that it was important for us (Cathy and I as representatives of St. Paul’s Church) to speak very little and instead listen carefully to what the Bishop is saying about the Diocese and their greatest needs. So many times (and I have done this myself) partners and supporters like ourselves have come and said “this is what I will do for you” or even “this is what we are willing to support you with”. Understandably, many of us do come with experience, expertise and resources that we want to share in a way that we see fit. But often I have found that what is needed is a more humble and honest approach that simply states, “how can we best serve you and God’s purpose here as you know and see it?” Truthfully, the folks here in DWT know better than I what is most needful to accomplish the work of the church. Sometimes that is support in a humanitarian effort. We actually spoke of one today that involves completing the constuction of a birthing clinic in a very remote area of the region which has the potential of saving many lives. Another items we discussed was in regards to support of the area directors who are the key to communication throughout the 7 regions of the diocese and are pivotal positions for transmitting the primary work of the church, which is to preach and spread the good news of God’s saving grace through Christ. There are some very direct ways in which we can help with these, and so we will do so. The point is, it is very important for us to follow the lead of the people here and be willing to bend and shape our support to help them meet the goals that they have set before them.
All in all, Cathy and I were greatly encouraged by our conversation as we found a lot of common ground between us and the Bishop on a great number of subjects. I look forward to our continued conversations this week.
One very exciting thing I want to report to you is that we will be updating the Internet connection at KBC this week to a high speed DSL connection provided through the Tanzanian telephone company called TTCL. TTCL has run fiber optic now into Kasulu and is extending new copper lines into the local grid for improved telephone and data communications. Currently we have Internet service through a satellite provider. For many years it was the only game in town. But VSAT Internet is very expensive, running us about $6000+ per year. In the long run, this annual cost is not sustainable for us. At the same time our satellite data speeds run at about 125 kbps which by today’s standards is doggedly slow. We will now be moving up to 1 mbps this week and most likely settling into paying for 2 mbps, once the new service is proven to us to be reliable. That is a HUGE increase in speed and will once again introduce a major improvement for KBC and the Diocese in the area of communications. Along with that, this new service will easily reduce our annual cost to around $1500. That is truly going to be a blessing for us at KBC.
I thank you all for your continued prayer support today. Some much wonderful stuff is happening so fast I can hardly keep up with it. I’m overwhelmed really. Other than the July 2006 trip when we originally installed the computer equipment at KBC, I can’t think of a visit that has been as productive and we are only half way through.
Tomorrow we will spend more time at KBC working on computer maintenance and such. I hope to get a few more pictures of the work we are doing there, and oh yes! Don’t let me forget that we have pictures of the two new classrooms that are under construction. St. Paul’s provided funding to start that project back in June and they are well along the way toward completion. I’ll share more about that later.
Good night and God’s peace to you all.
Bill