Who Do You Work For?

Yesterday, (Labor Day), I was able to speak to most of my kids on the phone or in person. I had one conversation that lasted an hour, and at the very end, this particular child asked me, “so how’s your work going mom”? “Which work,” I thought to myself. “House work? Taking care of my elderly mother? My various writing projects.” Then I remembered, “Ah yes, my work in Africa.” Sometimes I don’t think of my job as ED of our non-profit, Partners 4 Hope Tanzania, as “work” because I love my job so much.

Last week Mark (my husband), and I had the awesome “job” of traveling to a small parish in a beautiful town in Wisconsin to speak about our “work” in Bwambo Village. The parishioners not only sat attentively during our talk about the new Maternity Center and school in Tanzania, but many of the parishioners gave over $1000 to support our efforts. We were blown away by their generosity, but also by the kindness of our hosts. Our Sister Parish, St. Francis de Sales in Lake Geneva, WI has been supporting St. John the Baptist Church and School, and St. Luke’s Hospital in Bwambo Village since 2016. It blows my mind sometimes to think what has been accomplished by the support from just one parish to another parish across the world. St. Francis de Sales has helped to build a Church in an area that had never had a Church. They also helped to create a K-8 school, (the very first in Bwambo village) and support many other projects at the hospital. Thousands of villagers have seen their families go from having no health care, to going to their own village hospital for all their healthcare needs. Children in Bwambo (and surrounding villages) can now go to a nationally acclaimed elementary school that boasts of some of the best teachers in the region. And the big white Church on top of the hill is home to over 400 families. The Church is not only a place for worship, but a place for villagers to gather for town meetings, weddings, receptions, and other social events. The village Chief is in charge of the upkeep of the Church, and one often sees a crew of men and women carrying buckets of rocks to repair the walkways, or a group of women gathering to tend to the Church gardens. We employ hundreds of villagers for all of our projects, providing salaries so kids can go to school, water tanks to be installed, and solar panels to be purchased for electricity in their homes.

The people in Bwambo and Ngujini Villages take pride in their church, school, and health center because they’ve built everything with their own hands and skills.

When I’m in Bwambo a few months a year, I take pride in our “work” too. Why? Because I’ve watched American Catholics give “until it hurts,” as Mother Theresa says. I’ve also seen what this support can do to change peoples lives. When we become, not only “hearers of the word,” as St. James points out, but become “doers of the word,”’that is when we know we are living out Jesus’ call, to not only call ourselves Christian, but actively live like Christians by supporting our brothers and sisters in need all over the globe.

Yes, I do love my “work”, but it’s a joy and a pleasure to be surrounded by “doers of the word” on both sides of the big pond. A Swahili phrase that I like is, “Tupo pamoja”.
We are together 🤝