Cindy Pennie, Salem Parish Nurse, has led a medical mission to the Morogoro District of Tanzania for over a decade. The Morogoro District is a sister synod to the Arkansas-Oklahoma Synod.
We are so happy that Cindy is planning a trip for 2024. See her letter below! Please consider a donation to help fund the group. Any additional funds go to medical supplies for the hospital. Checks can be made out to Salem Lutheran Church with "Tanzania" on the memo line.
Dear friends of Tanzania,
After a short, get back in touch with everyone in Tanzania trip this past August, we are ready to start building our team for 2024! I will be sending this to all who have expressed interest in being part of the team so far, please feel free to share with others who may also be interested.
First, a little history. The Arkansas/Oklahoma Synod has a companion relationship with the Morogoro Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania. The AR/OK synod has been sending medical teams to Morogoro since 2008, up until 2019. Due to Covid we had to cancel our trip in 2020, and could not plan to take a team back until this year, 2023. Due to logistics we could not get a workable group for this year, but we are geared up to go in 2024!
What our team does is work with the church in Tanzania (they help with some of the details/arrangements in-country) and with Mazimbu Hospital in Morogoro. In general, we provide surgery and medical care for people who can not otherwise afford the treatment. Many are referred from the Diocese congregations, others are neighbors of the hospital or patients the Mazimbu doctors know can’t pay for the care.
What exactly we do depends on who volunteers for the team. We usually have fundis (fixers) who work on things in the hospital, the Diocese, or as needed. We have non-medical helpers who do all sorts of things from intake of patients, fitting reading glasses, helping in our “pharmacy”, and just walking with and visiting with our patients. We hopefully have doctors, nurses, and other medical people who work together with the staff of Mazimbu to provide for our patients.
One of our volunteers is a retired veterinarian, one is a law office manager, one is a goat expert! We can use all kinds of people, and we always trust that God brings the people together that are needed for this team - both as team members and as the people we will be treating.
We take a short trip to a nearby game park, visit a Maasi cattle market, visit our friends’ infants center (where our goat expert is helping with the dairy goat herd!), attend worship services in Swahili - a bit different than here at home! This is all in addition to working at the hospital for about 2 weeks.
I know there are many more details to cover and many questions racing through your heads! This will serve as the "Yes, we are going to Tanzania again!” announcement so people can start planning and praying and listening to God’s call to serve His people in Tanzania.
Dates: July 26 through August 12 (takes about 2 days travel each way) or August 2 through August 19. Please let me know if one of these timeframes works better than the other.
Cost: Approximately $3500 per person (most of that is the airfare, depends on the rates we can get). This covers all of our expenses in Tanzania - lodging, food, ground transportation, visa fees, game park fees - you just need spending money along the way. Many congregations help raise the money to send people on the trip, I will have information about that later.
You will need a passport with at least 6 months left on it after the end of the trip (that would be February 12 or 19th of 2025). Information on needed immunizations and medications will be sent later also.
For right now, please reply back to me to let me know you are interested and/or want more information. In a few weeks I will send out the official “application” and ask for a copy of your passport and a deposit of $350. Again, please share with others who might be interested.
Cindy Pennie
405-269-9019
[email protected][email protected]116 E Rogers Dr
Stillwater, OK 74075
