The Long Goodbye

Our last full day in Tanzania was just that… full.

We began the day by visiting the Amani Home for street children.  This amazing place provides a loving community where children are rescued from city streets and given a new chance at life.  Check out the link to their website.  I have visited here many times over the years and I whole heartedly recommend supporting this incredible outreach. 

We spent the rest of the morning at Building A Caring Community (BCC) centers.  Our Lutheran partners operate eleven small BCC centers around Moshi town.  Each center provides all day care for special needs children.   These are the forgotten children of Tanzania, often left in the dark corners of village huts with parents incapable of caring for them.  BCC is a profoundly important ministry.

At the second BCC center we visited we found three bright Cornell University students volunteering there and they ended up spending the rest of the day with us. We offered to give them a ride on the magic bus to their host home in Moshi, which led to the three of them joining us for lunch.  By the end of lunch we were all friends so we visited their host family home with them and we spent the rest of the afternoon together.  We met more Cornell U. volunteers at the coffee shop in town and a group of them joined us for dinner.

Before dinner we climbed up through the coffee farms and fields of maze to Kilimakyaro Lodge for cold drinks.  The beautiful landscaped grounds of the lodge sit right at the base of the mountain and if you are fortunate, the clouds will part to reveal the mountain from this vantage point which feels so close to Kilimanjaro. 

So it was that our expanded group which now included a contingent of Cornell University volunteers, sat outside under the mountain, with the snow covered peak of Kilimanjaro in full view as the sun set in the west.  The odds are well against such a blessing, especially on the final evening of such a rich and meaningful journey together.  This is Tanzania.  A country in great need but a magical, holy place that somehow always finds a way to give more than she receives.

Our final morning will be spent packing up and saying our goodbyes.  If you have been reading this blog you will not be surprised to hear that we will depart for the airport several hours earlier than necessary so we can return to the orphanage to spend time with the babies there.  We will be home soon…