Dear Friends,
In ten days we’re off to Tanzania for our first visit in two years! We had a big trip and project planned last year but, as we all know, most of what we had anticipated in 2020 did not quite happen as expected!
COVID, of course, remains a challenge…and that includes international travel. There are many hoops to be jumped through…and we expect a few unexpected twists and turns. We are confident, however, that all is going well because we place ourselves in God’s hands.
We leave the U.S. July 6 and expect to return on August 13. Most of that time we will not have other team members with us – it will be Hart and Lynn by ourselves. We’re tremendously anticipating renewing many relationships, checking on everything which has changed, seeing for ourselves the effects of the ongoing Lake Victoria flooding, checking out recent improvements around the school, and preparing for the week of July 24 to August 2 when a dozen team members will join us from a variety of locations in the U.S. and East Africa.
The biggest project – the one we had to cancel a year ago – is the dental training program run by ITEC (Indigenous People’s Technology and Education Center and IDENT, its dental program). In addition to the dozen team members, we expect to have eight Tanzanian students spend a week at Lion of Judah Academy involved in rigorous instruction and training in basic and essential dental treatments. On successful completion of the program those trainees will be certified in basic dentistry. A visit to the IDENT site will provide lots of information – including a couple of videos – demonstrating just what this training is going to look like (some of the rooms in the videos even look very much like the setting where this training will be taking place at Lion of Judah Academy!). In the videos you can also see two people who will be on our team – Craig Hunger and Jamie Saint.
Our immediate goal is twofold: 1) to establish a permanent dental clinic at the dispensary the school is now operating. 2) we expect to be sending the trainees out into surrounding areas where they will conduct something akin to “mobile clinics,” tending to unmet dental needs for an affordable cost, and spreading the Good News of the love and mercy of Jesus!
Please pray for this training…for the students and for the trainers…as well as for all the other arrangements which need to be in place for the two goals above to be fulfilled. This is a big project. In addition to the team and the trainees, we need to find about 200 people in our area to receive the dental treatments! ITEC is very generously providing the training. The ITEC team members are paying their own expenses. Nonetheless there are many costs involved not only to have the training, but also to build the space for a permanent clinic and then carry out all the logistics and follow up. If this is something you would like to be involved in as a supporter, please go here: Support the Dental Training Outreach at Lion of Judah Academy.
And please pray for us – Hart and Lynn – as we complete our preparations to travel on July 6…then for the next couple of days while we travel and get back to the school for the first time in two years.
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