Saturday, August 28, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Tanzania has been spared the internal strife that has blighted many African states.
Though it remains one of the poorest countries in the world, with many of its people living below the World Bank poverty line, it has had some success in wooing donors and investors.
Tanzania assumed its present form in 1964 after a merger between the mainland Tanganyika and the island of Zanzibar, which had become independent the previous year.
Unlike many African countries, whose potential wealth contrasted with their actual poverty, Tanzania had few exportable minerals and a primitive agricultural system. To remedy this, its first president, Julius Nyerere, issued the 1967 Arusha Declaration, which called for self-reliance through the creation of cooperative farm villages and the nationalisation of factories, plantations, banks and private companies.
But a decade later, despite financial and technical aid from the World Bank and sympathetic countries, this programme had completely failed due to inefficiency, corruption, resistance from peasants and the rise in the price of imported petroleum.
Tanzania's economic woes were compounded in 1979 and 1981 by a costly military intervention to overthrow President Idi Amin of Uganda.
After Mr Nyerere's resignation in 1985, his successor, Ali Hassan Mwinyi, attempted to raise productivity and attract foreign investment and loans by dismantling government control of the economy.
This policy continued under Benjamin Mkapa, who was elected president in 1995. The economy grew, though at the price of painful fiscal reforms. Tourism is an important revenue earner; Tanzania's attractions include Africa's highest mountain, Kilimanjaro, and wildlife-rich national parks such as the Serengeti.
The political union between Zanzibar and mainland Tanzania has weathered more than four decades of change. Zanzibar has its own parliament and president.
- Full name: United Republic of Tanzania
- Population: 43.7 million (UN, 2009)
- Capital: Dodoma (official), Dar es Salaam (commercial)
- Largest city: Dar es Salaam
- Area: 945,087 sq km (364,900 sq miles)
- Major languages: English, Swahili
- Major religions: Christianity, Islam
- Life expectancy: 55 years (men), 56 years (women) (UN)
- Monetary unit: 1 Tanzanian shilling = 100 cents
- Main exports: Sisal, cloves, coffee, cotton, cashew nuts, minerals, tobacco
- GNI per capita: US $440 (World Bank, 2008)
- Internet domain: .tz
- International dialling code: +255
President: Jakaya Kikwete
Ruling party candidate Jakaya Kikwete, Tanzania's long-serving foreign minister, won presidential elections in December 2005.
He vowed to continue the economic reforms set in motion by the outgoing president, Benjamin Mkapa, and to create jobs and tackle poverty.
A veteran of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), which has controlled Tanzania since the country's inception and also governs in semi-autonomous Zanzibar, his presidential aspirations were thwarted in 1995 when he made an unsuccessful bid to represent the party in polls.
The former military officer was an unswerving supporter of Tanzania's founding president, Julius Nyerere.
Mr Kikwete, who was born in October 1950, is married and has eight children.
His predecessor Benjamin Mkapa retired after 10 years in power. He was credited with being the driving force behind Tanzania's extensive economic liberalisation, which was well received by the IMF and World Bank.
Under his presidency inflation dropped, the economy grew and Tanzania's foreign debt was wiped. But Mr Mkapa's critics said that, behind the statistics, most Tanzanians remained impoverished.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
We pick up Pastor Mike Gurath at the airport tonight at 9:00 pm and then head to Arusha, Tanzania tomorrow for a visit with Pastor Jeremiah Issangya and pastoral training.
Hopefully we will have better internet access in Arusha.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Saturday, August 21, 2010
A vast country with immense economic resources, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) has been at the centre of what could be termed Africa's world war. This has left it in the grip of a humanitarian crisis. The five-year conflict pitted government forces, supported by Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, against rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda. Despite a peace deal and the formation of a transitional government in 2003, people in the east of the country remain in terror of marauding militia and the army.
The war claimed an estimated three million lives, either as a direct result of fighting or because of disease and malnutrition. It has been called possibly the worst emergency to unfold in Africa in recent decades.
The war had an economic as well as a political side. Fighting was fuelled by the country's vast mineral wealth, with all sides taking advantage of the anarchy to plunder natural resources.
The history of DR Congo has been one of civil war and corruption. After independence in 1960, the country immediately faced an army mutiny and an attempt at secession by its mineral-rich province of Katanga.
A year later, its prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, was seized and killed by troops loyal to army chief Joseph Mobutu.
In 1965 Mobutu seized power, later renaming the country Zaire and himself Mobutu Sese Seko. He turned Zaire into a springboard for operations against Soviet-backed Angola and thereby ensured US backing. But he also made Zaire synonymous with corruption.
After the Cold War, Zaire ceased to be of interest to the US. Thus, when in 1997 neighbouring Rwanda invaded it to flush out extremist Hutu militias, it gave a boost to the anti-Mobutu rebels, who quickly captured the capital, Kinshasa, installed Laurent Kabila as president and renamed the country DR Congo.
Nonetheless, DR Congo's troubles continued. A rift between Mr Kabila and his former allies sparked a new rebellion, backed by Rwanda and Uganda. Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe took Kabila's side, turning the country into a vast battleground.
Coup attempts and sporadic violence heralded renewed fighting in the eastern part of the country in 2008. Rwandan Hutu militias clashed with government forces in April, displacing thousands of civilians.
Another militia under rebel General Laurent Nkunda had signed a peace deal with the government in January, but clashes broke out again in August. Gen Nkunda's forces advanced on government bases and the provincial capital Goma in the autumn, causing civilians and troops to flee while UN peacekeepers tried to hold the line alongside the remaining government forces.
In an attempt to bring the situation under control, the government in January 2009 invited in troops from Rwanda to help mount a joint operation against the Rwandan rebel Hutu militias active in eastern DR Congo.
Rwanda arrested the Hutu militias' main rival, Gen Nkunda, a Congolese Tutsi hitherto seen as its main ally in the area.
However, during 2009 eastern areas remained beset by violence.
- Full name: Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Population: 66 million (UN, 2009)
- Capital: Kinshasa
- Area: 2.34 million sq km (905,354 sq miles)
- Major languages: French, Lingala, Kiswahili, Kikongo, Tshiluba
- Major religions: Christianity, Islam
- Life expectancy: 46 years (men), 49 years (women) (UN)
- Monetary unit: 1 Congolese franc = 100 centimes
- Main exports: Diamonds, copper, coffee, cobalt, crude oil
- GNI per capita: US $150 (World Bank, 2008)
- Internet domain: .cd
- International dialling code: +243
President: Joseph Kabila
Joseph Kabila became Congo's president when his father Laurent was assassinated in 2001. He gained a mandate through the ballot box to rule the vast country as its elected leader in an election in 2006.
The historic presidential election was intended to bring a new era of stability after years of war, dictatorship and chaos. The vote was generally praised by international monitors.
Mr Kabila has enjoyed the clear support of western governments such as the US and France, regional allies such as South Africa and Angola and businessmen and mining magnates who have signed multi-million dollar deals under his rule.
He is a former guerrilla fighter who participated in nearly a decade of war that ravaged the country.
He fought alongside his father in a military campaign from the east that toppled dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997 after more than 20 years as the despotic, whimsical and corrupt leader of the nation he had renamed Zaire.
But when Laurent Kabila was killed by a bodyguard in 2001, his soft-spoken, publicity-shy son, who received military training in China, was thrust into the political limelight and installed as the world's youngest head of state.
He swapped his military fatigues for elegant business suits, but - in contrast to his chubby, jovial and temperamental father - remained a reserved figure.
Mr Kabila has promised to rule by consensus to try to heal the still raw scars of Congo's many conflicts.
Though revered in the Swahili-speaking east, where he was widely credited with helping to end Congo's 1998-2003 war, he is less liked in the west.
Joseph Kabila is the eldest of 10 children fathered by Laurent Kabila. He spent much of his early life in East Africa, where his dissident father lived in exile.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Today brought a difficult and heart wrenching experience that is fairly common for those who are privileged to visit the congregations of our foreign brothers and sisters in Africa and India. We visited two congregations where terrible wind/cyclones (last February) virtually destroyed their modest church buildings. The cost to repair these two buildings is only about $1800 but this is far beyond what the members can support. Both congregations are located in impoverished villages a few KMs outside of Lubumbashi. I asked the pastor of the congregation in Kalebuka how they were able to purchase the land and build the building 6 years ago. He responded that the members had given all they had and it took them several years to buy the materials and make the bricks by hand. You could see that they were heart broken and distraught that the building that they had worked so hard on and sacrificed so much for was now in ruins. The other church building in Kalubwe is a similar story but in this case they are still paying for the land on which the building stands. These types of stories are not unique to Kalebuka and Kalubwe...they are common throughout Africa, India, Nepal, and Myanmar. In the US we typically have insurance for such things and while such disasters are unsettling and disruptive for a US congregation they are soon rectified and quite often with something better than before. This just isn't the case here. I breaks your heart to sit in the home of a pastor or member of one of these congregations who has so very little to begin with and to then witness their joy and appreciation for your visit by bringing food and drinks to share. It is humbling to say the least.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Friday, August 13, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
It’s been an eventful and yet very un-eventful first few days of this trip. It always amazes me how tiring it is to travel. I left for the airport around 12 noon on Sunday and when we arrived at the Hotel Southern Blue in Nairobi, Kenya I had been on three airplanes that took me from St. Louis to Chicago…Chicago to Amsterdam and then finally from Amsterdam to Nairobi. Almost 27 hours had gone by with nothing more than a couple of short cat-naps on the airplanes. We arrived at our hotel at around 11:00 pm. After a plate of French fries it was time for bed and I had no trouble falling asleep and a Tylenol pm made sure I slept through the night to reset my body clock for the new time zone that is 8 hours earlier than home.
So, it was later Monday night (Kenya time) when we arrive at our hotel. Unfortunately, we had two pieces of luggage that were missing so we spent nearly three hours trying to track them down. Because of our delay, Pastor Charles decided that he must have missed us so he went to our hotel. When he didn’t find us there he went to another hotel where CLC visitors have stayed before. He then returned to our hotel but it must have been just before we arrived. He came to visit the next morning and we were happy to greet him and a few of the men and students he is working to train in area congregations.
We are now on a (much to our dismay) 24 hour layover in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Our odd flight times have played a part in the eventful yet un-eventful first few days. Since our flight out of Nairobi left at 2:00 in the morning, Pastor Charles assumed it was the next day so he thought we had another full day in Nairobi so he scheduled a pastoral training seminar for some of the students and pastors he is training. These men came quite a distance. Unfortunately the 2:00 am flight prevented us from having the seminar because we had to go to the office of Ethiopian Airlines to confirm our tickets to the Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) since there had been some problems with the reservations. It was a good thing we went to the office because our seats were reserved but not paid for. For some reason the website was unable to accept my credit card for two tickets at the same time. Once the tickets were paid for and our seat confirmed we were able to rest a bit easier. But unfortunately, we were unable to conduct the seminar that Pastor Charles had arranged. We rescheduled it for the day we return from the DRC. Now back to the un-expected layover in Ethiopia. After our early 2:00 flight took us to Entebbe in Uganda to pick up more passengers we arrived in Addis Ababa to change flights for the final leg into Lubumbashi, DRC. Everything seemed to be going according to schedule until we could find our flight listed on the departure boards. Once we found the customer service counter we found out that our flight was not today at 9:45 am but tomorrow. I’m still not sure how this happened. It was back in May when these flight reservations were made so the only thing I can figure out is that flights must have been added or dropped from the schedule since then. We tried to talk the airlines into a free hotel for the day/night but they wouldn’t budge, but they did give us the discounted price and shuttle service and meals so it wasn’t all bad. We are staying in a very nice hotel, taking naps, writing blogs, and waiting for the wireless internet to come alive again. They have been working on the wi-fi since we checked in. It comes and goes but mostly goes for now.
While the trip has been un-eventful in that we haven’t had the opportunity to preach or teach yet, it has had plenty of the un-expected. But the Lord has kept us safe and healthy and we are appreciative of this day of rest and catch-up. It will be good to spend the afternoon looking over teaching notes. It will also be good to get a nap since we were up all last night again.
Thank you for your prayers! I’m not sure what our internet capabilities will be in the DRC but I will post again as soon as possible.
From the Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Airport eary Thursday (8/12) morning...