A Short History of the Widow's House

by Edith Kombe

In May of 1997, Pastor John Mlay of Kiruweni Lutheran Church in Moshi, Tanzania (which is our home church) visited ULC for six weeks. During his stay, ULC members did fundraising to help the community in Kiruweni. One of the projects was to build a house for a widow who was left to raise 9 children on her own and was in desperate need of a decent place to live.

The house was started in the summer of 1999 but was not finished due to insufficient funds. The family was not in a position to finish it on their own. In the summer of 2002, when Estomih, Albert and I were going home again, ULC members were able to raise another $1500 to complete the house. While we were in Tanzania, we were able to do a lot of things and spend precious time with our family and friends. We spent one week in Dar-s-salaam (the capital city) where most of our family live and work before going to Moshi.

Once in Moshi, we met with Pastor Mlay and the committee which was in charge of building the widow's house. We went thru the progress report in detail and with the help of committee members, made up estimates for everything that was needed to finish the house so the family could move in. The estimates came in higher than the money that hade been donated but we didn't want to leave this project uncompleted again so we arranged to use some money from another project (the Heifer Project) that had not been used, to make up the difference. We were able to cover all the costs of the building as well as provide the family with a few basic pieces of furniture: 2 beds, 2 mattresses, 1 table, and 4 chairs.

We left Moshi for Dar-s-salaam after 10 days. Estomih went back to Moshi a week before we came back to Arizona to check on the progress of the house. They were still working on some of the finishing details but were making good progress. We have since received word that the family is living in their new house. Pastor Mlay sent an email to inform ULC of it's completion and to thank everyone.

The whole project cost about $2500. The house is of brick construction with 2 bedrooms and a living room. For this family, it is a dream house and we thanks everyone at ULC on their behalf for making this possible. May God bless us all so that we can be a blessing to others.

I just want to share this with you, as well. Most families in Kiruweni and in other rural areas of Tanzania depend on small scale agriculture to meet their daily needs. In recent years, life has been getting more difficult and most families can barely meet their daily needs for food,clothing, etc. Among many things which contribute to this poverty is drought, since most farming there depends on rain rather than irrigation. Another major crisis in the country is the HIV/AIDS epidemic which is especially affecting the most productive members of Tanzanian society. As Christians, we are called to believe that, even with this dark picture of the future, there is hope in Jesus Christ, and that's how we are able to move on. Without this hope it is a wonder how we can keep going at all. The way is much harder.