On Tuesday of this week, a small group gathered at church at the invitation of our President, Erlinde Beliveau, to discuss the history, status and future of our partnership with the good people of the Isimani Lutheran congregation in Central Tanzania. Present at the meeting (in addition to Erlinde and myself) were several veterans of this ministry, including Margareta Claesson, Judy Evans, Russ Hilliard, Dot Kasik, Ed Mallon and Jo Whiting.
The meeting was a real education for me. For those of you who also may be new to this ministry, I learned that the partnership began almost thirty years ago when a new UNH professor, Joe Lugalla, arrived at Holy Trinity and asked if we’d be interested in a relationship with his father’s Lutheran church in Isimani, Tanzania. Our then-Pastor, Linn Opderbecke, took Joe’s request to the Church Council, which enthusiastically embraced the idea. Pastor Opderbecke then travelled with Joe to Isimani to meet the congregation and, a year later, a dozen Holy Trinity members followed on the first congregational trip in 2006. And so, a relationship was born.
Importantly, even though our connection with the people of Isimani initially came through Joe Lugalla’s introduction and very personal history, the ministry is part of a broader network of relationships between individual churches within the St. Paul Synod of the ELCA and churches within the Lutheran Diocese of Iringa. An umbrella organization, Bega Kwa Bega (which means “Shoulder to Shoulder”), manages this network of relationships and provides guidance and support to congregations like ours.
Since that first congregational visit in 2006, there have been many subsequent trips of Holy Trinity members to Isimani. Just as importantly, there has been an ongoing relationship of prayer and a broad range of projects between the sister congregations. Holy Trinity has, for example, provided scholarship monies for secondary school and college education for Isimani youth, our members have taught courses at the nearby Iringa Lutheran University, we’ve supported the local library and sewing school in the community, and we’ve helped purchase food, livestock and other essentials. Everyone at our Tuesday meeting also testified that we at Holy Trinity have likewise benefitted enormously from our relationship with these Tanzanian brothers and sisters in Christ.
Because of COVID and Holy Trinity’s own transition in pastors, our relationship with Isimani has been somewhat dormant these past few years (although, to be sure, several of our members have quietly continued to work in support of the ministry in both big and small ways). Sadly, this past year Joe Lugalla also died, and the long-time pastor of Isimani (Livingston Msungu) left to pursue further theological education. We just learned this week that the congregation has called a new pastor, the Rev. Samson Laiser, whom we have yet to meet.
In the wake of these developments, the purpose of our Tuesday meeting was to see how we as a congregation might go about re-starting this ministry now that the pandemic has lifted and both Isimani and Holy Trinity have new pastors in place. We agreed that an initial first step is to convene an adult forum at which veterans of this relationship could share their personal experiences and discuss both the history of the ministry and its future possibilities. We may also be able to enjoy a short “zoom visit” with some of our Isimani friends and their new pastor. We have scheduled this adult forum for Sunday, June 16th, right after church. It will be a wonderful opportunity to learn more about this incredible partnership and together discern its future. Please mark the date on your calendars!