The work started at the present location in 1962. It was realized that there was a great need of a hospital in this area and the government was wanting the mission works to be providing some sort of benefit for their country to justify in their eyes a reason for allowing you to be here. It was started with a one room metal building that served more as an dispensary than a hospital. Construction of the original part of the hospital was completed in 1964. Through the years the hospital has served as excellent tool that not only provides good health care for the people of this area, but also serves as an excellent evangelism tool. For example, just this past month there were 11 baptisms through hospital work alone. The hospital is now a 120 bed hospital that has x-ray, ultra-sound, four different wards, a special program for HIV, and Major and Minor Theaters for surgery. We deliver on average close to 2,000 babies a year and see over 20,000 patients a year through this work.

 

Through the years the work has continually grown. In 1987 the Chimala School of Preaching was begun. Since then we have trained over 200 men to be preachers. These men now serve as the preacher in nearly 100 congregations that have been started by this work. In 1999 we started the Chimala Primary School. We now have approximately 500 students enrolled in this school. It is one of the top ranked schools in this area and we have a waiting list of people who want to send their children to school here. We have students who travel as far as 500 miles to attend school at Chimala Mission. These children are taught Bible every day. By the time they graduate 7th grade, many are baptized believers. It is our goal to have well educated Christians who in the future, will be leaders not only in their communities, but also in the Church. To complete this goal we are continuing our plan by constructing a Secondary School. It is our goal to have the first two years of this school open in January, 2009. By 2011 the school should be completed and we will have approximately 300 students enrolled. This school will be what is classified as an Science School which will major in Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. These types of schools are the prelude for students who want to be doctors and nurses. With us having the hospital, this should make a good fit for the future of Chimala Mission.  In 2005 we began the Chimala Bible College. This is a two year program that offers Bachelors Degree to those who graduate.  This school is taught in English, which allows it to be an International School. We have many students from Malawi attending our school at the present. We are considering bringing the Masters program here also. This allows us to have better educated men working as preachers in the churches here. Between the two Bible schools we are now graduating around 20 men a year to be preachers.

 

Our personal involvement began in 1998, when New York Ave. Church of Christ took the oversight of the work. I was serving as an elder at that time at NYA. We made a commitment that we, as elders, would be involved with the work. I made my first visit to the work in 1999. I fell in love with work immediately. In 2001 Cyndi traveled with me to visit the work. She, like myself, was touched by the work. We decided then, that at some point in our lives we wanted serve at the mission. I stayed closely involved with the work, spending three years as the elder in charge of the work. I made 4 trips total from 1999-2004. In 2006, Darrin Stapleton and his family decided after 7 years serving as the Chimala Administrator, they were ready to come back to the states. Cyndi and I both started discussing and praying about this situation, and after some time we decided that it was time for us to go. With our experience in church leadership, knowledge we already had working with the work, and many years of construction business experience, we believed we were the best people to fill the spot. The elders at NYA agreed. We started making plans and raising funds and arrived in Tanzania, January 2007. We came with the goal of making the mission more self sustaining. This has been the goal of the elders for several years. To accomplish this goal, we have several things we are working on. Our goal for the school system is to have the secondary school complete in 2011 as mentioned above. When we reach this point, the entire school system will generate enough funds to be not only self sustaining, but should have enough left over to help in some of the evangelism work. During the last year and half, we have spent hours upon hours in various government offices trying to get more financial support for our hospital. We have been recently told that we should start getting this support in July. With this extra support from the government, the hospital will be financially self supporting again. It has been a goal of Chimala Mission to have safe drinking water for years, but no one had ever been able to accomplish this goal. We were able to get a good well this last year and should have all of the piping and facilities completed in the next 2-3 months. One the side of evangelism, I have spent most of my energy trying to teach classes on spiritual maturity, and the need of proper leadership in the church. After being here over 40 years, this is one thing that seems to have been under taught. We can baptize thousands, but if we never bring them to the maturity that Paul speaks of over and over in the New Testament, we have failed in our work. This is going to be maybe the hardest goal of all to fulfill, but I consider it the most important. I will be teaching classes on these subjects next month at our annual Preacher's Seminar. I feel we have accomplished many things the last year and half that we have been here. Here is a list of some of the more major ones.

 

I have had several of the Tanzanian Evangelist tell me that they see the difference in what I am teaching from some of things taught in the past. My lessons are more based on the love that God has for us and the great plan he gave us for His kingdom.

 

The Primary School made a noticeable improvement on their exit test this last year.

 

The leadership worked side by side with me in creating their first yearly budget for the school. This has given them a better understanding of the financial side of this program, which they need to be able to take over the administration of this work.

 

Successfully was able to get a well drilled after many failures in the past.

 

Have made great strides in getting additional support for the hospital, after this had attempted many times in the past.

 

Have helped create unity among the 4 different missionary families that are working well as a team. We are meeting putting together goals for the work, not only for the short term, but for the future.

 

We still have a few years, at least three, to be where we feel we will need to be for us to start cutting back on our full time involvement here. At that point we hope to be able to start decreasing our time here and splitting our time between helping with administration on the stateside and on the Chimala side.