First part of the day we spent in Safari where we saw lots of different animals including lions during that trip. It was really nice to see all of them. Maybe that was the first and the last time in our lives when we have the chance to see then. We all were bitten by Tetse flies.

The nature was so great, that we were praising God for creating such a beauty. Mountains, rivers, animals – everything was great.

The second part of the day we spent driving to Iringa. It took us about 5 hours. The night we spent in the Bible College. This night was the worst night in Africa for me. I was sick and had really awful stomach pain. God be praised, I survived!!!

Friday 3rd August – Alexi

After such an awful night I had also a bad morning and due to that night sickness I couldn’t eat anything and about one hour later I was hungry and bought many bananas for the journey. Before leaving Iringa we met a monkey which all the time was jumping on us and biting us.

This day was spent on the way from Iringa to Dar Es Salam. It took us about 10 hours. We slept in the Salvation Army hostel and we saw many people serving God helping to ill and disabled people.

Saturday 4th July – Alosha

The last day in Africa. In the morning we went to the market to buy some souvenirs. Then we had wonderful 20 minutes at the coast of Indian ocean went to the airport.

We took our flight to Kenya. Spent 8 hours waiting for the plane home. During these 8 hours we spent time thinking about these days. We were sad and happy at the same time. It was sad to leave the country we loved, but it was nice to return back home. We were writing wishes for our friends in their books.

Goodbye, Africa.

It was our last day at the working site, so it was nice to walk there and to see that way for the last time. We knew all the ways in our village and it became so close to our hearts, that we even did not want to think that it was our last day there.

It was the day of the work. We worked very quick, hard and more then usually. No breaks at all. We all were overtired but continued the work. What seemed to be impossible for us before became possible that day. In front of us was nearly finished the first big classroom. Men very quickly put brick after brick and the wall was growing in front of our eyes.

We started with a wild place of land and now it was a classroom! Many lovely, funny moments we had there. Our strength, energy, pain, blood, sweat, happiness and blessings were on that place. That place bound our team and the work made us good friends. It was sad to leave it.

At 4 pm we went to Kilolo for the last time – to play with children and to play football with the local team. That evening the sky was unusually beautiful. That was the special evening as we prepared birthday party for Olwin. He did not know when was his birthday, so we decided that it would be the 31st of July. We had blown many balloons, decorated our ‘dining room’. We bought sweet breads and made a cake of them (they did not have cakes in the shops) with one big candle in the middle. And Olwin was very touched by this.

It was real party. Our cooks played with the balloons like kids. We also forgot about all manners: enjoyed the time and simply danced and had fun with them. In one song we all were jumping and lying on the floor. We were like one family, all of different ages, from different countries together like small kids in the presence of our Loving Father. God was great on this evening with us.

After the party we had the last and the best dream in the place where we spent fantastic unforgettable days.

Wednesday 1st August – Alosha

The way to safari. We got up at 7. We did not have to do anything. In the morning we were saying goodbye to kids and other friends. It was really hard to leave the village, knowing that we will newer come back there. Maybe… Only God knows…

We load our stuff in one Land Cruiser and located ourselves in two others. The last way from Kilolo to Iringa was the shortest. Before the afternoon we spent some time in Iringa shopping.

Then we went on safari! It was a really hard journey. 5 hours in the back of the Land Cruiser. The road was terrible. A lot of bumps were on the way. But in the end we saw the place where we were staying. It was like the rewarding for two weeks of hard work and 5 terrible hours of the way.

The beauty of that place was really amazing! I’ve never seen such a beauty in my life. There were a lot of wild animal around. When we stopped to check about the place where we were staying, we saw the big elephant walking out of the bushes! It was great and scary at the same time.

The place where we were spending the night was the best we had in Africa. We were sleeping on the real beds! We had a proper shower! We had electricity in our rooms! And that was all in the middle of nowhere! We had really good lunch and went to see the river. We saw a lot of animals and birds on the river. It was really great to observe the beauty that God had created.

After the dinner we went back to our small houses where we were staying. And we were almost caught by a pack of hyenas. All night long we were able to hear them laughing.

This day was really good day, the one of the best days in my life. I am thankful to God for it.

It was the day of the rest. Today we were going to Iringa, the city. David said, that this day we are having real lunch in the restaurant, so we were waiting for this day. In the morning we were waiting for the bus to get to Iringa. And the bus came. It was a real bus, not the bus we had before. There was enough space for all of us. And it was great.

We went to the restaurant and had really nice meal. There were beef, pork, fish, potatoes, rice and a lot of other nice stuff. We even had ice-cream! The first and the last time in Africa!

After this we went to the market. It was real experience. We understood the fact, when we come to buy some things, the seller tells us the price and we have to decide to buy or not to buy. The things in Africa are different. You can bargain with the seller and the price can be decreased sometimes in half. So bargaining we had bought some things for souvenirs.

After the market we went to the Deaf School. You know, that to be deaf in Tanzania is really different from being deaf in our countries. They are considered to be animals. 40% of Tanzanians are not educated, they do not know how to read or write, so if you are deaf and do not know how to hear and speak, it can be really hard for you to live. And the mission that organized this Deaf School did really good job. They are giving the chance to the deaf kids to become part of the society. There were kids and adults, their age was from 6 to 25 years old. And the best thing about this they knew God! They were singing songs in their sign language with us! And it was really great!

After all we played football with them. And you know what… we lost 1 : 3 ! It was really good game, we played as the team very well, but they were better. So they won. In the evening we went back home remembering about this good day.

Sunday 29th July – Dima

Today we went to Iringa by two cars, it took us about one hour to get there. We were supposed to visit Anglican Church, by the way, it was our first time being in such Church. Generally speaking service wasn’t too exciting because we couldn’t understand anything, we were just listening songs and were following passages that were read.

There was Holy Communion at that time so we had an opportunity to take part in it. At the end there was a time for offerings. The most impressive thing was that after the whole service all congregation went out of the Church. Pastor took all the items that were offered and started to sell them to people who came to the Church, there was a real auction. There were lots of loafs of bread, chicken, duck, honey and other stuff to be sold. It was fun.

After all of these we spent some time in the town, had a little snack and went back to village.

Monday 30th July – Alexi

Yesterday we had a day off but unfortunately we didn’t feel this today, it’s getting harder and harder to work. I’ve noticed that we got to used to such work we work in spite of our exhaustion. We all knew that these were our last days of being here so we decided to make our last effort and to make as much as we only could.

This day we were building walls. We started to lay bricks as it was shown by our leader. We had a chief-builder, he started to make corners of a school and when he finished we made walls. It was quite exciting as we saw it growing, exactly this made us work more and more, this gave us extra energy.

Today I got up just in time. After breakfast some of us went on the site by car but the rest went on foot. The only work we could do was to move rocks. We bought lots and lots of rocks so we needed to take them from the piles and locate them along the trenches. The most tough time was to go back to village. Personally, I couldn’t do anything, I’d rather prefer to stay there, on the working site.

Finally we all went back home. As always we had a lunch and afterwards the majority of us went to get a nap. Our leader, David, told us that we’re going to have a proper meal in the town, in Iringa on Saturday. That’s why we were dreaming and looking forward for this day to come. Each of us was dreaming about a special dish they liked.

Today Andy, a member of our team, was leading evening meeting. There was one quite funny case. At the meeting I was sitting by him and it happened so that I took his watch to look at, I didn’t even have a thought to disturb him but I took and changed time on the hour ahead. That’s why we had very short meeting but nobody was upset about it, even vice versa they were pleased to have one extra hour of the rest.

Thursday 26th July – Ksenya

Yesterday we finally finished the foundation. One and a half weeks of hard work showed the result. We moved many heavy rocks into the row and put a lot of material on them. It takes time to make the material. The weather was quite hot, and it was becoming very dry quickly. We had to mix quickly and put it into metal bowls, and then on the rocks. Rock foundation was 2 feet high on the level of grass. It was our work. It was great to see it. After the lunch we had small group meetings. We all loved our small groups. It was great to get to know each other closely. After the small groups we went to visit the farm that was higher in the mountains.

When we came to the farm, the sweetest dog came to greet us. Then the woman with long black hair came out and three of her sons run out of the house. The family were missionaries from US. They lived there already 1 year and would live two more. We all listened to her with open mouths. Whole family moved to that place to help local people with gardening and farming, and to show them the love of God. It was really great to meet them. To see how long term missionaries live. It was a real experience.

Friday 27th July – Alexi

We expected this day to be very long, because this day we started laying bricks in proper way – the easiest work. During the work we had to do everything with our hands. So we worked without any mechanical equipment. We saw how devil works also and tries to hinder to our serving God. We were trying to build as much as possible. I think we did a lot.

This night I realise one more time how wonderful our Gods creation: sky, stars, Milky Way…

I had a horrible night. During it I felt myself freezing and burning. With an effort I got up. I definitely wasn’t good. On the working site I felt myself very week and that was annoying me. It was not hard but for me it seemed to be unbearable. We were moving rocks for foundation. All arms were scratched. I tried to be bold. It was longest day on the working site.

I slept all the afternoon in my dirty clothes. Then I tried to play with kids. They were good in skipping, but most of all they liked to play football or just simply to throw the ball to each other. They were such lovely kids. Nancy, a little girl, came to sit on my lap. She lived near us and spent a lot of time with us. It became really dark and children had to go home.

I was looking at the stars. The Milky Way was bright as usual. ‘How great is the Lord’ – I thought. My spirit was extremely strong and full of energy but my flesh was so week. God showed me how strong could be the spirit even in hard times, even if the body is broken. I cannot describe it. You have to feel it.

Tuesday 24th July – Alosha

After short breakfast we went to the work. It was really hard to move big rocks. Each one of them was about 40-50 kg. But we had to lay the foundation. Sometimes guys even had the competition – who moves rocks faster. And Alexey won it. I wonder how much strength left in his muscles?

We had only one tractor, and it had to be everywhere. We used the same tractor to bring cement, water and bricks. Each thing took about an hour. You know, last year the other team came to this village to make the bricks. And they made about 20 000 bricks. But people from this village were motivated by the work of this team, and after they leave they did another 200 000(!) bricks. Our tractor driver found another way to get the water.

This time we went to the river. It took us the same time to get there and back, but it took about 10 minutes to load the water. The thing I really loved in Tanzanians – they wave back if you wave them. And no matter, were they Christians or Moslems. Traveling on the tractor we saw a lot of people – and every one of them waved back!

After the lunch we played football again. That team consisted of teenagers, so we won 3-1. And also we felt ourselves like real team. It was nice to play in the team.

This evening Olwin invited me, Rich and Mat to visit him and to have the cup of tea. So we visited him. It was really nice to communicate with him. He did not know much English, and we did not speak Swahili. But sometimes we were understanding each other without the words. This evening we get to know that Olwin does not know his birthday. So we decided to celebrate it the last day of our being in Kilolo. It was a late evening. Our worship time was really great.

Early morning, I was lying in my sleeping bag and shivering because of the cold. I got used to sleep on the floor without the pillow, to get up without alarm clock, but I couldn’t manage with the cold nights. The temperature was jumping there – during the night it was quite cold, 8-10C and during the day very hot, 26-28C. Anyway every morning I jumped out of my sleeping bag and ran to the toilet. Because last night we had ‘outside time’ – we were lying on the grass looking on the stars, we went to bed very late. And that morning it was hard to get up.

The breakfast was the same as every previous morning – porridge (I think it was done with corn) and bread with jam and tea. The breakfast was very quick. We sat on the benches and held our plates in our hands. The food was quite tasty for me.

After the breakfast we went to the work. Our path lay through the village. I loved to walk. We walked near people’s homes. Their tiny houses were made of clay without normal windows – just the halls in the walls, and roofs were made of palm lives. That day I took attention on their gardens. They had big gardens near their homes where they grew corn and bananas.

We worked hard again. We went again to get bricks. It was hard but also big fun. It was another trip on our ’super’ tractor. But it was fantastic view on the way. Little forest with toll trees and dry grass. When we were laying bricks I had damaged another finger – the fifth one. The working site was really changed. You could see the place for foundations and half of the foundation itself. Finally the work was finished and we went back home.

That day the boys made wooden bat for cricket. I was watching them playing. Then I tried on my own and I liked it. In the afternoon we played with some kids. But in general it was resting afternoon. I had even the time to clean my room.

In the evening we talked about our first week in Africa. Again our cooks came and we had a fantastic time of worship. My heart was broken and humbled when I heard their songs. They were singing with pure hearts. Even though I did not understand what the song was about I felt the presence of the Holly Spirit. That evening was very uplifting.

Sunday 22nd July – Alexi

This day is the easiest day of our life in Africa. In the morning we went to the small and very poor local church of Kilolo. That church is very poor in material meaning but in spiritual way it was very rich, because being there we felt really God’s love and His presence between of us. Local people worship to God in proper way even with self-made musical instruments. But in our country many people don’t want to praise His name because of lack of best musical instruments. African people appreciate everything that they have and due to that during worship time they even can’t sing some songs due to the tears because they realise with all heart what Jesus has done for us.

After service everyone went out of the church and standing in circle greeted one another. After that we had about half an hour of praising God and dancing. So all this day we were resting (as God had the rest in the 7th day) after that tough work.

In the evening we started to adapt to certain circumstances. Some guys from our team made the bat for cricket, so in some ways we got used to that captivity of circumstances.

I think this morning was the most difficult to get up, I felt neither part of my body. But we had to get up and go to work, to do work not for ourselves but to God. After breakfast we went on the site. We were going to start to make foundations, but unfortunately we ran out of stones and cement, so we couldn’t do anything then just to wait.

Like yesterday we made big piles of ground inside the planned building, that’s why we tried to flatten everything. When we came back ‘home’ as always we had a sort of shower then lunch and children camp.

We didn’t actually have enough of strength to hold evening worship meeting. Singing went so sluggishly, nobody could sing, I even saw some of our mates sleeping already. And that was until Africans came, they started to sing us both in Swahili and English. They woke us up immediately and recharged us with super energy. We sang with them as well. There was one guy who was so touched that he started to cry, he couldn’t understand why were we so different. This question follows us until now.

Friday 20th July – Alosha

We got up early, at 7 o’clock. After small breakfast we went straight to work. The work this day was really hard. Mixing concrete was not the work for the ladies, but our ladies worked together with the men.

The water was the stumbling block for our work. without the water – no concrete, which means no work. To get the water you have to go a long way. It took us about 20 minutes to get to the stream, about 20 minutes to load all the vessels we had on the tractor, and another 20 minutes to return. Near the stream we saw local ladies carrying their buckets with the water … on their heads! Some of us tried to do the same, but we did not achieve the success. Praise the Lord we had the tractor with us. The tractor was the only vehicle that helped us in our work.

After the lunch we had football game in Kilolo against village team. They were a real football team. In our team we had 6 British, 3 Ukrainians, 1 American and 1 Tanzanian. We were not the last team in the world and we were really tired after long working day, but we did our best… And we lost… 4-5. But in this game we understood, what does it mean to be a team.

The evening finished with the rain. We were told that it never rains in Tanzania this period of the year. And it really didn’t in previous years. But because of global pollution the climate was changing. And it is real problem of our world…

Everything started today. There were 12 working days in front of us. This morning I decided to get up early. The first question that approached me after I woke up and opened my eyes was; “Why don’t I feel my feet?” They were frozen! I decided that next night I’d put on two pairs of socks to avoid my feet freezing.

There was 5:30 am on my watch and it was very dark outside, I took my blanket and went out of my room. One thing that really impressed me was that everything was wet and it was dripping from the roof, but I was absolutely sure that there was no rain in the night. Maybe it was because of the temperature difference between day and nighttime.

It’s amazing but sunrises last here only for couple of minutes, sun goes up very quickly, it was dark but now it’s light! When I was sitting outside I saw how our fire-keeper, an Africa, started to approach to a long stick that was dug down the ground. He stood very close to it and started to unfold something. When he fixed it to a string that was stretched on the stick I distinguished that it was a national flag. That man raised it and went back to the bonfire. To tell you the truth I saw such flags almost in every yard.

After breakfast our team was taken to the working side. I thought it would be sort of specially selected place or something that could look like construction but only I could see was wood. The first thought that came into my mind after I saw the landscape we should work on was; ‘I want to go back home’. But as there were quite big team it wasn’t too difficult especially with the help of African people. We were doing everything in turn, some were chopping trees, some were sawing them, others were trying to get rid of roots, girls were dragging branches and small trees to the pile.

That was our main work for this day. We’ve done everything successfully but only couple roots were left for the next day because our team was really exhausted till 1 o’clock. It was very tough to work under the burning sun and with eternal thirst. Thanks to God we were provided with water for this day that made our labor a bit easier. At about 1pm we were taken back to village where half bucket hot water shower was waiting for us and lunch as well.

After simple but nourishing meal we had small group meeting for half an hour and then we were holding a children’s camp. Kids all over that place were coming and coming, we played different games with them and when it became too dark, it was about 6 pm, we told them to come next afternoon.

At 7pm we had dinner and then in half an hour we had worship meeting. On orientation weekend we all were given songbook, so we could spend our worship time properly. In some time our African cook joined us in our singing, they happily performed a couple of songs in Swahili for us, I may say we were very amazed with their singing abilities and joy that was overflowing them.

Afterwards majority of us spent some time lying outside on the ground looking at the stars. You could see all of them so clearly and we even could see the ‘Milky Way’ across the sky that kept us impressed for a long time. At 11:30-12pm we all went to bed.

Wednesday 18th July – Alexi

This day started as always from English breakfast (different kinds of jam with toasts). Even in food we were getting used to such strange conditions, we were making toasts in the open fire.

But work on the building site started very interesting, because it was the second day of work and it means that we started work in proper way. We started to cut all big trees, that were left there and we were preparing place for foundations. Exactly that moment we found out new way of working when one group of us works and another group during that time prays. And after about half an hour we swap. According to that while we work we feel support and God’s strength and we can do more, comparing with just work. It’s amazing! For us the work in African conditions was very tough because of cold weather in the morning and hot weather at midday.

Straight after work we come home hungry, dirty and weak and we have to clean all that red dust from our bodies with about 2.5 litres of water. Today I saw that small amount of food we were going to eat and I started to murmur that it wasn’t enough. But after having that lunch I was fed and I understood that God takes care of us all the time and never forsakes us and we are His children, we have just to remember of that.

This day we were discussing in small group the captivity of Ezekiel. We can compare that captivity with our situation, because we were in captivity of all circumstances that were around of us. I mean we didn’t have many things and couldn’t do some things also. We were between 4 walls that were built from those circumstances.

It was my first night on an airplane. I’ve never seen such big plane with the video for passengers, audio, pillows and lovely food. Sunrise was fantastic pink, red, purple, violet, dark blue colors overflow the sky. Early in the morning our plane landed in Nairobi where we had to change the plane. After nine hours in the plane it was great to get out. First thing that I noticed and what gave me sense that I was in Africa were long real African palm trees. As we had to walk from our plane to the airport I came across one scary thing. When I did my first step I screamed. All land was covered with big ugly insects. I suspected they were locusts. So I grabbed my stuff and rushed to the airport. We spent one hour or two in the airport and flew on the other plane to Tanzania. It took us just one hour and a half. When we were approaching Tanzania we saw magnificent mountain Kilimanjaro. It was fantastic view! The top of it was higher then the clouds. At last we landed in Tanzania. We were in Africa real Africa. I could not believe that I was there.

Tanzania is a really poor country. The capital of the country Dar Es Salam was very dirty, full of gray buildings and old fashioned cars (just few of them) and buses. There I saw very rich people, quite good houses and expensive cars. That was my first impression about Tanzania. If the capital was so poor, then how our place would look like? We packed our stuff on the top of our small bus and started our journey. Eight hours in the bus it was the first hard bit. During that journey I tried to know more my team members and to look around the country.

First meeting with African animals. Just near the road stood a small elephant. We stopped our bus and all of us took pictures. Then here were zebras, giraffes and monkeys. I couldn’t believe that they were wild animals.

We passed small and tiny villages. Some of them shocked me. When the bus stopped immediately dozen of people would come with different stuff trying to sell it to us. First time in my life I saw so many bananas and oranges. Our leaders warned us that we can eat only that fruits which we can peel. It became dark very quickly at seven. There were no light on the road at all, accept the stars in the sky. Sometimes the car lights showed people walking in the darkness. We came to Iringa, the small town, which was the centre of the region with the same name Iringa. We stayed in the Bible College. The building looked like a farm long with lots of windows on both sides. We had light there! Girls came out and sang a song especially for us. It was really cold and windy. All girls were dressed in different dirty clothes. The toilet was outside the same as in Ukraine. For the tea we had rice and banana sauce (it tastes like potatoes). I was tired after long bus travelling and straight away after tea I went to bed. We slept on the double beds. I slept as a log.

Monday 16th July – Alosha

The first morning in Africa for us started at 7 o’clock in the morning. After a good night’s sleep we felt ourselves very good. We had small (as for us, Ukrainians) breakfast. It consisted of egg, some potatoes, bread and jam.

After the breakfast we played football. It was the first game, we divided into two teams and played against each other. While we were playing our leader, David, went to sort out about the way to the village we were going to.

He returned in two hours. We took two Land Cruisers and went to the central office of Dioceses of Ruaha. There we left our stuff and went to change money. We went to the post office and then to the market. It was really interesting to see people selling bananas as people sell potatoes on our markets. We had lunch in the sort of cafe. It was one of the seldom times when we had meat for the meal.

After lunch we went to Kililo. The village was 60 km from Iringa, the place where we spent the night. The road was so terrible, that I cannot describe. It was clay-rocky road, very bumpy. The building where we were supposed to sleep was the sort of concrete building without glass in the windows. The rooms were empty. Only mattresses on the floor. In the afternoon we were playing with children. We had our dinner at 20:00 and then we had devotion time. We went to sleep at 22:00.