June 5

We are heading into the last couple of days before we head off to Tanzania. 8 of the 10 team members will be flying into Washington DC where one team member, Lorrie, has opened her home for them to stay at in order to make the flight out Sunday morning!

We may not be able to post often due to internet availability, but possible we will do an update.

Here is our tentative schedule for our mission, but we are prepared to be flexible and adaptable. 

Welcome to the 1418 Tanzania Eyeglass Blog!

We are serving with the East Lake Victoria Diocese . SELVD is an arid area located south east of Lake Victoria , the population is 2,805,580 (2013) and the area covered is 50,781 Sq. KM or 19,601 sq. miles. The Diocese was created on December 12, 2012 during the General Assembly at Macedonia Mwasele Parish at Shinyanga. as a result of splitting the ELVD into two diocese because of the large area in the ELVD.

SELVD has five districts: South West District (Kahama), Shinyanga District(Shinyanga), Southern District (Maganzo), Eastern District (Maswa) and Bariadi District (Bariadi).

SELVD has 34 parishes and 113 sub parishes. As of the first of 2013, the number of Christians numbered are: adult: 19,046, children 30,432 and baptisms 15,025. The total number of Christians are 49,476.

VISION: The church with people living in love, peace and joy, the people who are blessed spiritually, mentally and physically, the people with hope of inheritance of eternal life through Jesus Christ.

The team of 10 will be serving in the Shinyanga District providing an eyeglass clinic and evangelism.

Meet the team:
Glenn and Carole Borchers
Don and Joshua Duensing
Lorrie Kirst
Jill Mueller
Rachel Wegener
Carolyn Holbird
Greg and Debby Suchyta