A Motorcycle for James!

What a great pleasure it was for Wild Hope to be able to partner with Reality church in Carpinteria and the Russell kids to provide much needed transport for our great friend, James Ole Kukan.

James is one of those golden people, a man of integrity who has lived his values with grace and consistency over all the years that we have known him. It is our great privilege to have him on our board of trustees here in Tanzania. His spiritual oversight of our Artisan Project participants is invaluable.

Caring for the needs of multiple congregations over many miles out in Maasai, James has a whole new freedom to get to these far flung places now that he has these snappy wheels.

Of the many things we appreciate about James, his wisdom and insight into how best to bring appropriate, effective, lasting assistance to Maasai communities is one that we call on again and again. James is a gift to Wild Hope and to his people. We love that we get to be a part of providing this gift for him.

Real Talk About HIV/AIDS

(Photo: Students attending our Health and HIV/AIDS class.)

"Why are Tanzanians dead because of HIV/AIDS? Why are Americans not dead because of HIV/AIDS? Why?"

The questions left by students in the question box last week were nothing if not frank.

HIV awareness campaigns are not new to the gritty urban settlements of Africa. What is less common in these communities is an environment of freedom where every question can be asked. But can this subject of HIV/AIDS, taboo even after years of education, really be dealt with candidly?

Enter: a little team of folks from Trinity Presbyterian, Santa Ana, California, and a little team of Wild Hope staff here in Tanzania.

Now, give them five days with forty high school aged young people and let the learning begin!

To our great delight, the team from Trinity stepped up to the challenge with grace and boldness. The forty Tanzanian students who attended Wild Hope's Leadership Academy module, Health and HIV, were truly blessed.

Every evening, the questions/comments box was filled with slips of paper--

"What can I do when I know I have HIV/AIDS?"

"Most of the bosses they want sex with girls to give the job and the girls say yes because they don't have job, nothing to eat, so they agree."

"I know 20 people who have died from HIV."

Preparations each evening were sobering, yet God was faithful to grant wisdom and insight. By the end of the week, the comments reflected the thankfulness students felt for what they had learned and the environment in which they had been led.

Seasoned teachers from a local school affirmed that the permission to speak openly was a big step forward for all of them. The students already know, first hand, what HIV/AIDS is. Yet for many of them, this was the clearest information they had received on cause and prevention, not to mention the myriad of related issues that surround the disease.

This is the beauty of bridging cultures-- we can take each other to new places and be changed for the better as we journey together.

Our visitors from California might not be able to quantify exactly how their experience with forty kids in a severely challenged neighborhood within Arusha changed their lives. They'll just know that it truly did. The young Tanzanians who attended won't forget what they heard in honesty and freedom regarding topics of grave importance. From practical health tips to matters of hope and faith, they've been impacted and inspired.

And we are the lucky ones! What a joy it is to bring our friends from opposite corners of the globe together. What a pleasure it is for us to play matchmaker :-)


(Photo: Ashley Sparks of Trinity with one of the students.)

We Harvest the Beans :-)

The April/May rains failed in parts of Kenya and Tanzania, leaving many of our friends struggling as the dust blows where grass should be growing for their weakening herds.

With this reality close to us, we don't take for granted the rains that we received on Wild Hope's acreage outside of Arusha. For whatever reason, this general area was blessed with quite a decent rainy season and we have been harvesting the first fruits off of the land.

What a precious thing to be involved in the rhythm of the earth as dry ground softens under the rain, nourishing the hidden seeds and encouraging them to sprout and grow. What a lot of fun to watch the plants mature and produce and then to finally bring in a harvest.

Our bean production (grown amongst the maize and replenishing what maize depletes) wasn't on a very large scale but we're pleased with it none-the-less. We celebrated the good gifts of our Creator as we enjoyed our first meal with home-grown beans in our burritos.

This is a beginning for us. We look forward to years of multiple types of harvests grown in sustainable, environmentally responsible ways. With hunger and the degradation of the land being ongoing concerns in sub-Saharan Africa, we hope to work together with our neighbors to see these issues decrease.

We sure wish you could stop by for a plate of beans and rice with us :-)

Bundles (and Bundles!) of Beads

Every month bundles of beaded products are brought in to the Wild Hope team here in Arusha. But Wild Hope's artisan-made products begin to take shape miles and miles and miles from where they end up on display. Carefully threaded onto the stiff wire and bent by the strong, skilled hands of our Maasai friends, the products first take shape in the remote villages where our friends live.

From the village, the product is loaded onto the backs of donkeys and walked for half a day to connect with a friend who has a Land Rover. The Land Rover delivers the product along dirt trails to the closest "public transport vehicle" which travels along the paved road to Arusha. It can be a 2 day process just to bring the product in to town.

Each month, Peter Ole Kukan and 2 or 3 of the Artisan women deliver the wares to Tammy, Grace and Philemon. Together, they now begin the 3 day process of sorting, counting, scrutinizing for quality control, paying, making new orders, assisting the women as they supply with new stock, and sending the little party of Maasai friends back out. When the delegation gets home, the process begins again with 80+ women launching into the work to fill the new orders.


The lovely ornaments and decorations move along to buyers. Some of them end up in high end tourist shops in our town. Some of them end up in Europe, New Zealand, Australia and the U.S. All of them provide a fair trade for traditional artisans who would not necessarily find employment otherwise.

We love the story of how the product gets from village to town. Even more, we love the stories of families provided for by the faithful work of these skilled women. Proceeds go back into the project, building communities in far away places.

Great Teachers/Eager Learners

Our first 10 week session of English Club is under way in the tiny little club house of our Nyota Football Club!

The wonderful team from Christian Assembly (who were with us at the end of August) poured their hearts into a full week of classes that included the training of trainers to take the English lessons on.

Wow! You've never seen such eager learners :-) Those Nyota guys hardly let us pause after the team left before they were insisting that they were ready to get the 10 weeks of follow-on classes under way.

We really could not have gotten this lasting effort off the ground without the preparation, training and materials that our friends from Christian Assembly brought with them. Thank you, CA!!



Team member, Christine Kim, reflected on the photo above, which she took when she arrived to teach one morning.

"When I arrived on the second day of English Club, I saw our students sitting on the grass reviewing and studying their books. It was such a blessing to see their eagerness to learn and acquire English. I remember sharing with the team that in all my years of teaching, I have never seen kids treasure education and the opportunity to learn so much. It gave me excitement each day to teach."

The team filled our 40 students with encouragement and the excitement to learn. Their impact carries on as these young men, aged from about 8-18, continue to come in with a hunger to improve their language skills.

Tournament Joys

At a recent small tournament, Wild Hope's Nyota FC took first place for both the U17 and U12 teams. We were very proud of them! The photo above shows the U12 team (in blue) waiting to collect their trophy :-)

The longer we know these young men, the more we learn about their lives. The more we learn about their lives, the more we want to see them succeed in both football AND life. Their community is a challenging place in which to find joy and hope, but we know it's not impossible.

Please join us in prayers of blessings for these guys, and for our efforts to do increasingly more than sports alone for them.

The crowd of impressionable young ones looks on.


The goals we made for the pitch come apart and get carried home so that they don't get stolen.


The team enjoys a little post-game chat.

"The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly in the Plain" OR English Lessons in Sokon

One of the beautiful things about Tanzania is that they have honored their own heritage and valued the local language, Swahili. This has been a blessing in many ways.

Simultaneously, one of the greatest needs in Tanzania is for children to learn English as well. With most of the wide world of the web being in English, this generation cannot afford to miss out on all the vast learning resources that the web provides.

One of the things that the Diamond Canyon team did while they were here with us was to engage the kids in Sokon in morning sessions of what we called "English Club." Those mornings were so appreciated! Kids have a wonderful capability to learn language and we were delighted that they responded so positively to the invitation to learn. Many of the kids stayed on into the afternoon to hear more from the team about their lives and faith and a great time was had by all :-)

Wonderful Water!

The Sinon School in the Sokon area of our city, Arusha, is a school that Wild Hope has built a lasting relationship with. Because we strongly believe in education as one of the most effective tools in the war against poverty and HIV/AIDS, we are blessed when we are able to bless them!

Just recently, the Sinon School was able to turn on the water faucet and celebrate with us the working well on the school campus. Imagine the joy of that simple luxury, running water :-)

Big thanks to our friends at Diamond Canyon Christian Church who have partnered with us in our efforts to provide a better school for the kids of Sokon. The photo above shows some of the team from California enjoying the water with some of the kids.

The kids at the school are thankful that they no longer have to haul buckets. We are thankful that we could come alongside to provide wonderful water!