We had an assignment to travel to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and do some training to Church leaders there. There is a district including four branches in Dar es Salaam. The church is growing in Tanzania, but there are only about 800 members in the country. We were assigned to provide training to the district auditors, branch presidents and clerks.
Tanzania is northeast of South Africa, about a three hour flight on South African Airways. It is bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and D.R. Congo to the west, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique to the south and the Indian Ocean to the East. Dar es Salaam (translated City of Peace) is a city of about 2.5 million.
Our driver, Morgan, picked us up from our apartment and took us to the Joberg airport. After about a three hour flight, we arrived in Dar es Salaam. Fortunately, we wouldn’t have to drive our car on this trip. Elder and Sister Burgener, a senior missionary couple, were there at the airport to pick us up. Elder Burgener is a counselor in the presidency of the Kenya Nairobi Mission. The mission office is over by Nairobi, which is several hundred miles away. We had reservations at the African hotel which is in the downtown, not so nice area of Dar es Salaam. Sister Burgener insisted that we cancel our reservation and consider staying at the Sea Cliff Hotel, where their visitors usually stay. So we cancelled our reservation at the African (which cost us some money) and they took us to the Sea Cliff. As it turned out, we got the church corporate rate, which was much less than the “tourist” rate. The Sea Cliff is in a much nicer area of town near the beach, with a beautiful view of the Indian Ocean.
The next day when we arrived at the church building for the training, the electricity was off. Fortunately, they had a generator which they started up, and we were on our way. We needed electricity for our Power Point presentation, and just as important, the air conditioning and lights. In the first session, we talked to the district auditors and clerks about financial auditing procedures. They were receptive to the training and asked quite a few questions. The next day, we met with branch presidents and clerks. I did the training on church financial policies, donations, expenditures, and budgets, etc., and Sharon did the training on membership records. Again, the training went well, the leaders were receptive to the training, and hopefully it was beneficial to them.
The Burgeners were excellent hosts. They showed us around the city, had dinner and lunch with us and had us over to their home for dinner on Sunday. We went to church with them and got to meet some of the branch members.
We were so impressed with all that the Burgeners do, there. They provide leadership and work with all the missionaries in the area. Most of the young missionaries are Africans, although we met one American from Bountiful, Utah. The Burgeners organized and sometime teach Institute and seminary classes. They run the distribution center in the area, which provide church magazine subscriptions, training materials and any other materials that the members need. They take care of living quarters and visa issues for the missionaries. They attend Mission presidency meetings and zone conferences, which are hundreds of miles away on bad roads full of pot holes, even as far as Nairobi, which is about a nine hour drive. Fortunately, they have a 4 wheel drive diesel Toyota SUV to drive. They frequently make trips to the airport to pick up or drop off missionaries. They have no P days. They are isolated from other senior missionaries, being the only senior couple in the area. Their home is nice, but is in a walled compound with 24 hour security. In spite of that, they were burglarized, and lost some of their valuables and cash. Because of the possibility of being an inside job, they then had to fire their security staff and hire a new staff. Their electricity goes off from time to time, sometimes for hours at a time. There was large surge of electricity one time that blew out the meter and switch box and fried many of their appliances including their microwave, computer monitor, printer and several other appliances that happened to be plugged in at the time. Fortunately it didn’t fry their computer. They told us that no day is the same and that every day brings new challenges and opportunities to serve the missionaries and members there. They told us that they enjoy every minute of their mission. We thought our mission was challenging and difficult, until we learned about what they do. They are a great example of true service as missionaries.
They are planning on serving another mission and are thinking that they would like to serve as area auditors, and replace us when we go home. We said that we would recommend them for the mission.
We took an extra day and rode a ferry over to the island of Zanzibar for lunch and hired a driver to show us around.
We are so grateful for the opportunities we have to travel around to different countries in Africa, to meet the people and to experience their cultures. Our next stop is to Uganda and Rwanda to do some audits in districts and branches in the Uganda Kampala Mission. After that trip, we plan to go to Addis Ababa, Ethopia to do more audits.