The Carpenter’s Kids Partnership

Video Introduction

Overview

To build inter-parish and cross cultural relationships, St. Paul's has committed to sponsor 136 children in one village (Mwitikira) in the Diocese of Central Tanzania. We provide $3,000 a year for five years beginning October 2007. The funds provide school uniforms, shoes and basic school materials, as well as breakfast on school days. In 2008, St. Paul's also provided socks, sweaters, bookbags, soap, moisturizer, and, most importantly, mattresses and two large mosquito nets. And in 2009, more members of St. Paul's community traveled to Tanzania to build relationships while another member advanced the Clean Water Project by overseeing the successful purchase and installation of a new water pump.

The Carpenter's Kids partnership is part of our commitment to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, which have been endorsed by the Episcopal Church.

Contact: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), 804-377-9738

Successes

With your generous help, we have been able to provide the following for our partner parish in Mwitikira, Tanzania:

• A new water pump to improve access to safe, healthy water
• 70 desks for the primary school, each of which was constructed in Mwitikira, helping their economy
• English language textbooks for every child in Standard 2 and 3 (254 students)
• Partial funding to build the walls of a new church requested by the people of Mwitikira
• Matresses for 136 primary school children
• Two mosquito nets for each of the 136 children's families, which, with the mattresses, help protect the children from deadly, malaria-bearing mosquitoes. 
• New uniforms, shoes, and school supplies for the Carpenter's Kids
• Books for a new children's library

Asanteni sana.  Bwana asafiwe!  (Thank you very much.  Praise the Lord!) 

What's New

To Feed A Village

A worldwide food shortage will affect the nearly 800 children living in Mwitikira, Tanzania, St. Paul’s partner village through the Carpenter’s Kids. In response, members of St. Paul’s youth group committed to raising awareness of the shortage and spent the month of August raising money throughout the Richmond community to buy maize for the children of Mwitikira.

Thanks to the generosity of the St. Paul's and St. Christopher's School communities, the youth met their fundraising goal of $20,000 in August 2009! That is enough money to feed all 800 children in Mwitikira for the duration of the dry season.

100% of the money raised went directly to the Carpenter’s Kids program to be used to purchase food. The money was forwarded to the Carpenter’s Kids in Tanzania, a program of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Tanzania, through the Diocese of Virginia.

Mission to Mwitikira, June 2009

This summer, Si Wofford, his mother Cindy, and Natalie Davis joined Suzanne Johnson and Roger Whitfield on a mission to Mwitikira, Tanzania.  Cindy, Si, Natalie, and Suzanne taught English (the students speak Swahili, but take their national exams in English). Roger purchased and oversaw the installation of a new water pump to improve access to clean water. Click on the links below to learn more about their work and experiences.

Journals & Reflections by Cindy Wofford

Photo Gallery: Mission to Mwitikira

June 28th letter from Roger Whitfield

June 22nd letter from Natalie

June 13th letter from Si and Natalie

The Carpenter's Kids Newsletter

Keep up with The Carpenter's Kids by reading the newsletter, released at the first of each month.

A Poem from Bishop Mdimi

Bishop Mdimi, founder of The Carpenter's Kids, made his first official visit to the Diocese of Virginia in November 2008. After his visit with St. Paul's and others, he wrote a poem.  Below are excerpts and the full version is available here.

It was my first official visit to Virginia Diocese.
Thanks for the wonderful itinerary and reception.

Your land is beautiful
The figure of God carved and mapped it meticulously.
Your land is blessed, giving you food, water and all you need.
Your land is fragile, it needs gracious hands to nurture it, for the
next generations.

The people I met, were kind and welcoming just like the land itself.
Their faces reflected the grace of the land they live in.
Their eyes were clear and friendly
I did not feel like a stranger.
I was welcomed to their homes as if I was a brother returning home.

...

St. Paul's Richmond
filled with people who know how to serve
With out-reached hearts and minds
bringing healing and love to the suffering world.
Their love for Christ and humanity radiates the very love of Christ.
And their hands of service were truly Christ's hands.
Apart from the Colorado Group,
You have become the centre of the Carpenter's Kids friends in the
Diocese.
Thank you Wallace Adams-Riley
Thank you Suzanne Johnson
Thank you all

...

Thank you Bishop Lee
Thank you Bishop Johnson
For opening your diocese for others to come and learn from you.
Thanks for your courageous love in sharing what you have with the rest
of the world.
Thank you for your willingness to dare to enter into fellowship with
your brothers and sisters in Tanzania.
All this has become possible because of your graciousness and the
recognition of God's gift of mission to the world.
We will keep you in our prayers
as we serve Christ, visible to us in the faces and in the eyes of the
Carpenter's Kids. To God be the glory
now and always. Amen.
Thank you all.