- 3 months ago
A short documentary about the St Stephen's Church and Bishop Chavasse School in Tonbridge, UK, and their links with the Diocese of Mpwapwa, Tanzania.
Category
🏖
TravelTranscript
00:10Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in
00:20heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.
00:30Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power and the glory are
00:39yours, now and forever. Amen.
00:57So I am deeply committed to the idea of faith and belief and the safety that it provides.
01:09I've had quite a journey in life to navigate and through all of that, that safety of knowing that
01:19I'm being looked after always has kept me going.
01:24This will be my fourth visit to Impactful Diocese, but I last visited nine years ago,
01:29so quite a while ago. I'm most nervous about the fact that Stephen and Sylvie Barber,
01:34who have led our partnership over the last 12 years, and know the country and the people very
01:42well having visited most years over those 12 years are not going to be with us due to illness.
01:49And so I'm picking up the leadership of the trip. And with eight of us going, I'm the only person
01:59who's
02:00been out there before. So it's a level of responsibility in that. But also, Stephen and Sylvie
02:08had so much knowledge, have so much knowledge of what is going on, knowing the people, knowing the
02:14culture, knowing where places are, that I don't have. And that slightly concerns me as I go out there.
02:24Well, I'm not very, not a big fan of creepy crawlies. So I've made that very clear that spiders in
02:30my
02:30bedroom will be a big no-no, and there might be some squeals, and people might need to come and
02:35rescue me. Obviously quite nervous about being a long way from home and my own children, because
02:42it's the first time I've left them to go on such a big trip and for such a long time.
02:46Even though they
02:47are young adults and older teenagers, I still have a slight apprehension about being far away from them.
02:52But otherwise, it's just feelings of true, deep excitement.
03:59I have forgotten how beautiful the country is, and how fertile and green it is, how mountainous
04:08it is. It's truly awe-inspiring. It is my moment of awe and wonder to see the African plains,
04:16the mountains, the colours, but actually meeting the people, meeting the local people, who are just
04:25the kindest, most welcoming community I think that I've ever experienced.
04:33Well we feel everybody in the classical project gets such a huge sense of satisfaction at being
04:39part of the project, but also the work it generates and the changes it makes to your lives.
04:45One of the big issues for the Diocese, as for all of Tanzania just about, is when the rains
04:51come or don't come.
05:02CCMP is a process by which we, the community, seek to help each other in using the resources
05:11that they already have in their homes or in the community to improve their standard of
05:19living and lifestyle.
05:24Before CCMP training, I was very lost, both spiritually and physically. Using the CCMP training, I was
05:31able to learn how to produce food using the surrounding resources. For example, I dug a borehole to access
05:37water, which I sell to produce revenue. Before CCMP, I was unsure where my food would come from.
05:43Now I have enough for three meals a day. I can also afford to send my children to school with
05:49all the materials they need. I think it's a good idea to spread the CCMP throughout the
05:54Diocese of Mpapua and to continue to support others so that the church will grow. Thank you for the CCMP
06:01training
06:01and may God bless you.
06:05We visited a hospital yesterday. That was quite hard. We visited a maternity unit and having had
06:11four children at home, under the care of the NHS, with brand new machinery, really clean equipment. To see what
06:21the maternity facilities here are like, that was quite a challenging moment I think.
06:28And there's somewhere to cook, for them to cook them? Yes, somewhere. There is somewhere. So they all, all the
06:33care, relatives, relatives stay nearby.
06:38I think there were quite a few of us in the group who are, who are mothers and we found
06:45that really quite hard. However, two doctors, two nurses within this hospital, they give their lives for these women giving
06:52birth.
06:53And you felt, even despite the surroundings, that really you were in the safest hands you could possibly be. And
07:00I think that is testament just to that
07:02love and joy that people have here. They want to look after each other. But it was hard, I think,
07:07to see the clinic and the hospital surroundings.
07:47There are differences. We work through the Anglican Church in the Diocese of Papua, so they will have Anglican flavour
07:57to them. And services go on for quite a long time.
08:02We often have a lot of people speaking, a lot of choirs singing. It's very vibrant and colourful and often
08:11quite busy.
08:12So it's all very social. And the eight of us going out will be guests of honour and we'll be
08:18asked to sit in kind of at the front.
08:21We'll all be asked to introduce ourselves. And yet there'll be some things we recognise, although it will be in
08:28a different language to what we used to.
08:30We may not understand a lot, but we'll be hopefully helped by interpreters, people out there who can speak English
08:37and tell us what's going on and what's being said.
09:08Thank you very much.
09:09Thank you very much, our son-san for our audience.
09:23It was there to support us. The time we'll meet. Stephen will be forever.
09:33Yes, it is.
09:35You can really feel everywhere we've been the impact that Stephen and Sylvie have had on everybody that they've met.
09:43All the schools, all the self-help groups, the people at the college.
09:50I mean, Stephen and Sylvie, what amazing people.
09:57Stephen and Sylvie were going to be leading our trip out this year, as they've been out many times before.
10:04And know CCMP really well and know the people out here really well.
10:10And so for Stephen to be taken very ill, a few weeks ahead of us going, and then sadly to
10:18die just before Easter, was a real blow for those of us coming.
10:24It was sad for us to hear the death of our friend, Stephen Barber.
10:31We stand here today to honor the life of a true remarkable man and our dearest friend, Stephen Barber.
10:41To look around St. Philip's Theoretical College, it is to see the physical and spiritual fingerprints of Stephen's generosity.
10:54Stephen didn't just believe in the mission of this college.
10:57He built a future.
10:59He was a man of action who understood that faith is often expressed through service.
11:06Through the borehole drilling and the provision of water filters, Stephen literally brought life-giving, safe water to this community.
11:18A gift that will protect the health of our students and faculty for generations to come.
11:29As we've arrived here, it's been very clear the emotion out here at Stephen's death.
11:35They are very upset.
11:37They were very close to him and held him in high esteem.
11:42And condolences and grief has been poured out in our time here.
12:15And condolences and grief has been poured out in our time here.
12:18And send their condolences to Sylvie time and again.
12:24And their love for her is very clear and obvious.
12:29I think it's certainly made us want to help carry on the work that they've done.
12:37But, yeah, incredible.
12:54And part of our partnership with these ten villages has been to involve other people locally in aspects of what
13:01goes on in the village life.
13:03But we've also involved local schools here and around Tunbridge in some of the local schools out there.
13:10I mean, we were so welcome to the school.
13:12They wanted to see us.
13:14They wanted to be with us.
13:15They wanted to share their school songs.
13:44We visited a secondary school up in the mountains.
13:47called Queen Esther's.
13:48It's a private school.
13:49They've sat an exam to gain a place.
13:52They're really proud of themselves.
13:53You can see that the parents really want the very best for their children.
14:03We're going to be taking out a few gifts like footballs and t-shirts just to have fun with them.
14:09And we may well end up playing football with some of the kids and enjoying being with them and interacting
14:16with some of the kids that we come across.
14:29Our God is a great big God.
14:32Our God is a great big God.
14:35Our God is a great big God and he holds us in his hands.
14:42We visited three schools in the village areas and equally the amount of hope and desire that every single child
14:51has that attend those schools has just overwhelmed us.
15:11My school are linked to my Tongari school.
15:13By far the school most in need of support.
15:34We've been able to commit during this trip to the renovation of four classrooms.
15:40The building of a school kitchen so that children can be fed during the day.
15:45We've committed to supporting running water ongoing for the school so that the children are able to drink, to wash
15:51their hands, having been to the toilet or just needing to.
15:55We shared music lessons.
15:57We shared sports lessons.
15:59Thanks to the generous support of our school community back at home.
16:03And the way that it was received and welcomed and used and shared with us was just, yeah, beyond heartwarming.
16:14I think the four teachers that have travelled out feel really profoundly moved by the experience.
16:22But knowing that we're leaving the schools that we visited in the safe hands of some incredible teachers and incredible
16:32communities.
16:51God has been a work trip in various ways.
16:54One, in the team, we were a diverse group of people, didn't know the teachers and they didn't know us.
17:02And yet the team has bonded together really well and been a really fun and positive group.
17:08We have worked well together and seen lots of things in the communities we've been into and seen how God
17:17is at work through CCMP in people's lives,
17:20in helping people to develop new techniques, farming or setting up businesses.
17:27The people are incredibly welcoming and reminded again of their welcome and love and their appreciation of us coming out
17:35and visiting to be blessed by us.
17:38But they've also been delighted and wanting to tell their stories of what God has been doing through CCMP and
17:46through the self-help groups.
17:48I feel truly honoured to have been able to see, live the landscape, the colours, the scenery, the mountains, the
18:02plains,
18:02to have met so many incredible people that have just the most amazing inner strength fuelled by love.
18:17To have shared the trip with some people from home that are truly incredible in their sense of compassion,
18:28their sense of selflessness, their sense of desire to help.
18:35To have witnessed the love for Stephen and Sylvie, to have had the opportunity to have my own personal journey
18:45of reflection of what is really important in life.
18:50And I will take home some incredible memories of some breathtaking scenery, some starry nights that are beyond my wildest
19:03dreams to have witnessed.
19:04When you take away everything else, when you strip it back, what hope, love, aspiration, compassion, community really, really looks
19:15like.
19:16And those feelings, the thoughts, the images left on my mind will remain with me forever.
19:25And I feel very, very grateful to Stephen and Sylvie for starting the journey and to the group that I've
19:35travelled with,
19:36because they are some amazing people.