It's a pretty strange experience, resigning from jobs and depending on others to support you. This year, Steph will be volunteering at HOPAC more regularly. You could call it a "job," except it won't pay. Even my teaching job isn't really paid...we get a small stipend of $1300/month. That's almost exactly how much our rent is each month, so we have to raise money for every thing else!
I wanted to make it clear why we need money from you, and how that money will be used to benefit God's work in Tanzania.
WHY
As I said, the school pays its teachers a small stipend every month. Even so, it costs over $6000 a year for regular students to attend HOPAC. Imagine if the 40+ teachers and professional staff were paid even "minimum" starting salaries from America...costs would leap! Indeed, the other (non-Christian) Western-style private school in Dar Es Salaam costs over $24,000/year. HOPAC was created primarily for missionary families, so they would be able to afford a high-quality Western education while they do ministry in east Africa. MK students are actually given a big discount from that $6K/year. So when you support our family, you are actually supporting the work of Wycliffe Bible translators, pastor training programs, youth group ministries, health organizations, ministries that work with disabled people, and more! Every dollar we receive makes the lives of those missionaries better!
We also are trying to reach out in other ways to minister to the people of Tanzania. First of all, we try to form relationships with the students at HOPAC. Through sports (Tim coaches and plays with students weekly, and the kids are on sports teams), through after-school activities like board games, and through school events we try to get to know students so that we can talk to them about The Important Things of Life, especially where they are on their spiritual walk. As we spend more time in Tanzania, this will get easier and easier to do. We are also trying to invest in the lives of kids from the "Sala Sala Kids Club," a ministry run by a friend of ours. Impoverished children in the community behind the school have vast needs, both materially and spiritually. We hope that this year, we can find more and more ways to help.
HOW
Here's some information on how we use the money we receive.
- Food (about $8000): of course we do need to eat. Some foods (rice, beans, local fruits and veggies) are pretty cheap. Other foods do cost more. Steph makes the majority of our food from scratch, so granola for breakfast, rolls for lunch, and pasta sauces for dinner are all done cheaply (but take time). We probably end up spending about the same as we do in America on food. As Steph got better at shopping over the year, more of our food was purchased at local stores, putting money directly in Tanzanian hands rather than at the big food supermarkets!
- Transportation - Home ($6500): to make it home in the summer means plane tickets. We aren't sure of our plans next summer and beyond, but our initial two year commitment will be over. We should probably budget to afford to be able to return!
- Transportation - There ($5000): We hope that we don't need to buy a car this year. Our current car has been a problem for us literally since Day 1, as we broke down the first time we left the house! In the meantime, it does need some fixing (which is generally cheap!) and of course gas (which isn't.)
- Utilities (about $2500): the good news is that we've been able to find very cheap (and adequate) Internet and cell phone service. It's not great but it's OK. Very fast Internet access could cost us over $100/month easily, but we can get OK service for about $3/week! Water is included in our rent price. Electricity is the big worry...the price went up 200% last January according to reports. Overall this is the big worry for our budget...prices can change very quickly on many of our planned expenditures.
- House help (about $4000). This is a hard one to explain to Westerners. It certainly has taken us a long time to get used to it. We employ a gardener, a guard, and a house maid. The gardener comes with the house...our landlord requires that we hire him to keep the property nice. The guard is also pretty much a necessity. We live in a safe area but you don't want to be the "easy" target on the road no matter where you are. House help is culturally an important thing...Westerners who do not get house help are viewed as both cheap and arrogant! This year, though, with Steph working more hours, our house help will be more important than ever. With cooking, laundry and cleaning done "the old fashioned way," it just takes too long to do daily housework. Besides all that, we are quite proud and happy to be supporting three families by paying our workers. Our gardener is a joyous man with a beautiful family. Our guard is a kind and gentle man, willing to do much more around our yard than guard. And Ray, our maid, is expecting a child this fall. She is a quiet but sweet woman, and an important member of our family.
- All the other stuff. OK, we also have all the exciting things like taxes (which are higher for us, being "self-employed"), health care, a monthly security fee, gifts for friends and family, school uniforms and fees, as well as things like modestly adding to our 401K and saving for the kids' college tuition funds. All together, we have budgeted about $73,000 of expenses this year. (If you want a complete breakdown beyond all this, I can provide it! We try to be transparent!) After the school pays the stipend, we are at $60,000 left to raise. It's a challenge, but we also know that God provides! He provided for us last year, and we had an even larger budget, with set up costs for furniture, car, and more. We also rejoice that we can project about $30,000 of that money already pledged! Between churches supporting us and some faithful regular givers, we assume we can rely on that income. So we're 50% of the way there!
I hope this helps anyone who is wondering "what does it take to live in Tanzania?" We always assumed we could live on like 1/3 of this amount. Maybe you can, but we haven't figured out how yet! We try to live simply but comfortably and safely. If you'd like to donate to our ministry, you can follow links on our blog to our sending mission, Christian Reformed World Missions. Thanks for reading!
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