Dear and blessed brothers and sisters in Christ and partners of the vineyard of the Orthodox Foreign Mission in Tanzania, Africa.
With the blessings of our Metropolitan Demetrios and your assistance, we continue the difficult and responsible struggle of evangelization of our fellow human beings living here.
However, we do not fail, according to the possibilities we have, to help our needy brothers and sisters in various ways in their daily needs.
Here in the city of Iriga, Tanzania, where the Missionary Center is located, every day many orphaned and abandoned children find warmth, who with the help of volunteers learn to love Christ and his brothers and sisters in Christ, to go to the services of the Church, to make the sign of the Cross correctly, to pray before eating or drinking the milk and biscuits offered by the Mission. They learn to eat by washing their hands beforehand.
Here one will hear their pure voices singing hymns and spiritual odes to the donor Lord, applying the psalm “from the mouths of babes I will sing a hymn”.
Many of them are being properly prepared to receive the garment of incorruption, Holy Baptism.
In addition, they are helped with their school needs, because here in Tanzania the students’ special clothing and all school supplies are bought by the families. In addition, they have to pay enough money to be able to attend school. Children whose families cannot afford to pay are expelled from school until they pay.
Do you remember, dear brothers, what did Saint Cosmas the Aetolian say? Without letters, how can one learn to read the Gospel? And here, we have very few of the 10,000 copies of the Bible left, which were printed in Swahili with the financial contribution of your Brotherhood, which we once again thank from the bottom of our hearts, and which are waiting for the young children of Tanzania to be educated with the Immortal Word of God, so that later, when they grow up, they will become men of the Faith of Hope and Love.
Please pray and do not forget us, so that all Orthodox everywhere may glorify the glorious and majestic Name of God.Amen.
With the Love of Christ,
Archim. Photios Hadjientoniou
