Jeff and Diane Stoinoff's Weblog

The Story of a Tanzanian Missionary

djstoinoff — Sat, 30 May 2009 05:04:00 +0000

One day, I came across a girl sitting next to what looked like a little gray doll. When I got closer I realized the doll was a human baby. I asked the girl sitting next to the baby if it was her younger brother or sister. She said, “No, it’s my child.” At four months old, he looked like he hadn’t eaten since he was born; only skin and bones. He looked world-weary; for him life was too much of a fight already. With his shallow breathing and tiny little body, I was afraid he was going to pass away right there in my arms. His name is Adamu (Adam, in English).

Speaking with Lucia, his mother, I learned that she was 14 years old, a little girl herself. Both her parents had died, and she was HIV positive and had Tuberculosis. She had no interest in holding the baby as she was so sick herself. I ended up holding Adamu continuously for the next 5 hours, as I accompanied them to two different hospitals, trying to get treatment finally, they were admitted. Lucia was admitted to the ward for contagious diseases and Adamu had to stay in a crib in the Babies’ Ward. Adamu was started on a special formula for malnourishment.

Lucia’s Living Situation:
I asked Lucia about the father of the child, whom she stays with. She shared that he doesn’t care about her but she has no place else to go. Since her parents died, she was living with her uncle who also doesn’t want her. He wants her to return to her village. But if she did, she would not be able to get her medicine. She has just started taking Anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) and did not have the resources to travel back and forth. This latter option would not be good for her well- being and health.
The following day, I went on a home visit to where Lucia lives with the HBCV (Home-Based care volunteer group). I wanted to speak with the family and hear their side of the story. When we walked into the house there were 8 little children sitting on the concrete floor, along with 4 or 5 teenagers, but no adults. Her uncle wasn’t there.
There was no furniture in the house—nothing but the floor. This was the environment that Lucia lived in. How did Adamu survive as long as he did? The HBCV said that a lot of the time, when a family finds out that someone is sick with HIV because of fear they no longer want them. Lucia needs food, she’s never been to school, has no parents and no skills to earn money— she needs someone to care for her too. It is heartbreaking! There are hundreds of these stories we hear and witness daily.

Your Hands and Feet in Tanzania East Africa

Jeff and Diane

Our Vision

djstoinoff — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:15:41 +0000

We wanted to update you on what’s been happening in regards to our work here in Moshi. Last week we met with two older street boys who know we want to help street children. They told us that there are many younger kids who are in desperate circumstances and need to be taken off the streets before they die. These younger children are eating out of garbage cans and drinking contaminated water and are showing signs of sickness. We saw the same thing in Burkina Faso , and felt honored that these boys wanted us to be the ones to help them. After a hardy lunch we parted and these boys went back to the streets and we walked down Main Street with a Tanzanian friend who just stopped and started talking to a little girl, He asked her where do you come from? Where is your mama and baba? She said, I have no mama and baba. I hid on a (bus) and prayed to God that he would send someone to help me. We looked at each other and knew we could not leave her on the street, we took her for some food and then to our friendʼs house, to stay temporarily. Her name is Mwajabu. She wanted her picture taken wearing the little jacket we bought for her. After investigating her story we plan to take care of her permanently. She is 12 and does not know how to read or write.

Diane and I visited a secondary school (high school) of about 1200 students. A pastor teaches bible there and he told us about these girls who come to his class that confide in him that they are without basic needs. They board at this school and are the brightest of the bright, but have little to nothing such as soap, toothpaste, feminine napkins, underwear, as well as school fees. We came to the school to meet these girls; there are approx. 32 who are in desperate circumstances. We played games with them, and the Lord impressed Diane to give these girls her testimony regarding having to give up her baby when she was young. Afterwards one young girl came up and confided in us that she was pregnant. She sold her body in order to buy her basic needs. If the teachers found out they would automatically expel her. Her name is Prosista; her father has mental problems and threw her mother and siblings out. They went and lived with her grandfather. Several years later he threw them out also. So for the last three years the mother has been going from home to home in the village trying to keep shelter for her children. The school found out that Prosista was pregnant and called her mother, her mother cried because Prosista is there only hope for a better life. Today we met with Prosista and her mother, they live 2 hours from here and we asked them to come to our home. After hearing all stories we decided to take her in. She will stay with us until the baby is born. We can help the mother by setting her up in her own business to take care of herself and Prosistaʼs baby while Prosista finishes school. She lives in a village and the way they can make income is to sell basic food items from the market that is 50 miles away. She just needs a booth and capital enough to buy enough food to feed her family and enough to sell. That way she can have an income. For less than 200 US dollars we can help this mother take care of her family.

VISION: God has been planting a vision in our hearts. We have been looking at property to house and rehabilitate street children both boys and girls of Moshi. We will provide for their basic needs educate them and teach them about Jesus. In 2009 we will start research to find any remaining relatives, of these lost children. We would work with these families to solve the problems that caused these children to run away for example death, abuse, and poverty is also some of the reasons. We could take that relative and teach them a skill or set them up in a business. For those who have no parents, we would teach them a skill, like carpentry, sewing, masonry, computers, auto mechanics or business management.

*We have located property with 2 houses sitting on 3 acres for a very reasonable price that would include rent, water and electricity. Please pray with us regarding this property. (See pictures below) 1st pic shows front gate, 2^nd shows big house, 3^rd small house. But, as it stands right now we are living on 50% below our budget… So we need more support in order to fulfill the vision God has given us. Also Lord willing in 2010 we plan to open a street center in Downtown Moshi where street kids can come to eat a nourishing meal, play and get counseling. With this street center we will be able to help hundreds of these boys and girls leave the streets.

Please pray with us that God would lead us to supporters who would like to invest in this vision for Tanzania … For our existing supporters we desperately need your prayers and we want you to know how much we appreciate your financial support. For those who are not supporting us we ask that you would not only pray but also consider investing in this vision.

With Love, Your Hands and Feet in Tanzania

Jeff and Diane

To support this work send your tax deductible gift to: Calvary International, P. O. Box 10305 , Jacksonville , FL. 32247. Make check payable to Calvary International and write M400 in memo section of your check. May God Richly Bless You for Sowing into this Ministry.

The Story of Amedeus

djstoinoff — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:53:51 +0000

Amedeus is one of our boys. He is now 12 years of age. He is in form 5 in primary school which means in 2 years he will go into secondary school for 6 years. This is his story. When I was 2 years old my mother abandoned me. My father died and she had no money to take care of the house. So she became a prostitute and told me to wait for her at the store and she would come and get me in a little while. I waited for 3 days but she never came back. So I went to the hotel and asked for a job but I was too young and they wouldn’t hire me. I walked around the streets asking people to help me but they just told me to leave them alone or get away from them. I asked many people if they would give me food but most would not. I got so hungry I ate from the garbage cans. This was how my life has been until I met Pastor Phil and now I have baba and mama Stoinoff.

To help us support Amedeus and boys like him send your tax deductable gifts to:

Calvary International

P.O. Box 10305 Jacksonville, Florida 32247

Make check payable to Calvary International in memo section write M400

We Made it Home…Safely

djstoinoff — Tue, 20 May 2008 13:31:49 +0000

Hello,

We pray all is okay.

We have arrived safely back from the bush of Longido. Our mission trip was successful and God did much more than what we prayed for.

We thank you so much for your intercessory prayers.

Our team was 8 people 2 which were pastors Habib from Moshi where we live and Benjamin from Mtwara about 500 miles away on the Southern coastline of Tanzania.

We taught 30 pastors from 7 different denominations for 7 days and many of them were from the Massai tribe. The Massai are the tribe that must kill a lion before they can be a man in the tribe. They are very tall and jump real high when they sing songs.

The mission was to introduce a church planting movement to them amongst the unreached tribes of the Arusha region. This consists of approximately 500,000 to 1 million souls, which are regarded as enemies of the Massai. The pastors caught the vision and began making plans for a seminar in June.

During the conference we learned many customs from these believers one being about marriage. Pastor Daniel told us that the men of the Wasonjo tribe that want to be married must first go into the Massai tribe and steal their goats then kill the herdsman and he must return with the head, leg or arm of a Massai herdsman and present it to the brides father and the village chief. This is one reason it is so dangerous here. The beliefs and cultures of the Wasonjo tribe are much different from ours and the other tribes. We are not here to change cultures but to let the love of Jesus change hearts.

A woman we call Mama who was cleaning the house we were staying in came back late Monday evening and asked for prayer.

We asked Pastor Habib to pray and she said “Habib!” She then said, “Are you Muslim?” He said he use to be, but now he is a Christian.

She began to weep and Diane found out that her son threatened to beat her. Her other son Michael called the police which caused Esau to run away.

Mama found out later that evening that Esau was in the city of Arusha with his uncle, which is 2-3hours away by car. We prayed with her and asked God to restore him to her.

The next day the older son brought him back to her and we told her to bring him over and we would pray for him. When he entered the door way you could instantly sense the demonic activity about him.

We prayed for his deliverance and the restoration of his mind, soul, and body. Instantly something began to change. In a few short moments Esau was on his knees asking to be set free from this bondage and he asked Jesus to save his soul.

Every night Esau came over for prayer and Friday night his younger brother Michael and little sister asked Jesus to save them.

On Friday Pastor Habib received a startling vision. He remembered when he was a small boy and his father would slaughter a sheep in the door way of their house. Habib’s father would pray that the blood spilled from the sheep would give protection over his family and household and that no blood would be spilled of them.

From our teaching we told stories from the bible that these pastors could use to lead someone to Jesus using stories from their own culture we call these redemptive analogies and Friday afternoon Pastor Habib received the vision to tell His father about how Jesus was the last sacrificed lamb for all men.

When we got home from the bush Habib called his father whom is a devout Muslim and told him the story. Habib’s father said he would not do this anymore and wanted to know more about Jesus. When Habib got saved Habib’s father sent Habib’s older brother to find him and kill him. Later Habib’s brother got saved. Habib has been a pastor here in Moshi for many years now.

Our food was prepared everyday by 12 very young girls and supervised by a woman named Eliza. She told us a story about these girls.

They had failed secondary school so their parents were going to give them to the older Maasai men as brides. They got together and decided to run away from the village and the organization we were staying at called LOCEPT/Longido Community Education and Practical Training took them in. They have been teaching them how to cook, and wanted them to cook for us. They were so sweet and were so hungry for love.

We were told they needed sponsors for secondary school. Everywhere you go there is always a great need for school fees.

Saturday morning we were invited into the homes of two of the Pastors from the training. This is a huge honor. Pastor Alliah has an orphanage of over 300 children. We got to witness them being taught bible stories, singing and dancing. We all joined in jumping, dancing, singing and waving our arms. What a wonderful blessing to see all these children singing and praising God in their own language.

We then visited Pastor Simons home he has 4 children, all boys, but we wondered who all the girls were. His wife told us, they had taken them in because their families were too poor to care for them.

We arrived back home from a 3 hour drive anxious for a hot shower. We all had stayed in a home together with one toilet, and no electricity. We were unfamiliar with bucket bathing, but soon got the hang of it.

Diane still has a hard time mastering the squatty potties in the bush. But so did all the other women. It is good to be home. We are tired but very happy because of the wonderful things our God did in Longido.

SUNDAY our orphan boys attended Pastor Habib’s church and just loved it. They are such precious children.

We met Nicholas today an older street kid who wants to help us get more of the smaller boys off the streets. We have all we can handle now and are trying to use wisdom as to what to do. Nicholas stated that there are many children ages 3 to 10 who need to be off the streets because they are too small and too sickly to beg and presently eat out of garbage cans. We want to take in more but our finances won’t handle it!

Please pray for us, that God will send us more supporters. We appreciate so much all of you who support us now with your prayers and financial support. May God Richly Bless You. We love you.

See attached photos of the girls @ LOCEPT, Esau and Mama and others

Your Hands & Feet in Tanzania

Jeff and Diane

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The Sounds of Africa

djstoinoff — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:18:43 +0000

During the cool breeze of the late afternoon we hear the sounds of birds chirping and the squawking of the Hornbills and Ibis, but in the evening the monkeys come out. They start their squelching, and the dogs bark, yelp and squeal all night as they fight. These are the sounds you usually hear.
In Africa you must always be in a state of preparedness. Just when you think you are getting adjusted to your surroundings feeling safe and secure something happens that makes you know you are in a battle and you need to be on guard at all times!
We live in an area about a mile off the main road where there are no street lights and the roads are all small and unpaved snaking in and out around the homes. The rules are WE DON’T GO WALKING AFTER DARK…
As many of you know we are now in the rainy season here in Tanzania. What we know now is just what happens during a rain. The rain comes down so hard and it is so loud you cannot even hear the person next to you speaking. For the past few nights bandits have come off Mt. Kilimanjaro and have plagued the area where we live.
Thursday evening the neighbor behind us had their car stolen out of there yard, thank God no one was injured. The other neighbors had a group of men posing as police officers force their way inside his house and steal all of the home furnishings including the mattresses, and all of the food, and his money. Our friend who is a missionary scheduled to return to the US to pastor in the mid west was also violated. A young man convinced his security guard he was there to meet with our friend. The guard let the man inside the gate and before our friend knew what was occurring, the man was at his front door. Our friend knew he was casing the house because the man kept trying to look through the windows into the house. He could have had a gun, but praise Jesus the situation was dealt with without incident. The main security guard finally arrived with his rifle and told the man “we will follow you home we will know where you live and if anything happens we will come after you!”
People are constantly casing homes to see what they can steal. We do not have the security our friend has, but we believe there are angles all around us.
Jeffrey and Diane Stoinoff

The Rainy Season is Upon Us

djstoinoff — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:17:37 +0000

It has been raining for nearly 3 weeks nonstop. The roads are impassable even to walk. We have been trapped inside our house since Friday.
Easter morning it rained so hard that a flash flood swept through our property flooding the inside of our home. Friday night two weeks ago we thought we were going to be washed away again. The water was at least 10″ deep rushing through our yard. We wonder what is this down pour of rain doing to other families in the country. How many villages are being buried in the mud?
We have food in our house. If worst comes to worst we could hire someone with a 4 wheel drive truck to come in here and get us or bring us food, because we are what natives call Wazungu which is white person. This means we are thought of higher than Tanzanians. And blessed to be “white”.
What hurts us is what is happening to the Tanzanians. They don’t have food stocked up. They have to leave there house to go through the mud to get food. They don’t even have proper shoes to walk in the mud.
The culture in this country is so different than in America. This is a peaceful and friendly country but at any time bandits can come through stealing anything they want and even raping and killing innocent people. Most Tanzanians don’t have fences around their property for security. We are blessed to have what we have. A lovely home that is secure with iron bars on the doors and windows. The outside door is iron with 2 dead bolts with pad locks and the inside doors are wood 2″ thick with 2 huge dead bolts. The property has a Boganvilia thorn bush fence 8’ high around the perimeter. Our guards have bows and arrows and machetes to protect us from bandits that immigrate in from Kenya and other bordering countries. We got an email from a missionary friend who lives not far from here. She walked outside to turn the generator on and let the puppies out of their cage, when she saw a man behind the bushes and before she could get back inside to secure the door he and two other men attacked her threw her on the ground, threatened to kill her, stole her car, computer, cell phone, money and she is not sure what else. Please pray for her as she is trying to get through this. She is trying to beef up her security so that this won’t happen again. You have to understand that in this country poverty and extortion is extreme where the average wage is less than $2.00 per day.
Also, here you have mosquitoes that bring death to thousands of people here in East Africa through Malaria, yellow fever and many other diseases and yes we could get sick and suffer and even die but we have the abilities to get to a doctor and get tested and get our medicine. We also have a God that has promised us that He will deliver us whether we are in America or in Africa. Some, Tanzanians cannot go to the doctor and get tested unless somebody reaches out to them and gives them a helping hand. Just the other day our taxi guy named Juma who is Muslim was able to come and pick us up even with the bad roads. We took him to breakfast and found out he had Malaria so we gave him the money to get tested. When we got home we gave him Tylenol for his headache and fever. We have been sowing seed since we have arrived in this country so I ask you to pray for Juma’s salvation. That’s why missionaries come to third world countries like Tanzania because the needs are so great. It is not an easy life but the rewards outweigh the cost for the kingdom of God.
Living here, we see everyday how, we of us who have been born in countries like America and Europe are truly blessed. And even more blessed to be Born Again and blessed by our God Jesus Christ!!!!! Please keep us in your prayers. We cannot live in this country without them! You are precious to us.

Love, Your Hands and Feet in Tanzania
Jeff and Diane

Green Mamba (Original Email 3/10/08)

djstoinoff — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:14:28 +0000

Yesterday while at our team meeting we had our first encounter with the deadly Green Mamba snake. If bitten the venom can cause death in 30 seconds, so needless to say we were very cautious.

One of the single women on the compound saw it go into her bedroom and started screaming and ran over to where we were at.

The security guards alerted and killed it with a machete. Had she not seen this deadly creature no telling what could have happened in the middle of the night. With life in Africa you are always living on the edge, you always have to be aware of your surroundings.

We are constantly in prayer morning noon and night. The way we see God move is incredible. From providing food and shelter when you don’t have any to saving you by letting you see the snake. I believe His angles are encamped around us as we speak.

Before you go to bed say a prayer for us we could use it.

Jeff and Diane

First Week

djstoinoff — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 08:10:50 +0000

We have arrived safely in Moshi. We landed @ 9pm Tanzania time 1pm your time and got through customs about an hour later. We were met by Charlie, Sharon Woods and Liz our other Calvary International team members, and it was just great to finally meet them in person.Charlie and Sharon will be letting us stay @ their home until we can find a house to rent. After 25 hours of flying it was bound to happen! That’s right we got jet lag. During our first few days here our internal clock was a little off. We would be in bed by 10pm your time 2pm, and wake up @ 1am go back to sleep @ 5:30am reawake @ 7:30am. This went on for 3or4 days.