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Mixing Cement

Work at the Hospital

Plastering and Painting
the Children's Home

www.citiesofhope.com

Dear friends and partners,

Greetings from The City of Hope in Ntagacha, Tanzania. We are so excited with what God is doing here and the progress that we are making in construction. In our main building, most of the doors are in. The doorframes and the window frames are nearly complete. We will be putting in the glass when all this work is done. As you can see, the majority of the buildings for the hospital are in process and we are hoping that they will be under roof by May. Building The City of Hope has been a wonderful but challenging experience!

Every part of the process has its challenges. One of the greatest challenges we have had is water. We have had a team of workers who have to walk for quite a distance to fetch the water. This crisis is now solved as our ministry partners, Zao Water Project, sponsored a well at The City of Hope. It was drilled just this week and will be able to bring water that is adequate to handle our crisis.This water will be supplemented by cistern water saved from the large tin roofs.

The vice president of Tanzania made a nonofficial stop-by visit to The City of Hope in preparation for the president's visit to us during the opening ceremony early in 2009. We are excited that God can use this tool to speak even to political leaders about the love of Christ. Christ has called us to shine, to be the salt and light in the world. We are not just building an orphanage but rebuilding broken lives, communities and the future of a nation. We have an opportunity to take young minds and mold them to be national leaders.

Carrying water
has been a hard job

The well is a great blessing and will save much work.

We are following in a great tradition of Christians being the forerunners in the areas of orphan care, education and healthcare. As we look at history, we see that Christians started hospitals. We find that education was a high priority to the Jews and also for Christians. Care for children has also been important. In studying children who were raised in quality Christian institutions, we find that the great majority grow up to have productive, stable adult lives. Most were found to want to help others in some form or fashion even as they themselves have been helped.

Jesus was, and still is, a transformer of people's lives and we need to have the same passion. The Church should never settle for merely being a social club with many beneficial, humanitarian activities. The church is meant to be a force for change, reaching out to the lost, and bringing them the Good News of God's love, the Good News of freedom from sin and it's entrapments. We need to go forward with a practical demonstration of God's power and love. It is not our mere words that open the door to peoples' hearts for God's transforming power, BUT our caring acts of His love.

As an example of God's transforming power as shown through His people, I heard a message from Steve Saint (The End of the Spear movie is based on his life) and his friend (who had murdered his father) Mincaye. Steve was sharing how God not only transformed the Waodani people from one of the most savage tribes to one of peace but God is now using them to reach other tribes. They have developed a way to perform basic dentistry and are using this as a method to open doors to the gospel. They were even asked to go to India to teach this dentistry skill in a strong Hindu area that had been formerly closed to the gospel and persecuted all who came. As Mincaye and Steve trained the people in dentistry and performed extractions on impacted teeth, hearts were open to hear the gospel message. Today many people are coming to the Lord in that area.

Please continue to stand with us. In order to start bringing in children in June there is much to do. We would appreciate all help with the cost of building and furnishing the children's home.

You can go to our website to purchase a bed for the children or a cow to provide milk or a donation towards the building.

Thank you and May God Bless You Abundantly beyond all you can ask or think or imagine.

Dr. John N. Chacha

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