Tina 22 (Gideon)   College

Tom 19 (James)  Secondary School, Form IV

Francis 17 (Gideon)   Secondary School, Form IV

Sarah 17 (Ondo) High School, Form V

Evelyn 17 (James) Secondary School, Form II

Naomi 15 (Gideon)   Secondary School, Form II

Prince 10 (James)  Primary School, Grade 3

David 5 (Deogratias) Nursery

Joshua 4 (Abednego)  Nursery

Irene 3 (Eglah) Nursery

Denis 1 (Deogratias)   

Nathan 3 months (Abednego)

We greatly appreciate the individual school support funding that you are giving to our children, as their continuing education is so very important to their future.

THE NEW YEAR ---- NEW CHALLENGES and OPPORTUNITIES

We begin 2010 back home in Africa with renewed energy and enthusiasm carried over from our successful USA Tour. But the challenges are formidable and the opportunities are great, and we will need your thoughts and prayers, and your continued support:

Increased Presence and Concerts in Tanzania: We have been invited to sing at the Stadium in Arusha (pic at left) on Feb 10^th for an “all Church Crusade” that will last for 5 days. Two of us were flown from Chicago to Atlanta to hear an outdoor demonstration of some new speakers for our sound system. We are hopeful that our new speakers will arrive in Arusha prior to these concerts. Throughout next year, we hope to do more “Stadium” type concerts in East Africa, as we had great success with these types of concerts for students last year. We were pleased to find out after we arrived home that the Praise Power Radio Station in Dar has awarded us as the Best Band of the Year.

Completion of School Buildings Already Under Construction:

We have renewed excitement about finishing our partially constructed buildings at our beautiful 20-acre school site. Our first priority will be to finish the 3 upstairs and 2 downstairs classrooms currently under construction. (The first 2 classrooms have been finished and are currently in use by more than 60 students) The costs for finishing these 5 classrooms will be approximately $20,000 for windows, doors, concrete floors in the 2 lower classrooms, plaster, paint and school furnishings. With these 5 classrooms finished, we will have ample space for the near term expected growth in our school.

Completion of the Hostel, primarily the project of our friends in Petaluma California, will also be a major priority. This is a large facility with 7 self-contained guest rooms, a community area, and a kitchen, which can accommodate more than 14 visitors. This will allow more of you to visit our school and help with both construction and longer-term teaching assistance.

An additional project that we will be trying to finish will be the ground floor of the original 4-story classroom building that we started several years ago. The foundation and walls of this rather long building (55 meters, with 4 classrooms) were constructed, but not finished due to the relatively high cost of building such a large 4-story building. We now are planning to put a temporary roof on this building, which can be easily disassembled and moved to higher floors as they are constructed in the future. Finishing these lower classrooms with a temporary roof will allow us to use them initially for dorm space, and ultimately as classrooms as our school continues to grow. With this building partially finished, we will have the total space of 11 classrooms and it will be possible for at least some of our youth camps to be held at our own facilities during school breaks.

We ask for your prayers that additional funds will become available to help bring these short-term projects to completion.

Looking further ahead, we are just beginning to plan for the assembly building (see our master plan in our Fall 2004 Newsletter). This large assembly building will greatly improve our school campus, provide a facility for our 1000 person youth camps and local concerts, and become rental income from expected community use. Please keep these very preliminary plans in your thoughts and prayers.

STRONG SCHOOL PERFORMANCE ACADEMICALLY

Our school was ranked number 37 among 108 schools in the Form 2 zonal examinations that were conducted in September 09. We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate our teaching staff and students for their hard work that has put our school amongst the better performing schools in the country. We hope our friends will help us with school materials and supplies such as science books, chemistry, biology, and physics laboratory equipment to help us reach our goal of being one of the best schools in the whole Country. If you would like to help as a qualified teacher in English, Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, or Physics, we would be very grateful

ARE YOU INTERESTED IN SPONSORING A NEEDY STUDENT(S)?

So far we have 12 students who are sponsored by different families/people/schools, and they are all performing very well in their studies. We do have others who are on the waiting list and, if you are interested, please contact us at Newlifeband@Habari.co.tz and we will give you more details.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! We wish you all a most happy, healthy, and blessed new year!! Thank you again for your wonderful friendship and support.

James Kiphizi, Secretary, New Life Band.

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DONATIONS TO THE NEW LIFE BAND MAY BE MADE BY:

Wiring funds directly to their bank account: Mission to Youth & Students (New Life Band), National Bank of Commerce Ltd., Uhuru Road Branch, P.O. Box 3004, Arusha Tanzania, Account No. 0141 05 006176, Swift Code NLCBTZTXA074 (additional fee [up to $50] may apply) or by sending a check made out to Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, 1035 Carol Lane, Lafayette, CA 94549 with “New Life Band” on the “memo” line. Funds sent through Our Savior’s Lutheran Church will be combined with other donations and wired to the New Life Band on a regular basis.