Beyond the parish
For twenty-five years this parish has been bound to a congregation in Germany, and for more than twenty it has run a nursery school open to every child in Mbezi. Neither began as a project. Both began as a conversation.
How it began
Rev. Hemple and Bishop Elinaza Sendoro spoke about linking the Siegen district in Germany with Kibaha in Tanzania. Nothing existed yet between Mbezi Luis and Kreuztal, but this is where the road to it starts.
Tumbi parish — the mother parish that would later receive four men walking from Mbezi in search of a home — formally linked with Wednow Siegen. For its first decade the relationship was simply visiting one another.
The partnership was launched in Germany, with Rev. Ajuaye Lwiza and Mama Domini D. Lema there for Mbezi Luis among a large gathering of Kreuztal members. They planted a tree on bombed ground where nothing else had grown, and set a plaque beside it — the sign that this bond was meant to last.
The two parishes bought twenty acres at Msakuzi together, held as an investment for the generations coming after them. Rev. Peal and Hans Pope travelled from Kreuztal that year to see the land for themselves.
What we do together
Both parishes preach a shared word at Pentecost, and keep in touch through letters, email and contact between individual members in between.
Germans visiting Tanzania stay in the homes of Mbezi Luis members, and Tanzanians in Germany stay with families in Kreuztal. Both sides learn the other's customs from inside a household rather than from a distance.
Brick-making, a workshop and tailoring, alongside support for the sub-parishes at Msakuzi and Malamba Mawili — projects chosen so the parish can carry them on its own.
The families of Mr Daniel Lema, Mr Abel Pallangyo, Mr Wilhelm Nkini and Eng. Panga, and Mrs Lois Kayumbo, have all travelled to Germany as guests of Kreuztal. The first partnership committee was chaired by Mrs Domini Daniel Lema, with Dr Josephat Saria as secretary.
In the neighbourhood
Mbezi was a Muslim neighbourhood long before it was a Christian one, and the school has never asked a child which. That decision, more than any building, is what the parish is known for here.
Dr Josephat Saria put it to the council of elders that the church building could serve as a kindergarten during the week. Two years later Rev. Lwiza and Mrs D. Lema came back from Germany with the idea of building proper classrooms instead, and Kreuztal helped raise them.
Twenty-five children on the first day, more than fifty by 2007. It turned no child away over their own faith or their parents', and that is precisely why the neighbourhood filled it.
When the building the school shared with the church was pulled down, the school broke up with it. The women's union took it on and reopened it as an English-medium school under a board chaired by Mrs Lilian Silaa, paid for in part by the two albums Kwaya ya Bethel recorded.
Drawn from the parish's own history of Mbezi Luis, 1973 – 2021, written by the committee under Dr Josephat Saria and published in March 2021. Church History
