As my time in Tanzania draws to a close I'm pulled into reflection on my time here. It's been a rocky journey. There have been tough times like when the Morning Star School gardens were canceled and there have been high times like when we got the funding for the Green Eden school.

Development is a tough business. We spend hours, days, weeks working towards a project in hopes that it will revolutionize Tanzania and pull this country out of poverty. All that effort to have our project shot down in team meeting o it goes to completion and we find out it wasn't all that helpful to the Tanzanian people.

There are so many good ideas that end up being mediocre. But every once in a while we stumble upon that one gem of an idea. It may seem crazy, wasteful, or both but someone sees the magic in it and pushes through all the doubt. This is what it's all about, this is HEM orphanage.

When the project was presented in team meeting it sounded sketchy. An orphanage in some far off, distant part of Tanzania that wants to raise chickens. Do they know how to raise chickens? Can they sell the eggs? Are they just looking for something free from the white people? There were so many questions and I wasn't fully convinced. In spite of all the doubt one team member, Faith, pushed it through and pleaded with the team on behalf of these kids, it went through.

After one visit to HEM I could see this was something we needed to do and I'll show you why.
This is what it's all about. This is why I came to Tanzania and this is why you donated to send me out here. Yesterday we finished the orphanage, we moved the chickens in, and the printed off the care manual. Ester, the woman who runs the orphanage, is well qualified to care for these animals and has already established a buyer for the eggs. Like I said, this is one of those rare gems that makes all the failures worth while.

Before we started. Left to right: Faith, Manase (our translator), Anna

The completed coop.