Recycle your Christmas Cards!

Recycle your Christmas greeting cards… and send a smile to a child!

Did you know that those Christmas cards you received this year can be "recycled" in a way that will bring hope and joy to an orphan or other at-risk child in Tanzania, Africa?

Just cut off the front of the card and use the blank side as a postcard on which to write a note of encouragement. You then simply send your written postcards to us (U.S.A address) and we will ensure they are delivered personally to children in Tanzania who are in need of a message of encouragement.

It’s a gift that stays in a child’s heart. It’s a gift that keeps on giving. And it’s easy for everyone to do.

Learn more at www.heartsinunity.org/message.html

Nimble Fingers in a Labor of Love

We are continually humbled by the selfless giving of time, energy and love by those who are knitting and crocheting hats for the children of Tanzania.

The most recent distribution of these beautiful, donated hats took place just last month. It was a day of smiles and laughs -- each Tanzanian child delighted with a new hat to help keep them warm during the cold, rainy season high up in the mountains of Tanzania.

We welcome you to view this short video of some of the children who have been truly blessed by these gifts.



We are always looking for additional volunteers to join us in this mission of love. If you knit or crochet, and you would like to make a difference in the life of one of these precious children, please contact us at hearts_in_unity@yahoo.com

To learn more about this ongoing project, please visit our website at: www.heartsinunity.org

Merry Christmas

"I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys."
~Charles Dickens

This Christmas season, may you experience the joy that comes from acts of kindness and generosity shared among all of the people of this world.

May God bless us all.

Krismas Njema...Merry Christmas,
Sue and Roland

A Gift of Shoes

A school uniform ... a shirt, a skirt or pair of trousers, and a pair of shoes. Seems simple enough. If you have a school uniform and shoes, you can attend school.

Yet, for families in Tanzania, buying the required school uniform and shoes for their children is a burden that they too often can not bear. When a family is struggling to survive on less than $1 a day, parents must often make heartbreaking choices about providing for their families.

Their children are hungry -- for both food to nourish their bodies, and for education to nourish their minds. Do they, as parents, sacrifice their children’s access to education, the only key to breaking out of the cycle of poverty, in order to have the means to feed their children sometimes even just a single meal each day?

Orphans, often living with grandparents, are at an even greater disadvantage in the stronghold of the cycle of poverty.

But there is a simple solution. With a single donation to Hearts in Unity to purchase school uniforms and shoes for the orphans in the Tanzanian villages of Seela and Mwika, you can help ease the burden of a difficult choice for these parents. By making a simple donation towards the purchase of school uniforms and shoes, you can help these children to attain the education that allows them to have greater opportunities in life than they ever dreamed possible.

During this Christmas season, give a gift that helps feed a child's mind -- a simple gift of shoes for a child living in Tanzania, the 5th poorest country in the world. When a child has shoes, he or she can attend school, and a whole new world of opportunity opens.

Is there room in your heart for these precious children?

Please help us to reach our goal of providing 100 more pair of shoes for the orphans in our Tanzanian villages before the start of their next school year in mid-January. Click on the "Give" link on the right-hand column of this site to make a difference today.

For more information about this and other Hearts in Unity programs to help feed, clothe and educate the orphan and at-risk children of Tanzania, please visit www.heartsinunity.org.

Asante sana na Mungu akubariki sana (Thank you and God bless you).

Daily Life in Tanzania -- Tweet!

Karibu! Welcome to Tanzania!

Today is the start of the journey back to Tanzania! Please join us!

Experience life in the remote villages on the slopes of Mt. Meru and Mt. Kilimanjaro. If the internet connection is cooperative, and fuel is available to run the generator for electrity, we plan to log our November travels and project updates through our journal of daily "tweets" on Twitter.

In addition to the full history of our "tweets" on Twitter, the most recent Twitter updates are also viewable on this blog (see right-hand column) and on our Hearts in Unity website.

Don't have a Twitter account? No problem -- our Hearts in Unity Twitter page is open to the public. We hope you will follow us!

Welcome Home to Tanzania!

The month of November will be an exciting time for Hearts in Unity!

Sue returns to Tanzania again this month where she and Roland will continue to build on the many wonderful Hearts in Unity projects underway in the mission to help feed, clothe and educate the orphan and at-risk children in Tanzania.

So what will the next month bring? Here are a few of the highlights...

Spending time in the villages of Seela (on Mt. Meru) and Mwika (on Mt. Kilimanjaro), we plan to meet with the women of the Mioyo Pamoja (Hearts in Unity) sewing coops to help them further evaluate and fine tune their business plan so that they can continue with the great success they have with their tailoring/knitting business -- in particular, the important service they provide to the community by sewing school uniforms for local children. We are excited that we will be able to purchase the knitting machine that they have been requesting. We will also begin to gather the information we need to apply for financial grants from the Tanzanian government to help assist these women in the expansion of their sewing coop to include tailoring classes.

We will also spend time at Seela Primary and Maring'a Juu Primary schools to meet with the teachers for a discussion of the current needs of the school, the teachers and the students. While there, we will distribute donations of fabric school bags filled with much needed school supplies, and distribute eyeglasses to the children who need corrective eyewear to help them better succeed in school.

We are excited about our upcoming implementation of a music education program for the children of Seela...distributing recorders (flutes) and sheet music, and teaching the older students how to play the musical instrument so that they in turn can teach the younger children. Music is such an integral part of the Tanzanian culture that this will be such a joy for the children and parents alike.

We will also visit with the orphans in Mwika who have been connected with pen pals through Hearts in Unity, bringing greetings from the U.S. and taking photos to bring back to the pen pal partners of these children.

We are eager to continue to expand our livestock project -- with plans to purchase a cow and several goats to help provide nutrient rich milk to the children in our villages, as well as purchasing chickens to provide protein rich eggs. Several meals are also planned to help feed the children of families in the village who are struggling to put food on the table for their families.

Many of the orphan and at-risk children will receive hand-knit hats to help keep them warm during the rainy season. These hand-knit hats are a labor of love donated by the many volunteers who have opened their hearts to the children of Tanzania.

It will be a busy month!

What a privilege it will be to give gifts from those who have so generously opened their hearts to the children of Tanzania. With your help and support, we are truly making a difference and changing lives, one precious child at a time.

Thank you for joining us in this mission!

Kind Hearts... Warm Kids!

Africa gets cold? It sure does!

For those living on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro or Mt. Meru, the rainy season brings cold weather that chills everyone to the bone. Children living on high on the slopes of these Tanzanian mountains are at particular risk -- they often live in houses made of mud and sticks, and rarely have enough clothes -- hats, jackets, shoes -- to protect them from the cold rainy seasons.

But thanks to the kindness and generosity of Kathy M. and her friends at of Lodi Presbyterian Church in Wisconsin, more than 50 children will soon have brand new hand-knit hats to help to keep them warm as the rainy season approaches.

Asante sana! Thank you very much!

This gift is truly a labor of love -- God's work through the hands of so many who have opened their hearts to the orphan and at-risk children of Tanzania.

If you also knit or crochet, and you'd like to get involved in the mission of Hearts in Unity, please visit our website to learn more... http://www.heartsinunity.org/Clothe.html

Messages from The Heart

Jambo to the 2nd grade Girl Scouts at Shady Lane Elementary School!

We are so happy to have spent time with these 23 wonderful girls who have opened their hearts to children on the other side of the world.

They learned about life in Tanzania through stories and photos, and then shared their messages of encouragement and friendship through their letters from the heart....letters that will be hand delivered this November to the children at Seela Primary School in Tanzania.

Please take a few minutes to watch the start of another amazing connection -- child to child -- reaching out with hearts in unity!

Their efforts are inspiring!



If you'd like to reach out to a child in Tanzania and share a message from your heart, please visit us at www.heartsinunity.org/message.html

The Food Crisis Continues...

An update from Maanga about the continuing drought and food crisis in Tanzania...

"The food problem is all over the country not only a few places.

There are some places where the harvests were good but unfortunately people sold their food in high price to nearby countries hoping to buy food in Tanzania to replace it and then keep some money. But that was the end because they couldn’t find food from anywhere in Tanzania with the money they had so they are trying to eat their money now if that is possible. Pole sana.

Otherwise Meru and Kilimanjaro at large is also affected and wherever there is food, the price is real high. We don’t have maize (corn), maharagwe (beans) and mchele (rice) which are our common foods. Ndizi (banana) are also finishing as people are even selling them before they are ready just to get some money to exchange for other foods. It is real so very hard here right now."

In November, Sue will be returning to Tanzania as we to continue to build and expand our programs to help feed our precious children there. We are so grateful to all of you who have been following our mission, and would like to give you a gift of Tanzanian coffee, tea or music as a thank you for your continued support.

Karibu sana! Please visit www.heartsinunity.org/gifts.html to select your gift. Asante sana nu Mungu akubariki sana.

The Circle of Life

Just received a message from Maanga in Tanzania...

"My mbuzi (goat) got a new babe in the middle of the night a few days while I was away and no one could hear it to help mama with delivering, so the babe died."

The circle of birth and death -- the same in Africa as all over the world -- yet this simple message speaks volumes of lost opportunities and the struggles to survive in Tanzania, the 5th poorest country in the world. One less goat in the village to help us in our efforts to feed the precious children in our Tanzanian villages is heartbreaking.

So we're reaching out to you, our friends in this mission. Can you help us in our goal to purchase 25 more goats for the people in the villages of Seela and Mwika before the end of the year?

Please visit www.heartsinunity.org/feed.html to learn how you can help us to help feed the precious children of Tanzania.

Asante sana!