Tanzania Updates – Coffee News
Meru Coffee Project: While we are not able to serve coffee on Sunday mornings, we will be taking orders at the Welcome Tent for Mt. Meru coffee. Prices at the Meru Coffee website have increased but coffee prices remain the same if they are ordered through the church. Any coffee orders received should be available for pickup the following Sunday. Payment with your order is appreciated. We hope to add on online ordering option soon. Stayed tuned to your e-alerts and Facebook.

The Coffee Project provides small farmers with a fair price for their premium coffee and enables them to have funds available to send their children to school, access and pay for health care, and to support local farm villages, markets, and merchants. As churches have not been serving coffee during the pandemic, the need to sell bags of coffee increases to be able to keep up our commitment to the farmers who are part of our partnership in Tanzania.

El Salvador Updates
After months of lockdown, El Salvador is beginning to open up again. All public transportation was locked-down for five months. Since very few people in our sister parishes have a car, they were very grateful when public transportation began running again in the last days of August. The airport will open on October 19. For the past six months, the only flights were flights from the US, filled with Salvadorans being deported. Unfortunately, these deportees were often sick with the coronavirus making re-acclimation to life in El Salvador even more difficult.

Churches have been slowly reopening. Our sister parishes have been slow to reopen, not wanting to rush and cause members to become ill. They will have their first in person services on October 4.

Due to the economic hardships created by the pandemic and hurricanes, families throughout the country have been suffering. The Salvadoran Lutheran church has been working with their companion synods, including Milwaukee, and Lutheran World Relief to coordinate relief efforts such as food and hygiene kits.

Reprinted from the October 2020 newsletter.