Cindy James Joins Board of Directors
Cindy James joins the board of directors for UboraTZ.
We are humbled and so very grateful to announce the addition of Cindy James to Ubora’s Board of Directors.
Cindy and her husband, Duncan are long-time supporters of our organization, serving and giving in many ways, including sponsoring children, serving in leadership roles in the organization, and traveling to Karansi multiple times on mission trips. Their two grown biological children, Colin and Alex, have also traveled to Tanzania, and son Colin, has a sponsored child.
“Cindy brings a unique combination of business, creativity and philanthropy to the board,” said Dave Burgess, president of Ubora. “She undoubtedly will make a valuable contribution to our organization in many ways.”
“God put serving in Africa on my heart when I was 24-years-old and I experienced Apartheid in South Africa,” said Cindy. “I always knew someday I would go back.”
After moving to Atlanta, God called her back to Africa after hearing about Karansi through Perimeter Church.
Since then Cindy has traveled to the village four times and has served in a number of leadership roles for Ubora. During her time, she worked on business development and micro credit financing initiatives for the people in the village.
“You just can’t go and not be affected,” she said.
Cindy’s professional career was with Ford Motor Company. She established her own art and design business later when her kids were in school and served for years with the National Charity League in Atlanta.
Currently, as an artist, Cindy was inspired to offer an original painting of the Project Child kids awaiting sponsorship. The response has been tremendous and we are happy to report that all of our children are now sponsored! The portraits that Cindy is painting are beautiful and capture the essence of the children beautifully.
Cindy is a graduate of Central Michigan University and received an MBA from the University of Dallas. In addition to their grown children, Alex and Colin, the family has a total of four sponsored children, Grace (22), Benson (18) and more recently Winelli and Christiano. Cindy and Duncan now live in Atlanta with their two English cream Golden Retrievers, Finn and Sawyer.
Please join us in welcoming Cindy to the board!
Tanzania in Their Hearts
Three generations inspire others with their love of Tanzania.
“Train up a child in the way he should go…”
The story of Ubora is about people. The people of Karansi, Tanzania to be exact, who just 20 years ago, were struggling for survival.
Our story is about a visionary leader, Pastor Wariaeli, who had a great vision for his people and community.
Ubora is about countless volunteers turned missionaries, many including teachers, who have poured into this village, traveling to eastern Africa to love, mentor and educate. The people of Ubora also include prayer warriors and donors who sacrificially give to make the ongoing transformation of this village possible.
In Jesus’ upside-down kingdom, we learn, “It is more blessed to give than to receive,” (Acts 20:35). And that the very act of service, when bestowed upon another person, is actually a blessing on our very own lives.
Kathy and Jim Stewart have been part of UboraTZ since the beginning, loving and serving our brothers and sisters in Karansi for 18 years. The three Stewart children, now grown, have all been to Tanzania multiple times and they continue to sponsor and financially support our mission. Kathy and Jim’s grandchildren are now growing up with the love of Tanzania in their hearts and homes, evidenced when their 3-year-old granddaughter Brooklyn is asked, “Where are you from?” She shyly responds with a sweet and tender southern drawl, “Tan-za-neee-a!”
We are thankful for the call of mission and service on the lives of the Stewart family and their ongoing involvement with Ubora. Read on to learn more about the generational impact of this one amazing family.
Kathy and Jim with their sponsored child, Norah and her family, in 2002.
The call to serve in missions was written on Kathy Griffin Stewart’s heart at an early age. When she first met Jim in the early days of Perimeter Church, she made it clear she would be open to traveling to Africa to serve as a missionary. And if they were to have a future together, she was hopeful that missions would be something they would do together, as a family.
Jim and Kathy married in 1980. Three years later, with a toddler in tow and Kathy pregnant with their second child, they flew to Nairobi, Kenya where Jim would lend his talent as an architect for the design of seminary buildings. Griffin was born in Nairobi Hospital in 1983 and the family stayed for an additional two years, serving, teaching, and loving the people of Kenya.
Returning to Atlanta, the couple resumed attending Perimeter Church and got involved in mission trips to Guatemala and Poland. When the Tanzanian ministry within Perimeter first began, Kathy was quick to to say “yes” for the chance to return to her beloved eastern Africa. It was 2002 when that first group of 22 people from Perimeter Church, including Kathy, traveled from Atlanta to Karansi, Tanzania and first met Pastor Wariaeli. What they saw was both heartbreaking…yet hopeful.
The widows, or “special ladies” of Karansi.
The vision of Pastor Wariaeli for his village was clear and his enthusiasm, contagious. “I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but God will do it,” said Pastor Wariaeli.
Upon returning to America, the question resonating in everyone’s hearts was: how in the world can we make a difference?
“Wouldn’t it be exciting for God to use us for this vision!” recalled Jim.
“The spirit was moving both here in Atlanta and in Karansi,” said Kathy of those early days of Ubora.
“Pastor Wariaeli was called to take care of the widows,” said Kathy. “We culturally don’t understand how the widows were treated at that time… they were ostracized and left destitute. They had no one to protect them or their children and grandchildren. Pastor took that to heart–taking care of the widows and orphans and the children without family—and it was there, with the widows, where I decided to serve.”
“It was God, that first trip, grabbing my heart and gave me a love for those ladies that were left for worthless,” said Kathy.
The many blessings of a goat!
Help for the widows began with a goat ministry. A widow would receive a female goat which would provide milk for her and her family. When the goat could become pregnant, the young goat would be gifted to another widow, and so on.
Working alongside Pastor Wariaeli and his church, they found ways to protect the widows, as well as the widows’ children, grandchildren and their few belongings. Homes for widows would eventually be built—the number now stands at 30 safe and beautiful homes–providing shelter and room to take care of additional orphaned children if needed.
Kathy soon became known as “mama Kathy” and “Mother of the widows”. Along the way and over the course of the years, the Stewart’s and their three children, Becca, Griffin and Carolyn, and now their spouses, have traveled to Tanzania, a few even braving the climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro.
The Stewart Legacy in Tanzania Continues
Griffin, in Kenya, where he was born, and returning 30 years later.
All three of the Stewart siblings, their spouses and now children continue to pour into the people of Karansi, Tanzania and the ministry of UboraTZ.
Griffin, born in the neighboring country of Kenya, and his wife, Valerie, are adventurers, lovers of Jesus, parents, entrepreneurs and now, philanthropists. In founding their innovative company, 5DayDeal, charity was top-of-mind and built into the business model with a portion of all sales of photo and video bundles to be donated to various charities around the world.
Through the last bundled offering of 5DayDeal, UboraTZ was chosen by the Stewarts’ as a beneficiary to receive over $40,000 in donations! These funds will be used to establish a feeding program in Karansi that will equate to over 400,000 meals for children in the community, many in the public schools, who now are severely malnourished. These food silos will be installed throughout the village with a separate silo dedicated specifically to feeding the widows and their children and grandchildren.
“If you’re starving, it’s almost impossible to learn,” said Tim Neet, director of Ubora Project Child. “By establishing these food silos throughout the community, we will be able to provide nutritious meals to the children in the community who are attending public schools. It’s been a dream of ours to be able to establish this feeding program and expand our humanitarian reach further into the community. Soon it will become a reality, thanks to this faithful couple and this very generous donation.”
“It’s been really fun to be involved over there and be able to make an impact with, in my opinion, probably the nicest people on earth,” said Griffin. “They are really kind people even though they have nothing. They’ll offer everything to you.”
The third generation of Stewarts, the precious grandchildren, also carry the love of the people of Tanzania in their hearts.
What a blessing it is to have the Stewarts serve as one of the founding families of Ubora! We are so very grateful for the call of missions on their hearts and lives and the undeniable impact of their love for the people of Karansi.
And now, for more of the verse…
“Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it…A generous man will himself be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor.”
A picture of the early feeding program in Karansi. Humanitarian efforts have always been at the heart of Ubora. Thanks to the generous donation of Griffin and Valerie and 5DayDeal, our feeding program in Karansi and the Siha District will be greatly expanded!
Going Back
After a long separation from our friends in Tanzania because of the global pandemic, Dave shares thoughts on what it means to finally be able to go back ‘home’.
By: Dave Burgess, President - UboraTZ
“ We know you love us because you keep coming back.”
Community development work is fraught with setbacks, and the mission field is scattered with projects, programs, and plans that missed their mark for any number of reasons: training that isn’t in tune with culture; education practices that are difficult to understand; funding that gets delayed; or, someone who might unintentionally offend by being unable to stomach a serving of goat tongue. Along the way, we have indeed experienced such minor setbacks – but ultimately our Tanzanian friends give us grace, and as Pastor said, “We know you love us because you keep coming back.”
So, why do we go back? Of course, we love visiting our sponsor children, working with the teachers, helping medical workers, and all the other fulfilling things we get to do – but what fuels us through the challenges of getting to the other side of the world and pushing through the many obstacles that inevitably occur along the way? I am sure that if not for the love of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, we would not be able to have gone back enough on our own power to accomplish all that’s happened in the Siha District over the past 18 years. We go back because we are propelled by the love of Jesus.
The Ubora Project Child sponsorship program is core to our community’s commitment to go back. When we go back in multiple ways–via our letters, emails, video calls, and Ubora Mission trips–these acts of love and and gifts of our time show our sponsor children that we truly know and love them. To the sponsor children’s parents and family, your gifts serve as a daily reminder that they have a partner in Christ who helps them feed, clothe, educate, and love their child. We hope you enjoy the upcoming sponsorship updates and seeing how going back in these ways changes lives.
We also hope you enjoy the updates from our Education Pillar, where going back over many years has given us the ability to invest deeply in the lives of the children of Karansi – from Kindergarten through early adulthood. You’ll see how God’s love for his people as image bearers has instilled excellence throughout our school. You’ll come to understand why, after starting the primary school, that we were compelled to begin offering assistance for secondary school – and then to provide scholarships for post-secondary school…and now to begin construction on the primary school expansion that will double the number of children we serve and pave a path toward long-term community sustainability.
In our Medical Pillar, we’d like to first thank the Ubora community for rallying around the Medical container effort, which because of you, is set to deliver $2.5 million of life-saving medicine and medical supplies to the region! This amazing project will absolutely change the face of healthcare in the Siha District. Stay tuned for an exciting project update later this year, once the containers arrive in the district. Medical screening teams, who have been going back faithfully over the years, will return to a vastly improved situation because of these shipments. Finally, we look forward to sharing more about our partnership with Morehouse School of Medicine, which will enable us to “go back” virtually at first – and then later in person – to conduct vital training for approximately 120 community healthcare workers.
We hope you enjoy reading about the Stewart family, who have been going back since Ubora’s first days when Jim and Kathy helped to start the widows ministry. In the latest chapter of this family’s Ubora story, their son Griffin has played a key role in helping to build food silos at five public schools, and an additional silo for the widows. These silos will be critical in alleviating food insecurity caused by droughts, floods, and recent disruptions in supply chains as a result of the global pandemic.
Many of you have been asking about the possibility of going back on mission trips–stay tuned for an update soon as the “Covid-19 clouds” begin to part. And, since mission trips don’t always involve getting on a plane, look for some exciting news in the Business Pillar regarding the distance mentoring program that helps our graduates make the transition from school to work while following Jesus.
While going back to Tanzania is temporarily on pause for now, our love for the people of Karansi continues to shine brightly year-round because of you. It has been absolutely amazing to see God working through our Ubora community to accomplish so much, if only from afar and by way of Zoom calls. Just imagine how joyful it will be when we finally do get to go back and celebrate all that God is doing with our Tanzanian brothers and sisters – a celebration so sweet that we might even relish that serving of goat tongue!
God is so good.
Dave Burgess Joins UboraTZ as President
Learn more about Ubora’s new President, Dave Burgess!
The cross-cultural partnership of two communities on opposite sides of the Atlantic, now known as UboraTZ, continues to gain momentum with the announcement of Dave Burgess as President.
The announcement was made by Jerry Thames, Chairman of the Board and one of the founders of the Atlanta non-profit that serves a once impoverished region of Tanzania near Mt. Kilimanjaro. The mission of Ubora–to create holistic community transformation in the Siha District of Tanzania–is carried out in partnership with local faith, community and government leaders in that area. Thames will continue to serve in his role as board chair and will remain actively involved in fundraising for the organization.
“We are thrilled to have Dave join us to lead Ubora,” said Jerry. “He brings a unique perspective as a board member, and supporter/prayer warrior of this organization for many years. Dave’s professional background as an engineer, Georgia Tech graduate and entrepreneur, combined with that of him being a natural born leader and man of God, make him uniquely qualified to serve in this role as President.”
As president of Ubora, Dave’s primary responsibilities include:
Strategic vision and leadership of the organization
Financial and organizational expansion
Infrastructure and operations development
“The work that God has been doing in a small corner of Tanzania over the past 18 years is a living example of how Jesus’ love can truly change lives,” said Dave. “Isn’t it just like Him to put Tanzanian and American brothers and sisters together on a crazy adventure to transform a little lost village into a beacon of hope and excellence? I am humbled and privileged to help lead our dedicated, spirit-filled, and highly capable team as we continue in this Gospel adventure to transform the Siha District.”
Dave and his wife, Lawanna (Lu) have been married for 24 years and have three children, Kacey (15), Cambelle (13), and Will (11). Adventurers at heart, the Burgess family enjoys hiking, camping, biking, and skiing together. The family is actively involved at Perimeter Church and School. Dave has served on a number of boards, including Perimeter School and the Tanzanian Ministry of Perimeter Church (now UboraTZ).
“Our entire family has been blessed by this ministry, and collectively we’ve made nine trips to Tanzania,” explained Dave. “Each trip transforms us, as we get a greater glimpse into how God’s family works together to spread the love of Christ, foster hope, and change lives. I look forward to helping Ubora grow as a highly effective organization that continues this mission.”
Dave officially takes the reigns as President of UboraTZ on August 1, 2020.
To learn more, visit: uboratz.org or email: daveburgess@ubortatz.org.