Mission profile: Student Ministries intern Dan Fama
This past summer, Dan Fama, 2010 International Studies graduate, and current Student Life intern, co-led a group of five Trinity Western University nursing students on a two-month trip to rural Northern Tanzania. The goal of the trip was practical and simple: they would be working with a medical clinic in the small city of Tanga in order to help it gain independence, and they would be traveling to rural areas around the city to teach the basics of health to the locals.
The lack of basic health knowledge that they found, said Fama, was astounding. To illustrate, he described one of the demonstrations that the team did for a rural group of Tanzanians.
To begin, the TWU team brought a village chairman out in front of the crowd, offered him a bin of water, and told him to wash his hands, without soap. The chairman did so, and the students addressed the crowd. “Is this man ready to eat?” they asked. “Yeah, yeah. Bring on the food!” replied the enthusiastic Tanzanians.
Next, the students brought out a new bin of water, this time offering the chairman a bar of soap along with the water. Halfway through washing, the Tanzanian man stopped, astounded at the grime still coming off his hands.
“Everyone would just holler,” said Fama. “Everyone was shocked.”
Later, a member of the Trinity group got someone to translate a comment that the chairman made after the demonstration.
“We’ve been eating parasites all of these days,” he said.
This trip was Fama’s third trip to Tanzania through TWU. The first year Fama was a regular participant, the second and third he helped lead the trip. Last summer the team was scouting out connections and came to a better understanding of areas in need.
This summer, the team tried to address those needs practically through health education. As a result of the team’s work this summer, the health centre in Tanga will be starting a sustainable health education program, which is exactly what Fama’s team had hoped.
“It was the best trip I think I’ve been on. I have to thank God for how well it went.”
This school-year Fama will be channeling his passion for international issues and missions into his new role as Student Life intern, where he will be focusing especially on working with Global Projects, planning and organizing various student short term missions trips. Many fall, spring, and summer trips have been planned, and there are more in the works. Applications for Fall and Spring mission trips are open now. Check out all the global projects at www.twu.ca/ministries/gps/”
Author: Derek Witten
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