The Beginnings (1986-1994)
- 1986: Don Rogers takes his first trip to Kenya with his church (Living Spring Christian Fellowship in Garden Grove, CA). Don’s pastor from the USA meets and agrees to a return visit to Africa but, this time, to Tanzania.
- 1987: Living Spring Christian Fellowship plans a trip to Tanzania.
- 1988: The Living Spring team leader leaves the church, and the trip to Tanzania is canceled. The church board informs the Tanzania pastor by letter.
- 1988: The pastor from Tanzania writes back to the church and invites them to send someone. Don agrees to be the church representative and leaves for a one-month trip to and around Mwanza, Tanzania. God-led encounters, shocking poverty, suffering pastors, and openness to the Gospel turn Don’s world upside-down. Upon his return and sharing the stories of the journey, several people ask to join Don on his “next trip to Africa.”
- 1989: Don leads the first short-term team on a Tanzania village ministry, holding open-air meetings and simple training sessions.
- 1990: The church raises funds through garage sales to sponsor two boats and a fishing net to help a suffering pastor in Bungonia, Tanzania.
- 1990-1994: Don returns each summer to explore and expand some economic projects with the local churches, while also holding leadership training sessions for pastors. Several short-term teams join and participate. The first projects, located in Igoma, Tanzania, include the following: propagating and selling tree seedlings, cement water storage jars, a hand-powered washing machine, poultry production, cement roof tile production, Cinva Ram earth block press production, a 55-gallon metal drum oven bakery. During this time, Don meets and is assisted by David Tarus who was visiting from Kenya.
- 1994: In the USA the pastor of Living Spring and two businessmen meet with Don and encourage him to launch a 501c3 ministry. The first staff join the ministry, as Cathy Bushnell and Wendy Ludovici live in Tanzania to start a Christian preschool and dynamic youth ministry program.
