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Dear Friends-
It has been a busy year at Iringa Hope with many struggles, some successes, and some shortfalls. We started the year off strong with a growing membership, some new personnel, and a good plan for the year. Then, as we all know, things went astray.
It was in early March when Sandy and I were starting our work in Iringa that the US announced travel restrictions due to Covid-19. Within days most flights into and out of Tanzania were canceled, schools were being closed, and meetings prohibited. Our spring training schedule in Iringa was thrown out, the work of our staff in Iringa was curtailed due to travel restrictions, and things slowed down.
From this early shut down things in Iringa slowly recovered. Our members were busy in their fields, our SACCOS and AMCOS were busy, and things were looking good.
Then the rains came. In many of our areas the rains fell and fell and fell! The fields were flooded, once again travel was very difficult due to wash outs, and things slowed down again.
By late in the year we had started doing visits; helping our members place orders for their seeds, fertilizers, and sprays while arranging for them to place crops into storage while prices rose. Going around to the various villages we found some places had good (not great, but good) harvests while others were largely flooded out. Still, overall, prices look to be good so most places will be OK.
 Despite the rains and the shutdown we managed to finish construction on the last of our 23 Integrated Development Centers, updated all 62 cooperative registrations (The law was changed late last year so we were forced to reregister all of our SACCOS, AMCOS, and the Joint SACCOS and Joint AMCOS), and started work on a large Market Center for use with our crop storage and marketing program (The DSS program).
Looking back on the year there are many things we had hoped to accomplish that we were not able to do. The cancelation of our spring training sessions delayed the roll out of our program to improve crop handling and storage. Travel restrictions meant we could not visit many of our villages, auditing books and helping the village officials with planning and ordering for the year. The rains delayed the full implementation of the DSS program, forcing a 40-50% drop in our expected enrollment. And many, many other things.
Still, overall, given the challenges of the Covid pandemic; the near record rains; and the sudden changes in Tanzanian laws that caused us to rework our cooperative network; the people in Iringa did a truly outstanding job.
Although Sandy and my visit to Iringa was cut short this year, we still visited with many, many people while we were there. All of the people we met expressed their concern over the health and well-being of their many friends here in the US. Bishop Gaville especially wanted all of those in MN to know that in this time of pandemic, we were always in their thoughts and prayers. And, as always, our members wanted to send their heart felt thanks to their many friends in the US.
Sandy and I  hope that you and your family stay safe over this coming holiday season. We trust that the joy of the birth of our Savior will grace your home and your family.
Blessings
Tom
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The floor is different than most of us are used to. Since sand and gravel must be hauled in, the floor is underlaid with a layer of rocks to minimize the amount of concrete needed. Even with this reduction in concrete the project will require over 3.000 bags of cement and many, many truckloads of sand and gravel. 
