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Meal Five - Tanzania

Spotlight on Tanzania

Region: Africa
Population: 41,892,895
Life expectancy at birth: 52.49 years
Population below poverty line: 69.4%
Literacy rate: 36%

Printable Table Tent

Download and print this table tent, designed for the Tanzania meal. This table tent includes conversation starters and information about your gifts to ELCA World Hunger in action.
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Placemats

Download, print and use different placemats during your Lenten meals to raise awareness about hunger, poverty and related issues.

Program

This 30-minute program, specifically designed for the Tanzania meal, contains a reading, litany, monologue, prayers and discussion questions.

Table Prayer

Come Father be our guest. Bless this food as we eat so we get energy to serve you well. Amen. This table blessing from Tanzania is taught to children and sung together before meals. (From Food for Life: Recipes and Stories on the Right to Food.)

Our Father, we praise you. You provide to us every day. Bless our food so we can commune with Jesus Forever. Amen. This table blessing from Tanzania is taught to students starting in nursery school. Children sing it together as a short liturgy before a meal. (From Food for Life: Recipes and Stories on the Right to Food.)

Story: Baracka
Last year drought struck in East Africa; villages across the region faced tough times. Many families lost their livestock to disease and lack of food and struggled to find enough for their children to eat. Two-year-old Baracka lost his mother to the drought…
Read the full story.

Download and print this story to share at the meal.
Download this story: PDF | DOC

Local Recipes

Popular foods in Tanzania include beef stew, pilau (rice) and ugali (polenta). Find these recipes and more at http://tasteoftanzania.com.

Skip the Coffee. Feed the Hungry.

Many are familiar with the tradition of giving something up during Lent. Last year, Pastor Steve Biegner of Zion Lutheran Church in Clarence Center, N.Y., decided to add something to his Lenten tradition. For 40 days, he stopped drinking coffee. And in its place, he gave whatever money he normally spent to support ELCA World Hunger.

“What does giving up coffee have to do with my relationship with God?” Pastor Steve asked. “Nothing. But focusing on the problem of hunger does. It helps ‘enlighten my eye’ to the ongoing problem.”

He placed a large, empty pickle jar outside the sanctuary of his church and asked others to join him. Each day, members of the congregation would sacrifice their favorite morning beverage and save the money they would have spent. By Easter Sunday, the pickle jar was full of donations to help end hunger and poverty.