Naperville church raising money to build community center in Tanzania

The sight of the children peering through a gate with nowhere to go tugs at Lowell Wertz's heart.

So Wertz and his wife, Claudia, missionaries in Central Africa for 29 years, invite the children of Kigoma, Tanzania, inside their mission station for special events. Because the children don't want to leave once they get inside, the missionary couple uses relay races with candy prizes to get them to run outside the gate.

But when Wertz closes the gate behind them, he sees the children standing there, looking through the iron bars, hoping for something more.

He and Claudia began to pray that they could build a community center for Kigoma. While on a furlough in the United States this past January, they shared that dream with the congregation of Wheatland Salem United Methodist Church in Naperville.

When the church's mission team learned that the estimated cost was $80,000, members thought it would be the perfect Christmas gift for the church to give to honor Jesus.

This holiday season, the church is asking members to reduce their normal holiday spending by 25 to 50 percent and contribute that portion to build the community center. A special offering will be taken Dec. 14.

"People are very excited about this," said Laura Keefer, director of worship arts. "One thing we find is people love to help others."

Keefer said she and her husband are using the contribution to teach their own two kids what Christmas is about. Each week, the family puts aside an amount of money to go toward their donation.

"For us, we feel it's important that our children actually see the green," Keefer said. "They're not going to get their five to 10 things under the tree. They're going to get one or two things."

Raising money

The Rev. Scott Field, the church's senior pastor, said the congregation is so enthused about the project that when two families offered $10,000 donations, he encouraged them to hold off to give more people the opportunity to participate.

"There's a lot of buzz going on about it," he said. "We put it as: what kind of gift could we give that would make Jesus smile?"

The church is calling the drive to raise money for the center "Reconnect Christmas," Field said.

Wheatland Salem has started a layaway program for those who want it, and offers cards for purchase that tells recipients that a gift toward the center has been made in their honor. The card shows pictures of the children at the gate and the proposed community center.

The 1,200-member church, which averages a Sunday attendance of between 700 and 900, also has reached out to the community around it to support the project. Mailers have been sent to 20,000 households in southwest Naperville and Oswego, Keefer said.

"If there are others who want to get on board and participate, they don't have to be members of Wheatland Salem," she said.

Jeanette Abrams of Naperville, a member of Wheatland Salem and a teacher at All Saints Catholic Academy in Naperville, said the Catholic school has decided to support the project during its annual pennies for missions drive in January.

Abrams' own two sons, Austin, 13, and Justin, 12, told their parents to give them nothing for Christmas so the money could go toward the community center. She hopes her sons may visit the center when they are older.

"I just think it's an awesome project and it's something tangible people can get behind," she said. "You know exactly where your money is going to go and what it's going to do."

Making a difference

Wertz said in a telephone interview from Tanzania that Wheatland Salem has long been a supporter of his and his wife's Joy in the Harvest ministry, helping to make a difference in the lives of thousands of Africans.

"We're so delighted they decided to take this on," he said. "This building will become a hub of all our future ministries and activities."

Wertz said the 130-by-39-foot, two-story building may be the largest in Kigoma. It will house a lending library and an existing computer school, and be available for community events such as wedding receptions. The missionary couple hopes to obtain a license for a broadcast station, which would operate out of the center.

But the largest portion of the building will be a multipurpose room that could be used to hold programs for children, sewing classes for women, and conferences and training programs for church leaders.

"We're especially drawn to working with the kids," Wertz said.

Many of the children are street kids or AIDS orphans, who may have a grandmother's house where they can sleep but no one who is able to provide for them, he said.

"We're living in a highly impoverished area," he said.

With a population of 136,000, Kigoma is located in one of the poorest parts of Tanzania, which has a per-capita income of $230 a year.

The mission's three-day-a-week meal program provides food for between 350 and 450 children and adults, he said.

"For some, unfortunately, it is the only food they get," he said. "They don't leave one grain of rice."

Excitement building

Work already has begun on the community center, Wertz said. An architect in New Jersey donated his services in drawing up the plans. Other churches the Wertzes visited while they were in the United States donated some of the construction materials, which were shipped over.

Rock has been dug and bricks delivered.

"We're digging the foundation now," he said.

Wertz said the groundbreaking was held earlier this month while Susan Nesbitt, another member of Wheatland Salem, was in Kigoma on a medical mission to work toward setting up a hospital.

"The whole church turned out (for the groundbreaking)," Wertz said. "We served sodas and African doughnuts. The choir sang. The pastor prayed. They're so excited."

Nesbitt estimated that about 100 came to the groundbreaking.

"I get the sense the community center is going to be used in a lot of different ways," she said. "It's definitely something that's needed in the area."

Wertz said that if donations for the center exceed construction costs, the funds will go toward increasing the uses for the building. He added that people are welcome to visit and participate in the work.

"There are so many wonderful things that could be done in terms of this building," he said. "We are very anxious to get this facility online."

For details on the Kigoma community center project, call Wheatland Salem at (630) 904-1035.