Dr. Mark and Linda Jacobson are ELCA missionaries in Tanzania where they work with the medical center in Arusha. To support Mark and Linda, or another of the ELCA’s over 200 missionaries, go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

A patient at the Arusha Lutheran Medical Centre.

Dear friends in Christ,

What an exciting time of great thanksgiving this is for our ministries in Tanzania. In the U.S. you are gearing up for the Thanksgiving holiday, while we in Tanzania have just celebrated our “Harvest Festival” at the end of the growing season. It is a time to pause and reflect upon the richness of God’s blessings in our lives and in our efforts to serve.

The many great developments at Arusha Lutheran Medical Centre (www.almc.habari.co.tz/) are a constant source of blessing.

• Our training efforts to address the huge shortfall of health care professionals have leaped ahead. In the last few months we have been registered as a training center and our assistant medical officer training program has been accredited.
• We have taken the final steps toward opening our own nursing college in February 2013!
• We have become an international training center for African surgeons to study laparoscopic surgery and join the global movement to this video surgical care.
• Last month we broke ground for construction of the new Plaster House, a short- and intermediate-term rehabilitation facility for children following orthopedic and plastic surgery. Many of you contributed to support this development last year and now it is underway!
• Our program for operating on crippled children and those with cleft lips and palates or burns really continues to grow. Just this week we have operated on another 40 kids with challenging problems for living their everyday lives.
• Many visiting doctors and students are a part of the exciting mix we have in practicing Christian health care. Linda runs the hosting side of our ministry for these folks and for the congregational visits which are wonderfully welcome.

These are some of the programs and ministries that you have been supporting so generously. We have great opportunities to serve and to share together in these ministries and outreach.

Thank you and God bless,
Mark and Linda Jacobson