Several Yorkers were among a group of midstate Lutherans who left last week for a trip to the Konde Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania in eastern Africa. They'll attend the diocesan assembly there, where a bishop will be elected (or current Bishop Israel-Peter Mwakyolile reelected).
Among the travelers are the Revs. Thomas and Judy McKee of York, as well as Cliff Eshbach (assistant to Bishop Penrose Hoover), Judy Garber (a member of Christ Lutheran Church in York) and Garber's niece, Rachel Lauber, a nurse from Collinsville, Ill., who will stay on for six weeks to work at Itete Lutheran Hospital in the Diocese as a volunteer.
Lauber's duties will include hands-on patient care, as well as educating hospital staff on updating some of their skills, according to an e-mail from Garber.
Since 1996, the midstate Lower Susquehanna Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has been linked to the Konde Diocese through a companion relationship. Since 2001, Christ Church in York has been linked as a companion congregation to the Itete Hospital, a Lutheran hospital in an underserved region in a remote part of Tanzania.
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