The Rev. John Naumann has a lot do to these days. Sell his house. Get his retirement papers in order. And pack a container full of donated books, computers and other items to be shipped to Tanzania, an African country, to help the people of that nation.

Naumann will move to the African country in several weeks to head up a nonprofit ministry that he helped start during his 16 years in Billings as rector of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church.

He will preach his last Sunday sermon as senior pastor Sept. 11 and finish up his work the next day.

"And then I expect to be moving to Tanzania about the 14th or 15th of October, or after my house sells," Naumann, 65, said, sitting in his office at the midtown church.

"Want to buy a house?" he says with a chuckle.

Naumann graduated from St. Francis Theological Seminary in 1966, then served in a series of churches, arriving at St. Stephen's in 1989.

For eight years he also served as the priest in charge in Glendive, Miles City and Forsyth, until another priest took on that duty.

In 1992, St. Stephen's invited the Rev. Ainea Kusenhia and his wife, Mary, to come visit from central Tanzania. Both were schoolteachers doing postgraduate work at Trinity Episcopal School of Ministry at Ambridge, Pa.

They accepted the invitation to come to Billings, Naumann said, "and that began this wonderful connection."

St. Stephen's began helping sponsor students who couldn't afford an education. That support continues today, with about $20,000 coming in each year from churches of different denominations across the state.

In 2000, Naumann spent much of his four-month sabbatical in Tanzania. It was then he realized the people desperately needed water.

So he came home and started raising money to build deep-water wells to supply the precious resource. To date, St. Stephen's and other individuals and churches have funded five wells.

The cost of to survey, drill and properly equip each well is $30,000.

For Naumann, it is a labor of love. The benefits of uncontaminated water are far-reaching, he said.

"Life is totally transformed," he said. "The cycle of cholera is broken because the people have access to clean water."

The incidence of typhoid is greatly reduced. Eye infections in children practically disappear because sufficient water exists for proper hygiene.

"And mothers no longer have to spend long hours walking to a distant source of water," Naumann said.

Now, drip irrigation is being introduced to help families and communities raise vegetables to improve their nutrition. A system called bucket irrigation helps families raise gardens using relatively little water.

In communities where there are deep wells, enough water is available for family gardens. Not one to miss an opportunity to talk about the needs, Naumann said each kit costs $8 "and two kits will provide a household of seven with vegetables for a full 12 months."

The most recent well was dug in the Rift Valley, Naumann said, 35 yards from the local elementary school. For the past several years, only one-third of the eligible children attended school because of a lack of water.

Now more students can attend, and the school will have its own irrigation system, he said.

This is part of the work Naumann will continue when he returns to Africa in October as managing director. A nonprofit group, the Amani for Africa USA Foundation, has been set up separate from St. Stephen's to support the work of the Amani Development Trust Fund to build wells and increase drip irrigation.

In the past two to three years, the group has collected about $80,000 per year to fund the projects in Tanzania.

Naumann will live at the main Amani Center site in Makang'wa, south of Dodoma, the capital of Tanzania. In the house he will live in, electricity will be provided by a diesel-powered generator.

A school is under construction on the site. A conference and retreat center eventually will be built.

The goal of the trust, Naumann said, is to be locally self-sustaining, and to continue helping communities in Tanzania help themselves.

The books, donated from a teachers organization in Montana, and computers, also donated, will go to the school. Naumann and the equipment will soon depart for Africa.

But the move isn't easy in some respects.

"I feel sad as it gets nearer," said Naumann, who plans to come back to Billings every year or so. "Billings has been a very kind place to me, and St. Stephen's has a wonderful congregation. I'm thankful for the warmth and generosity of the people here."

Details St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, at 1241 Crawford Drive, will hold an open house in honor of the Rev. John Naumann today at the church from 1 to 4 p.m. The public is invited to attend the event marking Naumann's 17 years of ministry at the church and his retirement. Donations to the Amani Development Trust, for bucket irrigation kits or deep-water wells, can be sent to St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, 1241 Crawford Drive, Billings, MT 59102.