February Already?

Hello from Tanzania, home of the perpetual summer! We hope all of you are staying healthy physically and spiritually these days. Where did January go? We’d like to catch you up on what has been going on here!

After a busy Christmas with several “ibadas” or meetings, which provided many opportunities to share the Gospel, we felt that we needed to get away, clear our heads, and pray/plan for the next year of ministry. From Kigoma, there really isn’t anywhere close that is refreshing, so we decided to drive to Dar Es Salaam! A two day road trip with a total of 22 hours on the road, it was an adventure, but we made it there & back. Here are a few pictures of the interior of TZ.

The school year in Tanzania begins in January and ends in December. So the first few weeks of January are challenging times for many families as they try to gather school supplies and school uniforms for each student. We sponsor four students who are in high school grades and one in college in Dar. We try to help other families in the local chapel with this burden also, as many of them struggle to even feed their families.

Our work in Ujiji is continuing on in the maktaba and in the local schools. Recently we learned that one of the schools where we teach changed our class time from Friday to Wednesday. Thankfully we were able to negotiate the time so we can continue teaching in both schools. So now, on Wednesdays Gerald and I teach both schools, Karuta and Mbano, back to back, and we are now praying about which school to add to our schedule for Friday. We would like to add a Secondary school, which is similar to a middle/high school back in the US. Pray with us for the LORD to lead us to the right school.

Although the street-boy ministry has come to an end for now, one of the guys that helped us occasionally has started his own soccer outreach in Ujiji. He invited me to come out and visit this group of young guys and to give the message. Because it was down in the field area in Ujiji, lots of people came out to see the “mzungu”! I gave my personal testimony, the story of how and why I chose to become a Christian, and it went really well. I hope to visit this group more throughout the year.

I also was invited to give my testimony and the Gospel to a HIV feeding program hosted by a fellow missionary couple in town. This went really well, the Lord really blessed and 5 or 6 girls put their faith in Christ that day! Pray for these girls as several of them have difficult situations at home and will need encouragement often along with good teaching.

This past Sunday we visited a small church in Ujiji “Agano Jipya”. A friend of mine has invited me many times to come and preach, but I have declined for almost two years. This year I agreed to come and visit, and we really enjoyed our time there. I spoke on “The Power of the Gospel” from 1Timothy. We gave each person a Gideon Bible and they gave us a chicken!

January has been a busy month, but also a fruitful one! We thank the Lord for the many open doors here for the Gospel.

We have not lost hope on starting a Christian camp here in Ujiji! The previous property we were investigating and thought we might purchase fell through, and we decided in December of last year to set this aside and just pray.

This past week we were approached about a property that a former missionary had purchased years ago in Ujiji to build a camp, but it never worked out. We were told that he wants to sell. It is amazing how God works! Pray for us as we look into this property and see how God leads in the future.

This is “Sebastian the Zebra”. He lives down near the lake where we sometimes swim and has become very people-friendly! It’s not often that you get to pet a wild (sort of) zebra. He is not in any fence and can go wherever he pleases, but he chooses to hang out around this property.

One last sunset picture as we sign off. Thank you so much for your prayers and support, may God bless each and every one of you!