Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Kigoma, TZ!

Christmas here in Kigoma is a little warmer than back home in NC, but still a precious time to remember the coming of our Savior to this world.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…

Jesus Christ

Immanuel

God with us

What an amazing Gift!

The Lord Jesus IS Christmas!

We hope you have received Him into your heart and life :)

It is a great privilege to be able to share HIM with so many precious children each week. In the last month, we have seen our Sunday school in Kizinga double in size! On average we have had around 40 to 50 children each Sunday, but in the past several weeks we have had as many as 120! This past Sunday, we had 90 children! What a joy to share with them how much God loves them, and what great things the Lord has done for them.

The Maktaba is continuing to be a lighthouse in the Muslim village of Ujiji. Recently, we had a man come in with some questions about the Bible that were confusing him. As we talked, we discovered he had been going to the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah Witnesses. As most of you know, this group has changed the Bible, denies that Jesus is God come in the flesh, and teaches that you can save yourself by doing good works. The reason they are knocking on your door is to save themselves! We had a great discussion with this gentleman (below), and cleared up his confusion with the simple truth of the word of God. Pray for Solomon to grow and find a good solid church.

Many others come in to discuss questions about the Scriptures. Gerald is such a good counselor, and together we try to help each one to feel comfortable while pointing them to the Lord.

We also had another young man, who I will leave unnamed, come in to pick up his first Emmaus exam and the next course. He was just glowing with the joy of the Lord. I asked him how he came to know the Lord, and he shared an amazing story with me.

His father is a leader in a mosque in Ujiji, and his mother is a witch doctor. While growing up in Ujiji, he would often wake up at night scared because of a very evil presence in his room, and even in his dreams! His father gave him some verses from the Quran to say the next time it happened, but these verses did not help. He heard from his Christian friends about the power of the name of Jesus, so he figured he would give that a try. The next night that evil presence was in his room, he proclaimed the name of Jesus, and it immediately left! Every time he proclaim the name of Jesus, not only did the evil presence exit immediately, his mother also was agitated. Eventually, as a teenager, he began reading the Bible and put his faith in Jesus Christ. Today as a 22 year old young man he is a vibrant, spirit-filled believer, and has just started studying the Emmaus courses! Praise the Lord!

The brother in the picture above also has an amazing testimony worth sharing! Every three weeks we take the Emmaus courses down the lake road to several villages. Many in each village are waiting for us, and eager to study God‘s Word. When we arrived at the second village, Kaseke, he was waiting for us to turn in his first two exams and to get some new courses. As I talked with him, I discovered that he had walked three hours from a remote village to meet us! He left at 6 AM arrived at 9 AM,l. That is what you call a HUNGER FOR THE WORD OF GOD!

Praise the Lord!

As pictured above, on these trips we get lots of opportunities to pass out Gospel literature, meet many new friends, and give testimony to the Gospel. We are the products of the Gospel we preach! What a joy!

At the last village, Ilagala, we meet with between 20 and 30 believers. It feels like a church service, as Gerald gives a short word, we sing and pray, and exchange graded, completed, and new courses. I also like to give out rewards for high marks, most improved, etc. The gentleman below received William McDonald’s commentary on the Four Gospels in Swahili.

In this last village of our trip, we often give out many certificates because of how diligent they are to study the Scriptures! They remind us of the Bereans in the book of Acts “who received the Word in all eagerness and examined the Scriptures daily…”

We are so thankful for the growth we are seeing in the Emmaus ministry. We have been invited to come to several more villages in other directions. We are currently praying about how the Lord would have us meet this spiritual need, and also praying about adding another person to help grade and record courses.

This young man above works for one of our neighbors, and has been working on the Emmaus courses for over a year now. Just last week he received his final certificate of completion, having completed all 36 courses! We give a new Bible to each student who completes all the courses.

Above are a few more students who have completed the second and third sections, and are making great progress. Praise the Lord!

A big THANK YOU to all who prayed for Jennifer on her short trip to the US to attend orientation for her Master’s program in Midwifery. It was a whirlwind for sure with 8 separate flights, over 70 hours of travel time, a rental car (suddenly driving on the opposite side of the road), and an 8 hour time difference! It was all worth it, very informative, and she met a few new friends (pictured above). Jennifer has arrived back safely to Kigoma and begins her first online class January 2025!

Regarding our adoption process, today we received the letter we have been waiting for much of this year! This is the last step before receiving permission to bring Grace home. We will go up to the orphanage with a social worker tomorrow to officially identify the child we wish to foster and adopt. The social worker will then fill out three forms, mail them back to the main office in Dodoma, and then they will release the final letter. Because of the Christmas holiday, we will not receive this final letter until the first week of January. Thank you all so much for praying for us, and PLEASE continue to pray until we have received Grace into our home!

The orphanage that we visit each week is over an hour away by car, and then we have to navigate this very treacherous, muddy road. Last week we almost didn’t make it out as you can see our car is turned sideways here in this picture. Thanks to four-wheel-drive, prayer, and perseverance we eventually made it up this muddy hill!

We are all SO excited to add Grace to our family. We plan to go visit her on Christmas Day to spend Christmas with her at the orphanage :-)

We are also excited to announce that the Lord has called out a young man to help with Camp Nuru. Justin Wallace will be coming in February 2025 to begin this new journey as a missionary in Kigoma. Justin has been on staff at Mountain Top Youth Camp in North Carolina for many years. Justin visited us out here last year with a small team, and was a tremendous blessing while he was here. We are very excited to have him join our CMML team together with the 2 Johnson families as we gear up to start building this youth camp at the beginning of 2025!

As we close this post, and reflect on this past year. It has been one of the most challenging years, but also one of the most fruitfu! We have also experienced the most spiritual opposition this year. In light of that, here are a few thoughts in closing from the past year’s experience:

Satan hates missionary work and opposes it at every turn. He hates adoption, because it is a picture of the Gospel! He hates spiritual growth, and will do all he can to hinder it. He hates bright testimonies, and will do everything he can to ruin them. He hates purity, and will do everything to soil the hearts of believers. He hates the Gospel, because it is the power of God to save all who believe.

This past year has not been easy, but we have experienced the power and the joy of the Lord at every turn, and confess that we are not beat up and discouraged, but REJOICING at all He has done and is doing!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Jesus

Emmanuel

God with us

Amen!

~ The Kinlaws

PRAYER REQUESTS:

• Please pray that we can get the building plans for Camp Nuru completed and approved soon!

• Please pray for the many Emmaus students to become fruitful believers, and not just study for head knowledge or certificates!

• Please pray for us to have clear leading on how to meet this need for Emmaus study courses in many other villages.

• Please pray for Jennifer as she works to renew her TZ nursing license and also begins her college course in January.

• Please pray we can make it to and from the orphanage safely these last few trips as the roads are bad and getting worse.

• Please pray for Justin Wallace as he prepares to come join us in February!

• Please pray for things to work out for us to take a furlough spring/summer 2025

Lake Tanganyika