Pressing On

Hello Everyone!

We are finally getting the blog updated! We thank you all for your interest in, support of, and prayers for the Kinlaw family as we serve the Lord out here in Tanzania. We are truly "Pressing on" in the work, and the Lord is strengthening us each day. It has been a busy stretch these last several weeks, and lots to catch everyone up on :). We thought it would be fun to start with this picture of Grace, who is dangerously smart, and extremely fun for her age (not quite 2!). We cant wait for you all to meet her one day soon.

Grace just fits right in with the dynamics of our family, and has grown to love doing life with us. Over the past several weeks we have had 2 court hearings regarding her adoption at the High Court of Tanzania. The first hearing was a review of the case where the judge asked the Social worker to submit his recommendation. The second hearing, after reviewing everything, the judge saw one thing we were lacking for him to rule on the case. That item was located, and submitted to the court! Our next hearing will be December, 12, 2025, and hopefully our last! This hearing will be on zoom, becaue the judge will be out of town. Please pray with us for the internet to work properly during this time, as there is a planned protest for December 9 regarding the recent presidential election here in TZ.

(Above) The Kinlaws and Xavier, our social worker. He has been such a blesing to work with, and has helped us navigate this difficult process so much. While we were working through this process with the adoption, Isaac and Elaina traveled back to the US for a month long visit with family and friends. They were so excited to get back to see everyone, and also to travel alone for the first time internationally.

They arrived safely in Raleigh, North Carolina to a "welcoming committee" comprised of John's sister, Elizabeth, and some of our closest friends, the Samuels. The four weeks went by pratty fast for them, and have already returned safely to Tanzania.

They had a busy month as they attended a youth conference at Mountain Top Youth Camp, helped Elizabeth move, visited the NC State Fair, visited with several family members in the Greensboro area, and enjoyed the sweet fellowship and ongoing meetings at North Ridge Bible Chapel where we are commended. It was a full month, and we are so glad they were able to go and see friends and family.

Our various ministries are continuing well, and keeping our days full. The maktaba is an outpost for the Gospel in the muslim village of Ujiji about 15 minutes from Kigoma town. God has greatly used this place and continues to on a daily basis. It is what I call a "slow drip" of the Gospel in a difficult area. Muslims come in little by little to get reading glasses or to ask questions. Some come in to watch the Gospel films on the TV. We also equip local pastors and church leaders with tracts, and other materials together with the discipling ministry of Emmaus.

We are gearing up for another trip down the lake road to visit several villages with the Emmaus courses. We load up on courses, prepare a travel box with the certificates and gifts, and organize everything by village. We continue to go every 3-4 weeks depending on schedules. We recently had 2 students finish the 36 courses and receive their final certificates, praise the Lord! The rainy season has begun so the roads usually deteriorate quite a bit in certain areas. Please pray for the growth of these believers, and for safe travels for us as we go.

Above is an example of some of the roads we have to navigate weekly as we go to Kizenga for church meetings, or down the lake road to bring Emmaus to the various villages. We used to have to navigate this road each week as we visited Grace each week at the orphanage. That road is treacherous (below)!

The rains are a blessing to many who live off of their farming and crops, but also a challenge to vehicles navigating these muddy roads. Our Emmaus trip this past Friday (Nov 21) was a rainy mess, and on the way back a bridge washed out. We were fortunate that there was another small, muddy road that led us out to the main paved road an hour from town!

The church in Kizenga is slowly growing and doing well overall. We are continuing to have the Lord's Supper weekly, 50-70 kids each week for Sunday School, and good teaching from the Word. The mid-week meeting is scarcely attended, but they are pressing on.

Now on to CAMP NURU...

We could do an entire blog just on the camp!

Justin Wallace has returned to the US to prepare for his wedding in January to Naomi Head of Minnesota. He has been a tremendous help over the past several months. Let's pray for him and Naomi as they plan their wedding, get married, and early spring return to Kigoma, Lord willing, to serve the Lord together out here at Camp Nuru.

We had to hit pause on building the wall while me made a few adjustments out at the camp. We prayerfully put our own security guards out there. We also hired a few guys to hand dig a well to get water for the building process such as mixing cement and mortar. We were buying water from the neighbor, but it was getting costly. It was amazing to watch how they did this dangerous work! They dug down about 15 feet, then left a ledge, which allowed them to brick the upper half of the well. If you look closely, zoom in, there is a guy in the bottom of the well in the picture below!

Once they hit water, they dug further and pulled out lots of mud. In total, the well is approximately 35 feet deep and has filled up to about 10 -15 feet from the top! We cemented a lid on the well, and will put a hinged lid with a lock. This was a huge need, and we thank the Lord for giving us this water!

Many muslim neighbors passed by on their way to and from their farms commenting that we would never hit water here. One said, "You can dig 100 meters and you will not hit water there!". Others said we were wasting our time, but the Lord gave us water! Praise the Lord!

Our biggest problem right now is the rainy season is here in full force. We had to divert a drainage ditch from cutting through our property, and let it out to the main road in front of the camp. Over the last two years, the water that comes down our side of the ridge above has increased so much, and is very destructive. The rains also come in full force this time of the year, as seen in this video taken by Gerald at the maktaba Wednesday (below).

One side of our ditch held up nicely, but the turn at the road couldn't handle this amount of water as water came from many different directions! Crazy! Pray for us as we continue to work on getting the water under control so we can refocus our work inside the camp building walls etc.

Our bridge that we built held up during the flooding! We had to build this bridge to be able to enter the camp property with a vehicle as the drainage ditch cut across the only road into the property. Now we can continue to bring in materials to continue building the camp.

After the big rain and flooding (below).

Beside the flooding issue is a border issue. Below you can see our beacon circled in red which is the corner of our property. (Camp property to the left and the neighbors farm to the right). The neighbor refuses to acknowledge this, and has farmed his rows into our side to show where he believes the property line is. The problem is that after many years and many rains, the "footpath" has shifted over little by little. When the surveyors came in and installed the beacons, it showed how inaccurate it is to use "footpaths" for land boundaries! Pray for us as we decide how to handle this issue.

Thank you for praying for Camp Nuru! We are excited about how God is going to use this place to reach many souls with the Gospel, and enable many believers to grow spiritually.

Jennifer is continuing in her masters program in midwifery. She is doing very well, enjoying the content, but pressing on with the heavy work load! She would appreciate your prayers for strength and focus.

We thank you all for your prayers and support of the work out here in Tanzania. We hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving as we all have so much to be thankful for :)

~ The Kinlaws

Prayer Requests:

• Please pray for the upcoming adoption hearing, that the internet would work, and the judge would complete the adoption.

• Please pray for the maktaba ministry, and the many who receive tracts and literature through the maktaba.

• Please pray for the church in Kizenga for spiritual growth.

• Please pray for the Emmaus program which continues to thrive in this area. Pray for spiritual growth, comprehension of the truth, and for the roads in rainy season.

• Pleaase pray for Camp Nuru regarding the flooding, water drainage to get under control, and for the wall building to begin again soon. Let's also pray for wisdom regarding the disputed land marker to get resolved.

• Please pray for Jennifer as she continues in her Masters program in midwifery for strength and help retaining all of the information she is learning.

Grace, ready for her first court hearing ❤️❤️❤️