Iringa Ministry

This blog was written on July 11th:

So I just wanted  to give you a glimpse into what a day of  ministry looks like for us out here this month in Tanzania:

Yesterday (Saturday July 10th), I began my normal trek into town to give my time and thoughts to raising the last $3,000 of my support. By lunch time I headed back to village in order to change into my ministry skirt and be ready to go on time. We were scheduled to spend the afternoon, beginning at 2 pm with the village KIDS! We had split ourselves, and the kids up into three different groups. Before leaving, each group made plans for what they would do.  When 2 pm came and we still hadn’t left, we were reminded that we were on African time not American time and told that it’s best not to get there before the kids or we would be sorry! Ok… so we waited about thirty minutes before leaving for our 20 minute walk to the church. Upon arriving only a few kids were there and the church was locked, so we sat and waited and waited and waited some more. Finally, a few minutes after 3:00 when more kids had arrived we decided to start even though the church wasn’t open yet. So we split up into only two groups now, older and younger kids and began the makeshift festivities. Brian, Kate, Beth and I took the little ones. We started off teaching them several simple songs, which proved to be a challenge with the language barrier. They liked the hand motions but had a hard time with the words. Then we got a translator and told them some bible stories. Beth had brought some great coloring sheets of Daniel and the Lions Den so after the stories finished they colored those and it was SO fun to see them enjoy that. They were so excited and cute. It was SUCH a treat to get to ‘paint’ (colored pencils is all we had) as they called it.

Two of our team members, John and Tanuska, kindly offered themselves to another need this afternoon and missed out on our time with the kids. I wanted to give you an idea of all the different kinds of things we can end up doing on any given day, so below is an excerpt of  Tanuska’s and John’s afternoon from her Blog:

This afternoon our teams were told that our ministry would be with the children. So we planned a VBS-like afternoon, but as we were getting ready to head out, the Pastor received a phone call about a funeral. John and I, in typical world race last minute fashion, decided to go along with him and minister in any way we could.

I don’t know if I have shared this on my blog but two of my teammates Lyndsay and Eric lost family members this past month. Eric lost his stepmother, 35, from cancer, leaving behind a recently adopted daughter, and Lyndsay lost her grandfather. Death and the frailty of life has definitely been at the for front of our minds and as we made our way to the funeral I knew that I wanted to share with them what I had shared with Lyndsay when she got the news.

I reminded her of the story of Lazarus ( John 11) and Jesus words
“I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha? (Except I changed Martha to Lyndsay. )

The funeral was unlike any I had even been to. When we got to the home of the deceased there were people everywhere standing, and sitting, men, women, and children. We made our way into the clay home and stood in the courtyard while they made preparations for us to meet the deceased mother. (This mother had also recently lost her husband.) When we made it into the room with the mother, our translator offered our condolences. I held her hand and prayed over her and then we made our way back outside. They brought the casket out into the courtyard and John prayed. I then gave a quick word of encouragement.

I told them how I was certain that Jesus, when he first heard about his friend being sick would have wanted to go in and heal his friend. Especially, since He was doing the same for people whom he didn’t have nearly the same history with. But instead Jesus waited it out. I shared how I didn’t think that was the easiest thing to do, it goes against instinct. But Jesus wasn’t concerned with human instinct he wanted to listen and to do God’s will and he understood that somehow this “waiting” was in Gods plan.

So Jesus waited and sure enough when he did make his way to Lazarus, it looked like it was too late. It is at this point that we are told in scripture that Jesus was deeply troubled, angered and even wept. 

I shared that sometimes life is like this. We expect God to act in one way, to swoop in and save the day, but sometimes God has a plan of his own. This doesn’t mean the we can’t be upset about it. Jesus was upset, he grieved over the loss of his friend, and in the same way we have permission to do all of this, to grieve and to question.

But at the same time we can’t forget  Christ’s words “Lazarus’s sickness will not end in death. No, it happened for the glory of God so that the Son of God will receive glory from this. (vs4)”

This is where we have the choice to rest in God’s plan and to search out for his “glory.” 
Just like I shared with Lyndsay, “do you believe this?” I challenged the people there to trust that the Father had it all under control and because of this we all had reason to rejoice because “our brother will rise again.”