Life in Tanzania

Tanzania…hmmm…..

 

Ok really it was just more African ministry. House to house, Preaching, Construction, Teaching, Open Air Meetings, Movie showings, etc. So im not going to go into day to day details. Just know that every day we did some combination of the activities listed above.

 

Highlights: (In no distinct order)

1.  Choir-          Pastor asked our team to have choir practice on Saturday and sing two songs at Church on Sunday. Easy right. Well, noone on our team plays guitar so we just decided to sing “Hosanna” and “Mighty to Save” accapella style. We practiced twice and decided we had all sung those songs enough in our lives that we didnt need to practice anymore. We just wrote down the words on a sheet of paper and called it a day.

                       At Church on Sunday the service started with 45 minutes of professional choirs singing and dancing! The Church had about 300-400 members and there were 5 or 6 choirs made up of different churches members. The Pastor even brought in outside groups to perform. Then they called the 6 of us up. Lets just say that after watching 50-60 member choirs dance and sing for 45 minutes, the congregation was a little less that impressed with our songs….

 

2. “Set Me Free” Drama-    Despite our poor performance the week before the Pastor still asked us to perfrom two songs at Church on the 2nd Sunday. Deciding that singing was not our strong point, we decided to perform a drama set to the song “Set Me Free”. In the drama, a woman is tormented by two demons. Jesus shows up on the scene, is crucified, and then resurrected. At the resurrection, the demons are destroyed and then he proceeds to free the woman from chains. 

             I have performed the Drama a number of times, but nothing prepared me for what happened on that Sunday. The cry for joy that erupted when Jesus was resurrected was deafening. Women were slain in the Spirit. Chairs were thrown out windows. Fireworks went off.  Ok some of that might be an exageration, but when I went back to my seat my translator was whipping tears from her eyes.      

                 In the imfamous words of Dumb and Dumber, “Just when I thought you couldnt get any dumber, you go and do something like this……..And totally redeem yourself!”      

 

3. The Bachelor Pad-   Unfortunately our team stayed in 3 different houses this month. Normally that would have been fine, but since it was our first month as a team it was hard not being able to have team meetings at night or getting to hang out and get to know each other. 

                     Patrick and I lived together in what we lovingly refered to as the Bachelor Pad. It was a house owned by a 28-29 year old man, who came home at 11PM and left before we were up in the morning. Throughout the day, guys ranging from 6 to 26 would move in and out of the house, just kicking it, making tea, watching tv, listening to music. I was never quite sure who actually lived in the house and who just came to hang out. Oh, and noone spoke English. Music was always blaring. Most nights we just ate frozen pizza and watched the game.

 

4. Door to Door- At one house Shiloh and I went to we met two Muslim girls, who had been attending a Church. They were very interested in hearing about Jesus and having a relationship with Him. We got to talk with them for a while and answer some questions. At the end they asked us to pray for them that they would be able to receive Jesus. Many roadblocks in their lives kept them from commiting to Christ. The biggest barrier was their families reaction to their decision. We prayed for them and encouraged them, and let them know nothing was more important than knowing Jesus Christ. They were very grateful that we stopped to talk with them, and I was glad that we had stopped two.