Hello Tanzania!

Greetings from Tanzania!

 

Our team is partnered with team Redeemed in Mwanza, Tanzania. It is the second largest city in the country. We are working with a local pastor doing door-to-door in the surrounding area in the morning. We also help with all their ministries at night. We run the youth group, women’s bible study, Wednesday night bible study, prayer meetings and children’s time. We have also had the opportunity to delve into the community here by attending a church members’ wedding, and a funeral of an elder in the church.

 

Ministry has not been too over-whelming which was probably beneficial in that we all rested up instead of pushing ourselves in the first few days of the month when we still had remnants of malaria and typhoid. We are living in a house and actually have running water (some of the time) that is exciting, I have not felt this clean in a while.
 
I have made friends with a few families near our home. That has been really great. They are all Muslim. They love having me around and welcome me into their homes. I am so I am hoping that in that relationship they will also welcome in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I was offered a husband, this is the good news, the bad news is I have to wait 15-20 years for him to grow up (he is 2). Oh well, you win some, you lose some. Bibi (grandma) has some serious health issues and so we are praying for her and hoping to see her healed. They are teaching me a lot of swahili which has been fun. I enjoy the challenge of learning a new language and they really enjoy the muzungu working to learn it also, so that even has been an “in” for my ministry with them. (We have developed a rousing edition of Father Abraham in Swahili, Baba Ibrahim.)
 
I have also made friends with the shop owners directly behind our house, particularly her sons because they actually speak english. They are all Catholic and so know at least of Jesus and they are seeking to find God, in the midst of a lot of bad stuff happening in the world. They have a lot of questions and so we have a lot of really deep discussions about the world, God’s divinity, God’s presence in the world. Good stuff. They all play with the neighborhood kids with me, teach me swahili and help me communicate with their mom. One of them, Mark, has even gone with us to door-to-door to help us translate on days that we are short translators. He also comes with me to the other neighbors’ so that I can actually learn things about them instead of just laughing about the little swahili I know.