Morogoro to be exact. So far, we’ve had
an eventful month. We are staying at a
lovely YWAM base that provides us with cushy bunk beds, a shower and squatty
potty that have running water (no trips to the well this month). We are eating in the dining room and have
tea, coffee, and homemade bread with jam and peanut butter for breakfast. We have greens, beans, rice, and corn for
dinner, with a gravy sauce to go on top. We are working with the Pentecostal Holiness Mission which is a small
church of about 60 people in a predominantly Muslim neighborhood. I’ve never been to a Pentecostal church before in my life and wow are these guys excited!!
Our ministry is door to door evangelism in the
neighborhood of the church. We’ve spent 7 days so far going door to door,
meeting families, and sharing the story of God. Some of the families were Christian and we had a chance to encourage
them and pray for them. Many of the
families were Muslim and we had the opportunity to share what we believe about
Jesus. The interesting thing is that
everyone in the household would come and quietly and intently listen to us
talk. Three of the Muslim women we spoke
to decided to become Christians. It was
clear they had been taught prior to our arrival and we were just experiencing
the harvest from another one’s planting the seed.
physically exhausted at the end of our days. I don’t know how people do this all the time! Being a total novice “evangelist”, God was
able to use our time of ministry to help me gain confidence in sharing His
story and listening to the promptings of the Spirit to tell me when to speak
and when to shut up. I love the
experience.
In addition, I was able to preach my first sermon in
church last week. Our team is
responsible for all the messages at the church while we are here and I decided
to volunteer last week. I was nervous in
preparing as obviously I’m not a preacher. Also, since I come from a church culture where women are not in these
roles, I’ve never had any practice in front of a congregation. The culture here is very much one where woman
are active and so we have been asked to bring the word. With God’s help, the sermon went well. Including the translation, the whole talk
lasted about 45 minutes, which is a short message in Africa. Nonetheless, it was acceptable.
Finally, on Friday of this week, we decided to
forego neighborhood evangelism and invited all the kids to a mini VBS
event. This was a success as we played
with the kids, sang songs, shared a bible story, and ended the event with 120
kids present. Afterwards, we prayed for
the kids, many that were Muslim, as they took the experience back into their
homes-that there would be peace and not conflict after their morning with the
Americans.
For fun, we got to spend a day of this week hiking a
nearby mountain. This was a fun
adventure and a physical challenge. We
drove on the back of motorcycles through the dirt roads to and from the
mountain and then spent about 4 hours hiking up and back down. Some parts were through 8 foot grasses with
no trail and other parts were sliding down very slippery grasses and loose dirt
places. I had such a good time doing
this and felt like I was 18 years old again (except for the times that I was
gasping for air in my lungs or falling down!)
