Karibu! Hello and welcome to Sumbawanga, Tanzania, where my
team is stationed for month 6 of the World Race.
This month, we are paired with Missy’s team, and are also
lucky enough to have 3 college students joining us for the month as part of
Passport’s Exposure trip to give them a taste of World Race culture.
Our ministry this month consists of a few different aspects.
Each day looks differently. The majority of our time will be spent doing
door-to-door evangelism. Though most Americans I know have grown annoyed with
door-to-door evangelists, and I would never ever do this in America, the
culture is much more receptive here. They want us to come up and talk to them
and we aren’t pushy or forceful, but we do speak the truth.
We are also spending time at an orphanage. All we have to do
is walk in the doors and we are literally attacked by children fighting over
us. (By fighting I literally mean fighting, even spitting in each other’s face
to remain in control of our attention). We spend an hour being fought over,
drooled on, and licked (because they think our skin tastes different).
We will also be “open air preaching”. We haven’t done this
yet, so as far as I know, this means that we are standing on a street corner
and preaching. Not really sure how I feel about this, will let you know after
we do it.
We are also in charge of preaching at both the morning and
evening church sessions on Sunday.
The culture here is completely different than at home.
(Obviously). That’s probably a second blog all in itself, but I will leave you
with this one interesting detail. We went to the market yesterday, bought two
live chickens, carried them by their wings until we were given plastic bags
with holes for them to poke their heads out, and brought them home. A few hours
later, I watched a woman take the chicken, cut it’s head off, pluck the
feathers, and prepare it for dinner.
