What A Week

This past week has been somewhat of a crazy one! Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I had the Casfeta Conference. I ended up spending the night there Thursday and Friday evening. The conference wasn’t necessarily the most fun but I met a lot people and got to know Nkone (The National Casfeta Director) a little better. Casfeta is the students’ ministries of the TAG. It includes primary, secondary and university ministries so it can be compared to Chi Alpha/Youth Alive/Campus Missionaries ministries back in the states. The conference was basically teachings and sermons by the National TAG Directors, tweaking of the constitution, and election of new leaders. After the conference I spent a day by myself at the house and then headed to Kisalanza to meet up with Roger and the team from North Texas. The bus ride was nice and it was definitely the nicest bus I’ve been on. We arrived just in time for supper and then spent a good amount of time staring into the night sky thick with stars. The place we were at is very from any cities and nights are pitch-black. The sky was incredible! Me and Chad woke up early and made it to a lake to watch a beautiful sunrise! The combo of the two was quite healing. We then headed to Iringa for some shopping before we headed off to the Ruaha, or so we thought. After the shopping we headed out and Roger and the other missionaries went ahead since the bus driver knew where the Ruaha was and the only place to make a wrong turn was the very first turn…. You probably guessed it, the bus driver made the only wrong turn possible and we drove 3 hours in the wrong direction before we finally had cell phone reception. We headed back to Iringa but knew it was too late to go to the Ruaha National Park. As you can imagine there are people upset and emotions are flying. Not to mention there was not a designated leader on the bus and there was tension between the interns and the leader of the North Texas team. After an argument and things getting out of hand (we had a talk later and things worked out well) we finally made it to the hotels and resolved everything. We got a little sleep before we headed off to the Ruaha, this time making the correct turns ;) We rested and ate when we arrived and then headed out for the safari. We saw Impala, Giraffe, Zebra, Guinea Fowl, Cape Buffalo, Kudu, Baboons, Elephant and 35 lions!! Not only did we see a bunch of lions, we saw them feasting. We heard them purring as they enjoyed a fresh buffalo. It was the most amazing sound I’ve heard, 7 grown lions purring. Not to mention they were only about 10 feet away (we were safe because they only see 2-D). It was the kind of thing that makes your heart stop and brings goosebumps to your skin. To be continued...

Charcoal

Charco Caps, don't leave America without them. Thanks Peggy!!

like this psalm.....

Psalm 20

¹The LORD hear thee in the day of trouble; the name of the God of Jacob defend thee; ²Send thee help from the sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Zion; ³Remember all thy offerings, and accept thy burnt sacrifice; Selah. ⁴Grant thee according to thine own heart, and fulfil all thy counsel. ⁵We will rejoice in thy salvation, and in the name of our God we will set up our banners: the LORD fulfil all thy petitions. ⁶Now know I that the LORD saveth his anointed; he will hear him from his holy heaven with the saving strength of his right hand. ⁷Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. ⁸They are brought down and fallen: but we are risen, and stand upright. ⁹Save, LORD: let the king hear us when we call.

busy next several weeks coming up. have a chi alpha/youth alive conference tuesday-saturday then get on a bus to join roger and the team in a safari. then we have either a family/intern ministry tour or the ocean ministry tour the next couple weeks. then me and chad (the other intern) will head off on our own to either preach or do work and camp out at a river. then we have a missionary and family tour and will pass through the serengetti.

busy busy need your prayers. thanks! love you guys!!

My First Swahili Church Service

The church filled up a few minutes after Sunday School. After all of the seats in the church are taken the extra room that is in the back of the church is filled with people standing. When the back of the church is filled up people began to stand outside by the windows and doors and within no time there is 30-50 people standing outside. The national, district, sectional leadersof the Tanzanian Assemblies of God (TAG) , and me (they forced me!!) sit up front on the platform. There are 19 in Dareda (including myself). Worship and prayer take place before church starts (no telling how early, people had been waiting about 15 hrs for Roger and company to arrive) and continue a few songs after the service starts. The building is concrete with concrete floors and a few poorly made, wobbling wood benches (with no back support) and some plastic chairs for the leaders. The sound system is one 2.5 ft x 1 ft busted speaker and what looks like a bus horn speaker powered by some kind of weird looking soundboard. A bass played like a lead guitar and a keyboard are the instruments with the drums being the built in drum kit in the keyboard. Everything is ghetto wired and probably every sound piece and wire has a short. The system acts up often but they continue as nothing happened. The church is decorated with baby blue, white, purple, and green sheets. It has several flowers and also ribbons hanging from the ceiling and is topped off with a blue neon light. No one stands still or is quiet during worship (no matter how bad they sing) and prayer. There is quite a bit of leading and repeating in singing, teaching, and praying. Everyone either dresses up or wears their African outfits. The back, middle aisle, and outside are full of people standing for the entire 6 hr service. The service started around 8 or 9 with worship and prayer beginning who knows how long before. The blueprint of the service is this:
Worship/Prayer

Sunday School - TAG General Secretary of CA's (Christ's Ambassadors) Msungu talked about the CA's and their upcoming goals

Offering

Preaching - TAG Assisstant National Director of CA's Sylvester Puta-Puta preached from Daniel 1:1-21 and said Daniel was a man of Kusudi (purpose), nabii (prophecy) and maono (vision). He preached about 10-15 minutes and just started saying, "Receive the Spirit!" Everyone lifted up their voice and prayed in tongues and Swahili. The Holy Ghost fell and everyone began walking around laying hands on everyone. This lasted about 10-15 minutes.

Leadership Training - Done by Roger

Preaching - National Director of CA's Mkoba preached for about 2 hours. I have no idea what about.

All of this was done straight-thru with no breaks in betweeen and there are people that stood the whole time. Most people had open Bibles and took notes the whole service.


Understand this was not a normal service but Roger and team were presenting the Miaka kumi ya Mavuno (Decade of Harvest) vision. The TAG plan to grow from 2 million AG believers and 2,000 churches to 10 million believers and 10,000 churches by the year 2018. The team was presenting the vision and explaining goals and strategies. This service was in Dareda, Tanzania, Africa.

Culture Stuff

Africa, if you can imagine, is a little different than America. Here are some of the cultural differences I have noticed.

• The way the women are treated here is very different. "Women are for the kitchen." Thats the way one guy put it. When we are invited to someones home we sit down at the table and a woman comes with a pitcher of water and a bowl to wash our hands. They generally start with Roger or me since we are wazungu (white) I guess. The table is already generally set in several bowls. At this time they uncover the food and we fill up our plates. The food is generally the same no matter where you go. We usually had rice, either peas or beans, some kind of beef and sometimes chicken (both of which were not at all tender and had bits of bones, tendons and who knows what else), and fresh fruit (pineapples, bananas, mangos, oranges, avocado and cucumber) which is awesome! The meal is served with a soda or water and at night is served with chai! When we were on the road and entering into peoples houses we ate this meal twice a day. Breakfast is a chapati (a tortilla type thing), a boiled egg and a slice of bread served with none other than chai. Anyway, when the women meet you they do a little dip out respect and sometimes bow all the way on their knees. They clean up after the men (which tend to be pretty lazy by now). Everything here is about respect and the women and young people seem to get the blunt end of it.