Tanzania, Africa
Chimala Newsletter – Chris & Tam Raynor – April, 2004
Hello from Africa!
Everyone one here is fine, the work is going well, and we’re all busy.
First, the primary school has had a change in staff. Bernard Kulanga, was transferred from the hospital, and has become the Manager of Personnel and Public Relations. With this new position at the school, and with mine and the head teacher’s help, the school will be an even better place. The children at the school are getting to know me better, and are not so afraid of me anymore. They are all good kids and they come to greet me in the mornings. I’m getting to know the teachers better, too, and they are all good about helping me. They also help me with speaking Swahili.
At the school of preaching this quarter I’m teaching the books of 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. I teach every Monday from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Each Monday I give them a test on the material from the previous Monday. They are all good students, and they try hard to do well. On Sundays and Wednesdays some of them go with me to visit the churches. The church will have one of the students lead the singing or lead the prayers. At least once a month, I will have one of the students preach, so they can get used to being in front of people and improve their skills. Starting last week we began a new evening class on Denominational Doctrines. The instructors are each taking different religious doctrines and mine is over the Baptist church. We are to expose their errors and compare them with the Bible. One of the instructors, Boaz Kasiba, is going to teach on witch doctors because that is a problem here.
The Ladies’ Seminar took place the end of last month, and from what I heard it was successful. Each of us men had a topic assigned and mine was on women’s dress and being silent in the church. Our wives each had a lesson to deliver also. Tam’s was on what women can do, and she also did the second day’s morning devotional. It was well attended by the Tanzanian ladies, about 100 each day. The seminar began at 8:00 in the morning and lasted until 5:00 or 6:00 in the evening for the two days. Jason and I along with the other men are now getting ready for the upcoming Preachers’ Seminar in June. The theme is Marriage and the Home, and my subject will be Genesis 2:18-25. I’m preparing my lesson already, because they want to translate all of our manuscripts for a book.
My Sunday morning and evening visits to the congregations in this part of the country are going very well. I have visited more since the last newsletter. Soon I’ll be going out on the weekdays to teach at the various congregations on spiritual growth and fundamentals. We now have 8 new Christians at Mpolo, and the congregation is doing better. Attendance is good. Boaz and I went out last week and he baptized a man named Douglas, who will be a member of the Mahango congregation just north of Chimala. Last week, Jason, Boaz and I, drove many of the school of preaching students to Mbeya. The students were going to spend the three-day weekend evangelizing the city. By the end of the first day, they had baptized 3 people! A good work is being done through the school of preaching.
This last Sunday morning, Jason, Madesha, Boaz, Tam, Erhard and I drove together east of Chimala Mission. Jason dropped us off at the Manyolo congregation and they went further east to another one. The Manyolo church building is off the highway, and we had to “off-road” it to get there. Tam, Erhard and I along with some others returned to it in the evening, and got the van stuck in a deep rut on our way back. The men who came with us and several villagers helped push the van out and we were able to get home safely. That was exciting.
Our gardener, Hamisi, is also a Bible class teacher at the primary school. He now has a third job of being the Snake Killer. He’s saved us from at least two snakes this past month. One of them was definitely poisonous. Things like that make our life here exciting. Hamisi likes to call Tam outside to take pictures of some of the unusual creatures he finds during his gardening. Last week he showed her a young chameleon on one of our trees out front. She really enjoyed seeing that and now has one of her chameleon photographs as background on the computer screen.
Once again, I thank you all for your prayers and your support so we can do this great work here in Tanzania. You are our fellow workers in this area and may God bless you.
In Christ’s love,
Chris and Tam Raynor