The year is running to an end at such a pace that I am dragging my feet behind …… breathless trying not to accept the fact that Christmas is around the corner. The fact that I am very very very far behind in my postings doesn’t bother me so much these days. There is a good reason for all of this though lol …….. God has been working in so many awesome ways that I struggle to find all the word to describe the amazing transformation God brought to so many!
ON OUR WAY …… TRAINING DAY 1 – CHURCH PLANTERS
Market life in Dar-Es-Salaam
The market anywhere in Africa presents just about everything you can imagine. Varieties of food is available everywhere …. at a price lol!
Through the marketplace …. on our way to the training venue …. all within 2 hours!
And if there is no electricity …. generate your own! Love it!
I was privileged enough to visit a few eastern African countries as we continued to plant churches in heavily populated Muslim areas. Tanzania was first on the horizon as we flew into Dar-Es-Salaam. To explain Dar-Es-Salaam is very difficult. With just over 51 000 000 with an average age of 17,4 years of age …. it is like the rest of AFRICA difficult to overlook Tanzania. After planting a few hundred churches it was time to train new leaders to plant churches in Zanzibar. Zanzibar has a predominant Muslim population. In fact ….. 99% of all inhabitants of Zanzibar are Muslim. Pastors have successfully planted a few churches in the area. It meant a lot of sacrifice in the process for church planters. Many of our pastors had to change their dress and follow the customs of the inhabitants of the island. Project ‘Coffee Pot’ was born. Church planters took on Muslim names and new-born believers did the same so they could be living testimonies to their neighbors. Stories of transformation was amazing.
Muslim girls on their way to recite the Koran! One of the girls saw me sitting on a box of Bibles …. her curiosity got the best of her and she came over ……
EXPECT PROBLEMS
Church planters gathering from all around Dar-Es-Salaam.
Practical evangelism training is an intense part of the program to plant churches in difficult areas.
While we were training church planters in more sophisticated ways of planting sustainable transformational churches we found that all our materials and Bibles were kept back at customs at the airport and were not to be released. After nearly 8 hours (staying calm and praying) and a pocket full of dollars our materials were released – ready for training. Even the devil could not keep back what God was about to do. Carrying some boxes of Bibles to the training venue in the middle of the slumps ….. the heat soon got to me. I just had to rest. As I sat on a box of Bibles in front of the mosque I realized how fortunate I was being a servant in God’s Kingdom. While sitting on a box of Bibles I was carrying – a muslim girl quietly came over and asked me what was in the box. I felt a bit guilty ‘sitting’ on the Word of God and tried to explain I was tired …. but was sitting on the word of God. She asked why? I had to answer that I was thinking of the words I was sitting on. I shared the story of Jesus and she quickly responded that she knew about this Jesus – the prophet …. like Mohammed. I just got into the Jesus story when the Imam chased me with my box of Bibles ….. and realized how important it was to share the true Jesus and HIS freedom to all that lives.
Bishop Ronnie Hepperly in action as he trains church planters. Bishop Ronnie is also the founder of RIO MISSIONS and has planted more than 900 churches in India and South America.
Women are part of the program and registration ….. well is always important.
Happy pastors and leaders as they are equipped to plant churches.
A lighter moment …… with Africa’s biggest asset – their youth. The average age of a Tanzanian is 17,4 years.
On the way to KENYA ….. flying over Mount Kilimanjaro!
Training was finished after 3 days of hard labor and much joy! The next leg of our trip took us even further to the beautiful country of the Masai …. Kenya!