UPDATE 2 weeks after the conference

We were delighted to discover that rain has continued to follow repentance for two weeks.

Conference ending

The moment the conference ended, the deluge began. It rained loud and long on the metal roof.

No one could leave for half an hour.

It was very moving. (Listen to the Audio).

We were awed. The rain had been a beautiful reward.

We all were so grateful. We all knew that this was no coincidence.

Closing the conference

We were asking God in public prayer for a sign of His pleasure for all the confession and forgiveness. The translator reminded the people that the we had been praying for rain all along.

A light trickle began 15 minutes before the conference ended. I again prayed for rain as a sign of God’s blessing.

All the people said “Amen!”

Laying sins at the cross

Near the end, an opportunity was given for people to pick up rocks outside

and lay them down at the foot of a make-shift cross where communion

(actually, water in this case, because juice and/or wine are unavailable)

was poured over them.

Interested eaves-droppers

Townspeople also listened in to the conference.

Women especially sat outside in the shade within earshot of the speaker. They too were renouncing evil and praying the prayers right along with the participating pastors inside the building.

Pastors and Bibles

In Tanzanian rural towns, tribal languages are generally spoken, but not read. KiSwahili, the national language is read, but not necessarily spoken in their town. So, on Sunday, the pastor has the hard job to read the KiSwahili Bible out loud, but then translate it for the people into their spoken language. It just isn’t easy for the Bible to get into people’s ears.

At Midday we talked about the 7 Audio Bibles that we brought from the USA in the local tribal language. The news of these brought considerable excitement as pastors started to realize the potential of people hearing the Bible without the pastor reading it to them. More on these next month when the units are delivered. (http://www.asmtoday.org/)

Day 2 of Conference

A local church’s choir came to sing and dance for the beginning of several of the sessions. They were quite active, and we enjoyed watching them, even though we couldn’t understand much of what they were singing.

Steps Four through Seven (Rebellion, Pride, Bondage, and Generational Sin) were covered on Day 2, among which Pride was the “hard-hitter.”

Bookmark give-away

Day 1 included a special little moment of giving away hand-made bookmarks.

A few people in the States had labored to produce simple but colorful pieces of American handcrafted art. The local pastors loved them.

Thank you Carol.

Thank you Allen Ave. GEMS.

We imported a Ugandan speaker from Set Free Ministries-East Africa who routinely teaches a somewhat-African version of the “7 Steps.” Emmanuel Kabambi was an important asset to the project and was well received. As an African speaking to Africans, he was tough on them at times, but they could hear it from him.

Day 1 ended on the topic of forgiveness. The attendees appeared convicted in their hearts and were led through prayers to release themselves and others from ties of bitterness. This was a very powerful event. Private lists of people and hurts written on paper were burned in a release ceremony. Public testimonies of forgiveness were given the next day along with reports of feeling relief.

Full house!

By lunchtime of Day 1, the church building was packed. Seems we forgot to take into account the Tanzanian approach to time. We were well pleased by the turnout. There were many more than we originally anticipated. In fact, we even ran out of the packets of printed material, and had to encourage the pastors to share until a break-time when someone could go to get them photocopied.

Our packets for this first conference contained a Swahili-translated version of an American repentance tool called “The 7 Steps to Freedom” as edited by www.setfreeministries.com

Beginning of the conference

On Day 1 of the conference, each of the three speakers felt sick. Bob improved quickly, but Emmanuel and I continued to feel ill throughout the day, and even into the next. When all illness lifted at the end of the last conference day, it became clear to us that this was a spiritual battle that we were facing.



We arrived to a dishearteningly empty church. Pastors trickled in slowly right up to lunch time at 1:00pm. Bob opened the conference talking about “A Perfect Heart.” It was said more than twice during the weekend, that “If our hearts are hard, we shouldn’t be surprised that the ground outside remains hard. If we let God soften our hearts, perhaps He would send rain to bless the crops.” This is January just south of the equator. Normally, rain and sun would have brought the crops near harvest by now. Instead, there had been clouds without rain. The crops planted many weeks previous stunted or failed.



Without steady precipitation, the community faces real hardship ahead. This dryness is unusual for a valley that enjoys nearby mountain weather.

Dareda, Tanzania

The economy of Dareda is quite low. The most expensive meal of meat and rice in the restaurant was 1500 Tanzanian shillings or $1.20 (a day’s wage for the average Tanzanian).

Our accommodations were small self-contained rooms in a local guest house. Each room was furnished with a small metal chair and a 5’ bed with mosquito net. Only about 18 inches of space was available on the side and foot of the bed. These accommodations were a mere 5000 Tanzanian shillings (or $3.62) per night per room.

The bathroom connected to the room was a welcomed luxury. The morning bath consisted of a small bucket of cold water, a bar of soap, and a few unwanted mosquitos.

On the road

Our translator and host, Mr.Bayo, had told us previously that the road was "fixed", and that there was no problem getting to neighboring Babati. Reality set in when we left the pavement. (I guess he didn’t really know what the word “paved” means. Oops.) The road had only been somewhat graded a good while ago.

Nevertheless, we didn’t need to divert onto any cow paths this time. Though the washboard texture seriously rattled the car, we were able to maintain about 60km/h (less than 40 mph) which is a vast improvement for this previously impassable road. Still, we saw the occasional truck stalled by a broken axle.

It’s a two-hour trip on good road; then another two-hour trip on dirt.

Preparing for Dareda

Bob and I have spent much time preparing for travel into the African bush for a two-day conference to be held in a small rural town called Dareda January 23-24, 2009.

(On maps, it is spelled Ndareda; however, over the years, it has simply become known as Dareda)

We chose this community because we knew that over 100 pastors of normally-opposing denominations were knit together into a Christian unity. Unity is key for wonderful things to happen.