Our ministry team has a favorite song. Some of the words go like this:
“If my heart has grown cold, there Your love will unfold, as You open my eyes to the work of Your hands….”
In the last 3 days, my heart and my eyes have been opened to the work that God is doing in the
African children are always eager to pose for a “picha” especially if you let them view themselves on the digital camera screen. They will smile and laugh. I am very partial to the African children. They have the most beautiful smiles! Hannah (posing here on the right) with her brother and a friend lean on a sack of maize or rice outside her home.
This is the home of Hannah and her family. It was the closest place to the church, so we walked past it several times a day. This is also where the cooking of all the meals took place. It is a pretty typical African home in the Sabilo area, constructed mostly from red dirt made into bricks and plaster. The family sleeps inside, but the cooking all takes place on a fire outside. The three mamas who cooked our meals did an excellent job. The food was delicious.
Question: How does one portray an ancient covenant- making ceremony dramatically?
Answer: Slaughter a goat and drape its fresh skin across the floor. Gratefully, the cooks did the slaughtering, and our goat lunch was delicious. With a little prior notice, the goat skin was available then as a teaching aid.
In the ancient Old Testament covenant ceremony, the two partners to the covenant exchanged/confused their identities by exchanging robes, belts, weapons, and enemies. I think Bayo looks good in my jacket. . .but, his belt was a little tight.
The pastors spent a good deal of time reading Scripture passages and finding Biblical truth about God’s covenant with man through the Lord Jesus Christ. Covenant teaching changed the way some of them view key Bible stories, like David and Goliath. . .David and Mephibosheth. . .and even the curses on the land because of the Fall. These stories suddenly came alive in a new light!
For this first conference, we traveled to the village of Sabilo which sits deep in the valley, with a beautiful view of Mt. Hanang.
An enjoyable part of our travels is to see the different varieties of plant life as we go from desert to savannah to the mountains. It is always facinating to see the beautiful vegatation, which is significantly different from our West Michigan flora.
Oh, and have I mentioned that it gets a bit dusty here???
This was a very interesting time for me as we presented the training in Sabilo. This time I worked very closely in preparing the materials to present to the pastors coming for the conference, so I was well-invested before we ever traveled into the bush. Bayo is such a gifted leader who makes sure that the translation is “sure and clear” and well understood by the pastors attending. We are working with a culture that is not as strong in written language as we are in the States (They struggle to learn by reading alone.), but they are very strong and gifted in oral language and love a good story. I learned early to use a lot of descriptive language and weave the stories in the Bible like visual parables. They very visibly brightened up and became very engaged.
I was very excited to see so many women pastors at this conference, clearly about 20%, which is really encouraging. They listened intently and followed along in the notes provided for them in ki-Swahili. Every day the women made a point of stopping to speak to me, and on our last day I was able to pray over them and bless them and their ministries.
At one point in our training we gave a demonstration of the Old Testament steps of the Covenant. I provided the explanation while Bayo and Bob acted out each of the 8 steps. You can see here that Bob is wearing an African wrap (called a Shuka) given to him by Bayo, and Bayo is wearing Bob’s coat signifying the exchange of robes as described in scripture. On the floor in front of them was goat skin describing another portion of the covenant. But in this case, that goat skin was FRESH! You guessed it,….goat was on the menu for that day’s lunch, and the “Mama” who butchered the goat saved the skin for us to use in our illustration! That’s just not an experience likely to be found in the States! --Susan
The conference stretches these pastors. We teach them spiritual insights that God has taught us, as well as supplying them with valuable tools for further Bible study and meditation on the Word.
When it’s breaktime in between sessions, pastors take the opportunity to socialize with their peers from all over the Dareda Valley. These conferences have drawn them together and given them opportunity to develop new relationships that cross geographical and even denominational barriers. They enjoy lively conversations, discussing what they are learning and how to apply it in their own churches and communities. It is also a time for rest, some of them even sitting right out in the sun (even in winter coats!), taking a cup of chai, or simply taking a quick nap in the grass.
Faustin Bayo, pictured here wrapped in a shuka of his tribe, is a good friend and ministry partner. The Iraqw people populate much of this valley in which we have been holding our conferences. This apostolic leader has started 17 churches throughout the valley since he was called of the Lord. He also identified and raised up pastors who could help lead those 17 churches when he was away at Bible school.
It is the hope of AIM to be able to teach him how to train other leaders to do the same thing—leaders reproducing more leaders. . .who reproduce yet more leaders.
Bayo is strongly respected among these pastors and churches and has a natural leadership ability. We are praying that with God’s help Bayo will be able to create a network of such apostolic leaders that will connect the villages across the Dareda Valley, so that in time strongholds of Christianity will extend out to even wider regions of Tanzania, bringing repentance, freedom, and redemption of the people and of the land. Then we can anticipate seeing Tanzania flourish.
Bayo has been instrumental in the process of developing and translating material about the truth of God’s covenant for this conference. After much work, sweat, and tears (at times), our translated materials are finally ready for 150 pastors to arrive. We pray that these materials will provide them a strong, transformational resource both to use at this conference, but also to take home for application in their lives and ministries and for teaching among their congregations--for His Kingdom and His Glory!
This is the Lutheran church in Sabilo. Bayo was happy to explain that he was the church planter who helped this congregation get its start a few years ago!
The roads, likewise, were powdery sand inches deep! We had to pop our Suzuki into 4-wheel drive more than just a few times to get out of the sand pits. Sometimes, we even chose to drive onto the shoulder of the road where the earth had been packed down by walking traffic.
But we made it!
