A change of schedule

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD from the heavens; praise him in the heights! Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his hosts! Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars! (Psalm 148:1-3).

This psalm is a wonderful tribute to the truth of the one and only true God. In the midst of those peoples who worship the creation rather than the creator (Romans 1:25), this Psalm brings that all-important message: There is only one God, the one who has created the world and everything in it – don’t worship what is not God! May the Lord bless our message as we

proclaim His name to all the world!

A Hindu temple in the foreground and the minarets of a Moslem mosque in the background shows some of the religious diversity in Moshi.

While Mike and I were glad to get to Moshi, we found there was some discouraging news. For some reason, Tanzania is rationing its power supply, which translates into no electricity last night. They are rotating the power around, so one day there will be no power during the day, the next there will be no power during the night. Although most businesses have generators to help them through these outages, it still has made it very hard to get things done. The internet place we usually use has been down today, making it impossible to get email and updates done which we had planned to do today.

In between writing reports and getting to exchange place to get more T. Shillings, I did have the chance to meet with Pastor Malyi. Pastor Malyi is the district leader for the Moshi district. He is also the main person who is involved in the legal case with the seminary building. He had some good reports concerning the case, which we are glad to hear.

Due to a change of schedule with on of our pastors, I have had to change my schedule as well. Pastor Papani is out of the county and working in the Sudan, so he will not be available for our scheduled visit to his district. So I have had to fill my schedule with other work. I talked about this with Pastor Malyi and also talked with Pastor Jeremiah in Arusha and they were eager to fill the now-empty days with work in their districts. So tomorrow we will be visiting Marangu and Himo in the Moshi district, Friday we will finishing up preparations for the Pastoral Conference and then traveling to Arusha where we will spend Saturday and Sunday. We will return to Moshi on Sunday or Monday to spend more time with the Moshi district and have the Pastoral Conference.

Even though it was a slower day, it was greatly needed and appreciated. Mike is feeling worse again today and trying to rest up and kick the cold he picked up in Tanga. Russ is feeling a bit run down too with the shortage of electricity to run his C-PAP at night. I’m doing well, and am thankful for that. I did get a lot of catch up work done today, so it wasn’t a lost day by any stretch of the imagination. Regrouping and catch up days are vital as well, if we are to keep our heads above water.

Right now there is a wedding send-off going on at our hotel. The music is loud and the lights are bright and it will probably go into the wee-hours of the night. Hopefully that means they will run the generator and have electricity through the night for Russ. Tomorrow will be another busy day again. May the Lord grant restful sleep and health to us this night!

In the service of Christ,

Nathanael