Sunday, September 11, 2011
I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD!” (Psalm 122:1).
Wake up call was at 4:30am this morning. We had to catch a bus at 6:00am for Muheza to get up into the mountains for church. It was decided to save costs that we would have the Tanga district seminar at one of the churches in the mountains this year. We would be staying in a place without electricity, so Russ decided to go on to Moshi, while Mike and I visited the Tanga district. We split up at Muheza where Russ continued to Moshi and where we caught a taxi to Amani Zurai. The Amani Zurai church was up in the mountains northwest of Tanga.
Some of the roads on the way to Amani.
Mike and I recognized many of the roads as the ones we had been on last year. It was a rocky and uncomfortable three hour ride to the church at Amani Zurai. We arrived at around 9:30 after the service had started. It was a very special service. Pastors from all over the district were here for the service which would be a confirmation / communion service. They had over 50 confirmands in attendance from the different congregations. The confirmands were of all ages - teenagers as well as adults. One was a convert from Islam who, after he had been questioned with the rest of the students, received his certificate and joyously waved it in the air, showing the appreciation he had for his study! It was quite moving to realize how the Lord had brought him out of the darkness of Islam!
It was also impressive to see how they conducted the Lord’s Supper celebration in view of all the visitors who were in attendance. The pastors dealt with this in a very evangelical way, communing only those who were communicant members of our churches, just as it was practiced in the early days of the New Testament church, and is still practiced in our midst.
Mike and I were both asked to preach which was a real joy and privilege. I would guess that there must have been over 300 people in attendance, but it was very hard to count. The congregation is currently building a church which is not finished and which would not have been capable of housing all the people who were there even if it was. So we met in front of the village’s secondary school under two large tarps to protect people from the sun. Seve
ral choirs from the various churches sang, and a sound system was set up to amplify the word and song down the hill and throughout the whole area. It was quite a day and quite a service, finally concluding at about 2:30pm! What a joy to be able to go up to the house of the Lord, and what a privilege to see and hear his word proclaimed!
The church at Amani which is under construction. Pastor Gurath is in the foreground.
Following the service we had lunch with the pastors and leaders and then visited the site of the congregation’s church building which is still under construction. They are collecting money and hope to complete it very soon. The problem that they face here is that they are building the church with bricks made from clay and with a clay mortar as well. So, when it rains it can wash out the work that they have begun by deteriorating the clay products. They need to get iron sheets on the roof to protect the bricks and mortar, but it is very costly for them, since that is a product they cannot produce themselves, and must have shipped up the mountain from Tanga. It would cost about $800 to buy the iron sheets needed for the
roof here. Again, this is one of projects that we would like to assist with, but this is just one of many churches with such a need in this district. We simply cannot provide for all such needs of our congregations. I will be able to assist with maybe one or two, but the others will have to wait until more money is available – probably next year sometime. P
lease keep these congregations in your thoughts and prayers and remember the needs of these congregations which are funded out of the CLC’s MDF. There are so many more needs than we are able to fulfill at this time, even though we would like to help.
That’s all for now, but I’ll write more later.
In Christ,
Nathanael
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