Teaching at Arusha seminary

Monday - Friday, September 26-30, 2011

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love (Ephesians 4:15-16).

I’ve been a bit behind on my posting since the last two weeks have been so busy teaching at our seminaries in Arusha, Tanzania and Chotororo, Kenya.  Let me revisit for you the week that we spent in Arusha....

We spent five days teaching at the seminary in Arusha.  Each day we began at around 9:00am when we were picked up by Pastor Jeremiah.  It was about a one hour trip through Arusha to Pastor Jeremiah’s church where the seminary classes are held.  Classes began at around 10:00am and continued until about 2:00pm when we stopped for lunch.  We continued teaching until about 4:30 or 5:00pm.  Then we had another one hour trip back to the hotel.

Pastor Gondwe receives a laptop that was donated by one of my members back home.  Pastor Gondwe is our district leader in the Tanga region and a teacher at our seminary - it will be put to good use!

Arusha is a beautiful area - it is covered with bananas, coffee, corn, tomatoes and other plants.  Jeremiah’s church is set into this beautiful surrounding.  We met with the seminary students, as well as some of the pastors from the Arusha district during this week.  We began the week with a review on the two lessons that Mike and I gave at the Pastoral Conference in Moshi.  I covered Fellowship and Mike presented the pamphlet: “What is a Lutheran?”.

On Tuesday, we gave a test on the catechism just like we have given in other places.  After giving the test, we went through the answers and reviewed the Biblical references that provide the support for those answers.  It was once again well received and we had a good review of these Bible Doctrines.

The rest of the week was spent going through the Catechism.  On Wednesday we went through the 1st Article and part of the 2nd Article of the Apostles’ Creed and Baptism.  On Thursday Mike presented more on the study of the 2nd Article and I covered the Sacrament of the Altar.  Friday was concluded with the remainder of the 2nd Article and the Lord’s Prayer.  So we made it through almost the entire catechism in the week we had here.  This has been a good review and we have been able to incorporate some better teaching methods in the classroom.

Mike teaches at the seminary, and Pastor Nathan Lengutai serves as his very gregarious translator.

We have been staying at the Caanan Hotel in Arusha.  I found this hotel on the Internet last year and it has been a pretty good place for us.  It is owned by a Maasai man who we have seen from time to time.  The only downside is that it is a long walk to anything that you might want.  We ate in the Hotel Restaurant most of this week, even though the selection was very sparse, and the food was more expensive then we could have found it somewhere else.  They had a nice menu, but whenever we asked for something, our waitress would tell us that it was not available.  About the only thing that we would have was chicken - either with fries or with rice!  I did get Spaghetti one night and that was sure nice for a change.

Tomorrow we are on the road to Nairobi where we will be for less than 24 hours before we board another bus to Kisii. We pray to the Lord for more safe travel over the next couple of days.

May the Lord bless His Word here in Tanzania!

In the service of Christ,

Nathanael