Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were all dedicated to teaching the men at the Arusha seminary. This is a temporary seminary that was set up when the Himo seminary was shut down in 2009 and has been functioning for the last three years. Each year that I have come since then I have taught at the temporary seminary here in Arusha and also at the temporary seminary in Chotororo, Kenya. It is our prayer that, Lord willing, we will be able to move these students to the permanent seminary in Himo again once the court case has been resolved. The temporary seminary functions differently from a permanent seminary as well. The student come to Pastor Jeremiah’s church for one week a month for classes. They are fed and housed on the property or nearby and have classes in Pastor Jeremiah’s church. It is a challenge to get things done in such a short period of time, but it is the best that we can do at this time.
The "dormitory" in Arusha can be seen in the background.
The hired cooks can be seen cleaning up after one of our meals.
On the other side of things, it is a joy to spend time with these men during these days. You can see that they have a drive to learn more by the way they take notes and the probing questions that they ask. During the past three days Russ and I covered a variety of topics from the catechism: Law and Gospel; The Ten Commandments; What is a Sacrament; The Apostles’ Creed; and a few other “Odds ‘n’ ends.”
Two students take diligent notes during one of the presentations.
One man is in "western" clothes while the other wears traditional Masaai clothing.
We ate lunch with the men and learned about the things that were going on in their areas and discussed different aspects of culture and Christianity during the breaks. Each day we averaged about 5 hours of classes in order to get in as much as we could while we are here.
Saturday was a travel day. Russ and I packed up in the morning and at 8:00am Jeremiah arrived to take us to the bus station. We were off to Tanga to meet with Pastor Gondwe and visit his district along the coast of the Indian Ocean. The bus was scheduled to leave Arusha at 9:00am and arrive in Tanga at 4:00pm. Seven long hours on a big bus turned into 9 when the fuel pump on the bus started to act up about an hour and a half from our destination! Four times the bus stopped and the conductors had to put on their mechanics hat to get us on the road again. Russ and I marveled - bus drivers and conductors in the US wouldn’t be able to do that!
Tanga looms ahead of us. While this area is more hot and humid (and mosquito infested) than the other areas of Tanzania where we work, there are exciting things going on here, and we look forward to getting involved in it over the coming days.
We thank you for your continuing prayers for us and for the Lord’s work here among the people of East Africa!
In Christ,
Nathanael
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