April and May Update
/It’s been a minute! Here’s an update before the craziness of June/July/August starts:
Prayer requests up front:
-Elijah is safely in Grand Junction for the summer. Please pray for his growth and learning there, for his job, and for good relationships with family and new friends!
-We have travel upcoming- a lot of it! To the US briefly in June/July for a memorial service for Mary(Bek’s mom), then to a meeting in Europe, then we’ll do a short week of vacation in Europe before returning to TZ in the beginning of August. Please pray for safety, sweet time with family and friends, and a productive/encouraging meeting with our ministry friends/family.
Life continues apace here in East Africa. I’m SUPER late in sending this out, so this will be a brief update of the past few months with a bunch of pictures. We are so thankful for everyone who takes the time to read these updates, for all of you who so faithfully pray for us and support us in so many ways!
At the end of April we spent some time in Dar es Salaam for a retreat with some other missionaries. It was a sweet time of getting to know others who are working in this region and connecting with dear friends. We got dental appointments done for everyone(my 39 year record of no cavities continues!), and Rebekah made sure to liberate some plant cuttings from the place where we stayed (I must. I cannot help myself. Each time we fly or drive there is sure to be an actual potted plant or a cutting coming home with us), so we flew those back safely…
Church services here are a little different. Because of how draining going to a Tanzania worship service is, we alternate every other week, so that on off weeks we have a family worship time at home. One week we decided to have our service down at the lake. We got rained out for a little bit, but still had a nice time singing together and listening to a sermon from our sending church in Omaha.
Another week we took a hike to find a nearby waterfall, and found two!! But only from a distance. We had a local coffee farmer who offered to show us the way, and it was a huge help because he helped carry Zeke. It was a good 2.5 hour hike, and we can’t wait to go back and make another attempt at actually getting to the bottom of the falls…(the coffee farmer was older than any of us and hiked those hills like a boss. The younger guy that came with us carried Zeke on ONE shoulder almost the entire time and was wearing very loose fitting foam slide on sandals. He never seemed tired or out of breath, while all the rest of us were puffing and panting. Three little girls decided they tag along and not a one of them had shoes on. The plowed through the tall grasses like pros. We are continually amazed at the strength of the people we encounter here.)
In May we had a team of college students, mostly pre-med and pre-nursing, to do some screening clinics. They were here for 2 weeks, did a dozen clinics where they screened for hypertension and diabetes. It was a wonderful time to get to know some great young people and their fearless leader, Meg.
At the end of May Rebekah and I celebrated 18 year of wedded bliss. We had a morning kayak trip with breakfast and coffee and watched the sunrise. We love our anniversary because it is always such a great reminder of the joy we have in Christ through our marriage. We are truly blessed beyond measure!
(I’m not sure why he chose THAT picture of us! I looked like I’m laughing, but also in pain)
Our ministry time here is a grab-bag of activities.
Rebekah continues to do a Monday afternoon kids club, and the attendance keeps growing! It’s a great chance to partner with our next-door neighbor, Mama Maombi. She also goes on the occasional house visit for discipleship/followup, and sometimes brings Zeke along to play.
I(Josh) stay busy with 3-4 Bible studies throughout the week, evangelism on Wednesdays, and church leadership development on Thursdays and Fridays.
One of my favorite Bible studies is my Friday morning study at the bar. The bar is a house that happens to serve liquor and beer(in a society where drinking is considered sinful by both Christians and Muslims), where we went for a medical visit a few months ago. There are a couple of women there with HIV/AIDS, and on our first visit there we shared the gospel and a dozen people professed faith in Christ! I began returning with a local pastor every week to teach a bible study method and work through short 10 week discipleship lesson. It’s been really encouraging to see 10-20 people show up every Friday morning, take part in a local church, and for some to be baptized.
Another big piece of our ministry here is our work with Azimio Baptist Church. This is what we consider OUR church here. We are considered members and we pour a lot of our time and effort into strengthening this church. I lead a study on church health every Friday, and we’re currently working through a book written by Conrad Mbewe, and pastor from Zambia. This book is a wonderful resource, because it is written from an East African perspective and addresses problems in the East African church.
We also recently had a preaching cohort with 7 men from the church; we studied expositional preaching. At the end of the study we made a preaching schedule to preach through the gospel of Matthew. We’re greatly encouraged by the things that God is doing through this church!
All of our work here in possible only through the generosity of those who pray for us, visit us, and give to the IMB. Thank you!
Finally, the boys are doing great here. Elijah trooped off to the US in the end of May where he’s working hard at some general contracting/remodeling. The other boys will be heading off with us in a couple of days to start the travel season. They still have a great time having their friends over to play. A couple weeks ago we got to take an over night trip to camp with some other boys for a friend’s birthday party. The highlight of the trip was nighttime spearfishing in the lake- we had a blast! (I’m really glad I wasn’t a part of this. I would have put the kabash to it) Between the group we got about a dozen rockfish and one big kuhe (pronounced koo-hay).
That does it for this very belated update!!
May the Lord bless and keep you all. Looking forward to seeing some of you while we’re in the US.
Josh
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