Building Roads

Building a bridge for the new road in southern Tanzania.

During our travels in the last month we have watched with interest the intense work of excavation for new roads, construction of bridges, building up the valleys, leveling off the hills, and rough places being made smooth. 

We were reminded of the verses in Isaiah 40:3-4 of the preparation of the “highway for our God” and it has become an image that represents what we are doing. There certainly have been roads already laid in the work of the church here in Tanzania and Kenya through the efforts of early missionaries and now through local church leaders who are evangelizing and building churches in new places.  However, as time goes on, roads need maintenance, and we are challenged to think about the need for new “roads,” new “leveling,” new “building up of low areas” and new “grading of washboard roads.”

One of the big challenges in developing countries is the ongoing need for improvement in education and the need to keep up with the ever-changing advancement of educational systems. What is true in the country is also true in the  church. As we get around, we are constantly confronted with both the desire and the need of church leaders to be “built up” in knowledge and in spirit. There are limited resources for leaders to use for their own studies and limited opportunities for them to get together for fellowship and spiritual interchange. So we are finding a deep interest in small group TEE Bible studies. 

Pastors in Lake Diocese (Musoma) discuss a TEE lesson.

We are encouraging a discussion centered learning format using questions as the stimulus for discussion. As we revisit the groups, we are hearing them say, “We didn’t know you could get so much out of the scriptures!” For some, because of the unfamiliarity of a second language, or the difficulty of reading instead of oral learning, it is a challenge to simply understand the the content of the scripture, much less the interpretation of it.  But we forge ahead, smoothing out the rough places, slowly putting down a good foundation of understanding for the “highway of God”.