Transition

We are trying to move into a different phase of our work. Since we arrived near the end of September, we have been visiting the Mennonite church locations, talking with bishops and pastors, listening to their vision, and trying to distill what we are hearing into a leadership training plan that will strengthen the churches. That was the first phase and we decided to use the first months, to the end of 2012, for that. Now we have done it. So we are moving from the exploration phase into the implementation phase, and trying to adjust our thinking in that direction.
In summary, the plan we are proposing is to prepare local pastors to lead training seminars for their lay leaders. We are committed to work in the background in a "capacity building" role so the program will not depend on us or other persons and resources from outside donors. In the past, when missionaries left, too often their programs also stopped eventually, because they depended too much on outside expertise and funds. We were told, "We want a program so that, when you leave, we can carry it on." So one of our priorities is to keep it as simple and "grass-roots" as possible.
The Mennonite churches have vision for evangelism and church planting, but they lack people with training to put in leadership in the new churches. So that is the need we are focusing on first. Some of the subjects they would like to focus on are Mennonite history and faith, discipleship, Bible study methods.
We will begin with "training of trainers" workshops for the pastors, and we are scheduling them in the various dioceses (the Mennonite churches in East Africa is organized in dioceses, each led by a bishop). The focus is on basic, entry-level Bible study with training in discipleship and leadership. As we have presented the plan to the leaders, they have all said, "this is what we need." We will begin with the first of these, in a sort of pilot program, on January 21 in Kenya, with others to follow in February.
So we feel like we are about to begin what we came to do, even though we are still working to develop materials. Books and printed materials are too expensive for many of the people in rural areas, so we are developing most of our own materials, using the Bible as the main textbook. Recently, we have been thinking about the need to provide materials in Swahili, especially Anabaptist-oriented, and we are considering a special project to develop a translation team to make some of the key books and materials available. On our recent trip we had a request for a Swahili translation of the "Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective" by a pastor who has read it, and that started us thinking. Several times we heard concern that the younger leaders are borrowing from other traditions and denominations, and therefore a need for more awareness of our own tradition.
There is a spiritual struggle as well. Some of the churches face a need for revival, to move beyond a focus on organization to working and walking with God in the power of the Holy Spirit. So as you pray, think of the training programs and those who will benefit from them, pray also for the present church leaders, for sensitivity to God's Spirit.

Morogoro

Morogoro is a small city a couple hours drive west of Dar es Salaam. The Mennonite church in Morogoro is in the process of building their place of worship, as many buildings are built in Tanzania. The first Mennonites in Morogoro were from northwestern Tanzania where the Mennonite church started in the 1930's, and had moved to Morogoro for jobs. That is the way many of the Mennonite churches started in the cities throughout Tanzania, and even today, many of the churches in the cities are mostly people with roots in northwestern Tanzania.

Morogoro Mennonite Church

When the Mennonites  were given a plot of ground several years ago, they put their building plans on hold and built to serve the local community instead. They built a computer lab to offer classes to local youth, a classroom where they offered sewing classes, and a preschool. They soon discovered church attendance was increasing with the increase coming from the local area.
Later, they began to build their building, which is now under roof, but not yet completed. The pastor, Michael Rubingu, is native to the local area and relates well with the community.

Children playing on the grounds of the church-sponsored pre-school

We also enjoyed the hospitality of cousin Mary Hershberger and her husband, Dave Kraybill. Dave is on the staff of Sokoine University, through an arrangement with Ohio State University, where is a professor of agriculture.

Pastor Michael Rubingu, his wife, Gloria Bontrager, Dave Kraybill in front of the church

Christmas in Dar

We are in Dar es Salaam, the largest city and capital of Tanzania. Actually, several years ago they tried to move the capital to another city, Dodoma, but that was only partially successful. Dodoma is the official capital, though. And it is warm here, current temperature at 6 pm is about 91 degrees. It feels good to stay in our hotel room, which is air conditioned. As I am writing this, I hear the Muslim call to prayer. 

Last week we were at the Mennonite workers retreat at a conference center just outside Nairobi, in Kenya. It was good to meet others working with MCC, mostly, and a few with EMM. We had a speaker who talked about transition and transformation. Life is always changing, even when we like the way things are now. He made a comment that "being touched by God is not the same as being transformed by God. Transformation is a process that comes from a lifetime of obedience." 

Overall we are doing well, being received well everywhere we go. It helps that we have previous experience and many that we did not know before have heard our names and seem able to trust us. Since we came in September, we have been mostly traveling around visiting the various church locations and talking with the bishops and pastors about their leadership training needs. We have one more bishop to go, in the city of Dodoma, where we will be next weekend. Then we will get back "home" around January 2, near the town of Musoma. In mid-January we will begin training seminars to begin to implement the program we have been developing and proposing. That will be done in each of the Mennonite dioceses in both Kenya and Tanzania, so we have plenty to fill our schedules for the next several months. The training seminars will be 3-4 day events mostly with local pastors, who will be encouraged to begin having training sessions with their leaders and congregations. 

Christmas here is not so commercialized but there is a little of that. Still, we have been able to avoid most of that, having a mostly quiet day. It has been refreshing to focus on the true meaning of Christmas without the distractions that so often come with the season. This morning we attended church with the Mennonite pastor, in whose home Beth stayed when she was in Tanzania with the EMU semester abroad program in about 2000. It was good to meet them and thank them for providing hospitality for Beth. 

God bless all of you through the Christmas season and in the New Year.

Serengeti

Elephant family crossing the road

Serengeti National Park is always an inspiring experience. It is the vast openness of the plains, the variety and numbers of animals, roaming free in their natural environment. Serengeti is always changing, never the same, depending on the rains, which affects the growth of the grasses and where the animals are.

Herds of zebra, always on the move

Giraffe, always graceful, curious, friendly

From the rim of Ngorongoro Crater, looking into the crater

We drove through Serengeti last weekend - it is on the main road from Musoma to Arusha. It takes us through Serengeti, through the barren area of Olduvai Gorge, where some of the earliest human fossils were discovered, then up and over Ngorongoro Crater, then down into Arusha. I began to wonder, is this what the Garden of Eden was like? Not hard to imagine it. I never really tried to imagine how big the Garden of Eden was. The road we traveled was about 100 miles in the park, which can take 3 hours total if you drive the 50 km/hr speed limit and stop occasionally to view animals.

Mwanza Pastors Meeting

We are attending the annual meeting of pastors of Mwanza Diocese today. Mwanza is the second-largest city in Tanzania, located at the south end of Lake Victoria, a scenic area. Many of the towns and villages outside the cities do not have churches. So the Diocese is taking seriously the challenge to do evangelism and form faith communities in these rural areas.
This is the first we have presented our proposal to a group of pastors. Overall the plan has been received well, but we took some time to answer questions they had. This is a different approach in some ways from the TEE (Theological Education by Extension) that we did in the 1980's. The earlier program depended heavily on teachers and funding from overseas for travel and books, and that resulted in the program stopping when missionaries were no longer involved. So it is a bit difficult for some to visualize how it will be possible without that assistance, without books, and using people who are not trained teachers.
Our proposal is to train local pastors to be instructors, so they will have only their local group and it does not involve extensive travel or additional salary. We plan to use the Bible as the primary textbook and provide them with outlines, so few books need to be purchased. The proposal also focuses on training in character for leadership and for the tasks of leadership, rather than focusing mainly on intellectual learning. So the leaders will be mentors, not only teachers. This is entry-level training, and some will then go on to further training. But the need is there and we hear it everywhere we go, that the lay leaders usually have no training, and their leadership suffers as a result. Some are afraid the training will be too elementary, but we are trying to work within the economic and educational realities.
Keep Mwanza Diocese in your prayer in their efforts to develop churches in rural areas. Pray also for us as we are developing the curriculum and helping them implement a training program.

Bishop Albert Randa, second from right, with some of his leaders in front of  Mwanza Mennonite Church

December update

We have spent the past 3 weeks or so at our home in Nyabange, just outside Musoma, TZ. There have been some house repairs, generally taking things at a slower pace, but also getting curriculum together for the training workshops we will be giving. This week we begin traveling again and will be on the road for about a month. Our travels will include Mwanza, Arusha, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Morogoro, Dodoma, and Tabora.
Sunday, December 2, we worshiped with the Rwamlimi Mennonite congregation, just outside Musoma town. We were invited by a former neighbor  Rhoda Koreni. The church has been meeting for many years, but they are just now getting around to building their building. For years, they met in a local school, but recently needed to move. The building has foundation and wall, but the roof is not yet on. Still, they meet there, with tarps stretched over poles to give some shade.
One of the challenges we see is church buildings. Some of the materials they can make themselves, such as burning bricks, but purchasing cement, and then the lumber and corrugated metal for the roof, are more of a problem. But it happens, through fundraisers and just keeping at it, little by little. At least, when they are finished it is paid for.
We continue to hear about the need for training for church leaders. In Lake Diocese, which is based in Musoma, we were told that about half of the ordained pastors have no training in Bible or leadership, and among lay pastors, the number is even higher. Most of them have completed only primary school, that is usually grade 7, so the educational level in general is lower. We also read that the literacy rate in Tanzania has actually decreased over the past 20 years, from about 95% in 1980 to about 78% today. Not sure what the reasons for that might be.
We are proposing a locally-based training program in which the local pastor or some other leader is the main trainer. Since many of them have some had some biblical studies, we will rely on them to train their lay leaders at a basic level. We say this will be a "primary school for leadership training" and those who are able can move on to more advanced training later. Even at the most basic level, it will be more than most of them have had. So far our proposal has been received well and there seems to be some urgency to get the program started. The question we often hear is, "When can you come and get us started?" So we are putting together a schedule beginning in January to hold "Training of Trainers" workshops in the dioceses.

Mwanza, Shinyanga Tabora

Last week, November 2-12, we were on a trip of nearly 1500 km to consult with the Mennonite church leaders in the cities of Mwanza, Shinyanga, and Tabora.  Mwanza is on the southern tip of Lake Victoria, the second largest city in Tanzania with about 400,000 population. Shinyanga is near one of the major diamond mines in Tanzania. Tabora was a center of the slave trade in the mid-1800’s and is a major transportation crossroads in the western part of the country. It is also where David Livingstone established a home base and owned property the last years of his life. Mangos are in season and we enjoyed freshly made juice and whole fruit. Along the way we stopped to visit retired bishop Joram and Lydia Mbeba. They are both struggling with health issues, he is nearly blind, and she struggles with the loss of her foot in a train accident 10 years ago, in which she nearly lost her life. They assured us of their continual prayers for us.

We have continued to find a lot of interest, even hunger, for leadership training in all these areas, and we were well received everywhere. The reports we are getting are consistent: “We have had to staff local churches with lay leaders who have had no training in leadership and have little Bible knowledge. And some churches are dying out because we have no leaders to put there.” Most of the lay leaders have completed only primary school (grade 7) and are doing the best they can. We have often thought of our own fathers, who did not complete high school but were successful pastors, mainly self-educated through reading and interaction with other leaders. And it gives us hope for these leaders also.

The shape of a training program is coming together. We are suggesting a diocese-based program for new leaders, using experienced pastors as the primary trainers. We will begin with a “training of trainers” seminar in each diocese, to prepare trainers and to introduce them to the curriculum they will be using. We are taking responsibility to develop the curriculum, either using some materials we have or writing new materials.

This weekend, November 16-17, we will attend the Kenya Mennonite Church bishops’ council to discuss the program and how it might be implemented in Kenya. That is only a 4-5 hour drive to the Homa Bay area, also on Lake Victoria west of Kisumu. On Sunday, November 18, a new church building will be dedicated for the Got Kopolo congregation, near Homa Bay.

Personally, we have been doing quite well, no significant physical problems. We are getting adjusted to living in Nyabange, near Musoma, where we have a number of friends from our time here 30 years ago. Last night we were invited to dinner with Marko, our grass cutter from that time. He lives just below us with his family, but now is nearly blind and has some other health issues. He is 70 years old, but his spirit is bright and optimistic and he said “we have been praying for you every day.” His son Simeon has been helping us with our lawn work and is also a good worker. We feel so grateful for good support from many people, and feeling that we are involved in a task that is needed.