Wednesday, 9 December 2009
A new Christian Bookshop for Chichester
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
The Roof is finished! Update from Tanzania
That’s what everybody said at the opening of the new Uhambingeto Church on Sunday 8th November 2009.
Yes, it happened!
Yes, the roof is finished!
Yes, it was on time!
No, it doesn't leak!
Yes, it rained A LOT
Here's the pictures to prove it!
So despite the last minute nature of the organisation (the truck that went to collect the visiting choir from Nyanzwa village broke down and another choir from pastor Musa's church was roped in at the last minute) - the weekend of evangelistic events went ahead. They built a stage outside the church for the open air events and visiting pastors led afternoon Bible teaching seminars and evening gospel meetings. They also showed the Jesus film in the evening (in Swahili), which was very popular. You might feel dissapointed to hear that the open air evangelistic event was interupted by the start of the rainy season - but everybody there saw it as a definite sign of God's blessing! The meeting carried on under the shelter of the lovely new church roof!
7 people from the village made a 1st time commitment to follow Jesus at the event, so please pray especially for them.
Thanks so much for your prayers, please continue to pray for the church and for Peter, the new pastor, that God will sustain his heart and enthusiasm for reaching the lost and building up the church.
God bless
Andrew and Miriam
Saturday, 14 November 2009
Very generous but not very new
Thursday, 3 September 2009
New Year feel
Thursday, 20 August 2009
Tuesday, 18 August 2009
Tanzania Team update
The short term mission team spilled out into the CBC car park around midday yesterday (Monday 18th Aug) having been en-route since boarding the bus in Iringa in Tanzania about 9 in the morning on Saturday. Richard and Debbie are still in
There were so many positives and a few (but very real) negatives:
The travelling was a bit tedious in places but you could mostly look out of the window and observe a ‘different world’, sleep or talk. It is not everywhere you can look out of a cross country bus and see elephant and giraffe!
The welcome we got in the little Anglican congregation in the
The weekday pattern was like this:
Three excellent cooked meals a day, always with fresh fruit, menu different to here but not so different as to be difficult.
Mornings on the building site (with Debbie and another volunteer for the day teaching at the preschool). We found the site with one course of bricks on a newly laid foundation and the corners about waist high. The three builders employed by EI were great guys and amazingly patient instructors: 7 working days later three walls were chest high, two corners were full height (to the ring-beam) and the 4th wall was a few courses above the base of the windows. By the end, we were building from the scaffolding (same function as ours but otherwise rather different!).
Afternoons, most days a few went back to the building site while the others spent 2 hours with preschool children telling a bible story, doing a craft activity, singing songs and playing games. After a low turnout the first day, we prayed that the Lord would send along as many as we could handle. So on the second day, the word having got around, we had 200 or so children, which was, well, memorable. But the combined gifts of the team came into play and order was restored after only one spectacular moment of utter chaos. So our prayer was answered. It turned out that a lot of children had bunked off school to check us out; it got sorted out the next day. From then on, 40 to 50 turned up and went away joyfully clutching their Noah’s
Evenings, we did a bible study together in groups or had fellowship (singing and prayer) with Christians from the village. When the moon was not ‘up’ we looked at the amazing night sky before going to bed.
The middle Saturday there was a wedding and we were invited. It should be said that the Emmanuel International (EI) Reps in
The day after the wedding (Sunday) there was a baptism (christening) in the morning and in the afternoon the Bishop came to confirm around 10 people, to visit us and inspect the progress of the building. So in the ‘hatch, match and dispatch’ line of things we scored 2 out of 3 and sang as a choir at each.
Other activities were climbing the local mountain and spending a night and a morning at the end winding down at a national park where the landscapes, trees, animals large and small are so spectacularly different to ours that it is breathtaking. Oh and did I mention the dark clear night sky where the sky is filled with stars and the Milky Way is as clear as can be? Awesome.
Any questions? Ask one of us. It would be great to lay on an event where we can report in more depth. There are loads of photographs, some interesting (if rough) video and some great stories to tell.
Thanks, CBC, for your generous support and prayers.
Bwana asifiwe