Off to the capital

One advantage of an early start - getting to watch the sunrise

5am. Seriously? When did they change the bus departure times from being 6am to 5am?! So I had to get up in what felt like the middle of the night to catch the bus to Dodoma, the administrative capital of Tanzania, where I was going to be teaching two workshops. At least the bus stand is only a five minute walk from our home! Nearly eleven hours on the bus, with only one toilet/food stop (of just ten minutes), doesn’t make for the most comfortable experience, but it was nice to arrive in Dodoma mid-afternoon and have time for the excitement of a visit to the supermarket. That may not sound exciting to you, but Mbeya’s biggest food store has three very short aisles, so you can browse everything they stock in less than five minutes. Not that I’m complaining, as we can get almost everything we need, and for a terrible decision maker like me it’s a good thing to not have a lot of choice! But I’ve always rather enjoyed food shopping, so it was fun to have this chance to browse a bigger store. I bought some juicy sultanas off the bargain shelf – amusingly the packaging declared a price of ‘£1.45’ (about 4400 Tanzanian shillings), so it had obviously been imported from the UK. Usually such items are two or three times the original UK price, but it was on a date-offer of just 3000 shillings!

Lunch stop - I was on the bus in the middle

I was staying with friends and colleagues in Dodoma, Michelle and Nicholle Haupt (they’re sisters) – they were the ones who had invited me to teach as they are coordinating Scripture Engagement work in the projects that are based out of our Dodoma office. The first workshop wasn't held in Dodoma itself, so on Monday we had to catch a bus to a small town called Magugu, which spreads out on either side of the main road that connects Dodoma (in the centre of Tanzania) to Arusha (in the north). This meant another five or so hours on a bus! Magugu is in the Mbugwe language area, and the three Mbugwe translators had arrived over the weekend to make sure everything was set up. It was my first time to visit, and I can’t honestly say I will be in any hurry to return! Compared to the highlands of home in Mbeya, the landscape felt bland and the town somehow reminiscent of a Wild West town with sand, dust and drab looking buildings on either side of the highway. On my third evening there I was thankful to discover a road that led me away from the highway and houses towards a village, where I finally felt I could breathe as my surroundings opened out to fields and vegetation, with low lying hills ahead. The second (and last) time I walked along that road, I caught up with a teenage girl walking home to the village (apparently 6km away from Magugu) who wanted to chat with me, so she picked up her pace to keep up and we exchanged pleasantries. I learned that she walked that 6km every day to get to her school in town!

Going for a walk

The workshop was for Sunday school teachers. The goals of the workshop were:

• to teach them to read their Mbugwe language
• to introduce them to a series of Old Testament Bible story books that have been translated into Mbugwe that they can use in Sunday school
• to do a Bible overview with them (using those books, which covered creation, the fall, Noah, the tower of Babel, God’s covenant with Abraham, Isaac and the Exodus, as part of that overview)
• to teach them interactive methods for teaching children
• to provide guidance for preparing a Sunday school lesson.

Playing games

We had around 15 teachers, coming from villages across the Mbugwe language area. They had varying levels of ability, but all engaged well and by the end each one was able to share something they had learnt, from understanding the significance of sacrifice and how that began right at the beginning in the Garden of Eden, to enjoying new games that they can use with children, to learning how to read Mbugwe. They were a fun group to be with and at the end we were touched by many kind words and each of us facilitators received a gift of a big bag of rice. Apparently Magugu is known for its rice – at the edge of the football field outside our guest house were piles of rice husks. In the mornings I saw ladies winnowing (using a shallow basket to toss the rice husks in the air and let the breeze blow them away); I think they were looking to see if they could find any grains of rice left among the husks. We finished the workshop early Friday afternoon, and before departing they performed a traditional song and dance for us, in their own unique Mbugwe style, circling around the drummer with careful footwork and moving their shoulders in time with the beat.

Traditional Mbugwe dancing

Saturday morning we were back on the bus to return to Dodoma, wondering exactly what we would find in the Haupts’ house, as we’d received news while we were away that it had been burgled. We arrived at the house to find their househelp had kindly stayed around while people were there repairing the window frame and iron bars that had been cut through by the thieves in order for them to get into the house. Thankfully nothing of any significant value had been taken, it was mostly kitchen items and a few other things, but knowing someone has broken into your home is unsettling to say the least. We visited the supermarket that evening in order to replace the kettle and iron!

On Sunday I went with Michelle to the church they attend, which is pastored by the team leader of our Dodoma project office; he proved to be a great Bible teacher. The service was a real encouragement to me – the last time I had felt fed and built up by a church service was in February when I was in Dar for our strategy meetings! It was such a contrast to the far-too-loud church I normally attend, with endlessly repeated choruses, four choirs to listen to and sermons that seem to contain an unnecessary amount of shouting. (I don’t really know much about the content of the sermons as I’m usually out teaching Sunday school, but from the odd chance I’ve had to stay in for a sermon it seems that the teaching is usually milk rather than meat.) You may wonder why I don’t find another church, but the reality is that the alternatives may be no better, in fact they may be worse. At least in the church I attend most of what is said is faithful to Scripture, there seems to be genuine care for people in need, the pastor appears to be a man of prayer and I feel part of the church family to some degree.

Group work - practising telling the
Bible story and teaching

Monday we began again – workshop number two, this time held in the Dodomaoffice, with the Sunday school teachers coming into Dodoma from the Rangi and Burunge language areas. The goals of the workshop were similar, but the Rangi and Burunge books we were sharing with them to use in Sunday school were very simple books of teachings and stories of Jesus, so I spent less time on doing the Bible overview and more time looking at these different stories and learning how to teach children. I was amused at lunchtime on the first day to find out that one of the Bible translators, who was supposedly working away in his office, was actually listening into our seminar and making notes on it! After talking about how there is no more need for sacrifice since Christ gave his life for us, one participant asked how do you respond as a Christian when there has been a fire on your land and the neighbours say you must join them in making sacrifices (I think to appease the gods or ancestors). It would have been easy for me to say you need to stand firm and refuse to participate, but I’ve never had to face that kind of community pressure! I invited the group to respond to his question and I was very glad when a participant was able to share a personal example of standing firm in a similar situation.

Performing a memory verse song they had
composed (first workshop) - there was a power
cut, and the room was rather dim, so they
were using torches on their phones to help
them see the words!

At the end of the workshop we invited people to share something new they had learnt about God, something new they had learnt about how to teach children and one thing that they had really enjoyed about the workshop. It was great to hear people saying that they’ve seen God’s love right from Genesis, how he wants to be near to us, how he came to seek and to save the lost etc. It was encouraging to hear lots of them say how much they enjoyed the teaching, that they didn’t get tired because it was so engaging and that they have learnt a lot about how to teach children.

Thursday morning it was back on the bus for 11.5 hours to return to Mbeya (it always takes longer on the return journey, maybe because of climbing the hills to get back up to Mbeya and the traffic jams on the way into town). It was good to get home. I was exhausted after the trip, both from the fairly intense programme and the travel itself, but I was thankful for all that God had enabled us to do. I pray that the Sunday school teachers will have the courage to implement what they learnt, and also have gained an appetite for reading God’s wonderful Word.

I was fascinated by the unique housing style in the countryside outside of Dodoma -
long, low, flat roofed mud houses.
(Apologies for blurry image - it was taken while on the bus.)

Off to Umanda to teach through Luke's gospel

I was very ready for a break from the office, so despite having to travel alone using buses I’d not used before, I was looking forward to visiting the Manda language area (known in Swahili as ‘Umanda’, which is much less clumsy than saying ‘the Manda language area’, so from now on I’ll use the Swahili term) to teach a couple of workshops about the book of Luke. This gospel has recently been published in the Manda language, in both print and audio forms, and the Jesus film (based on Luke) has also been translated in Manda, so the goal of the workshops was to equip churches to use these resources, by studying some key themes in Luke and discussing how Luke can continue to be used in their homes, churches and community.

The journey

(I got a bit carried away writing about my journey, so you might want to skip some of this!)

Waiting at Mbeya bus station

My colleagues, the Manda translators (Erasto and Faraja), who I would be meeting in Umanda, had advised me on which buses to catch and what times they should be departing, so I felt I had a good enough idea of what to expect that I didn’t need to worry. They had made the same journey a day or so before me, in order to meet with the Manda CBO (Community Based Organisation) to discuss issues like the distribution of Manda materials. So, as advised, I made sure I was at the bus stand by 7am, ready to catch the Super Feo bus that would be coming from near the Zambian border and heading towards Njombe, where I would change buses to continue to the small town of Ludewa. Well, 7am was a bit optimistic – the bus came about 8.15am, and by 8.30pm we were on the road. I almost didn’t get a seat! I was told I didn’t need to get a ticket in advance, but to just get one on the bus. The advice was correct, but I think I got the last available seat, right at the back. It took me back to my childhood, when the back of the bus was considered the best place to sit, and the more bumps you went over the better as you bounced off your seat. Now in my forties, I faced the bumpy ride with a little less joyous anticipation, but the seat proved fairly comfy and the road was tarmac, not dirt, so it wasn’t too bad at all.

Lunch at the Njombe
bus station

I’d been advised that I would arrive in time to catch the 2pm Ibu bus to Ludewa. Well, if this 2pm bus had existed, I’d have been on time for it. As it was, I found out the Ibu bus hadn’t arrived yet and wouldn’t leave until 4pm. At least this meant I was able to buy my ticket, take my time over lunch (ugali, greens and a plain omelette from the bus stand’s fast-food place), buy some fruit, stretch my legs and do some work while I waited. I would have liked to have gone for a longer walk, as I knew that by the time the bus arrived in Ludewa it would already be dark so no chance for a walk there, but lugging a heavy rucksack around plus my laptop bag wasn’t conducive to a brisk walk. And it was a good job I didn’t go, because the bus was early! (What’s going on – something in Tanzania actually happened before the scheduled time rather than an hour or so later?!! I’m still reeling from the shock.) 

This was a smaller bus and became increasingly crowded as the journey progressed and we kept taking on more passengers, even though it was standing room only. I love the way buses here double-up as delivery vehicles. Every now and then we would stop for just a few seconds to drop off a sack of something or pass an envelope, or even a loaf of bread, through the window to someone waiting at the roadside to receive it. And at bus stops there was nearly always some exchange going on – either something to pick up and take, or something to be dropped off. The road is being worked on, they are gradually surfacing it, but it’s a big job as it includes some steep mountain sections with hairpin bends. Worryingly, sections that had been finished were already suffering from debris on the road as a result of landslides – something needs to be done to shore up the steep road sides that have been dug into the hillside.

It was indeed dark but the time we arrived in Ludewa (7.45pm). On alighting at the bus stand (a dirt patch surrounded by little shops and a couple of ticket offices) I was able to buy a ticket for the next morning for the final leg of the journey from Ludewa to the village of Nsungu, which is situated on the shores of Lake Nyasa (aka Lake Malawi). This done, I headed to a guest house I have stayed in before, just a five minute walk from the bus stand, hoping that they would have a free room. They did, though only a twin room (which, confusingly, they call a ‘double’ room), which meant it was more expensive, an extortionate 15,000 Tanzanian shillings rather than just 10,000 (that’s about £5.20 rather than £3.50)! I had packed some food for tea, so I didn’t have to go out again to find something to eat. First part of the journey successfully completed.

The next morning (Thursday), I was up before dawn to catch the 6am bus. I was honoured to be given the front seat, next to the driver. Approaching and leaving the town of Ludewa, you get to enjoy some tarmac, but it’s not long before you are back on a dirt road. Once again I was amazed at how many people they seemed to be squeezing onto the bus – at one point this included over ten children on their way to school. I have no idea how they all fitted in, as I couldn’t see anything behind me because of the pile of luggage that lay between me and the rest of the passengers. We arrived in Nsungu about 8.30am, and it was lovely to find Faraja waiting for me at the roadside. We walked together to the guest house, which is close to the lakeside, where I quickly settled in before heading off to the Catholic church where we would be holding the workshop.

The blue line is my route to Umanda, while the red line is the first part of my return route, until I rejoined the original route at Njombe. The reason for taking the longer route home was due to bus availability and better roads.

Workshop #1

Erasto teaches how
to read Manda

I was pleasantly surprised to find a good number of the participants had already turned up. Often with workshops my colleagues and I are the first to arrive and things kick off pretty late, but I was impressed to find that things went more or less to time (roughly speaking, meaning we started less than an hour after the time we had said we would start, which in my experience, is quite an achievement). Many of the participants had attended a workshop I had facilitated two years previously, in which we helped them learn to read Manda and to prepare and lead simple Bible studies. It was so lovely to see familiar faces and they warmly welcomed me back. This also meant that many of them already had a good grasp of how to read Manda, so my colleagues didn’t need very long to review some of the differences between the Manda and Swahili alphabets and writing systems in order to help people transition from reading Swahili (which they will have learnt to do in school) to reading Manda. In case you are interested, one difference is the addition of two extra vowels, written ɨ and ʉ. I can’t try and describe these two sounds, as I am not very good at pronouncing them! Basically, ɨ is somewhere between the way you pronounce i and e in Swahili, and ʉ is somewhere between u and o.

My turn to teach

The participants were nearly all from local Catholic and Anglican churches, which are the two main denominations in the area, and there was a fairly even mix of men and women, with a good representation of church leaders, so this was all very encouraging. I quickly realised we had a huge range of ability in the group, from the very well-read leader of the Catholic church that was hosting us, who always had helpful contributions to make to discussions, to the somewhat off-track ideas of another church leader, to some very quiet ladies who barely spoke so it was difficult to ascertain what their level of knowledge was. I hoped the better-educated wouldn’t find the workshop too simple, the less-educated wouldn’t find it too hard, and that somehow everyone would go away feeling that the three days they had spent with us was worthwhile.

Some teaching posters

So what did we cover in the workshop? I began with a short quiz about Luke, to cover a few basics, and anyone who answered correctly got a free poster with a Manda verse on it from Luke’s gospel. (These are just simple A4 posters that we print on coloured card and sell for less than 5p!) Then my colleagues guided people in practising to read their language, so that they’d be prepared to read the Manda translation of Luke in the rest of the workshop. After this we looked at key questions we should ask ourselves when reading Scripture (when, where, who and why) and then answered those questions together for Luke. After also briefly looking at the structure of Luke, we started to dig deeper by examining four key themes in Luke: Jesus cares for the poor and oppressed, Jesus cares for people of all nations, the kingdom of God (the upside-down kingdom) and prayer. We looked at these through a mix of Bible study, small group discussions and up-front teaching. We finished our study of Luke with a Bible study on the last few verses of the final chapter, before moving into thinking about application. We discussed what aspects of Luke particularly spoke to us, and how the book and audio of Luke can be used in their homes, their churches and their community. We finished up with a chance to be creative – some composed a song based on Luke 12:34 while the rest chose a verse from Luke and wrote it out on coloured card to share with someone else. I was amazed at how quickly the music group came up with a great little tune for their song; it was a lovely way to round things off.

At the end we asked them what they had learnt. There were some encouraging responses, including (these are very brief summaries of what they said, not word-for-word quotes): “The kingdom of God that Jesus announced – now I understand what this is about”, “I’ve been touched by the importance of caring for the poor.”, “I’ve enjoyed learning the Manda language.”, “I now have a true picture of who Jesus is.”, “By studying the themes in the book of Luke, it helps see the book as a whole, it pulls this very long book together.”, “Luke shows how Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament.”, “You taught very clearly.”, “You didn’t stray into discussing a particular perspective or denominational position, but kept us on the key themes of the workshop from the Word of God.”

The weather, interesting facts and gifts

It was warm! The church we held the workshop in wasn’t too stifling, but it wasn’t exactly cool either – it was cooler to sit outside in the shade of a tree, which we did during our chai and lunch breaks. It was wonderfully refreshing to go swimming in the evenings, as the sun set over the lake and the hills of Malawi became silhouetted against the changing colours of the sky. (Apparently it’s a 4-5 hour boat ride to cross the lake to Malawi.)

By the lake

It was a rather warm walk to and from the church each day, which must have been about a mile from the guest house, but it provided a nice opportunity to chat with my colleagues. I found out that Erasto was one of the first students at the local secondary school, when it opened in 1990. At that time there were very few secondary schools around, and very few students from primary school passed their exams and entered the next level, but he was one of two from his year at school to make it. As the school was new, they were still establishing things and building. He said that one of the punishments you could be given as a student was to walk to the lake, 3-4km away, to fill buckets with water to water the newly planted coconut tree plantation belonging to the school.

I also heard that the area is somewhat known for ushirikina (which the dictionary translates as ‘superstition’ but I think has strong connotations of witchcraft), especially when it comes to people dying in the water. Maybe this is because some of the deaths seem unexplainable, so people look to supernatural reasons for the deaths. Sadly this can lead to accusations and blame against innocent people (i.e. blaming them for causing the deaths through the use of witchcraft).

On the last day of the workshop I was very touched by one older lady who brought me a gift of peanuts (which are farmed in the area) and another who gave me some cloth. The latter gift was rather awkward in that it was some cloth that she had been wearing! I had said to her how nice it was and she said she had two pieces of the same fabric, so she would give me one. Despite my protestations and the fact that she clearly understood I hadn’t paid the complement in order to be given the fabric, she still wanted to give it to me, so embarrassed and yet also warmed by her kindness, I accepted the gift with a smile, saying I would remember her every time I wore it. At the second workshop I received two more bags of peanuts, which I passed onto Erasto and Faraja, and a bag of sweet potatoes!

Church

On Sunday morning I went to the Catholic church where we had held the workshop. It was my first time to attend a Catholic service and I was pleasantly surprised. In contrast to the very loud and lively church I normally attend, it was refreshingly calm and quiet. The words of the liturgy were good and the sermon was engaging. The only problem I had was that I couldn’t participate properly, as I didn’t know the words of the liturgy and no-one had books with it in, they just knew it by heart; also kneeling to pray on the hard wooden benches was somewhat painful! At the end of the service I was fascinated by a little addition from the padre: first he talked about the importance of keeping careful accounts at home so that you can assess your living costs and work out how to use your money wisely (this came about after the church’s income and expenditure had been read out for everyone to hear), and secondly he talked about the importance of drinking plenty of clean water as they enter into the dry season. I thought it was great that he did this, a very holistic approach to ministry!

Sunday lunch

Delicious fried fish with ugali

I thought I’d easily be able to find somewhere to get lunch in the village, but the first place I tried (where our workshop food had come from) wasn’t producing food that day. I stopped to enquire at a little shop, and they very kindly got me a chair to sit on in the shade while they phoned around their various contacts to see where I could get food. They found someone close by who could rustle up some ugali and fish for me, so that is what I eventually ate, in a tiny café just a few doors down from the shop. I think the owner of the café was at a funeral, so that’s why there wasn’t any fresh food available there already, though there were left-overs from the previous day. (I’m glad they cooked me something fresh – I think eating day-old rice that hasn’t been kept in a fridge, in such a warm place as this, would just be asking for food poisoning.)

Next stop Lituhi, workshop #2

Lituhi Catholic church

Monday morning we caught the bus to Lituhi for the next workshop. I wondered what had happened to Erasto, as he wasn’t around at the time I’d been told to head to the bus stop. It turned out that he’d gone off to visit his cashew nut farm! A year and a half ago he planted five acres of cashew nut trees, so he wanted to check up on their progress; they should start to bear fruit three years after planting. So he was already on the bus that we were to catch, and we continued on together to Lituhi. It was our first time to hold a workshop there, and we were discouraged to find less than half the people we’d hoped would attend; once again they were all from Catholic and Anglican churches. We met in a meeting room at the Catholic church. The church was impressive, built around 100 years ago, on a big plot of land with lots of other parochial buildings. Built on a hill, it caught the breeze, which was a relief as I was finding the weather too warm. After the first day of the workshop was over, we went to visit the pastor of one of the other church denominations to see if we could encourage him to attend. He said he’d got the dates mixed up, and that he would be there the next day. He wasn’t, but he did send a couple of young men from his church the next day. Only one of them came back for the last day, but while the overall response from that church was disheartening, God was obviously at work in that particular young man’s life. Later someone else in the workshop passed by that church and saw that the young man was in full flow teaching Luke’s gospel, working through the Bible passages we had discussed in groups and using the same questions to get people talking! Praise God! This is such an encouraging answer to all our prayers for the workshops to bear fruit.

Studying passages from Luke together (the young man is the one
who immediately started teaching what he learnt, in his own church)

That first night in Lituhi it was hard not to wish I was back in Nsungu. The guesthouse room was small and very warm with lots of mosquitos and with loud music coming from somewhere, and the tiny en-suite bathroom was just a toilet (long-drop) and a bucket of water. No chance of a swim in the lake, as Lituhi is over an hour’s walk away from the lakeshore, though there are some beautiful views out to the lake. In fact, I found that first evening and night so hard (the loud music and heat kept me from focusing on anything, though remarkably I did manage to get a reasonable night’s sleep), that the next day I asked to move to a room on the other side of the guest house, away from the music, and was given a much bigger, quieter room.

Reading a story in Manda. (The man on the left is
the one who invited us to his home for dinner.)

On our last evening there, one of the workshop participants, who seemed to somehow be related to both of my colleagues, invited us for dinner. He was a lovely older man, full of smiles and with a strong voice – you could tell he used to be a teacher! I was really touched by his hospitality – in my experience it’s very rare to be invited to someone’s home for an evening meal, and it was a lovely evening of chatting under the incredible display of stars before going indoors to eat, while our hosts waited outside. There was a choice of three carbohydrates! Ugali made from fermented cassava (which was what Erasto chose to eat), ugali made from maize (which was what I chose) and rice (which is what Faraja chose), served with chicken (they’d kindly cooked me some without onions) and then a remarkably nice papaya for afters (in my personal opinion, papaya can taste and smell disgusting, but this was a good one). I still don’t quite understand the custom I often encounter of leaving your guests alone to eat – I asked my colleagues about it, and it seems to be something to do with wanting your guests to eat freely, without inhibition.

Heading home

Thursday morning I was up by 5.30am, after a restless night, in order to catch the 6am bus. Erasto kindly got up and walked with me to the bus stand to make sure everything would be okay. He and Faraja were staying behind to do more work – community testing the first part of Genesis (this involves checking their translation with people in the community to see if it communicates clearly and accurately in the Manda language). Four hours later, after a fairly bumpy ride and feeling sorry for the lady next to me experiencing travel sickness, we arrived in the town of Songea, where I bought a ticket for my next bus and went for a short walk to stretch my legs while I waited for it to arrive. Thankfully, the next leg of the journey was all on tarmac and we arrived in the town of Njombe about 5pm. Someone took me to a ticket office to get a ticket for the next day’s final bus ride back to Mbeya and then I found myself something to eat from a market area, made up of a long line of wooden shacks, just outside the bus stand (a chip omelette – one of my favourite Tanzanian fast-food dishes, and fruit) before walking five minutes down the road to a guest house I had been recommended. I smiled at the contrast between my room here and the rooms I’d had in in Umanda – here there was a thick blanket (which I definitely needed) compared to just sheets in Umanda (which I barely needed), the provision of warm water for having a wash (definitely welcome in the cool weather here) compared to the relief of having a wash in cool water in the warmth of Umanda, and wonderfully there was no need for a mosquito net. It’s amazing how much the climate can change within just a few hours of travelling in Tanzania, due to altitude or proximity to a large lake or the sea.

Friday morning was another horribly early start, with another five hours to endure on a bus with loud music videos that I tried not to look at, as the dancing is somewhat sensual and entirely inappropriate for the mix of ages on a bus. (It’s common to show videos on longer bus journeys – sometimes you are fortunate and get gospel choir videos, but often they are secular music videos or soap opera style dramas.) By 11am I was back in Mbeya and walking the half mile or so home from where the last bus dropped me off. Home sweet home, with so many reasons to be thankful to God for all he had done for me and through me on the trip. Thank you God.

Outcome Harvesting and teaching in Umalila

Goal of trip: To listen to testimonies from members of the Malila community about how our work and the availability of the New Testament in the Malila language has impacted individuals, churches and the community. These testimonies will then be crafted into ‘Outcome Statements’ that we can learn from by looking for patterns in what has been happening. This whole research process is called ‘Outcome Harvesting’. A second goal: to teach a Bible seminar on the book of Galatians.

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With the sun shining, Frank, one of my department colleagues, and I set off for the Malila language area. The weather looked more promising than the day before, when constant rain left me anxious about the journey. The road was good most of the way, but the last section had been affected by the rain and was very slippery, with the clay-like mud creating an experience something like that of driving on snow.

Just arrived at Iyunga Mapinduzi 

We arrived at the church in Iyunga-Mapinduzi on the dot at ten o'clock. Our colleague, Majaliwa, was waiting for us, but no one else, just a few cows. No surprise. If we say 10am, I expect to start an hour later. We finally kicked off proceedings at 11.20am. As hoped, we had a small group of people from the village who have been impacted by our project in one way or another, such as through attending workshops. We began with a Bible study on John 15. Although I led the study and I don't speak Malila, we still used the Malila Scriptures and participants were free to respond to questions in Swahili or Malila (and my colleagues interpreted anything I couldn't understand).

After this we began to listen to their stories of how they or others have been impacted by our work. There were lots of encouraging testimonies of people understanding the Malila Scriptures better than the Swahili ones, leading to greater engagement with what they hear or read in church. I've often commented that of all the language groups we work with, Malila strikes me as the one where the local language is used the most. This is evident in how children still use it, how adults use it among themselves even when I'm there and they know I can't follow what they’re saying, how a number of women don't seem to understand well when Swahili is used etc. My colleagues and I madly scribbled away, recording what they said. (When we got back to my colleague's house later we compared notes and wrote 'Outcome statements' from what we had heard, which we'll analyse later in the process.)

Majaliwa's home (the white house) - you can see our
project Landcruiser parked outside

We had a very late lunch at the only place in the village where you could get food, and the only food on offer was a plate of chips. But very nice, hot, fresh chips they were! Thankfully the road had dried out somewhat since our arrival, so I was spared more heart attacks from the car sliding around as we headed to my colleague's home, where we were to stay for the week.

On Wednesday we headed to another village, Shinzingo. We arrived late but the participants arrived even later! The road was pretty rough in places, and as we sat talking together in the meeting, the rain began. I battled anxiety over how we would get home - it wouldn't take much rain to turn the road into an adventure I'd rather not have

This time, I asked Majaliwa to lead the Bible study, which meant he was able to lead it in Malila - it was great to see everyone present sharing their thoughts, which I think they felt more comfortable doing in Malila than they would have done in Swahili, especially the ladies. Our project has done very little in Shinzingo, so there were less stories to hear and a strong desire for someone to come and do a workshop and bring Malila books to sell once they've had a chance to put aside money to buy them. We had books with us, but they had very little money to buy anything this time. I felt bad that they had waited so long to see the New Testament in their language and get hold of other books, so I felt compelled to buy each one a small book (costing less than 20p each), either some of Paul's letters or the story of creation and the fall. They were gratefully received, and plans are afoot to hold a workshop there in May.

Frank heads off to the pastor's home for lunch.
You can just about see the church in the
background (in the middle, behind the tree).

We were kindly invited to the pastor's home for lunch. As usual, this was rice and chicken, the classic meal of choice when you have guests. I was happy to spot some sweet little bananas for sale on the way back to the car - something fresh to enjoy.

Friday we went to the main village in the Malila area (significant enough to be considered a 'town' here), where we met in the Salvation Army church. The meeting felt like hard work, so it was a relief to finish up and get food at a local café. Back in Jojo, Majaliwa had a meeting to go to, so I did a bit of work and then went for a walk, a lovely three mile loop. It was slightly annoying to have school children following me for some time; I know they just think it's fun to keep up with the white person, but I find it hard always sticking out and being noticed. In the last mile the heavens opened, and my little umbrella was little help! Reminiscent of Jane's visit to Netherfield in Pride & Prejudice, my long dress was soaked from the bottom up, but thankfully I didn't become ill as a result!

Friday morning the sun came out and I was able to hang my still very damp dress out to dry, but the rain began again before my shoes had dried out! In the morning, after breakfast (a plate of boiled potatoes, as it's a potato growing region), we processed what we heard in the previous day's meeting. We waited for the rain to ease enough to head into the village centre to get lunch (rice and goat meat and liver with a bit of tomato) before heading to the nearby village of Santilya to begin a seminar on Galatians. En route we encountered a blockage – a tree had been cut down, falling across the road (intentionally), so we had to wait until a way through had been cleared. Despite arriving late, we were still early compared to everyone else – the seminar was supposed to start at 3pm but didn't kick off until about 4.30pm. The overcast sky made it dark in the church, where the only extra light was a couple of low voltage bulbs, making reading Bibles (and my teaching notes) a bit of a challenge. As I taught the rain got heavier, so I had to raise my voice to fight against the sound of the rain on the corrugated iron roof. Certainly not my easiest teaching experience. Despite everything we covered some important ground and Majaliwa told me that one of the pastors, who is the overseer for churches of his denomination in the area, said that all their pastors should have been there!

Back at the pastor's house, food was waiting, ugali and chicken. For once the meat was relatively tender (my jaw usually gets a good workout on the meat here). I always feel very blessed by people's hospitality, but I also look forward to getting home and having more fruit and vegetables, which can be somewhat scarce in the average meal provided for guests.

[An aside: my crazy colleagues got up in the night to watch a football match, Tanzania versus Morocco, which started at 1am!]

View on one of my morning walks - you can see
Mbeya Peak in the distance

On Saturday I awoke to yet more rain, so no chance of going for my usual morning walk. I battled anxiety over how the rain would impact the day's seminar, trying to trust God's purposes but finding it very hard. Of course, I shouldn't have worried. By the time the seminar got started the rain had more or less stopped. While we waited for more people to turn up, I opened it up for questions that might have arisen from the previous day's teaching. Questions included who is Barnabas, why did the Israelites wander in the desert for 40 years (this was somewhat off topic!) and is it wrong to follow the laws in the Old Testament.

Eventually we got going and people seemed to be engaged. It was a bit stressful for me when Majaliwa disappeared at a point when I needed him to do some interpreting into Malila. Also I felt my anxiety levels rising when it began to rain again, but they gave me a microphone so I could still be heard when it got really heavy, and it didn't last long. At the end, when I asked what they had liked from the book of Galatians, it was clear that they had grasped some of the keys points. I finished by 6pm, but somehow the closing words of Majaliwa, the pastor and others took nearly another hour! Giving the right people an opportunity to say a final word (whether that be to say thank you to the host and teacher or to re-emphasise something that was taught or add an additional thought) is very important here, so finishing can take a long time.

By the time we had eaten dinner at the pastor’s house, we didn’t get back to Majaliwa’s until 9.30pm. I found the long day tiring – even though I was only actively teaching for a part of it and the rest of the time just sitting around, the ‘sitting around’ can be surprisingly exhausting when people around you are talking in a different language and conversation is hard to engage with but you feel a need to sit politely and look like you are listening and you are doing your best to behave in a culturally appropriate manner but not sure that you are always achieving it!

View on my Sunday morning walk

Sunday morning we said grateful goodbyes to Majaliwa and his wife, and were given a sack of Malila potatoes to take away with us. Our final job was to attend the morning service at the church in Santilya where we’d had the seminar. I had given Frank the opportunity to preach, so that he could use a mix of Swahili and Malila (as he himself is Malila) as well as give me one less thing to prepare for. However, they still wanted to ‘hear my voice’ so I made an impromptu addition at the end, continuing the theme in Galatians. The music during the service was so loud that, despite the fact they turned it down a bit for my sake, I got to a point where I just couldn’t stand it anymore and went and stood outside until the procession of choirs had finished singing. I don’t know how the rest of the congregation can apparently enjoy the deafening volume and vibrations emanating from the big speakers, as they sing and dance with gusto. There are some cultural things that I’m not sure I will ever feel at home with. The loud praying, sometimes in a special rough kind of voice that many preachers like to adopt, I also find uncomfortable to listen to and hard to understand why they do it. These things, along with stuff sometimes being said that comes across to me as a questionable application of Scripture, is what can make going to church here feel like something I do out of duty rather than desire.

These creative kids were making brum
brum noises as they ran along, pretending
that the yellow jerrycan was a car

Together with other visitors to the church, we were invited to have lunch in the pastor’s home before leaving. The lady sitting next to me couldn’t comprehend the small (in her eyes) portion of rice I took, which was less than half what everyone else had on their plates! It was plenty for me after all the potatoes I had eaten for breakfast. We left at 2.30pm – everyone who had been at the pastor’s home came out to wave us off, I felt like royalty! The sky looked ominous, but thankfully it didn’t rain very hard. In one area, wisps of cloud floated eerily up from the surface of the road, as if the road was smoking, and all around was thick fog, which made for slow going, but we eventually arrived safely back at the office an hour and half later.

It wasn’t the most enjoyable trip I’ve ever had, as you may have picked up, but I can still look back and be thankful for God’s faithfulness: despite my anxiety over the weather it never caused any serious problems, my colleagues and I worked well together, we gathered what seems like a reasonable amount of data and the Bible seminar seemed well appreciated with a request to come back and teach some more. I pray that God may use our, what often feel like, feeble efforts for good, to bear fruit that will last.

Bible teaching in beautiful Busokelo

Things didn’t exactly get off to the best start. I was going somewhere I had never been before, accompanied by a young man who I had only met for five minutes a couple of days earlier, in order to provide three days of Bible teaching to a group without a single familiar face among them to encourage me. And then on the way there, less than an hour from home, my car decided to overheat.

I had prayed before the journey for protection and no problems with the car. Didn’t God hear me? Of course he did, and even in the midst of this inauspicious start, I could see God’s care. The problem with the car was spotted when we stopped to buy tomatoes and onions from roadside stalls a little way out of town. Ahead of us were lots of hills – if the lady selling tomatoes hadn’t told us that water was leaking from under the engine we would have carried on and encountered a much more serious problem half way up a hill a long way from any help. Although my usual car mechanic wasn’t available, an office colleague who lived in the area and drives a car was able to come with a mechanic, identify the problem, and guide us to a garage to get it fixed.

The car shenanigans meant we were somewhat late arriving and I was pretty tired after my early start and then driving along a rough, dusty road for about an hour and half, but I needed to jump straight in and start teaching as everyone was there waiting for us. Once again, I had reason to give thanks as I thought it would be uncomfortably hot, but the church turned out to be an open sided, grass roofed building that stayed pleasantly cool. And when we finally got lunch after 3pm, they had kindly prepared food without onions for me to eat, so I could enjoy my plate of rice and pork in a tomato sauce without worrying.

I wasn’t quite sure what my sleeping arrangements would be, though I had been in communication with a local pastor about all the practical arrangements and knew I would be staying in someone’s home. It turned out I had the house to myself as it is owned by an elderly couple who had left a few days previously for medical check-ups, which was a nice surprise as it meant I felt freer in what I did. The pastor also proved game to take me on a good walk all around the village – we climbed up to where Lutheran missionaries had built a hospital about 50 years ago (the views were amazing, looking particularly beautiful in the soft evening light as the sun set), down to a few small shops and along trails between fields of banana trees before ending up at his home.

The pastor’s home is under construction. It was hard to believe anyone could live there, as it looked like most of the rooms didn’t have roofs yet! However, with true Tanzanian spirit and the heart of a servant of Christ, he and his family had moved into the house before it was completed so as to avoid the cost of renting rooms as they planted a church nearby. By the time I got back to my house, it was dark and I was tired! I had a wash, a light tea (I had brought my own food for this) and headed to bed. After lying there for a while, I heard scuffles. What was it? Mice? I thought I’d better check that my food was secure. Coming out of my bedroom I saw large cockroaches scuttle away as my solar light shined on them. That’s what the sound was – their pattering feet and the sound of them eating the polystyrene insulation of an old hot pot! (Hot pots are insulated food pots, so that you can cook food and keep it warm for some time, which is really useful when you only have one stove to cook over – it means you can cook one thing and keep it warm while you cook the next, and they’re also useful when guests turn up late.)

The church was on the opposite side of the road to where I parked my car. In reality it was more of a dust bath than a road! Not only did this mean that my feet were constantly dusty, but also everything else was covered in a thin film of dust because every time a vehicle went through it kicked up all the dust and it landed gently on everything within a few metres of the road. Blow the dust off my teaching resources one minute and a few minutes later they would be coated once again. So I was worried about showing the Jesus Film (in the Nyakyusa language) on the evening of the second day – concerned that the projector and my laptop would get dust inside them. However, we had planned to show the film in an open area with a few shops around the edge, and this area was covered in grass, the nearby road was less dusty and the breeze had dropped, so it was fine. I don’t know how many times I have watched the Jesus Film now – although I sat there with everyone else, I was listening to a podcast! There weren’t as many people there as I would have hoped for considering the central location, but there were still a good number (including children) who stayed from start to finish, despite the chilly night air.

Cooking station

Going back to lunchtime of day two – I experienced one of those cultural things that always makes me feel very uncomfortable. They brought me a plate of chipsi mayai (chip omelette), while everyone else had rice. It is their generous hospitality and their desire to honour guests that causes them to do this; my remonstrations with the pastor the previous day that I would eat what everyone else ate fell like water on a duck’s back. Almost everywhere I go to teach, I end up eating in a separate room with the pastors and we are often given ‘better’ (in their eyes) food than everyone else has. While I appreciate their hospitality and the respect that they show to their leaders and guests, it grates with me, partly because of my cultural background in which egalitarianism is valued (sometimes at the expense of a healthy respect for others) and partly because of Jesus’ teachings around servant leadership.

On day three I tried something I haven’t done before. Normally I do the Bible overview seminar in two days, but as I had three, I was able to take more time over it and add in an extra exercise. In order to help the participants see how understanding the Bible’s story helps us interpret different parts of the Bible, I chose an Old Testament (OT) passage for them to discuss in groups, thinking about how it points to or is fulfilled in Christ and how it applies today. I chose Deuteronomy 28, which is about blessings for the Israelites if they obey God’s voice. I wasn’t surprised to find that they still jumped to applying it directly to today, without thinking about how we are not Israelites about to enter Canaan! But this then gave me the opportunity to talk them through how I would handle the passage, in light of its context in the grand narrative of the Bible, and to draw their attention to verses like Galatians 3:14* and Ephesians 1:3*. At the end, when I asked what new things they had learnt through the seminar, one of them said, “We shouldn’t just take the Old Testament as it is.” It was great to see that some of them had got the point about needing to read the OT in the light of the whole story of the Bible, while others said they had learnt how important it is to read the OT and not just the New Testament (NT). Someone else said they found the different methods I used for teaching helpful (I even got them doing actions) and another said it was like being at college. This feedback was encouraging, and the door is open for me to return. As always, I was struck by the huge need for good Bible teaching. And for Bibles! Some people didn’t come with Bibles while for a couple of people I noticed that the only Bible they had was a children’s NT (the ones that are given out for free by Operation Christmas Child)! A few people had Nyakyusa NTs – they said they read them at home when they don’t understand their Swahili Bibles; it was good to hear the local language NTs are helping people understand God’s Word better. I was also able to put the audio version of the Nyakyusa NT on a couple of people’s flash drives for them to listen to at home.

An evening walk with the host pastor to a
nearby crater lake. Livingstone Mountains
in the background.

Day four, Thursday, I headed back to Mbeya (with the same young man for company, the pastor’s son, who is at high school in Mbeya and who proved to be pleasant company). On the way we stopped at a Baptist Bible college for me to speak to the students. I understood I would have all afternoon to talk with them, but they thought I was just getting half an hour! We compromised, and I had an hour to talk about language use in ministry. They were enthusiastic listeners and several of them bought New Testaments in their local language.

I returned home tired, once again thankful for the opportunity to teach but humbled by it too. Who am I that I should be teaching God’s Word to these church leaders? I still have so much to learn myself. And my life is so comfortable compared to theirs. It’s easy for me to find time and space to be quiet before God and meditate on his Word and I can listen to endless excellent Bible podcasts, while some of them barely have a roof over their head, have many mouths to feed, a farm to tend and can barely afford a Bible. A Bible seminar gives them a chance to take time to stop and learn, something that is hard to do in the noise and busyness of daily life. Oh Lord, help me to faithfully handle your Word and to not grow weary of helping others to discover its richness.

*Galatians 3:14 – “…in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith."

*Ephesians 1:3 – “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places…”

 

A warm welcome (from the people and the weather)!

Halungu, Unyiha. The landscape is very different from Umalila (see my previous blog). Instead of layers of hills covered with a patchwork of small fields, it’s flat and covered with large open fields. It’s a coffee growing region – some fields are filled with mature coffee bushes, while in others neat rows of young coffee plants, interspersed with banana trees, are starting to grow. Other fields are completely bare, ready for planting maize. The bigger fields allow for the use of cows to plough the earth, so those who can afford it will hire cows to do the work.

Morning mist

When we arrived in Halungu not long after 10am on Friday morning it was already very warm. The church where we held the seminar is currently just a shell, with a tarpaulin strung up between poles to give shelter. Thankfully it clouded over in the afternoon and got cooler, otherwise I think everyone would have fallen asleep from the heat. What surprised me, though, was how cold it got at night. We were staying in the pastor’s home, where I had a room to myself, with a mattress on the floor for my bed. They’d provided a blanket, but in the night I found I had to put on my cardigan and wrap myself in a couple of kangas* to try and keep warm. However, when morning came and the sun rose in the sky it quickly warmed up and the dawn mist over the fields started to evaporate.

The church

(*A kanga is a piece of patterned cloth with a proverb or saying of some kind printed near the bottom. They are wonderfully versatile – they can be wrapped around as a skirt, worn as a shawl, provide a sheet at night, twisted into a ring to go on the head for you to then carry a bucket of water or a pile of firewood, used as a towel etc. They are common gifts, especially at weddings and funerals, with the kanga being chosen carefully according to the words printed on it.)

I was there to teach another two day Bible overview seminar (Friday to Saturday), working through the Old Testament and how it points to Jesus. The two pastors who were there really appreciated the teaching, commenting on how there is very little good teaching like this and how much it is needed. Over lunch I was saddened to hear of more examples of wrong teaching in churches – one said how some people pray in the name of their pastor rather than in the name of Jesus and another said he heard someone preach that pastors are like angels and we should listen to and treat them as such, as direct messengers from God. They also talked a lot about the issue of denominationalism, and how often the particular perspective of a denomination is proclaimed more than the Word of God itself. Questions asked during the seminar revealed other areas of misunderstanding – like people talking about churches as being ‘God’s tent’ because they haven’t understood the role of the tabernacle in the Old Testament and how Christ opened the way for us to enter into God’s presence, or people thinking they still have to pay some kind of price for their sins and to gain their salvation, without understanding that Christ’s sacrifice paid the full price for sin.

My car parked in the shade by the pastor's
home (the edge of which you can see on the
left) and the bathroom is the little brick hut to
the left of the car.

 The host pastor and his wife kept apologising for their poor hospitality because of the village environment they live in. Poor hospitality?! They provided us with everything we needed! They cooked me food without onions, prepared hot water for bathing, gave us a place to sleep and were good company. I think they felt they needed to apologise because we always had ugali to eat (rather than rice, which is what is usually served to guests) and we didn’t always have meat, but the food was tasty and there was fresh avocado with each meal and lots of greens, which I much prefer to lots of tough, greasy meat! Every day we would break at 1pm for a two hour lunch break so that people could go home and cook and eat before we carried on. We got lunch about 2.40pm each day – it takes a long time to cook over wood stoves.

Drawing water from
their well

I returned home exhausted but thankful for another opportunity to teach. Exhausted because I’d been teaching all day in the heat (and not drunk enough) and then had to drive home (about 2.5 hours), calling in quickly at the office to unload boxes of books together with the projector and speakers we’d used for showing the Jesus Film in the Nyiha language on Friday evening. Thankful because it feels like a huge responsibility and great privilege to explore the Scriptures with people, and I was encouraged by comments from the pastors, such as that they wished people from other churches had come and had the chance to learn and that I should open a Bible college! May God continue to open doors for his Word to be taught and may he help me to teach – I’m definitely a clay pot, but I pray he may yet be able to use me to help people know him better through his Word.

With the seminar participants: the pastor is on the far left and
his wife is on the far right