Youth Camp 2009

Each December the churches from the Baptist Bible Mission of Tanzania join together for a youth camp. This year we had 29 students from Katesh and the new Basotu church go to camp this year. Out of the 100 campers there, 9 students accepted Christ as their personal Savior. It was another fun year! Please join us in prayer for these teenagers that their passion for the Lord will not "fizzle" after the excitement of camp wears off.

Truth Learning Center Graduation

Another ministry of the TRUTH Center is Truth Learning Center. The Truth Learning Center is a English medium school started by our missionary partners, the Burkholders. The school currently has up to 2nd grade and it is our vision to add a grade each year until grade 7. Natalie oversees the daily running of the school and has recently trained Tricia to manage the school while she is away on furlough. Each year we have a big graduation day for the kindergarden students entering into the first grade. It is held on a Sunday morning for all the church members to witness. Also it gives a great opportunity to preach the Gospel to many unsaved parents. We praise the Lord for a great school year!

Bible School Graduation

One of the ministries of the TRUTH Center is Truth Bible Institute. We join with other missionaries and their churches to train future pastors, teachers and those who are faithful church members. Each year several students from each church graduate from class one and class two. We had the honor of graduating 4 class one students from the ministry here in Tanzania. Brad was even given the opportunity to teach some classes that weekend for the Bible students.

Siku ya Vijana- Youth Day!

On October 3, we had a day of activities for the youth of Katesh. We had various sports tournaments, games, a movie, food. We had over 100 teenagers! Five accepted Christ as their personal Savior. The youth of the church were so encouraged and saw the fruits of their labor.

The TRUTH Learning Center

The TRUTH Learning Center was started by our ministry partners, Steve and Natalie Burkholder in 2007. The original intent was to have a nursery and Kindergarden to give the local children a good start to their education and a to introduce them to Christ at an early age. However, after a year, the parents and local government requested that we add more grade to have a complete primary school up to grade seven. We now have over 50 students up to 1st grade. We will add 2nd grade in December and one grade each year to follow. We praise the Lord for the opportunity to give these children the only Christian education in our whole district. Here are a few pictures of the the building process that we are in right now to add more classrooms.

While in Tanzania, we are serving with several other families of like faith. There are missionaries in several different parts of the country that are starting churches, schools, orphanages, and medical clinics. Lazaro is a faithful church member and Bible student in one of those churches located in the city of Arusha (about 4 hours from our town) He is part of the Maasai tribe. The Maasai is the largest tribe in Northern Tanzania and southern Kenya. He asked us to visit the village where he is originally from and where all his family still live. We made our first trip to visit the Masaai this weekend. It was quite and adventure and was filled with many new experiences! As we entered the area of the homes, we were greeted by his father, mother (plus his father's second wife) his grandmother and all the children from each one of the wives and grandchildren! The children greeted us with bowing down in order for us to touch the top of their head. We were then ushered into the hut of the Bibi (or grandmother) for a delicious bowl of old curdled milk mixed with corn. Then after we got our fill of that, we then went to the father's hut to eat rice and beans with a cup of hot tea. After our visit, Brad was able to pray for the family in Kiswahili as Lazaro translated it into Kimaasai. We then traveled down into the center of the village for an open market where we passed a portion of God's Word to hundreds of the the Maasai people. It was such a great experience to see Lazaro reaching out to his own people. When Lazaro first became a Christian, his whole village looked at him as being crazy. Through his testimony, Lazaro is now a respected man in his village and many people have accepted Christ. It is Lazaro's desire to move back to his village and start a church so they can hear the Word of God every week.

Worlds Apart

We have now been in Tanzania for almost 8 months. We are adjusting to the many changes in our daily life; the food, weather, bugs, landscape, the people and the language (just to mention a few!) We praise the Lord for a smooth "ride" so far. He has meet our every need! Recently we needed some bricks delivered to our house to build a small shed. I looked out the window to find some cows outside the dining room window hauling a large wooden cart. This method was used many years ago in the US, but it still works here in Tanzania. As mentioned we are getting used to many new things! This picture is a good illustration how we can be worlds apart, but yet we can accomplish the same tasks. Just at very different speeds!