Dear friends,
Torkild has together with our German friend Friedhelm (the one that builds churches) been on a 10 day tour, where they had 7 dedications and looked at 8 new possible church projects. They started in the Tanga area where they had the first 2 dedications.
Some of the places the roads were almost impassable as it had rained so hard for 2 days without stopping and the dirt roads were very slippery and almost like driving in soap.
Even though it poured rain many people came anyway. It was a couple of blessed days with the church dedications and you should have seen how happy the church members were. In Tanzania the church is not only a place to conduct services but it is a social meeting place where they meet and share news with each other.
From there the trip took them to Dar Es Salaam area where they had another 5 dedications.
One of these dedications was in a village about 100km south of DSM. it took them 3 hours to drive there as the road was in an incredibly bad condition due to the rain. Torkild and the team had been at the same location about a year ago on a children’s crusade. Back then the church had 17 members and now at the dedication the pastor told us that they now had 27 members.
The pastor also said that this was the fruit of the children’s campaign. It is not a great big number we can write about have been added to the church, but this village is very strong Muslim and it’s a miracle every time a Muslim decides to become a Christian, so we are thankful to Jesus for the 10 new members.
Another one of these churches had built on their church building for 15 years with them succeeding getting it finished. Here Torkild had also previously been having a children’s campaign and he had then taken pictures of the half finished church and showed them to Friedhelm. Friedhelm prayed over the situation and later came to Torkild and said: “I would like to finish this church.” I don´t know if you can imagine how happy the pastor and the members were when they could dedicate their new church.
Some of them go through a great deal to decorate their church in different ways it really looks so beautiful.
It turned out to be 10 lovely days with many different experiences – all honour to Jesus.
When they returned Monday evening Torkild was very tired, as he had translated for Friedhelm during the whole trip. They had also driven exactly 2.120km since they left Arusha until they were back home again.
I think the pictures will speak for themselves.
Thank you so much for your prayers for us and the work especially when they drive so many km, then it is good to know that people stand behind us in prayers and ask Jesus for angels to watch over us.
It is so good to know we have a faithful group of prayer warriors that stand with us in the tasks.
They saw a few serious accidents on the road, and one of the accidents 7 people had died.
The next children’s crusade will be on 29th of May till Sunday June 2nd. They will be back on June 3rd. Thank you once again or your prayers as they are to visit a village that is strongly Muslim.
With love
Tabitha and Torkild
The father disappeared and they have had no contact with him for several years. Ruth is a bright girl in school. Her school decided to sponsor her schooling because they are really poor. For various reasons the school recently shut down and Ruth had to find another school.
The mother cannot afford to send Ruth to another school. Ruth’s grandfather is a Maasai and he wants to have her back in Maasai land. He does not want a girl to get eductaed, but instead follow the Maasai traditions for girls: to be married. Maasais think that only boys should get educated.
Ruth’s mother told me that Ruth’s grandfather had received an offer from an elderly, wealthy Maasai who wanted to pay a very large dowry in the form of many cows in order to marry Ruth. Ruth had been desperate because she wanted to stay in school, get her education and choose her husband when the time was ripe. For this reason the mother and Ruth came to our office asking for help.
We trusted God and sent Ruth to a good, Christian school where she is thriving.
We received a sponsor who will support her until Form 4 is completed. But Ruth wishes to continue for another two years and graduate from High School. If any of you would like to support Ruth for a few more years please write us or send a gift to our missions account. Please earmark it “Ruth”.
