Busy in Mwanza

Wow, it's hard to believe that it's been two weeks since my last post. Time has gone so quickly; we spend a few hours each day, Monday through Friday, at the Bible School and Sundays we are at one of our churches ministering. Many churches now have an early English service and another service following that in Swahili. If you add Sunday school in with that and then the time it takes them to prepare a meal for us over a charcoal fire; it makes for a long day. However, we enjoy the opportunity to visit our TAG churches and to encourage the people as well as the pastor and his family.
We visited the church at Mkuyuni this past Sunday; our good friend, Charles Mkumbo is the pastor of this church. When we left Tanzania in 2001, they were meeting in a tiny little building not much bigger than an average living room in America. We took a picture of all the people standing outside that little building on our last visit there in 2001; we found that picture stored with our belongings when we arrived back in Mwanza.
Now they are in a new building that is much larger than the old building; again, they have outgrown this building and are needing to expand. God has blessed the efforts of this pastor and his family and they have even started a branch church a little distance from them. The branch church is growing rapidly and is no longer supported by it's mother church at Mkuyuni.
During the service this past Sunday we had eight people come forward for salvation; we rejoiced along with the people over these new converts; they will be discipled and will become a part of this growing body of believers.
Before we left, Pastor Mkumbo took us by the house of a young woman named Happy. I had prayed for Happy before we left in 2001; she was barren and her Muslim husband was going to take another wife or return her to her family if she did not have a child. It is very important in this culture to have children; women who are barren are looked down upon and carry a heavy burden of shame.
Pastor Mkumbo came out of the house holding the hands of two beautiful children; a girl and a boy. They were Happy's children; God heard our prayers and saw her tears; He blessed her with these two precious children.
Sunday was a good day!