Sunday Marathon

This past Sunday we set out on a marathon to visit four new churches started by our pastor friend, Mwamluku. He has been asking us for a long time to visit his four church plants and we decided we could do it all in one Sunday.

We started out at 7:30 in the morning and returned home at 7:30 pm; it was a long day but it was a great day. The first church was only about 30 minutes from our house; however, they called us and said the road was impassable due to the rains. No problem, Mwamluku knows another way around. He failed to tell us that the other way would take us two hours! So, all day we were 2-3 hours behind. We drove through village after village that had no church of anykind; allwithin an hours drive of Mwanza.

However, these new little village churches were so excited that American missionaries were coming to visit them that they waited for 2-3 hours at each church for us to arrive. This was probably a once in a life time experience for them; I doubt if we ever get a chance to visit them again.

Tim preached, I greeted the people, Mwamluku encouraged them like a father, and our interpreter greeted them as well; our interpreter was our friend Lukilo who is a pastor and a teacher at the Mwanza Bible College.

To see the joy on their faces and to have the opportunity to encourage them to continue in the face of opposition and indifference in their respective villages was a privilege. For 3 of the 4 churches, they are the only church in their village and the local people are very steeped in Animism and they have local witch doctors as spiritual leaders.

We praise the Lord for Mwamluku's burden to see the Gospel preached in every village.