Thanksgiving Day

We were blessed this Thanksgiving to have a variety of guests join us for a very traditional American meal.  Missionaries Bob & Murriell McCulley from the new nation of South Sudan (Murriell is Tim's sister), Charles & Tahnya Porter and their 3 children-A/G missionaries from Dar Es Salaam Tanzania, Naomi Glock- AIC missionary who was born in Tanzania to missionary parents 72 years ago, Bill & Tammy Brouwer- Baptist missionaries and good friends, and Lisa Newland- young single Baptist missionary who rents our guest house and lets us be "pretend parents" from time to time.
What a wonderful day we had together; consuming lots of food and playing games and fellowshipping together for most of the day.
We all took the time to acknowledge God's blessings on our lives and express something that we were especially thankful for this year.

Dodoma Bible College Graduation



Three of MBC faculty received their Teacher Certification

This past weekend we attended the Dodoma Bible College Graduation with missionaries Bob & Murriell McCulley; Murriell is Tim's sister and she was the guest of honor and speaker for the graduation.  We drove for nine hours on Thursday to reach Dodoma from Mwanza and got there just in time to make it to the Banquet that evening.
Graduation was on Friday and graduations are lengthy affairs in Tanzania and this one was no different; we were on the platform under a large tent in the hot sun from 9:30am until 4:00pm.  There were 4 groups graduating for a total of 104 students; the one year English class, the Diploma level class, the B.A. class and the first graduation of Bible College teachers in the Teacher Certification program had 19 graduates.
We had four teachers from our Mwanza Bible College who received their Teacher Certificates; we are proud of our Bible College Staff.
By the time we had "lunch" at 4:30 we were finally able to head back to the hotel about 5:30.
We traveled the nine hours back to Mwanza on Saturday; it was a very full three days but it was rewarding to see the number of graduates and to visit with some of our national pastors that we don't have a chance to see very often.

Ukerewe Island

At the end of October we spent five days on Ukerewe Island, the largest of a chain of 20 islands about 45 miles from Mwanza in Lake Victoria.  We took a 3 hour ferry ride across to Ukerewe and our missionary colleague, Melodie Joice, accompanied us.
We had a full schedule of ministry; Melodie and I conducted a Children's Workers Training seminar on Friday and Saturday and Tim taught a Missions seminar to the local TAG pastors on Saturday.  We had about 20 in attendance at the Children's Workers seminar representing about 14 churches; there are 27 churches on Ukerewe and 5 churches on the next largest island, Ukara. Some of the churches are branch churches connected to other churches on Ukerewe.
On Sunday, we all preached in different churches and God moved by his Spirit; several were delivered from demon possession. There is a strong presence of witchcraft on the island and many demon possessed people.   
Ten years ago there were only 5 churches on Ukerewe and today there are 27 with 5 branch churches on Ukara.  There is still much work to do; most of the other islands, though small, are inhabited mostly with small fishing villages.  Ukerewe is 205 sq. miles and since people walk everywhere we need to establish more churches.
The pastors need encouragement and training and are so very appreciative of any visitors that come to the island to help them in their efforts to spread the Gospel.