Bill Schrull
So to continue with yesterday’s post, after the confirmation service at Uviza, we traveled to Kigoma, which as about 1 1/2 hours by car, and fortunately on paved roads. The road from Kigoma to Kasulu is about 1/3 paved and 2/3 dirt. I have never seen the dirt portion of the road in such bad shape. It’s a very slow and rough ride through that portion of the trip. Our friend always apologize for the condition saying “Pole sana” which means “so sorry”. But we have gotten used to this type of road condition over the years as we have traveled about the diocese. Anyway, after checking into our hotel in Kigoma (the Coastal View Hotel) and taking a short rest, we when to St. Michaels Church in Kigoma. We had sort of a introductory meeting / service between the church, the choirs and our selves. At that time we shared songs of worship together. One of the KTC (Kigoma Town Choir) members who had remembered me for and earlier trip to Tanzania asked about a song that we did back then that he liked very much. It turned out to be “Sing for Joy”. So we planned to do that one during Sunday worship.
The next day started early for a 7:30 AM worship service. We got to the church in time for breakfast, after which the service started. Being a confirmation service (and also communion) the service was about 3 1/2 hours long. That’s not at all unusual for this type of worship service in Tanzania. I think some westerners find them to be very long, but really, Cathy and I are so used to it that the time does seem to go by very quickly. I think it’s just a matter of perspective. People sometimes travel a long distance (often on foot) to get to church, so when they are there, they expect to spend a good amount of time in worship together. Honestly speaking, we could learn at thing or two from our Tanzanian brothers and sisters about “spending time with the Lord”.
During the service, we did sing “Sing for Joy” with the congregation. They really seemed to like singing with us on that song. We sing the verses in English and then the chorus in Swahili. It goes like this:
Imba kwa furaha na Mungu nguvu yetu
This translates into “Sing for joy to God our strength”.
After the service we quickly traveled over to Ujiji, which is not far from Kigoma center. Ujiji is the area of Tanzania that was home base for Dr. David Livingstone, the famous traveler/explorer/medical missionary from Scotland in the early to mid 1800’s. FYI there is a memorial and museum in Ujiji about the work of Dr. Livingstone, a many who truly loved the people of East Africa. At Ujiji Church, there was a similar format for the service, which also took about 3 hours or so. For us, it was a wonderful time of worship with the congregation. And not only did we have a time to once again sing “Sing for Joy”, but in the middle of the song, Cathy and I moved out into the congregation and sang and danced with them as the place irrupted in praise! It was a special moment in the Spirit that I will never forget. For the sermon, I had the privilege to be guest preacher. Of course, I more or less shared my testimony of coming to know Christ at the age of 14 and relayed to those being Confirmed how important it is to be true believers and not “make believers” (AKA pretend believers) as I was at that time in my life until had a real encounter with Christ at this early age.
After the service we had some lunch with the church leaders and then started on our way back to Kasulu, where we arrived at about 5 PM. After relaxing for a couple of hours, our final thing to do that day was go to our friend Ephriam’s home to have dinner with his family. I was glad that his home was not far away. We could have even walked their, but we were tried from the weekend travels. We had a wonderful dinner with he and his family and brought some left over home with us, pineapple. I love pineapple. It is SO good here in Kasulu. Fruit is one of the things I look foward to when we come here. Between pineapple, banana’s and mango’s (BILLY LOVES MANGO) I feel like I’m tasting a bit of heaven here in Tanzania.
So today we’ve had a good nights rest. We met with the Bishop this morning to talk about future plans. And right now Cathy and I are typing up our blogs. This afternoon, we will go to the Bible College for our Swahili lesson and to check things out with the computer systems to be sure everthing is running well.
Thanks again for all of you who have been reading our blogs and praying for us along the way. This has been one of the smoothest trips to Kasulu we have had over the years (10 years to be exact). I’ve happy and grateful to the Lord for the blessings we have experienced in both working on the computer systems and in our going out to minister to the congregations at Kagunga, Uviza, Kigoma and Ujiji. It hard to believe that two weeks have gone by so quickly. I’m hoping the rest of the week seems to go slowly so we can take it all in.
Bill
As I mentioned in my post on Friday, this weekend was spent traveling in the Kigoma area visiting three churches for confirmation services. The first was in the village of Uvinza which is east of Kigoma. Their service was on Saturday afternoon. Our time there was great. Like all of the visits to other churches in the past, their hopitality is wonderful. There is always one or even two meals that go along with the visit. Then there is the worship time together. There were three choirs each of whom offered up a worship song during the beginning of the service. Then it was our turn. We sang “Song to the Savior” with them. I think it was well received based on the participation level. It’s interesting here in the Anglican Church in Tanzania that the choirs are not used as much to lead songs as they are to “tell the story” in their songs and dancing as the congregation observes and listens. In contrast the songs we do are meant for congregational participation.
I’m going to stop here for now as we had two long days of travel and I’m almost falling asleep as I’m writing this post. I will take some time in the morning to tell you more about our time at Kigoma and Ujiji churches in the morning so look for an update tomorrow.
Bill