Week #2: July 13-20

Friday/Sabbath

Leah and I were both excited about starting our series on Friday night, July 13.

I started Sabbath morning for church. Leah's original site was cancelled because the police wouldn't give a permit for her meeting. We trusted that God had a plan.

Leah's site

Sunday, July 15, was Leah's first day at her site. We play a segment from a movie of Jesus' life every night. When Leah returned that night, she said she felt like she could have been in the Jesus movie at her site. It is a 40 km drive out into the hills around Kilimanjaro. She stands on the side of a hill to preach and the people sit just down the hill below her. She looks out over the village with the mountains behind it. She has the son of the conference ShareHim coordinator as her translator and he is a very good translator. She has won the hearts of the kids at her site. Today we are going to buy shoes for a little boy from her site who had his toe smashed. It wasn't taken care of by his parents, and looked like it was becoming infected. So Leah brought her first aid kit out one night and fixed him up. He seems to be doing much better.

Matt's site

I've really been enjoying preaching. It is exciting to get to know people from my church family in another part of the world. It is also exciting to be sharing the gospel. I love our series of sermons, because no matter what the topic is that we are presenting, it is always tied in with our relationship with Jesus, and focused on the gospel in some way. I'm excited to see visitor's coming. For several days I didn't know if there were any coming. But last night they told me there have been fifteen to twenty. And even when I wasn't sure, I was still excited for two reasons. One, I've found that these meetings are just as much for the church members. They are encouraged, and refreshed by what we study. The second reason is that I know I am preaching to the whole neighborhood. :) They have loud speakers pointed out into the neighborhood that project for about two miles. So I know that there are people listening in their homes. It makes me feel like I'm a radio preacher. :) Pray for those in their homes as well as those attending the meetings. The area I'm in is the hardest to evangelize in the whole conference. They say that 100 baptisms here is like 1000 in the rest of the conference. Most of my visitors don't come to the meeting until after dark, because they don't want to be seen by a pastor or other church member who will report them. In spite of any obstacles people are coming and being blessed. So am I.