Tag: Reach Tanzania: Theological Training in Dar es Salaam Page 2 of 3

So we’re new to this Reach Tanzania thing.  You know, the pastoral training program we just joined a few months ago.

But last week, we got to join in the celebration of the completion of the 2014 Certificate Program.  It was one of those days of Everything Good.  When you see God working and you know you are doing what you are supposed to be doing.

And this is what our students (all who are currently serving in church leadership) are saying:

My life is changing.  I came here like I was blind and now I see.  In the area of my marriage, before it was bad, but now I enjoy my marriage.

I learned how to prepare a sermon.  Before I took these courses, I thought that the more Scripture references I used, the more spiritual I was.  But really I was just taking a bunch of luggage and throwing it at my congregation.  I have now learned how to preach and teach.  I came to realize that I can have just one point from the Scripture when I give a sermon.  

Life change as leadership is not the works but the heart.  God does not look at our works but the intentions of our heart.

Reach Tanzania is the place where lives are changed!  These teachings have helped me a lot to arrange my sermons.  I can use stories, I can use questions, and to teach using only one point.  

The teaching that really changed my life is the life of Christ Jesus of Nazareth.  (Gil taught that class!)

From the Life of Christ class, I learned about discipleship.  Discipleship is about leading and teaching someone through example.  

I always wanted to be noticed as a team leader.  I wanted many people in my ministry.  I have learned I can invest my time even for one person who is ready to grow.  

I have learned how to read the Bible.  When I used to read the Bible and I came to a part I didn’t understand, I would just jump to another place, or close the Bible.  But since I came here to learn, I have learned how to read my Bible.

What a blessing to know these faithful men and women!  In January, we start with a new group of students, and we get to start from the beginning this time instead of joining in the middle.  We’ve only just begun….and yet we already get to see the fruit.  God is good.

Last week, the class was on Marriage and Family.

And I sat in the back and listened while our partners and my husband stood in front of these amazing men and women, Tanzanian church leaders who are hungry for God’s Word.  And they discussed and argued and wrestled together and learned from each other as they looked at Scripture and compared it to culture.

Does a man own his wife?

Is there room in Scripture for a bride price?

Is the wife’s submission in Scripture the same as the wife’s obedience in African culture?

What does it mean to love your wife?

How does a man lead his children and yet love them?

And so, so, so much more.

I learned so much from listening to them wrestle.  I am humbled by their desire to let God’s Word transform culture, and I wonder if I always am willing to do the same.

But my favorite part was when Gil stood tall and told them that he would have married me even if he had known ahead of time that I would not bear him children.  Since, in Africa, infertility is usually grounds for divorce.  And then we both shared from the depths of our heart about adoption, and how there are 3 million orphans in Tanzania and only a couple dozen that get adopted each year.  And we shared our vision for the Tanzanian church to take the lead in embracing infertile couples and adoption and orphan care.

It was the one time all week that they spontaneously started applauding.

Yes.  This is why we are here.

(Read Part oneand twoif you missed them)

Sometimes, I jokingly tell Alyssa, “I’m scared to join your team.”

I laugh, but actually I am serious.  I think laughing makes it easier.

A couple years before Mark and Alyssa came to Dar to start the theological training program, another family  with ReachGlobal arrived to do the same thing.  They were having a lot of success getting things started, but then two of their kids developed a mysterious, chronic illness.  Then the wife developed an even more mysterious, serious illness.  Eventually, they had to return to the States.

After arriving in Dar two years ago, within months, Alyssa developed a debilitating auto-immune condition.  It got so bad that for a while she was completely bed-ridden.  Now she takes powerful medication (with a lot of side effects), but even then she often only has about 6-8 “good hours” of each day when she can be out of bed.  You wouldn’t know it, because she has an amazing attitude and never complains, but she lives in constant pain.

And that all happened within months of arriving back in Dar….to start a theological training program.  Coincidence?  Maybe.

But even weirder is the snakes.

About three months ago, Mark and Alyssa discovered a snake in their house.  This does happen every once in a while in Africa.  In the 10 years we lived in Dar, we had a snake in our house once.  We’ve seen a couple others in our yard.

Okay…that happens.  They killed it.

But then another appeared.  And another.  And another.

In three months, they’ve killed about 15 snakes in their house.  Twice, they had exterminators come out.  Neither found any evidence of a nest or could figure out where they were coming from.

The snakes were identified as boomslangs.  Extremely poisonous.  Not native to the area.  Appearing, so it would seem, out of nowhere.

The truth is, that we are moving to a city where witchcraft and curses and dark magic are not just things you pretend about on Halloween.  Animism is the dominant worldview of the majority of people, even many who call themselves Muslim or Christian.

Obviously, our enemy doesn’t like the fact that we’re teaching church leaders how to study the Bible for themselves, that we are saved by grace and not works, and that a good preacher is not defined by touching people and making them fall over.

So yeah, when I think about what has already happened to the people on our team, I am scared.  If I let my imagination get ahead of me, I am terrified.

Sometimes I too ask the question, Why are you going back?  Why on earth are you going back?

Greater is He who is in me, than he who is in the world.

But I am also excited.  Because if he must fight that hard against what this team is doing, then they must be doing something right.  And I get to join in.

“There are no ‘if’s’ in God’s world.  And no places that are safer than other places.  The center of His will is our only safety–let us pray that we may always know it!”  (Corrie ten Boom)

(scroll down if you missed Part 1)

You know when you look back on your life and can pinpoint an ordinary moment that ended up changing everything?

It’s crazy, isn’t it?  Because at the time, it doesn’t seem like anything important.

That’s how it was when we offhandedly mentioned to Mark and Alyssa that they should come back to Tanzania and start a theological training program.

But I am getting ahead of myself.  

We started to get to know Mark and Alyssa around 2006.  This is them (last year).

They were a part of a different mission, but their kids were at HOPAC and we attended the same church.  

At the time, Gil and I were feeling very friend-starved.  We were spending literally all of our free time with teenagers.  As much as we loved them, we were a bit dehydrated.  

I can remember my conversation with Gil when we chose Mark and Alyssa to be our friends.  I know, it’s kind of weird and freaky….maybe sometimes we are overly intentional about what we do.  We decided that we needed to spend more time with like-minded people, and Mark and Alyssa were in Dar to do pastoral training, they loved board games, and they were committed to be in Tanzania long-term.  What more did we need in friends?  

Though I didn’t know her very well, I can remember thinking that Alyssa was the kind of person who could one day be a really, really good friend.  She was a kindred spirit.  

But then, just as we started to spend more time with them, everything fell apart in their ministry.  For no fault of their own, they had to suddenly pack up and go back home.  We were depressed, because once again a relationship we loved had become temporary.  And for them, it was devastating–a long-time dream had been shattered.

We had them over for dinner one last time.  And in passing, we mentioned, “ReachGlobal [our mission] wants to start a pastoral training ministry in Dar.  You should consider coming back with them.”

We have those conversations all the time.  We try to recruit anyone who comes through our doors (be warned!).  Usually, nothing comes of it.  

But, lo and behold, it was the seed.  

Four years later, they came back.  

With ReachGlobal.

To start a theological training program for church leaders.  

Alyssa tells it from her perspective here.  

They arrived back in Dar two years ago, and a little over a year ago, the program started for the first time.  In 2013, they trained their first group of church leaders and graduated them in December.  Gil took a week off from HOPAC in May and got to teach the Life of Christ class.  

And that friendship that started and ended way too soon?  Two years ago, we picked up where we left off.  

We still share a love of board games, and pastoral training, and staying a long time in Dar.  And I was right about Alyssa.  She did become a really, really great friend.  

They came back because God used us to plant the seed.

We’re going back because they have started the training program that is a perfect fit for Gil.  We will be partners.  We’re hoping to even be neighbors.

We both get to live in the city where we have felt called to for a long, long time.  Our kids still get to attend HOPAC, and when we left last year, we didn’t have to say good-bye forever.

Because of them.

Because of us.

Because of God.

Bethany and Grace already call themselves cousins.