We are thrilled to share good news with you this month! Our new, much larger, cow house is being built. They began construction last week during the campaigns. This new house will hold 20 cows, have a store room, and will have a room just for milking (This is a big deal!). Once it is finished, a large area around the house will be fenced in for grazing. This will free up Jemsi, who currently has to spend all day watching the cows as they graze, to work in the shamba (garden).
Speaking of Jemsi, we have more wonderful news. Today, he chose to have his sins erased in the waters of baptism. All areas of our life should be focused on Christ and this is one of the many reasons why. Sometimes, those who need Christ are the people you work with every day.
The man smiling in the picture to the right while Jemsi is being baptized is Roderick. We call him, “Bwana Kuku”. Translated it means Mr/Sir/Boss etc. Chicken. He is the guy who runs our chicken project. He always has a smile on his face and spreads the Gospel of Christ with everyone around him.
As many of you know, this is a busy time of year for the work here in Tanzania. We have been blessed to have had a group from Kensington Woods COC, North Tuscaloosa COC, and a group from Hoover COC here for the last few weeks. All of these groups have been working in the Njiro chini area (Kensington Woods group also worked in Namanga near the Kenyan border). For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Njiro chini area, it has proven to be a difficult area to evangelize. Despite this, many studies were conducted by the groups, locals, and missionaries and the Lord was glorified. So far, 16 people chose to put the Lord on in baptism (Acts 2:38/1 Peter 3:21) and have their sins erased. Please pray for the new Christians, and those who are still processing what they have learned.
VBS was conducted in the afternoons last week at the njiro chini COC. Thank you to everyone who helped! (Anna Byrd, Kendall Covington, Rachel Youngblood, Haley Norman) And a huge thank you to Hoover COC for bringing the materials, and Tiffany Gaines for helping get everything put together, ready, and organized! This week we saw how fruitful teaching children can be. One of the children at Njiro, Dorcas, who has been attending services and Bible class for many years on her own asked her mother to study with the campaigners. This is not the first time her mother has been asked to study, but this is the first time her mother said yes! As a result, Dorcas’ mother put the Lord on in baptism.
Another wonderful result of the campaigns came Sunday morning. Njiro chini COC meets in a tent. This Sunday morning there was not enough room to fit everyone! There were around 89 people present for services. Sitting outside the tent are around 12 adults and more than 30 children. Normally, Tiffany has around 15 children present for Bible class. Thanks to the campaigns and VBS that number doubled. Most of these children walk to Bible class/Church alone. If that doesn’t make work like this worth it, I don’t know what does.
We are humbled and grateful for all of those who have come to help and work in the Lord’s Kingdom here. Please keep all of those going home in your prayers and those who will be arriving in the next few weeks. As always, please keep Cy Stafford in your prayers. He returns for his last round of chemo on June 15th.