Heading Home

 George, Sayuni, and I had a chance to debrief the marriage workshop this afternoon before I headed to Kilimanjaro Airport. The feedback we received was very positive. In fact one pastor is planning to have a marriage workshop at his church the first week of December and he wants George and Sayuni to lead it. This is exciting to us because our goal has been to train motivated people to go into their churches and areas and hold workshops for their congregations and villages. This was our first stab at training trainers and we are encouraged by the response. Most of the pastors and wives who attended are planning to go back to their communities and do the training.

On the way to the airport I actually saw Mt. Kilimanjaro!! This is my ninth visit to Tanzania and as I mentioned in my first post, I have never seen it on the ground in daylight--it has always been encased in clouds. My driver stopped by the side of the road so I could take a picture:

The day after the marriage workshop I had time to hear the story of Luka, one of the two people Geroge and Sayuni have helping them and who did some translation for me. He has an incredible story that I won't go into detail here, but he is a Maasai man and has made some decisions in following Jesus that has created a lot of hard feelings from his family. He married a woman, Brenda, who is from a different tribe and his parents have not accepted her. A Maasai man is supposed to marry Maasai women. He can't take his wife to his parents village, in fact. I was impressed with his faith, his attitude, and his work ethic. Here is a picture of Luka, Brenda, and their daughter, Mylene (which I think means "mercy' in Swahili).

I want to thank everyone who prayed for this trip!

Marriage Workshop

 We held the marriage workshop on Thursday and Friday. Fourteen couples aattended which included three bishops and their wives. This is the first marriage workshop that we have given where the majority of pastors were from the Lutheran church. Since Tanzania was a German colony until the end of WW1, the Lutheran church is well established here. We have had one or two Lutheran pastors attend in the past, but they were never the majority: the vast majority of pastors have been Pentecostal at other workshops and this is the first one where they were in the minority--five of them. There was one pastor from a denomination I wasn't familiar with and several were Anglican pastors.

The workshop went well. The pastors and their wives were hightly motivated to take the information that we presented and try to bring it to their congregations. The culture is so patriarchal and the church in many ways just reinforces the great inequality and we spent the first day focusing on the scriptures and especially Jesus and his attitude toward and treatment of women. We were pleased with how well-received our presentations were and how the pastors and bishops wanted to start sharing what they had learned with their churches. Below is a picture of Sayuni speaking.

The couple married the longest had been married for 40 years and the couple with the fewest years had been married two and a half years. They didn't have anyone to take care of their daughter so they brought her with them. 

I am grateful to God for the opportunity to hold this marriage workshop and the positive response of the pastors and their wives. 

Preparations

 Yesterday we visited the venue where we will be holding our marriage workshop today. Someone she knows recommended it and reserved it, but since she had not seen it we drove there to inspect. She was pleased with what she saw and then informed the person responsible for setting up the room how she wanted it laid out. The 20 couples that will be attending will be staying here as well. We are staying at a hotel about 12 miles away. Here are some pictures of it. The first picture is the entrance, the second of the hall where we will meet, and the last a different picture of the courtyard.

I spent most of the day preparing myself for the workshop. I haven't given this in over 3 years and I needed to spend a good amount of time revising and becoming familiar with the material again.

On the Road

Yesterday morning we departed from Arusha at 9:30 and headed for Dodoma, the capital city of Tanzania. We traveled approximately 260 miles and it took us 6 1/2 hours. The roads were good but they were 2 lanes with some passing lanes every so often. From the outskirts of Arusha to the outskirts of Dodoma there was very little traffic but the highway went through many small villages and the speed limit was 30 mph in every village so while we could go 75 mph outside of the villages, we lost a lot of time poking along for a mile or two while passing through the villages. Every once in a while you would see a "Cattle Crossing" sign. One time we encountered cattle crossing the highway:

 Over the last four or so years Dodoma has gone and is going through a rapid transition. In 1974 the leaders made the decision that they would move the capital from Dar es Salaam on the coast to the center of the country and Dodoma was chosen as the site. Not much happened for about 40 years or so. Most of the government departments and offices stayed in Dar. A previous president of the country gave the order that all of the government would move to Dodoma by a certain deadline. This has happened and is happening. I was here in 2019 and the amount of new construction is amazing. The population has exploded and so have prices. Rents have tripled and many of the people who lived in Dodoma can no longer afford to live here and so have moved out to find more afforadable housing.

Tomorrow we prepare for the marriage workshop that will be all day Thursday and Friday. We will stay in Dodoma Saturday so I will be able to do some couples counseling for any couples who would like to meet with me. We will then head back to Arusha on Sunday.