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.
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