Is it all over?

From some of the questions I have been getting about my plans to return to the UK, I sense there is another question that is being asked behind them all, “Is it all over?” The answer is a resounding, “No!” In my heart I am still ‘KJ in Tanzania’ – though I may not physically be in Tanzania for much longer my heart is still that of a missionary called to serve God cross-culturally. Instead, the question should be, “Where next?”, and this is a question that I am waiting on God to answer over the coming year.

During my time in the UK I will remain a member of Wycliffe Bible Translators UK and of the Uganda Tanzania Branch of SIL International*. This will only change when and if I feel God is leading me in a new direction. Officially I will be on ‘Secondment return period’ (a fancy name for furlough) and ‘Study leave’. As a result, my financial support system will stay the same, with gifts being processed through Wycliffe UK as usual. However, as I indicated in my newsletter, my financial needs will actually be increasing due to the cost of the study program and the generally higher living costs in the UK compared to Tanzania. If you would like to get involved in supporting me through this period, please let me know.

There is a prayer in 1 Thessalonians (1:11) that I recently read, and which I would ask you to pray for me, that our God may make me worthy of His calling and may fulfil every resolve for good and every work of faith by His power. I want to be worthy of the clear call God has placed on my life to ‘go’ and to ‘teach’. I pray that over the coming year God will make it clear to me where it is He wants me to go and how it is He wants me to teach. Thanks for praying with me over the past five years as I have lived in Tanzania, and for continuing to support me in this way as I look ahead.

*SIL International – a sister organisation of Wycliffe Bible Translators. I was sent to Tanzania by Wycliffe UK, and am seconded to the Uganda Tanzania Branch of SIL in my work here.

Back in Kenya

Kenya is where it all began, with my first trip to Africa being to Kenya in 1999, and for a few weeks I am back, though staying in a place that I have never been to before. For just over three weeks I am staying at a place called Ruiru, where I am helping to teach on an academic course, organised by SIL International, training translators, literacy workers and SU workers. I am teaching on the SU track, and have the privilege of interacting with a great group of students from Ethiopia, Uganda, Sudan and Kenya. It’s hard work, with lesson planning, teaching and marking assignments, as well as dealing with administrative tasks from Mbeya. However, as always, teaching stimulates me, so I am enjoying it all.
It’s not all work though, so here’s a few pictures of what I’ve been up to the last couple of Saturdays…

Olympic games trials - Kenya

14 falls, Thika (near Nairobi)

With some of my students from Uganda

Delicious Ethiopian food on Ethiopian night

How to plough the shamba

I’ve just returned from a week away in the highlands – not the bonny hills of Scotland but the equally breath-taking hills of the southern highlands of Tanzania, which includes the Kinga and Vwanji language areas where we were staying. The journey to the Kinga language area took us through some beautiful scenery, including Kitulo National Park – a plateau over 2600m above sea level, home to great numbers of wild flowers. If only we could have seen it all! A good part of the journey was in thick fog. This, coupled with a pretty rough dirt road and not knowing exactly where we going meant that it took us five hours to reach the Lutheran Centre where we were to stay, arriving in the dark. The next morning revealed that we were located in a beautiful place surrounded by mountains and with woodland that could easily be mistaken for the forests of the UK’s own highlands.

We were there to hold a seminar on how to lead and prepare Bible studies. This method of studying God’s Word is a new concept in the majority of churches here, but as the participants came to understand how it works, they saw its benefits and what a useful tool it could be. However, they found it very challenging to write suitable questions and to identify the main teaching point of a passage. There is a huge need for church leaders to receive more teaching in the Bible, as their own Bible knowledge is often poor due to a lack of theological education and availability of Bible resources. It has been said that Tanzania is over-evangelised and under-taught, and this is a reality that I have seen over and over again.

After two days in Tandala (the village where we were staying) we moved onto the Vwanji language area, still in the hills, to hold two more seminars – one for Sunday school teachers and another one on Bible studies. As we waited for all the participants to arrive (there is no such thing as starting on time) we got into conversation about the shambas all around us. Almost every family has a shamba – a plot of land for growing food (somewhat bigger than an allotment but much smaller than farms in England). The Vwanji language area has fertile soil and plentiful rainfall and as the climate is cool they are able to grow similar crops to what we grow in the UK – right now seems to be cabbage season, and there were also numerous potato patches to be seen, maize crops and sunflowers. They were amazed that we usually just use a spade and fork in digging our allotments, while they work the earth with a hoe. (They were equally surprised to hear that I have never held a hoe in my life and wouldn’t know what to do with it.)

After getting back from this trip (which was challenging, fun, interesting and saddening, but I’ll spare you all the details), I have been reflecting on the work that we are doing and how we can develop it. I feel like we are trying to plough a very large shamba. The shamba are the churches here and the ploughing is the call we have in Scripture Use to help people engage with God’s Word, to handle it correctly and in so doing to grow in a knowledge of God and see lives being changed. So far, I feel like we have only ploughed a tiny corner of the shamba; we need to reach further and dig deeper. The question is, how? Should we use the hoe or the spade – what tool is most appropriate for the soil here? One thing is clear, teaching is desperately needed at all levels. I’ve been reading through Hebrews and this section (6:1-3) struck me as being as relevant here in Tanzania as it was to the Hebrews: “Therefore, let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God….And God permitting, we will do so.”

May God show us the way to plough the shamba here, and give us the tools to do so.