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Tanzania

Around Africa

By Liberia, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia

News from Liberia, South Sudan, Rwanda, Zambia, Uganda and Tanzania.

Liberia

Revd Aberdeen Gargli (on left in photo above), Principal of the Evangelical Theological College of Liberia and Revd Clinton Gbawah, Legal Representative of the Evangelical Church Network of Liberia, met to talk about eVitabu at the college in Monrovia. The two men have been connected through their shared links with APF and eVitabu.

South Sudan

APF partner in South Sudan, Saints Revival Committee, distributed Bibles to pastors from over twenty denominations in rural Aweil South County with support from an APF local language Bible grant.

Tanzania

10Giving contacted APF recently wondering if we could help them distribute spare copies of the brilliant children’s book The True King by Nancy Guthrie and Jenny Brake. APF partners Love and Care for the Child Ministries, Faith Babies Home and Walubu Jude were able to distribute hundreds of copies to children in central Uganda. The book, written for children aged 3 to 7, is beautifully illustrated and introduces children to the big story of the Bible — the story of the True King who rules over his people in perfect goodness and a kingdom that will last forever.

Zambia

Bike grants were received by eight pastors in Zambia. Also, Lawson Limao from Word of God ministries received a grant to install solar lighting in the homes of pastors without access to electricity.

Uganda

Revd Esomu Francis (in pink shirt)is pictured here with local pastors from Karamoja Region in northern Uganda. Francis is the founder and principal of Atirir Bible School in Teso Region. APF supports ABS trains pastors and church leaders in theology to certificate level, and also helps Francis travel to remote regions to run workshops with untrained rural leaders. Francis told us:

“These native pastors are an active and vibrant part of the ministry in Abim and Otuke Districts of Karamoja. They are pastoring rural churches, doing extensive evangelism outreach into unreached areas and planting churches to expand the Kingdom of God. Since these church leaders make their living through farming, many struggle to meet the financial needs of their families, theological education for themselves and fees for their children. Ministry travel expenses and food are also challenging factors.”

Kenya

While Dave was in Kenya in April, he was invited to talk about eVitabu and Digital Theology at the Baptist Convention of Kenya’s general assembly. This is the denomination’s largest annual gathering where around 2,000 Baptist Christians come together.

July 1, 2024
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Around Africa

By Malawi, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Zambia

News from Malawi, South Sudan, Rwanda, Zambia and Tanzania.

Malawi

Central Bible School in Malawi was spotlighted here. The college’s library facilities are in need of improvement so a digital tools and training grant has been approved. This grant will equip each of the eight faculty members with a suitable smartphone, allowing them to install and utilise eVitabu as a valuable addition to the college’s physical library. To help the effective use of the platform, Dave or Geoff will be conducting online training for the faculty later this year.

Zambia

Pastor Lawson Limau is spearheading the development of an introductory course in theology and pastoral care, drawing from resources adapted from the eVitabu library. Recognising the potential impact of this initiative, APF has awarded Lawson an Africa Training Partner annual grant. This grant will enable him to deliver the pilot course to rural pastors throughout eastern Zambia during 2024.

Tanzania

Due to the ongoing demand for their teaching ministry, Heavenlight and Kesiah Luoga (pictured above with Victor Imanaturikumwe) have been awarded an African Partner Training grant for 2024. This grant will help them to conduct training workshops throughout the year, both locally and regionally. Recognising Heavenlight’s desire to expand his reach, APF has also approved funding for video recording equipment so Heavenlight can record training videos for social media and eVitabu. This includes a high-quality camera phone, basic lighting equipment, and a tripod.

Rwanda

The Let There Be Light solar project continues to shine brightly in Kigeme Diocese, Rwanda. By providing reliable light to clergy families and parishes, the project offers numerous benefits: brighter living spaces, opportunities for studying after dark, enhanced security, and even income generation opportunities. We recently sent additional funding to ensure the project’s sustainability by replacing batteries for some of the beneficiaries.

Our prayers continue for Rev. Victor Imanaturikumwe, the Legal Representative of Église Évangélique de la Bonne Volonté au Rwanda and a passionate advocate for eVitabu. Victor has a plan for competency-based training that complies with Rwandan government regulations for faith-based leaders. He is seeking funding to deliver this training programme and he is also assisting APF in finding a venue for a conference in September.

We also pray for Victor’s predecessor, Pastor Japhet Matugoma, who faces an urgent need to relocate his family home due to recent flooding and landslides (pictured above).

South Sudan

In recent weeks, APF approved a grant for the Saints Revival Committee in Aweil district to procure and distribute 600 local language Bibles. Also, Alex Sokiri of New Nation Church in Juba writes seeking support for the church school (pictured above). Founded for orphaned and underprivileged children living near the church, the school currently serves children in three classrooms. However, the classroom block front façade remains incomplete. With rainy season approaching, Alex is urgently seeking assistance to complete the front part of the school building to ensure the safety and well-being of the students.

April 4, 2024
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Team ministry in Africa’s Great Lakes Region

By Burundi, eVitabu, Rwanda, Tanzania, Training

Victor Imanaturikumwe and Heavenlight Luoga met at an APF event four years ago and have stayed in contact ever since. Recently, with APF’s support, they met up once again to run training workshops for rural pastors in western Rwanda. Victor explains what happened.

Many local churches in rural Rwanda are fragile as pastors have few opportunities for training. This makes tackling the spiritual needs of the community a constant struggle. As I am a beneficiary of APF theological scholarship support, I am now committed to spending my time contributing to effective ministry here in Rwanda by running pastors’ conferences and trainings in rural contexts.

Recently, Pastor Heavenlight and Kesia Luoga from Deeper Life Church in Karagwe, Tanzania, travelled to join me in Rwanda and together we led a training conference for rural church leaders. Some of the leaders had received almost no in-service training so this is vitally important work.

I found APF’s eVitabu app a very helpful tool when I was studying for my theological degree. As textbooks are so hard to find in Rwanda, all the materials used during the conference came from eVitabu. Pastor Luoga and I selected and adapted resources on eVitabu and developed a conference programme to equip the pastors with skills in teaching and preaching the Word of God and in leadership.

We also trained the pastors on how to set up small income projects and adapt their farming practices to meet the challenges of a changing climate and poor soil. The overall theme of the conference was ‘Being a Good Shepherd’ and the leading Bible passage was John 10:1-21.

The conference hosted forty pastors and church leaders from different churches and communities in western Rwanda. We are already registering a lot of impact in their communities and churches and we want to continue to invest in them so they become agents of spiritual and community transformation.

I first met Pastor Luoga in Uganda at an APF regional leaders’ conference in 2018. Since then, he has become like a spiritual director to me. He is a very experienced pastor, ministry trainer, teacher, preacher and mentor. I believe APF is helping to break barriers by encouraging fellowship with other pastors from different backgrounds and cultures. We all benefit from one another’s insights and expertise when we work together in partnership.

I would like to thank all APF donors, friends and supporters who give generously of your money and your time in prayer to support APF and its partners in Africa. Know that your gifts are being used well and are making a big difference here in rural Rwanda and across Africa.

After training in western Rwanda, Heavenlight travelled south into Burundi to work with groups of untrained pastors serving in churches near Gitega. Gitega is the new capital of Burundi and it is the newest capital city in the world, replacing Bujumbura in 2019.

December 14, 2022
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Training in Burundi

By Burundi, Tanzania, Training

Heavenlight Luoga is a key APF training partner from north-west Tanzania. Alongside Kesia, his wife, they use eVitabu to run workshops for untrained pastors from rural communities such as the recent programme they provided in Burundi.

The training was an amazing time. My wife, Kesia, and I based our training on resources from APF’s eVitabu app. eVitabu was a great help in preparing the programme for the pastors and wives. The key resources we chose on eVitabu were from Next Leadership and written by Revd Dr Kate Coleman.

Revd Kate’s material covered many important aspects of family life and marriage. We explored together how marriage was designed to reflect the God who created us in His image, both male and female, and who is recreating us to be like Him in loving relationships, deeply connected with each other and in partnership through agreement and cooperation in a way that honours the marital bond.

We looked at how unresolved issues can wreck marriages and destroy families and discussed problem solving and conflict resolution in marriage.

We also talked about repentance and forgiveness within family and married life. At the end of the training, there was an opportunity for husbands and wives to renew their marriage covenants together.

So many pastors told me that this teaching was completely new to them. Wives were praising God and even during breaktimes they gathered into groups to continue to discuss the teaching. Pastors were so happy to sit down side-by-side with their wives. This is not a normal thing!

Altogether, over 60 attended the training. We had hoped for 50. But success is not just about numbers, it was found in seeing husbands and wives together, repairing and building their relationships and hearing their testimonies after the training.

One of the pastors at the training was a Church of Burundi pastor called Revd Maendeleo. He enjoyed the training so much that he made a call to Bishop Evariste Nijimbere from the local Buhiga Diocese. I then received a voicemail from the Bishop asking me to come and join him in June to lead some seminars for the Diocese.

In more good news, a wider door has been opened for the next year. All pastors in the training programme agreed to sponsor themselves for three days of training next year if I can cover the transport cost for Kesia and myself. Kesia will facilitate the pastor’s wives training and I will facilitate the pastors training, then in the evening all of us will come together. We are told to expect 100 or even 150 for that training. I am not the one who asked to do this but the idea came from within the group themselves. Of course, for me this is a great fruit.

The journey from Karagwe in Tanzania to Buhiga in Burundi and back is long. We travelled by bus, taxi and motorbike and had to negotiate the Covid-19 testing challenges at the border between the countries. I was tired and suffered from fatigue at the end of training and after the journey but I had no regrets at all.

I look back to what God has done for me and for all participants and, for the sake of God’s Kingdom, I am full of joy in my heart.

April 1, 2022
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The View from Tanzania

By Covid-19, Tanzania

Unlike most African countries, the Tanzanian government did not announce a strict lockdown. Churches, mosques, and other religious buildings have remained open for worshippers, although schools, sports and other gatherings deemed unnecessary were closed until June. From Karagwe, a remote rural town in Kagera Region in the far north-west corner of Tanzania, Pastor Heavenlight Luoga shares his reflections on what God has been reminding him of during the crisis.

“This pandemic teaches us how God is in control of this wonderful and fragile world. During the crisis, there are both dangers and opportunities. Dangers because thousands and thousands of people have been infected and died. Also, there is the related economic crisis with people losing their jobs.

“Opportunities have come because many people are turning to God. We have seen, all over the East African countries, people crying and praying to God because of Covid-19. It is striking the world and all of us realise we are most certainly not in control, ‘we’ meaning humanity as a whole. The fragility of life is emphasised, the limitations of knowledge become plain and human capacity is challenged.
People here in Karagwe were in fear concerning the limitations of local health infrastructure. Our highly social lifestyle and overcrowded homes all created a huge fear of the virus. Many expected to see uncountable dead bodies on the streets. Thank God this has not yet come about in Tanzania. Our government recently announced that the situation here is not too bad. The number of people affected in hospitals is coming down. Our government prepared 1,000 beds at Saba Saba Exhibition Ground, but today all of them have been removed.

“We see wealthy countries investing millions of dollars for security purposes, on health insurance and social safety nets, but still many people in those countries are dying from coronavirus.

“It is a reminder to us that God is in control of the world and he can do whatever he wants to do, without any resistance. In response, we start looking up. As Deuteronomy 32:39 says:

‘Look now; I myself am he!
There is no other god but me!
I am the one who kills and gives life;
I am the one who wounds and heals;
no one can be rescued from my powerful hand!'”

July 5, 2020
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Swahili commentary sets back in print!

By Tanzania

The Akan people of Ghana have a saying: “Se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi.” Roughly translated it means, “It is not taboo to go back and fetch what you forgot.” From the proverb comes the word ‘Sankofa’, which means, “Go back and get it.” The symbol of Sankofa is a bird moving forward but with its head turned backwards, in effect going forward while remaining conscious of the past and the wisdom contained there.

At APF, we have had a sense of the importance of moving forward but looking back for some time. Our friend and partner Rev Dr Kate Coleman put it to us like this: “When you get on the train, choose the seat facing backwards.” Move forward but remain conscious of where you’ve come from.

So, while eVitabu, Jubilee Trees, Growing Greener, solar energy projects, locally-led pastor training in-service workshops and many other new and exciting initiatives absorb much of our time, we’ve also been keen not to forget good things from APF’s past. To go back and fetch what we forgot.

For example, our Tanzanian friends and partners have been asking for a reprint of our New Testament Bible Commentary sets ‘Ufafanuzi Wa Agano Jipya’ for some time. Written in the 1990s by Sister Dorothy Almond, a Church Army Tanzania missionary from Yorkshire, Ufafanuzi Wa Agano Jipya remains to our knowledge the only complete New Testament Bible commentary written in Swahili, not a translation into Swahili. With its clear language and simple explanations, demand remains high amongst poorly trained rural pastors who rarely have access to any other books beside a Bible.

It has taken us a while to get it right but at last, three thousand copies recently landed at the port in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania from printers in India. APF partners in Tanzania including Heavenlight Luoga (Karagwe), Amos Nkini (Arusha), Timothy Saulo (Mwanza) and Emanuel Mhina (Morogoro) have been busy distributing hundreds of copies to rural church leaders across their regions.

Another 500 sets are available from the shelves of SomaBiblia Christian bookshops across Tanzania where they are selling at heavily subsidised prices to ensure they remain affordable to pastors.

We are deeply indebted to our generous donors in the UK and our committed partners in Tanzania whose support have made the reprint of Ufafanuzi Wa Agano Jipya possible.   Asante Sana!

Please pray

For Heavenlight, Amos, Timothy and Heavenlight as they distribute commentary sets at training workshops and through local bookstores.

That the faith of rural pastors using Ufafanuzi wa Agano Jipya would be enriched and their ministries strengthened.

For other APF literature projects such as the distribution of local language Bibles funded by OM Special Projects.

For growing links with African theological seminaries, especially connections with the Network of African Congregational Theology (NetACT).

October 24, 2019
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