My First Week in Tanzania
This has been a full week!!!! We started the clergy retreat on Wednesday and my part was over on Friday, thank goodness! When we started, I was scheduled to do two sessions on Friday but we had some guest so I was able to sit out on Friday, which I was glad to do. So I ended up doing two sessions on Wednesday and two on Thursday, and then had a short recap and wrap up on Friday. Each session that I did had to be at least one hour long so for me that was a lot of speaking.
I spoke for three sessions on obedience, starting with Adam’s disobedience and ending with Jesus’s obedience. My key texts were Romans 5:12-19 and 1 Samuel 15:22-23. For my last session, I used Matthew 22:36-39 as the key for obedience. Obedience is easier if we first love the Lord with all out heart etc. and this is the place where revival starts and is sustained.
Our day would start out at 9:00 am and I would get home around 6:30-7:00 pm. Bishop Sekelwa would be even later getting home, 9:30-10:00 pm each night. Saturday was a business day for Bishop with his clergy so I had a much needed day of rest.
Sunday was all day. We got to church at 9:40 am and started in with 30 minutes of prayer then praise and worship, lots of praise and worship. We ended the service at about 2:30 pm, had a break for lunch at the church, finished up some business and recapping the week, and then ended the retreat at 7:30 pm. We finally made it home around 9:00 pm. You would think that I’m to old for this stuff, but I’m loving every minute of it!!
It was a great honor to speak to this large group of clergy, about 40-45, and their wives. I got to meet some truly amazing men and women this week.
I’ll be staying with Bishop Sekelwa for about two more weeks before I head to Dodoma to be with Bishop Jackson. We will be trying to visit as many of his churches as we can in the next two weeks. I’m really looking forward to visiting the churches of the rectors that I met this week!