Ministry is in full swing here in Tanzania, with a number of Literature Projects underway at current time.
First off, “Libraries For Pastors”. At the beginning of this year JR, Mir and myself put together 300 libraries for rural Pastors living in Muslim dominated areas of the country (mostly the Swahili Coast). Mir, David, Daniel, JR, Yohana Pam, and Fathili have now distributed 185 Libraries to every Pastor & Church in Tunduru District, Liwale District, and Mafia Island District.
Daniel, pictured above, has been an incredible help this year in gathering research of a number of different districts south of Dar-es-Salaam. It is giving us great insight into some of the most unreached if not THE most unreached areas of Tanzania. We hope to finish distributing libraries to pastors and churches in Kilwa District, Lindi District, and Lindi Municipal in the months to come.
These libraries are life transforming and a huge boost the moral and ministry of the pastors who receive them. The pastors are from across a wide range of different Pentecostal and Evagelical back grounds, as well as Main Line Churches (Anglican, Lutheran, etc.)
Pray for them as they are serving in very difficult areas. Pray for real fruit and breakthrough in their ministry to their Muslim neighbors!
Second, “Action Bibles”. We JUST received our order of 26,000 Swahili Action Bibles. Miroslav, received the shipment at our warehouse on last Saturday. I would like to thank a couple of key players into making this happen. First, to Soma Biblia for all their help in clearing the books through the Port of Dar and secondly, to Pamoja in Arusha for their work to translate the Action Bible into Swahili form English.
We will begin distributing these at the beginning of August, to PEFA churches across the country who received Libraries last year and then we will move onto the coast where we have been distributing libraries this year.
Please be praying for the children and churches that will receive these Bibles and pray that the Action Bibles there in Dar remain safe from any sort of natural disaster or thief while they sit in our store room waiting to be distributed.
The Third project, “Swahili & Arabic New Testaments”. Please keep this in prayer, as it has been delayed in coming to Tanzania. Please pray that all 10,000 copies make it to Tanzania safely, as they are currently in transit from Japan.
Fourth, “Audio Bibles”. With the help of Southeastern University and Oral Roberts University we are currently distributing some 460 Audio Bibles in the Sukuma language, to very rural villages, where many Sukuma people have never even heard of Jesus.
Both teams have been an absolute joy to lead, and we have had SO many testimonies of people accepting Jesus and others being blown away by the gift of an Audio Bible. The teams did an incredible job of sharing the gospel, explaining how to use the players, and praying with families With the help of one more team from the Slavic Missionary Bible School in Jacksonville Florida, we will have ALL the Sukuma Audio Bibles distributed.
Thank you to everyone who prayed like crazy when the Audio Bibles did not make the flight from South Africa to Tanzania. Some of you might remember, as I had to let all 1,500 be shipped by road from Jo-burg SA, to Dar-es-Salaam Tanzania in the back of a truck. They ALL made it safely to Tanzania!
We are partnering with other missionary groups to get the 500 Audio Bibles in the Maasai language distributed. Then in October of this year we will be combining the distribution of 500 Audio Bibles in the Datooga/Taturu language with a famine relief project. We are going to be partnering with a team from Elim Fellowship for that distribution.
We have been very careful not to just give these Audio Bibles away, but to make sure that we carefully explain their purpose and the reasons why we want them to receive this gift.
