The Eads to Tanzania

Celebrating the Holidays in Tanzania

This is Jana.

This fall, we are experiencing our second holiday season in Tanzania. This week we enjoyed getting out the Christmas tree and ornaments, eating turkey and apple pie, listening to familiar holiday music, and spending time with some other Americans one afternoon to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday.

I hope you had a blessed Thanksgiving! 

 
 

Home Report from Jana

I stood up and shared a testimony during ushuda (testimony) time in church Sunday morning. I shared with the Shadi congregation that I have been praying for the last year that my children would learn Swahili, and that last evening Grace told me that she understood Swahili, that she loved talking in Swahili. Join me in praising God for doing this! A year ago she did not like playing with Tanzanian kids and did not want to learn Swahili.

We are getting to know many new neighbors and church members in our new home in Shadi. However, nobody can replace the neighbors that we had in Sweya. Somebody that Grace and Silas have been very fond of since the very beginning has been Mchungaji (Pastor) Paulo from Sweya. A special blessing that we have had during this transition is to see him here in Shadi almost every day. He is temporarily doing work at Tumaini to make water filters. One afternoon this week while Silas napped, Grace sat outside with Paulo for over an hour just chatting with him while he worked. He is a very gentle, kind, and jovial man. I snapped a picture from our front door of Grace sitting with him. As she sat there I overheard him asking her several questions in Swahili and prompting her to answer in Swahili, to which she gladly complied. 

We had our second group of fourteen Tumaini kids come over for the afternoon on Saturday. In this picture they were all devouring their soda and peanuts.

 

A Difference in Aesthetics

Abeli, a friend of mine here, made a comment a couple of weeks ago about our couch. It is one of those pieces of furniture that Jana and I love. A simple piece of wood furniture with foam cushions, covered in dark brown fabric. 

I appreciated Abeli's honesty, but was a little surprised when he asked me "Why would you ever buy a couch like that?!" 

"What?" I asked. "Is it not made very well?"

"No, it's made just fine. But why would you paint the wood black?"

I responded by saying that I thought that black looked like a sharp color and that brown cushions hid stains when my children played on them. He said "yeah...I just don't understand you wazungu (white people). You buy something nice and then have it painted black. Why not blue or green or red?" 

My response was, "I think that would be a little too bright for me."

"Yeah...It's probably the same reason why you bought tile for your house that looks dirty."

I laughed.

My Objectives in Church Observations

Yesterday, I posted about my first church observation at Winner's Chapel. I gave a brief description of what I am hoping to accomplish over the next eight Sundays. My purpose in visiting most of these churches will be to learn from fellow believers about how ministry is done in Tanzania. Others, such as Winner's Chapel, I will strongly disagree with. Seeing a number of these churches, both those that are gospel-preaching and those that are falsely-teaching, will help me to understand the breadth of Christianity's presence in Tanzania.

In summary...

• I want to know what God is doing in Tanzania. God has been good to raise up a number of works that are faithfully proclaiming the gospel in the Mwanza area. Some have been started by missionaries and others have been started by nationals. I want to visit a few of these churches with open eyes and ears. I am excited to rejoice in the good work that God is accomplishing through his servants.
• I want to understand better how a Tanzanian church functions in contrast to an American church. Because of differences in culture, the existence of certain traditional beliefs, challenges particular to this region (such as poverty, limited opportunities for education, etc.) a church's ministry here will look different than a congregation of a similar kind in America. It is important for me to learn from others who are already doing the work here.
• I want to understand how Tanzanian churches differ from one another. Differences in church worship, church structure, church meeting places, etc. vary from congregation to congregation; from denomination to denomination. By visiting a number of different kinds of churches I can learn about their distinguishing characteristics.
• I want to understand what kinds of trends or false beliefs are influencing Tanzania and how other gospel-preaching churches are combating them. The task of standing up for the gospel is not unique to any one kind of church. If a church is proclaiming the gospel, it is also responsible to guard against teachings that counter that belief. The prosperity gospel would serve as one example of a false belief that is strongly influencing the Tanzanian church in general. Learning how other gospel-preaching churches are combating this false belief may help me in my teaching and preaching in the future.

My First Church Observation at Winner's Chapel

My internship at the church in Sweya officially ended a week ago. Rob and I have decided that over the next two months, I will spend my Sundays visiting eight other different kinds of churches in the Mwanza area in order to understand more about the religious climate of this region.

Numbers of the denominations that I am acquanted with in America are respresented here, but the way that their ideas, beliefs, and practices have been adapted here looks different. In America, if I hear the word Lutheran, I have a very clear picture in my head of the various kinds of Lutheran churches that are present in America. If I hear the word Baptist, I have some very clear ideas of the different kinds of Baptist churches that are in America. The same goes with the titles Pentecostal, Catholic, Assemblies of God, Non-Denominational, Seventh-Day Adventist, etc. But, those same labels are worn by churches here that look very different. 

I want to be able to understand how church life in Tanzania is different than church life in America. As a theology teacher and a mentor of pastors here, I need to understand what kind of errors the churches have to deal with. I need to know kinds of philosophies and beliefs that are influencing church theology and practice here. I need to understand what kind of relationship national churches here have with missionaries from the outside, what kinds of efforts or lack of effort have been put toward reproducing the church here, etc.

There is also a whole host of denominations that are here that have no connection to the West. Some of them are strictly "home-grown". Also, other churches from African nations have started church works here in Tanzania. So, I don't even have an understanding for these kinds of churches or their belief or practices.

So yesterday, I made my first observation visit to a church on the other side of town called Winner's Chapel. It is a work that was started by a church out of Nigeria called Faith Tabernacle, and the church's bishop is named David Odeyepo.  Odeyepo was a disciple of Kenneth Copeland, and his churches are throughout Africa teaching that sickness, poverty, or any personal trouble are not a part of the plan of God or the life of a believer. If a believer is in right fellowship with God, he should only expect success, prosperity, and blessing. I don't think I have to tell you that this kind of teaching here is very popular. While I attended both the first and second service yesterday, I took copious notes.

Since returning home, those notes have turned into 9 pages single-spaced in rough draft form. I plan to write such a summary for each of my church visits in order to record my observations, gather illustrations for future teaching and preaching, and give myself the opportunity to think a little bit harder about what I have seen and heard. Eventually these will probably be included as an an appendix in my ethnography or it may end up being an entirely separate paper in itself, comparing and contrasting the churches that I visit. If you have an interest in reading this summary, email me and I will be sure to forward it to you.

Saturday Afternoon Visitors

A routine that we, the Howells, and Beth have begun is to invite a portion (1/4th) of the Tumaini kids down each Saturday afternoon. We had our first group, the youngest ones, over for the afternoon yesterday. They spent a lot of time enjoying Grace's and Silas' duplos and wood blocks. After that we brought out sodas and a snack (peanuts). Afterwards they went home with big grins, asking when they could come again.

Here are some pictures from their visit.

    

Funny Everyday Moments

Recently, we got a lot of feedback from people that would like to hear more from me (Jana) and the kids on this blog. I will try to regularly post something from us.

We have been settling into the new house in Shadi and learning our new environment. I took last week 'off' from a lot of our routines (pre-school with Grace, personal language study, etc.) and today have begun trying to establish more routine at home. The kids and I have ventured out into Shadi a few times this week- to walk to the beach, to visit church people, or to go to a duka (shop) for matches. We have also gone up the hill to play with the Tumaini kids. I have noticed that the weekends especially are the best time to spend with the Tumaini kids, because throughout the school week they have a lot more routine that I am still getting acquainted with.

On Sunday afternoon while Silas was napping, Grace went out to play with some of the older Tumaini girls. After 10 minutes of her being out, I glanced out the window to see her marching along a path loudly singing with her arms in the air, with about 10 girls following behind her giggling and trying to mimick her. She was LOVING the attention!

About a half hour later, I went up to the swing area with Silas. He quickly had a small crowd of kids around him (mostly the boys). I peeked closer to see what he was doing, and he was pulling his eyelids down (see picture below) saying, "see the blood...see! see the blood!." The kids all had no idea what he was saying, but they thought it was hilarious.

The Last Week

We have moved into our new house last Saturday. The last week we have been slowly settling in, excited to get a spot to live in out here in Shadi. I am also settling into a more regular work week, so posting should be more consistent.



Yesterday, I went to Nyakaliro to listen to the Bible Institute student's preaching. I enjoyed listening and being able to give instruction about how they could improve their preparation and delivery. Going out there and coming back consisted of eight hours of bumping along dirt roads, riding in packed vehicles in a downpour. One of the cars (we found out as we started on the trip) did not have working windshield wipers. The driver kept sticking his hand out his window and manually moving the wiper blade to clear a space for viewing the on-coming traffic. With buses speeding by at reckless speeds, spraying muddy water all over the windshield, it was not a boring trip.



I also wanted to say that I got some great responses to my "Any Suggestions?" post. You should be seeing me answer some of the questions that I received in the coming month.