A Tanzanian church experience

We had a great experience taking part in a church service over here this Sunday just been. Corinne's brother and sister in law were over from Australia visiting and someone happened to mention in front of a good Tanzanian friend that she is training to be a pastor back in Australia. Well...that was all it took to have a preaching appointment booked for her on the coming Sunday, in a church none of us had ever been too. Not only that, but I was booked to help with the worship and to sing a song or two. I love how spontaneously things come about here, especially if you're willing to say yes to most opportunities.

Sunday we kitted up in our Tanzanian Sunday best- really just a good excuse to wear our 'kitenge' which is the tailored outfits the women wear here. We caught daladalas to the other side of town to the Free Pentekostal Church of Sombetini. The Pentecostal churches here are known for their vibrant style and passionate worship, preaching and prayer. This church was no exception! I've said many times how much I love to hear Tanzanians sing and Sunday morning was another great time of worship. I felt really privileged to have the chance to sing a few songs with our friend Roberti, who is a great worship leader. I also had the chance to play and sing a song I had written, in English and Swahili. I love how Tanzania constantly pushes me outside of my comfort zone, and it's always such a rewarding thing when you get past your fears and just do something.

Gemma preached up a storm and God was in the place. She did a great job, especially as she hadn't spoken with a translator before. I was hugely impressed with how willing she was to just step up and take the opportunity when it came up.

Beautiful people, passionate worship and a great God...it made for a very good Sunday morning that I plan to repeat soon!

Mt Meru and the (almost) end of a term

It's crazy how quickly this year is flying past. With one week in Arusha and one week out in schools, it feels like every month goes twice as fast. I guess that's just a really long way to justify my lack of keeping up to date with the blog and keeping in touch with people. Sorry!

It's been a great month and a half since I last wrote, with heaps of adventures, a few dramas and lots of fun. Our student teachers are feeling the 'end-of-year-itis' that often hits at this time of year. To be honest, I'm feeling it a little bit myself! For the students, they have a pile of assignments and looming exams in the next three weeks. We definitely work them hard here at JTTC, but they will be awesome teachers for it. Already we can see so much personality and ability emerging and I have every faith that these guys are called to be great teachers.

On our side of things, we are working pretty hard right now trying to get things prepared for January 3rd when the students start back for next year. There's a long list of units that need finishing off...my current project is a unit on how to teach literacy. Actually, that's been my project for the last 3 months and I am very close to seeing the light at the end of that tunnel. Please pray for energy and wisdom as we write these units. The challenge is to teach good, sound teaching practice and to fit it well into the Tanzanian context in a way that is best for children here. It's teaching me a lot about teaching!

On another note, I'm happy to say I made it to the top of Mt Meru last weekend. What an great climb and incredible view at the top!Mt Meru is situated in the Arusha National Park which is about a 40 minute drive from where I live. You know you've arrived somewhere pretty cool when you drive past families of giraffes and elephants by the side of the road. The first 2 days are about 4/5 hours climbing. Then the 3rd day you leave the hut at 1am and climb 5 hours to the summit (in the dark). After about half hour up there we climbed all the way to the bottom of the mountain, arriving at about 5pm. The summit of Meru is 4568m and you look across to Mt Kilimanjaro from there. Needless to say, I slept very well the night I got back to Arusha.

So three more weeks of school for our students, then a couple of weeks writing and grading exams. After that I'm very much looking forward to a 2 1/2 week holiday. Thanks for the emails...I really love to hear from people and keep in touch with what's going on back home. Keep them coming!

xx Jo

Joelle