Update on Tanzania
by Ulf Bjorling SOC Field Worker
Once again I am returning from a very encouraging trip to East Africa where I have visited the schools in Uganda and Tanzania. I would like to take this opportunity to share testimonies that our director in Tanzania, Tony Visent, gets from former students. We have now had the schools in 8 different provinces in this country with 3 schools in each province. In March we are moving in to the 9th province.
Former students are constantly calling telling some incredible testimonies about how they have seen great fruits in their own lives and in their churches after they have been through the school. Some of them testify about how their churches have grown from 50 members to over 300 in a short time because they have been so full of the life of God. Some of them has been inspired to plant new churches. One Pastor has started 10 churches after he had been through the school.
Another common testimony is how they have been delivered of fear in the school. Especially in the provinces of Tabora and Singida there are some powerful strongholds of witchcraft where many pastors fear to enter and would not even think of going there to preach. Former students are now testifying about how they have been delivered from this fear and felt equipped to preach in this areas which have been considered to be very dangerous for Christians. Some of them have even planted churches in these areas.
One lesson in the school which has been very important is the lesson about home and church relationship. It is common that pastors are too busy to have time for their own families. But now they testify about how God though this lesson has dealt with them and they have got a new and wonderful relationship to their wife and children.
The tithing is also an area where we hear good testimonies about how God through the teaching of the school has dealt with pastors. Many of them say that they used to have the idea that the tithing that people brought belonged to themselves as pastors, but now they have been convinced that the tithing belongs to God! In on school they cried out during the lesson and said that they have to stop the teaching that they can repent before they continue and they came forward to repent.
It is common with envy between pastors in this country. Some of them fear when there is a new church planted close to their own and they try to make the life hard for that pastor. Pastors who have been through the school testify how they no longer feel this. Instead they bless each other and have peace with what God is doing in their own churches instead of envying others or fear that they will take their church members.
Many pastors and bishops with much influence go through the school. Of those 29 that graduated this month in the city of Moshi all but 2 were bishops or senior pastors. It is evident that the Lord is doing a work. We can't do this in our own strength through advertisement or hard work, this is a work of the holy Spirit!
Glory be to Jesus!
Ulf Bjorling
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