Schultz Family in Tanzania

The past three weeks have been filled with tons activity. It all started the first week of July when we welcomed a mission team from Ohio and Virginia to Tanzania. They came specifically to help Greg and I minister to the people near our church, reach out to the lost with the gospel and help us with some lightweight construction projects. We had such a good time fellowshipping with new friends! It was a much needed boost to our soul. In case you are wondering, there is an open invitation for anyone to come and visit us. You won’t be disappointed.

After we spent 2 1/2 days on safari witnessing first hand God’s amazing creation we put on our “Double V” T-shirts and began 3 intense days of ministry to the local children. “Double V” is our version of Vacation Bible School. I planned some really great games like, Blob tag, dodge ball, big ball volley ball and a few others. After spending an hour with these games the kids began to beg me to finally play football. Not American football but soccer. I couldn’t believe it. They play soccer every day with a ball made from grocery bags. I had a 4’ big ball, several dodge-balls and plans for games that would make them giggle with glee but all they wanted to do is play soccer. So we did. We had several hundred kids show up by the end of the day. One of our visitors from America preached and Greg translated. I quickly scrapped all the game plans and turned our 3-day rally into a soccer championship, just like they were doing in South Africa. The timing was perfect. By then end of the 3 day rally, more than 20 kids received Christ as their savior. Some of them will be getting baptized next week if they get permission from their parents.

The ministry team also rolled up their sleeves and helped us beautify the property and buildings. We sanded, primed, smooth coated and finally painted the interior cement walls of the church. The benches we use for pews received a much needed coat of varnish. Several ladies painted the tin roof a burgundy red color while the men dug holes and installed cement posts along the property line. It’s hard to believe we got all of that done in just 3 days.

As soon as the team left (quite exhausted I must add) I got to work on the final details for importing a 40’ cargo container I shipped from America. The Lord has thus far blessed us tremendously by answering our prayer concerning this container. We have gotten tax-exemption on all of the contents just one day after it arrived in port in Mombassa Kenya. We should have it at our house in the next 3 weeks or so.
I also have begun working on a Saturday soccer activity. Since the kids love soccer so much Greg and I thought it would be a great idea to have an organized soccer activity and then conclude with a Bible lesson. I think it will be a huge opportunity to reach the many kids in our area and begin teaching them to live godly lives.

Please pray:
Pray for the safe and timely arrival of our container to our property and the funds to finish paying for the transportation.
Pray for our Saturday Soccer activity
Pray for continued good health and safty
Pray for God’s will concerning a possible move to another rental house. Details in the next letter.

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This entry is tagged: Kingereka, Ministry, Salvation, Updates
Posted by BJ at 7:04 PM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

It has been busy around here the past few days. We had a wonderful service on Sunday. Bro Greg preached a great message from Colossians 1 and we had several visitors. One of the visitors named Peter frightened me when I first met him. He was barefoot, very dirty and didn't speak to me when I greeted him. He obviously had been sleeping outdoors on the ground because his clothes and hair were full of dirt and he had a particular odor on him. He interrupted the service a few times with random babblings. I kept a close eye on him. After the service ended it was suggested that a few of the members gather with Peter and pray with him. Afterwards, one of the ladies volunteered to take him home and feed him lunch. He was apprehensive and asked if she was going to beat him. They tried to reassure him that she simply wanted to help him. I don't know if he allowed her to feed him or not but he certainly needs to know Jesus, the Bread of Life. Pray for Peter please.

It occurred to me the other day that I asked you to pray for Daniel concerning his health but I haven't given an update on him. He is doing very well now. His fever left shortly after he started taking an antibiotic and he is back to his normal self. The swelling that was in his lymph nodes is completely gone. Thank you so much for your prayers.

In just a few days we will be co-hosting a visiting group from the USA. The 26-person group is coming to help Greg and I minister to the community of Kingereka. We have been putting together all the details for the various ministry and work projects that will take place. One of the most exciting works will be our "Double V" youth rally. It is our version of VBS, which will take place July 10, 11 & 17. I expect that we will have several hundred kids and many parents attend the rally. Pray for souls to be saved, safety as we play the games (Big ball games) and the security of the whole program and staff. I was told that there was one missionary who nearly had a riot take place at one of his VBS weeks. The kids were picking up stones to throw in protest of something we're still not sure of. I don't expect that trouble at all but you will still pray about the security of the rally, wont you?

While talking to the principal at the local school, I was invited to teach the religious studies class on Fridays. This will be a great opportunity to minister to the children and their parents. Pray that this invitation becomes official and that I am effective in this ministry.

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This entry is tagged: Answered prayers, Kingereka, Updates
Posted by BJ at 12:36 PM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

On Sunday I preached a message entitled "4 amazing statements concerning Jesus". I used the text in John 1:1-4, which tells us that: 1. Jesus is eternal, 2. He is not God the Father- He is a distinct person of the Trinity. 3. Nevertheless, He is God, 4. He is the creator of everything. That's quite a message to preach in English and honestly, even though I wrote out every word of the message, I struggled quite a bit with the Swahili. My vocabulary is still pretty limited. I have a goal this year to improve my Swahili to the point where I can easily translate for you when you come here to visit us. :)

This week we were blessed to receive 50 Swahili Bibles to use in our ministry. A church in Tennessee did all the work in finding the Bibles, ordering them, and Praise the Lord- paying for them. They even had them hand delivered from a city 1 1/2 hours away to our neighborhood. What a blessing! Now I have the difficult task of distributing them. It's not difficult to hand them out- it's difficult because everyone wants one. Because we freely hand out John and Romans booklets I am asked all the time for a complete Bible.

Pray for Daniel. He has had a high fever the past few days. We are watching him to see if he begins to show the signs of malaria or something else. One of our hardest jobs is being both pediatrician and pharmacist for our children. Thankfully, our kids have been very healthy overall and the Lord has had his hand of protection on them.

John looks to be in good condition this week. I was glad to see him at church because he is the one who leads our singing. Thank you for praying for him.

Just for perspective:
On one trip to the grocery store, I paid $31 for 4.5 lbs of mozzarella cheese (which turned out to be spoiled- still working on getting my money back), $8 for a gal of milk, $8 for the cheapest cereal I could find and on the way home, $90 for 18 gal of gas. (I mentioned this on my Facebook status recently but my figures were off by a few dollars.)

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This entry is tagged: Family, Health, Kingereka, Preaching, Swahili
Posted by BJ at 1:14 PM | Permalink | What say you?(1)

Today I jumped into Swahili preaching headfirst. I am certain that I slaughtered all the grammar rules since I did all the translating myself. I preached from Psalms 119:17-24 about how David's life was consumed with knowing, obeying and following the Word of God. The people responded well and I think understood me fairly well.

I learned today that John, a man in our church was involved in a motorcycle accident on Saturday morning. If I understand the story correctly, John and his wife were on a motorcycle when they lost control and dumped their motorcycle. His wife was riding sidesaddle when she fell off and fortunately only banged her knee. John landed on his face pretty hard and also skinned up his arms and legs. To add insult to injury: a friend saw the accident and decided to help take them to the hospital. All three people climbed on the tiny motorcycle and began to head to the hospital. Along the way, they again lost control and had another small accident. John is doing all right but is in a lot of pain. Please pray for them. You may remember that he was the builder in our video. His wife still has not received Jesus as her Savior but clings to her good works for salvation.

We have been at our house for 1 1/2 weeks and have gotten mostly moved back in. We keep fighting the lizards for ground however. When we left for the US last year they invaded our house in mass and have squatted near every window. The eviction process has been slow and gruesome but we are winning.

Please pray for:
John and his wife.
Our health- the kids have been getting bit by mosquitoes at night. This could lead to malaria.
An elderly lady named Faibe has been ill for several weeks now.

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This entry is tagged: Church Planting, Kingereka, Preaching
Posted by BJ at 4:22 PM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

I can’t believe it is Wednesday already. Time sure flies when you’re busy cleaning up lizard droppings, dead cockroaches, and huge amounts of dust everywhere not to mention all the work I have been doing. (grin) We arrived in Moshi with very few problems. The Lord blessed our trip and sent some rain to knock down most of the dust. The border crossing went fairly well and only cost $100 for Caitlyn’s visa. She should have been free as a dependant of mine but all of my arguing couldn’t persuade the officer.

Sunday we had a good time at our church in Kingereka. The men in our church ran the whole service. It is a huge blessing to see that the church has not only kept things going while we were gone but they had 2 new visitors this Sunday as well. Our numbers are still few (we had about 25 on Sunday) but I believe there is real growth happening in the lives of our people. There are many people moving to our area and it won’t be too long before this village church becomes a city church.

Please pray for us as we get back into the swing of things. It’s a big adjustment. Pray for Cathy, she HATES dirt, rats, cockroaches (live or dead) and droppings from any animal, all of which we seem to have in abundance. Pray for me as I try to get my Swahili honed so that I can get back to preaching and pray for the kids as they have times when they miss their friends and family back home.

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This entry is tagged: Creepy Crawlies, Family, Kingereka, Living in Africa, Lizard
Posted by BJ at 12:42 AM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

After a 33-hour marathon of traveling we have completed the first leg of our journey and have arrived safely in Nairobi Kenya. We are going to spend a night or two here before making the 7-hour drive to Tanzania. The Lord blessed us greatly with an uneventful trip. Well, mostly uneventful...

The kids did great on the trip, especially 2-month old Caitlyn, but Daniel had a tendency to leave everything he had behind. The case for his Nintendo DS and possibly one game were left behind on the plane in London. That’s not too bad. We thought he lost the actual Nintendo DSi on the other plane. After an hour-long search of the plane we found it safely tucked away in his backpack. We still have all the kids with us- HA! and all of our luggage made it to Nairobi. All of it! Can you believe it?

Now, I just need to get the tickets for the shuttle to Tanzania and hope they don’t complain too much about the 19 pieces of luggage we have with us. We are also praying for an uneventful border crossing. Please join us in prayer for these items. Also, remember to pray for our family, we had a lot of tears saying goodbye to friends and family.

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Posted by BJ at 12:15 PM | Permalink | What say you?(1)

Greetings from a very hot Tanzania Africa. I so much more enjoy the 85-degree weather than the freezing cold we get in Michigan.
I have been very busy this past week tying up many loose ends. One of the things I needed to take care of was our rent payment. Every year we pay our rent 1 year in advance in the month of January. This year our landlord wanted to raise our rent $200 more per month making it $700 per month! I was really upset. Many of you know that I have been trying very hard to raise additional support. This year while home on furlough we had 3 new churches take us on for support and 1 church drop our support. I thought it was hard but acceptable to take three steps forward and one step backwards until the increase in rent made it three steps backward. I was very frustrated to say the least. I began to pray about this situation. I complained to the Lord that this country is going to kill my spirit and my ability to accomplish anything for God. It seems like they are constantly beating me down. Some thoughts came to mind while praying. 1st, the more battles I fight, statistically, the more battles I will loose. I mean, you can’t win them all, right? Then I thought: if the Lord really wants us to have this particular house (there is a shortage of good houses in our city at the moment) then it doesn’t matter how much the rent is, just pay it. So, I had peace about paying as much as $100 more in rent or moving out if it was going to cost more than that. I met with the landlord 2 days ago and to my surprise, the rent did not increase! Of course we will have to negotiate the amount for next year’s rent later this year. Praise the Lord!

One other item that needed my attention this trip was the oversight of the church plant in Kingereka. I arrived at our church for the Thursday afternoon prayer meeting. When I left we didn’t have a Thursday afternoon prayer meeting. Well, we use to but then we discovered that the market day was on Thursday so we moved it to Tuesday but there was a different village that had their market day on Tuesday so we moved it to Wednesday and then no one came. Ha! Needless to say I was really surprised that the people started their own prayer meeting and that when I arrived there was at least 50% of our Sunday crowd in attendance. We had a good time of prayer and a Bible challenge by one of the men in the church.

When Greg and I left for furlough, we left 3 men “in charge” of the services. Greg wrote enough sermon outlines to last until the end of January and left them with these 3 men. The plan was for them to rotate the preaching responsibility. The end of January has come and gone and while these 3 guys are capable men they are not preachers yet nor quite ready to write their own sermons. I have written more sermons and have made arrangements for people to preach the extra 4 months my family will be gone. Pray for the whole church. They are doing very well and seem to be genuinely growing in grace and truth.

This entry is tagged: Church Planting, Living in Africa, Updates
Posted by BJ at 5:57 PM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

Remember how the cast on Gilligan's Island went on a 3-hour tour and it ended up lasting nearly a generation? That's how I have been feeling the past 3 days.

Thank-you for your prayers for me as I travel to Tanzania. When I left Washington DC the plane experienced very heavy turbulence. There were times when all the passengers cried out in fear as the plane shook violently. I have a suspicion that the turbulence caused a problem to appear with a hydraulic pump. As soon as we landed in Rome Italy for fuel, they began to work on the pump trying to fix it. After sitting in the plane for 6 hours the airline decided they would let us wait inside the airport while they continued to work on the problem. We eventually made it to a local hotel until they fixed the problem. We finally left Rome after a 24-hour delay and have safely arrived in Ethiopia… only to find out that the connecting flight to Tanzania is delayed too. I hope to arrive in Tanzania soon, maybe before the end of the month. Ha!

I have always thought that traveling is not very enjoyable. I like to visit new place very much I just hate the process of getting there. However, on this trip I have had some really great opportunities to talk with many people about the Lord. There was one man named John who I talked to for at least an hour. Towards the end of the conversation he admitted to me that he did not believe that Jesus was neither God’s Son nor God himself. I very bluntly explained to him what was in store for all who reject Jesus. He wasn’t thrilled about that news but we parted ways agreeing to disagree. I am fairly certain I will never see John again or the others I was able to witness to but I know that the good seed of the gospel was planted today.

Thank you again for your prayers for my family and me.

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Posted by BJ at 12:48 PM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

Today I am making my way back to Tanzania for a short visit. You may remember that we were supposed to have returned to Africa 2 weeks ago but because of a new addition to our family we have delayed our return. Our baby is due the end of March. Many have asked about Cathy's health. She is doing very well; for that we are very thankful. Please remember to pray for her and the kids as I am away in Africa. Pray for my travels today and tomorrow. And pray that I will be able to get everything set up properly at our church and home to cover our delay.
 
In addition to tying up all the loose ends in Tanzania I am going to search for a piece of property to purchase. I am looking for something on which we can build a new church plant. I am also going to look into the possibility of renting a building in another town for a third church plant if the Lord wills. Pray that God would give me clear direction and favor as I work on these things.
Thank you for your thoughts and prayers for us.     

This entry is tagged: Church Planting, Family, Updates
Posted by BJ at 5:21 PM | Permalink | What say you?(1)

Well, an interesting thing happened the other day. God made the almost impossible- happen. Many of you already know by now but I thought it was time to let everyone in on the big news. We are expecting our fifth baby next year in March. This is a huge surprise to us since we thought Cathy could no longer get pregnant. Apparently, God had another plan in mind. This changes our plans for our return to Tanzania but that is the life of a missionary.

The doctor told us that it would be very dangerous for Cathy to have another C-section so we are praying for a safe delivery of the new baby. It will also be a whole new experience raising a new baby in a 3rd world country so we would appreciate your prayers for the baby's health as well. The baby is due the end of March 2010.

Speaking of health, the whole entire Schultz family has been hit hard with colds, allergies and various forms of whatever is being passed around. I am really surprised at how much we have been ill lately. Please pray for us.

We have been busy preaching and giving a report of our work in Tanzania every Sunday at our supporting churches. However, this weekend we not be traveling but will instead be taking part in a huge teen outreach called "Harvest Fest". We are expecting 1100 or more teens and are praying that many will be saved.

This weekend will be the last weekend "off" until Christmas. The whole month of October will be extremely busy for me as I fly to LA twice, CO once and then drive to Ontario Canada for a mission conference. Please pray for me as I travel and for the rest of the family as the hectic schedule tends to wear everyone down a little.

Thanks so much for your prayers!
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This entry is tagged: Family, Furlough, Health, Updates
Posted by BJ at 7:57 AM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

After being in the US for 1 1/2 months I think I can say for certain that we were healthier in Tanzania than we have been here. Actually, I think the only issue we have been facing is allergies. Apparently, Michigan is producing higher than normal levels of pollens and allergens this year. I’m still leaning towards breathing pollen over smoke from trash fires, exhaust from poorly maintained vehicles and the stench from outhouses and open sewers.

As I write, we are in full swing of our furlough. We have a very full schedule and will not see our home church for a Sunday service until December. I have tried to fit as many of our 55 churches into the six months time that we will be home.

Pray for us as we travel the many miles to visit our churches. The vehicle I am using does not have cruise control. I rely heavily on cruise control to help me maintain a consistent and legal speed. It’s not that I like to go fast it is just that I am not very good at paying attention to my speed. Unfortunately, police officers are not allowed to make exceptions based on this technicality.

Over the next 2 months I am going to try and raise some extra money to ship some John and Romans booklets to Tanzania and if we are able to afford it, ship some personal items as well. Pray for this project.

Many have asked so I will post my state side contact info here. It is only good until the end of 2009.

BJ & Cathy Schultz
BIMI
PO Box 9215
Chattanooga TN 37412

mobile 810_813_6213

This entry is tagged: Furlough, Updates
Posted by BJ at 6:27 PM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

Yesterday and today have been the first days in over a week that I have not woken up feeling sick. I think I am on the rebound now, thankfully. We have been getting tons of rain the past few weeks. It causes the plants to bloom and I think that triggers my allergies which brings on painful sinus headaches.

Speaking of rain, a few of you have been wondering about Mama John and her house. I was really surprised when several people were led of God to help this lady. It is a huge testimony of the ability of God. We were given gifts of money that exceeded my estimation of $300 to finish her roof. It is always a good thing to have more than you need, especially in this case. By the time we got done with everything the total bill was a little more than $600.

Mama John is lacking one small piece of roofing and a door, but please do not send any more money for this project. It is an difficult situation to be in. If we help her too much it actually does more harm than good. Especially for the others that are in the church. Envy is one of the worst sins in this country.

Here is a video of Mama John saying thank-you.

My translation is very loose but basically she says: Thank you, I am thankful for the good gift to help build my house. It is going well. Thank you to all of the churches who love Tanzania. I only need help in buying a door so that I can move into the house. Thank you so much.

If you missed the opportunity to give to this cause you can still get in on other blessings. We have a new church to build, property to buy, and many other people we could help. One woman in our church who is a widow and new Christian, asked me if I could loan her the money to buy 20 liters of cooking oil. She thinks she could re-sell it at the market in a matter of 1-2 days and make a weeks worth of profit from it. I love helping someone who is not looking for a free ride but is willing to do the work. There is a little risk that she may decide to never pay me back the $26 for the oil.

I think we are beginning to fall into our niches here on the mission field. Cathy has been teaching two young women some basic baking skills at our house. It began as one of those “this might be a good idea” discussions and has begun to grow.

We decided to send Anna, our part time house worker, to English school while we are gone for our 7 month furlough. She is in her 2nd week of classes and was struggling a little. Recently, Cathy went to the adult school in town where they are teaching the English class and while the class waited for the teacher to wander back from his 2 ½ hour lunch was able to help many of the students understand their lesson better. They all asked Anna where Cathy lived so they could come and get some more English lessons at our house. Thankfully, Anna declined to give out that information.

Please pray
I have been busy preparing Sunday School lessons to leave behind during our absence. Pray that I would have the energy to complete them all.

I would like to sell my van so that I can afford to buy a truck when we return next year.

Pray for us as we pack up to leave for fourlough, only 3 ½ weeks away.

Please pray that God leads us to a good house to rent in Michigan. I made some errors in my budget and it has left us homeless because I can’t afford the rent for a house I had planned on using.

This entry is tagged: Furlough, Housing, Kingereka, Ministry, Weather
Posted by BJ at 2:00 AM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

I hope everyone had a great Resurrection Sunday. We had a good time here in our church. In the Sunday school hour I taught from Mark 15 concerning the events of Jesus’ crucifixion, from the prophesies in the Old Testament to the brutal beatings by the people to the completed work on the cross. What a sobering subject; the price of our sin. Then in the morning hour, brother Greg preached that the resurrection is the foundation of our faith. Amen!

I spent the better part of a day helping Filimoni fill up the baptistry tank. We have no running water on our property so we had to take our 8, 20-liter containers about 1/4 mile down the road to the place where they sell water. We made this trip 8 times and spent about 5 hours in the process.

While no one was saved this morning, I was able to baptize two people. One was a young man named Filimoni. I led him to salvation in January after his second visit to our church. He had just moved back to his mother’s house after working at the Tanzanite mines for a time. It was about a year ago when the same mine collapsed killing more than 70 people. If I understand the story correctly, Filimoni was hurt in that accident but not severely. I can’t help but to paint a mental picture of the millions of people teetering on the edge of life not knowing that perhaps their next breath will be their last.

The second person I baptized was Mama Faibi. I would guess that she is between 50-60 years old. She has been a faithful attendee for the past several months.

A funny thing happened when it was her turn to be baptized. I explained to her that I would cover her mouth with a cloth and then dunk her in the water. Well, my Swahili is not real clear and she obviously didn’t understand me because she began to dunk herself. I interrupted her before she got too far and made quick work of her baptism. I am a Baptist but being dunked more than once is just a little overkill. Ha!

Thank you for your prayers on our behalf.
Please pray for our van to sell. I would love to sell this van and get a vehicle that can take the abuse of the roads and my rough driving.

This entry is tagged: Baptism, Holiday, Updates
Posted by BJ at 7:38 PM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

It appears that my once a week report has become a once a month report. I will try to rectify that and get back in the swing of things beginning this week.

March has come and gone in a hurry. I enjoyed the 3 Sundays in a row where I was flying solo. Usually, Greg Wagoner runs the morning service, including the singing, offering and preaching while I run the adult Sunday School hour. I still get tripped up in the song service. Many of the Swahili hymns we sing have the same melody as their English counterparts but the timing of the wording messes me up occasionally. While I am finishing the sentence the congregation is still in the middle. Add to that, the fact that I am not a great singer and you have a recipe for a disastrous song service. We made it through however and the people received the messages from Colossians readily.

It is raining today and that is a welcomed blessing. It has been very hot and dry here since August. Now it is hot and humid and the people are very happy because the rains will cause their crops to grow. Many people ask me every rainy season if I am going to plant corn or another crop. They just can’t believe that I am not going to plant something. In this society so much relies on agriculture. If there is an open area of ground they will plant on it. In fact, our dirt road to our church has been planted on. I mean the road is not there anymore. They have ploughed it over and have planted corn in its place. We are still waiting for the local government to officially mark where the road will pass. It is a trying time fighting the mud and navigating around people’s crops and houses.

Please pray as I seek God’s will concerning our next church plant. I have a really good idea of what I would like to do next but I am waiting for God to confirm that. One missionary essentially said that you could throw a dart at the map of Tanzania and where it landed would be a good place to start a church. I agree. Take a look at this Google map of the city of Moshi.

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Consider that in this town of about 165,000 people there are many cults, many Muslim mosques, and many churches that teach a false doctrine of salvation. When people ask and I tell them what denomination I am, they respond by saying that they have never heard of the Baptist denomination.

Please pray for:
Our next church plant
Our soon departure for furlough. There are many details to work out before leaving
Our baptismal and Easter services next week.

This entry is tagged: Preaching, Updates, Weather
Posted by BJ at 12:25 PM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

We had a good service this Sunday. I was able to preach from the book of Colossians about walking worthy of the Lord. The message was a challenge to my heart as well. The best part of the message for me was the fact that even though I had every word written out in Swahili, I was able to freely ad-lib. I’m sure the grammar wasn’t perfect and the ad-lib a little choppy but it felt good. While that’s good for me, that may be bad for the people who have to listen to it. You know how prone preachers are to rabbit trails.

Sunday evening we were able to participate in a missions conference in Ohio. We used our computer and Skype to make the phone call. The church was able to use their web cam to show us a view of the church service making it feel like we were actually there. I was a little worried at first because our internet service kept cutting in and out and we had a lot of difficulty making the connection. But in the end it all worked out well.
By the way, if you would like to contact us via Skype you can use our id: cathybeej As long as we have electricity and internet service you should be able to phone us. Just remember we are 8 hours ahead of the Eastern time zone.

As we were heading to bed our security guard came to the window and quietly told us that there were some thieves next-door stealing tires from a vehicle. He then asked me what to do. I did a 3-second pause to think of my options: There is no 911 number to call, and if there were there are no police available to answer the call, and if there were police, they would not have a vehicle to get to our place, but if they did it would take them hours to get gas and organize themselves, but if they were prepared already and could get to our house quickly, they wouldn’t know how to get to our house because we have no street name and no address, but if we did and they could find us they would probably just take a cut of the profit from the thieves and let them go. Believe it or not it took me a whole 3 seconds to think that through. I then told the guard to make some noise and try to scare the thieves away. It worked. He blew his whistle and shined a flashlight at them while I tried to get the dogs riled up and barking. We would not see the last of them however. They returned at 3am and tried to finish the job. Again our guard scared them off. And again they returned a while later. This time they had 6 guys and a vehicle parked down the street. Our guard was too frightened to sleep on duty for once so he was easily able to hear the thieves return and scare them away. He was frightened for good reason. Many times the first duty of a thief is to kill the night guard using their machete.

We slept lightly but we did sleep in peace knowing God is in control and is our sword and shield.

When we awoke this morning we noticed that a terrible transformation had occurred in the middle of the night. Our oldest son Jay became an official teen-ager. 13 years old! Wow! When he was a toddler, I never thought he would live long enough to become a teen. I believe all of Jay’s former nursery workers would all agree. But by God’s grace and great mercy, he has arrived.

Happy birthday Jay!
Today we will brave the busy and dangerous roads and head to Arusha to celebrate at a nice restaurant of his choosing.

Please pray:
Always pray for our safety and well-being.
Pray as I continue to preach in Swahili. I feel a lot like Moses did, slow of speech.
Pray as we figure out the logistics of scheduling furlough, finishing the kids home-school and packing up to leave for 7 months beginning in June.

This entry is tagged: Birthday, Danger, Family, Jay, Living in Africa, Pray for us, Preaching, Swahili
Posted by BJ at 9:51 AM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

This past week we have had some builders at our house expanding the kitchen. The one thing that really made us not want to rent this house was the fact that the kitchen was so small. With a little sweet talking with the owners of the house we got permission to use some of the rent money to pay for the building costs. It is customary here to pay for a full year of rent at the start of the year. Our rental bill is $6000 a year. We were allowed to use half of that for the building project. It is hard to believe that we can build a 14’ x 22’ addition for $3000. That doesn’t include the cost of the interior finishing (ie paint, cabinets, flooring etc). The labor included in the price comes out to about $400. The rest is the cost of materials.

So, I said all that to say this: all this week I have been juggling my Bible and Swahili studies with babysitting the builders. And it is a good thing that I did. Several times I had to correct mistakes they were making. The builders will be gone for a few days while the concrete hardens. I will use the time to write and translate a few sermons. I will be filling in for Greg Wagoner as he is away for the first 3 weeks in March. I am praying that the Lord will use me to impact the lives of these people.

Just for perspective:
Today we had a meeting with the men of the church concerning a 40-ish year old widow who attends our church regularly. About 2 months ago Mama John began the process to build a house near our church. She began making the mud bricks she would use for the construction of her house and she hired some builders to construct the house. Time has passed and her 10’ x 20’ two room house is only ½ done. She has run out of money and is very worried that the soon coming rains will completely destroy all the work she has done. She is correct. Without a roof on the house the rain will destroy all the mud bricks. Because she has no money and her only profit comes from farming her small plot she has asked the church for help. Today, the men measured up what materials were needed: 11 pieces of tin roofing, approx 15 2x4, nails and other miscellaneous items. Total cost: $300. Unfortunately, it looks grim for Mama John, the people just don’t have that much money to spare. Pray for her situation.

This entry is tagged: Housing, Living in Africa
Posted by BJ at 8:16 PM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

There’s no place like home. After 11 days away it sure feels good to be back in my own bed again. Of course, I am not complaining at all because for 6 of those days we were sitting by the pool in Mombasa Kenya. The vacation was a much-needed break from the daily grind and stress.

I was able to do a few ministry things during the hottest parts of the day, however. I worked on writing a sermon and edited many discipleship lessons and on Sunday, we held a church service near the beach.

There are no Baptist churches in the immediate area that I am aware of. This fact is a matter of prayer with Greg and I. Last year during our visit to Mombasa we had the opportunity to hand out many gospels of Romans that include a salvation tract. One of the hotel security guards was saved after reading the tract. He has asked us to come and start a new church in his area. The work is plentiful but the time, money and laborers are in short supply. Pray that God would make his will known about this possible church plant.

We left Mombasa and headed to Nairobi to make some dentist appointments and to do some stocking up on fresh meat. There always seems to be a chicken shortage in our town and our local butcher is located in a building owned by a Muslim man. This owner will not allow the butcher to sell pork products. So we stocked up (154 pounds worth) on boneless skinless chicken breasts, spare ribs, and some ground pork and beef. Now we just pray that the freezer doesn’t die. Ha!

When we arrived in Nairobi on Saturday night, I was informed that our missionary friend, Denny Madory had to suddenly return to the US for a funeral and that I would be preaching in his stead. “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season...” 2 Timothy 4:2. We had a wonderful service. It felt really great to preach in English.

Apparently, there is a gasoline shortage in Kenya. I am not sure why but it was a chore trying to find a station that still had fuel. After searching several gas stations for gasoline, waiting in line for 30 minutes and finally topping off, we began our trip home. The 200-mile trip only took 6 1/2 hours in spite of the terrible roads, road construction and detours. The border crossing was uneventful and our house was just as we left it, albeit a lot dustier. We will gladly welcome the rainy season to get rid of some of this dust.

Please pray:
We are focusing our thoughts on the next church plant. We need God’s direction and guidance.
As I schedule furlough meetings this week. It’s difficult to communicate from Africa and a little tricky to get the meetings lined up properly.

This entry is tagged: Butcher, Church Planting, Family, Our travels, Preaching
Posted by BJ at 8:55 PM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

It was a blessing to have a full house at our church services on Sunday. I taught a Sunday school lesson from Mathew 12 while Cathy taught Sunday school to the kids in a new shelter we pieced together.

This shelter is basically just a tarp haphazardly hung on 2 hooks and two posts and then secured to the car door. Its purpose is to provide some much needed shade while Cathy teaches outside. Unfortunately, it wasn’t adequate. So, this week I spent some time making plans to use a much bigger tarp. My only concern now is the wind.

In the morning service, Brother Greg preached a message about stewardship. He preached about tithes and offerings explaining that all of our substance belongs to God but that He only asks for a small portion. Talking about money is never an easy subject in church but our people received it with gladness.

In fact, during the invitation a 28-year-old man named Filemoni (Swahili for Philemon) came forward and told Greg that he wanted to be saved. I had the great opportunity to walk him down the “Romans Road” and lead him in prayer to receive Jesus Christ as his savior! Immediately after praying he asked about being baptized. I explained that the Bible teaches that Baptism is a picture of your salvation and that it has no power or role in salvation. After clearing that up, I told him that we would do another Baptism service soon. We have one scheduled for Easter but we may need to do one sooner (Lord willing).

Pray for us as we begin the process of buying a new piece of property to build a new church. We need wisdom, money, and patience (to deal with the red-tape).
Pray for our rental situation. Our landlord is beginning to talk about raising our rent again. The last thing I really want to do is pay more or move. So let’s pray that they are happy with where things are right now.

This entry is tagged: Kingereka, Ministry, Salvation, Updates
Posted by BJ at 9:55 PM | Permalink | What say you?(1)

Any day is a good day for a baptism provided you have water in the tank. Sunday I had a wonderful opportunity to baptize 4 people at our church in Kingereka. Esta was the youngest at 14 years old.

Two weeks earlier I was talking with Esta asking her if she had been saved. She said yes but I asked for more information wanting to know what she did to get saved. She simply said that she prayed. Even though I do believe salvation is that simple I wanted to make sure she understood what the Bible teaches about the matter. Praying is good but is not what saves a person from hell. Paige Wagoner took her aside and walked her through the plan of salvation. A few minutes later they returned to tell me that Esta indeed trusted Christ to be her savior. Amen!

Another person who was baptized was Anna. I had the privilege to lead Anna to the Lord at a special revival meeting we held at our church a few months ago. Just this past week Anna was telling Cathy and I about the frightening power some of the witch doctors wield. She noted that since she was saved they no longer trouble her. However, their incantations have been frightening her husband. He is so frightened that he will not sleep in their home alone. Yet he still refuses to repent and be saved. Truly, Satan has a strong hold in many areas of this country.

I also baptized another woman named Anna (or Mama John). She was walking along the road near our church one day as I drove by.

I stopped to give her and a young man she was with a ride to the city. Along the way I witnessed to her and found out that she had just moved to the area and was looking for a church. She has been coming to our church ever since.

Helena was the final person to be baptized. After being married on Dec 28 I think making a decision to follow the Lord in believer’s baptism is a wonderful way to start a marriage.

Just before the baptismal service we officially chartered our church. What a great day!

Pray for us as we minister and see real results here. Pray for others to be saved and added to the church.

This entry is tagged: Baptism, Kingereka, Ministry, Salvation
Posted by BJ at 8:50 PM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

Several people have written me to find out if I was still alive. I actually had to check to be sure. It has been 2 ½ weeks since I posted anything but it wasn’t because nothing has happened lately. In fact we have been very busy.

We held a Christmas service at our church on Christmas morning. It may be hard to believe but I have never attended a service on Christmas day. We had big plans for our service including Baptisms, Communion, Chartering our church and a special missionary offering.

Somewhere during that week I switched my brain off and completely forgot to get the baptismal tank ready for the service. The process is simple really. First, clean out the 2 inches of dirt and rocks that are on the bottom of the tank. Then, travel 1 km to the nearest water source and fill my 50-gallon drum. Then, somehow get this drum back to the church and pour it into the tank. It takes about 5 trips to fill the tank. Because of my forgetfulness we postponed the baptisms until Jan 4.

In addition to postponing the baptismal service we also postponed our charter service. Some of our would be charter members need to be baptized. Since they couldn’t, we didn’t.

In spite of my errors we had a good service. Majaliwa preached and we had a really good missionary offering.

On December 28 I performed my first ever wedding. It was all in Swahili and fortunately every word I needed to say was written down. After the ceremony we went to the couples home for the reception. It was by far the most unusual wedding I have ever been to. You really need to watch this video that Cathy made and posted on her facebook page.

Since the wedding I have been trying to relax and catch my breath. I have been feeling a little overwhelmed lately. When I get overwhelmed, I have a tendency to just bury my head and hope it all goes away. Your prayers have been a blessing. I really appreciate that so many of you have written to send holiday greetings and to say that you were praying for us. Now that we have rounded the corner and entered 2009 we are looking forward to our furlough in June 09.

Pray for us as we minister here. We need strength, wisdom, discernment, safety and comfort in the Lord.

This entry is tagged: Holiday, Living in Africa, Ministry, Updates, Video
Posted by BJ at 6:38 PM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

We had a fairly calm week last week and for that I am thankful. After some expensive car repairs in Nairobi, I was glad for a restful week.

We had a full house this week in the church services. There were many familiar faces and a few visitors. I made plans to visit with a man named Wilson this week. We had good messages as well. I taught on the temptation of Christ and Greg preached about “the Promised Deliverer”.

After the service Sunday morning the people just hung around for a while. Some were just fellow-shipping while others were discussing the wedding that is coming up. I would be grateful if you would remember to pray for me as I conduct my first ever wedding. Mose and Elena will be getting married on Dec 28 this year. I have had the privilege of baptizing both of them this year, now I have to marry them.

Weddings are very expensive and usually way beyond the means of the couple getting married. Therefore the groom spends a lot of time asking people for help (i.e. donations). In fact, Mose asked me to buy the wedding gown for his bride. I agreed so he went to the seamstress and picked out the cloth, jewelry, head dressing and shoes and then told me how much it would cost. He then asked if I could help pay for his clothes, the wedding rings and the cake. I told him I would help with the cake but that he needed to get his own clothes and rings. He wasn’t being greedy; he is just totally unprepared to pay for anything. Can you imagine?

The men in the church wanted to give the couple a gift from the church. They decided that they would take up a special offering and buy 2 cases of Coke soft drinks. Whenever there is a big celebration it is just about mandatory to serve sodas to the guests.

This week I will spend some time with Mose and Elena discussing the wedding process and giving some marriage advice from the Bible.

Please pray:
The wedding and my Swahili.
Our Christmas Day service

This entry is tagged: Kingereka, Living in Africa, Ministry, Updates
Posted by BJ at 11:51 PM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

For me, the holiday season tends to be a time when I am easily discouraged. Being so far away from family and friends is magnified during these times. The weather here doesn’t help either. It just so happens that December and January are the hottest months in Tanzania. While we are singing songs about sleigh rides, Frosty the snowman and Jack Frost we are cranking the fans up to high and wishing we had a swimming pool.

So, when we were asked to celebrate Thanksgiving in Nairobi with some new friends we jumped on that opportunity. We got acquainted with 5 other Baptist missionary families and even though we were more than 7,000 km from our loved ones in America, we had a wonderful time with new friends. The best part of course was the traditional Thanksgiving meal! My favorites: sweet potato pie, mounds of Stove-Top stuffing, potatoes and gravy and of course turkey.

While in Nairobi I had some work done to repair our vehicle. I knew that our van had some damage from a previous epic trip across the country so I was hoping to find spare parts in Nairobi to fix the damage. The mechanic told me that all the parts were available and that he could do the job in 6 hours or so. I am relatively new to Africa but I already know that you must automatically double the price quote and triple the time needed to do the work.

With this in mind I commissioned the mechanic to do his thing. After 6 hours or so, he informed me that there were more problems than originally thought. And then the next day he told me that there was yet one other problem. In the end, we got everything fixed but ended up a few days later than expected and $200 over budget. Not bad really.

Because of the time delay we had to spend the weekend in Nairobi. Well, we didn’t have to but we sure wanted to. We went to Karen Baptist Church that was started by Missionary Denny Madory. He asked me to speak briefly in the Sunday School class. It was really refreshing to do so in English. The fact is that many people in Nairobi want to use English instead of Swahili.

We left Monday morning and arrived safely at our home 6 hours after leaving Nairobi. Now it is time to set up the Christmas tree and lights in the 90-degree weather.

Please pray:
That we would not be easily discouraged
Our Christmas Day service (visitors and salvations)

This entry is tagged: Family, Holiday, Our travels, Vehicle
Posted by BJ at 9:49 AM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

This week proved to be an exciting week and it ended with some icing on the cake. I told you about my soul-winning efforts in a local market that upset a few Muslims on Thursday. So, I will skip to Sunday's events.

In Sunday school last week I told everyone to read the first 10 chapters in the book of Luke. I told them that instead of Bible drills that we would do a Bible quiz. If they got a correct answer they would get a piece of candy. They enjoyed the quiz I think, and several adults walked away with a fist full of candy. In our lesson I taught on the prophesy and birth of Jesus. With only 46 days till Christmas I thought the timing was adequate.

That's right only 46 days til Christmas. Believe it or not, we have all our Christmas shopping done already. It takes about 4 weeks for packages to arrive here from the states so we started shopping at the end of October. I do 99% of our purchases at Amazon.com and then have them shipped to family in Michigan. They then repackage them and mail them to us. So, obviously, time is a major factor. But I digress.

During our morning service, Bro Greg preached on the Baptist distinctives. He emphasized the fact that it is our main goal as Baptists to follow the Bible and not add to or take away from its teaching. It was a great opportunity to preach on what the Bible says a person needs to do go to heaven. The answer is as simple as it is mind boggling: Acts 16:31 "...Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved..."

During the invitation time I had the opportunity to show Janet how to be saved! I got a little hung up when we came to the sinners prayer. Fortunately, we have a prayer that is written in the tract portion of the Romans booklets so I showed her the prayer. I explained that the words in the prayer are not magic words and that she would be saved by faith in what Jesus did when He died on the cross for our sins.

As I handed the booklet for her to look at she said, "let's kneel." Cathy and I knelt in the rocky dust as Janet knelt and sincerely read the sinners prayer! Afterward, as church dismissed we announced to the church that Janet received Christ as her Savior. What a way to end the service!

Please pray:
Holiday times are always tough on the mission field emotionally- pray for our spirits that we would not be discouraged and too homesick for the next 2 months.
Money to purchase a good truck. We will be saving up for the next 6 months.
Money to purchase land for a new church plant.

This entry is tagged: Holiday, Ministry, Salvation, Updates
Posted by BJ at 9:09 AM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

As we were handing out the Romans booklets at the bus stand near our church I watched a police officer make his way towards Tyler. Jay, Tyler and I were out soul-winning on Thursday and after we got a bite to eat at the large bus stand we decided to hand out some Romans booklets to all the people in the area.

As I was boarding the buses to pass out the books Tyler was making his way along the various vending areas and small stores. I watched a police officer try to get Tyler’s attention and started to walk after him. Tyler had his back to him and didn’t understand the Swahili commands if he even heard them among the noise of the area. After a few more steps the officer took hold of Tyler’s shoulder, turned him around, looked him straight in the face and asked if he too could have a booklet. Without missing a beat or even a hint of fear Tyler gave him one and continued on down the way.

These Romans booklets are really nice. They have a very detailed gospel tract in the front including some nice illustrations. We know of several people who have been saved as a direct result of these Romans booklets. It was a very hot and dusty day and I am sure the Word of God will not return void. Prayerfully, some of those people will be saved.

Sunday was interesting. In the Sunday school hour I taught on the virgin birth of Christ. Looking back I don’t know how I missed this mistake but I did. The word for pregnant in Swahili is mimba. While I was teaching the lesson I wanted to say that when Joseph and Mary met one day, behold she was pregnant (Mimba). Instead I said when they met one day behold, she grabbed a crockadile! (Mamba) You should have heard the roars of laughter. It was a simple typo but I missed it and read it as is.

Later in the worship hour, a man brought a special offering- a goat! Now, what in the world do you do with a goat? I mean why do people raise them? And especially what do you do with it if it is part of the offering? Give it to the pastor? We have no pastor or even deacons at this point.

Apparently, this is not an odd thing in many African churches so the people knew exactly what to do. They would try to sell the goat to any church member for a fair price, and if that didn’t work they would sell it at the market and add the money to the offering. Thankfully, we did sell it to a church member so now my trip to the market with a goat in the trunk of my van is postponed.

Please pray:
For our soul-winning efforts on Tuesday and Thursday
For my Swahili skills
For our nations elections

This entry is tagged: Funny, Ministry, Swahili, Tracts, Tyler, Witnessing
Posted by BJ at 1:41 AM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

Another block session at Lake Victoria Baptist College started on Tuesday last week and was attended by 38 students! It is such a thrill to see so many nationals gather together to study the Bible for the purpose of ministry in local churches. 18 of the students are upperclassmen and many are pastors of indigenous churches.

I had the opportunity to join the ‘Spiritual gifts’ class and the ‘Baptist Polity’ 1 & 2 classes. I was able to give my two cents worth every once in awhile as well as proctor and grade the exams every morning. I think we had a good spirit among the students and I think much was accomplished in the first week of two.

I returned home on Friday after the first week of classes via airplane. It’s hard to believe that the 13-hour drive from our house to Mwanza can be flown in less than 50 minutes on an airplane. Pray for Greg as he makes the return trip home by himself in his vehicle.

Much of the day on Saturday was used for translating the sermon I would preach on Sunday. I spent 4-5 hours translating but was only able to get half of the message done. Fortunately, I was wise enough to schedule a young man named Enoch to help me with the entire sermon. My half of the message was close but still needed some major repairs in a few areas. My Swahili is getting better and I am getting more confidence daily.

Sunday I preached both the Sunday School hour and morning service. We had a decent number in attendance and I think the people enjoyed the services. One of the men in our church has asked to lead the congregational singing in the morning service. It is a joy to see the people desire to serve God.

Please pray
The national pastors as they study and then return home to pastor their churches
Safe travel for Greg on Friday
Our church to grow in number and spirit

This entry is tagged: Bible College, Preaching, School
Posted by BJ at 9:18 AM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

In my last post I asked you to pray for Daniel’s health and for Cathy’s safety as she traveled to Nairobi. I am happy to report all is well. Daniel has made a good recovery and is again climbing the walls, the refrigerator, and anything else he can get to before we stop him.

Cathy ran into some trouble on the first night in Nairobi at the grocery store. Apparently, a Kenyan woman was having a bad night and decided to get very vocal with Cathy. It ended without any harm but it could have been a lot of trouble. Cathy said she was shocked so much so that her hands were shaking for awhile afterward. She had never had anyone treat her like that in Africa before. See, this is why I don’t let her go anywhere without me. Ha ha. Again, thanks for praying for her.

Sunday school went well this week. We had several arrive on time to hear the last message from the Old Testament. Next week we will teach the about God’s plans to bring the promised Redeemer, Jesus. Unfortunately, I will not be at our church to teach that lesson. Majaliwa will teach in my place. He has had a few weeks off from our discipleship time but we were able to thoroughly cover the lesson yesterday and I am confident he will do a good job teaching.

I will be going back to Mwanza to help Greg Wagoner with another session of Bible College. I have also been invited to preach at a new church plant in the area but I am not sure if I will be able. We are also traveling that same road that nearly destroyed my vehicle. This time however, Greg will be driving his vehicle while mine stays safely at home with Cathy and the kids.

Please pray:
Our safety
Majaliwa’s (ma ja lee wa) preaching on Sunday
The Bible College session
Traveling mercies. Traveling is the most dangerous thing a missionary does.
Protection for the family while I am gone.

This entry has no entry tags.
Posted by BJ at 3:55 PM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

We started Sunday school with a good number of people present. However, my two youngest kids, Michaela and Daniel are sick and stayed home with Cathy. They picked up a vicious cold/flu that comes with fever, vomiting and aches. They continue to get better each day but would appreciate your prayers.

During our service we had a short time for testimonies. One man named John told us about his trip to a town called Sanya Juu. He had taken 650 Romans booklets to pass out. The Romans booklets have a 6-page tract in the front of the book and present a clear gospel message. He said that the people were thrilled to be able to get these Bibles and it only took a few minutes to hand out all of them.

This is the second time he has gone to Sanya Juu and both times he has reported that so many people were very happy to get the Romans booklet. The trip is about 15-20 miles from his home. He has no car so he loaded the two boxes of booklets and rode his bicycle to the town. We have been praying about the possibility of starting a new church in Sanya Juu. Pray with us about this prospect.

After our service we went to Mose house for a baby shower. His wife, Helena had given birth 12 days ago. They prepared a big meal for us, which consisted of Chai and a rice dish called, Pilau. The pilau had chunks of goat meat and I was lucky enough to get a big rib bone in my dish. I gnawed on it for a bit and did my best to finish the large bowl of rice. You may notice my son Jay has his coat buttoned up and has his hood on his head. He did this not because he was cold but to keep the flies from bothering him.

It was a good but exhausting Sunday.

Please pray with us about:

Michaela and Daniel to get healthy
The prospect of a new church plant in Sanya Juu
People to be saved from the Romans booklets
Our upcoming field conference- we will be traveling a long distance.

This entry is tagged: Kingereka, Ministry, Preaching, Tracts
Posted by BJ at 10:34 PM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

I started Sunday school exactly 10 minutes late this week allowing a few extra minutes for any latecomers- and nearly everyone was late. As is becoming a custom, we began our Sunday school with some Sword drills. I had them look for easy things like the book of 1 Kings, Genesis, Numbers and others. I divided the group up into kids vs. adults. The adults won 8 to 5.

We had a good lesson talking about Moses and the journey to the promise land. The lesson focused on God being the ever-faithful leader and guide to his children and the payment for disobeying God.

Afterward we heard an excellent sermon from Brother Greg, telling us that Jesus fulfilled the law, he is savior and that he lives- all according to Rom 10. We had 3 visitors in our congregation so I was praying that someone would be saved. Unfortunately, no one came forward during the invitation time. We will keep praying.

In addition to the normal cash offering one lady brought a bag of corn as part of her offering. I had to think for a few minutes as to how to include the corn in our record book for the offering total. I asked one of the men in the church and he said it was worth 1,000 shillings. He volunteered to sell the corn for us but I needed a small amount for a special project so I bought it instead.

Our midweek service on Thursday was somewhat of a let down. No one came to the service. However, I was able to use several hours at the church to do some discipleship lessons with Majaliwa.

Please pray for Majaliwa, the doctor said he has a bad case of malaria.
Pray for the church to continue to grow
Wisdom as we decide where when and how to plant the next church
Money for said church plant

This entry is tagged: Church Planting, Kingereka, Ministry
Posted by BJ at 2:30 AM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

A few interesting things happened this past Sunday. I thought I would give you a peak at our Sunday morning.

About 3 weeks ago we presented Bibles and certificates of Baptism to those who were baptized in our church. For most people, this was their first complete Bible. I decided that we needed to do some “Sword Drills” to help them get acquainted with their Bible.

I am starting with easy things. For instance, I may ask them to find any page in the book of Mark or find the word God. They seem to enjoy it. Sunday we battled the kids against the adults. It was a close race but the kids got the better of us adults and won 7 to 5.

I taught a Sunday school lesson about the institution of the tabernacle. For some reason I had an off day with my Swahili. I tried to make some extemporaneous remarks but soon got trapped with my limited vocabulary. Please continue to pray for me in this area.

We left church and went to Maikol and Pauline’s house to congratulate them on their new baby. Our church had a baby shower for them last week but Cathy was unable to attend because she stayed with Tyler at home. They welcomed us into their 8ft X 8ft house and immediately brought out the teacups so we could drink chai. Chai is half brewed hot tea, half hot milk and as much sugar as you would find in a cup of Kool-Aid. Not great but not terrible either. They also brought several bowls of fresh peanuts (not the Planter’s variety either).

After seeing the baby and chatting with the parents we began our 22km drive home. Along the way we passed several police check stations. I can think of at least 4 different areas where there are always policemen stationed between church and our home. They don’t stop me very often; I think they know that they will not get a bribe from me so they let me pass. However, there was a new guy at one of these stops who stepped into the middle of the road and signaled for me to stop. I was not disobeying any traffic laws, he just wanted to check us out.

I know their routine and I have learned from another missionary how to deal with it. I greeted him in Swahili and asked how his day was going. He asked if I was coming from Arusha (a large town 1 hour away). I told him that we were returning from church and then offered a gospel of Romans to him. As soon as I handed him a FREE book all the other officers came over to get one too.

One officer told me that he prays very often. I responded by saying that was good but not good enough. He then told me he attended church when he could. My reply was the same, good but not good enough. I chuckled a little when he went so far as to say that he tries to do good works. Again my answer was that’s good but not good enough. My third reply got a few chuckles from his friends that were listening. I gave him a quick plan of salvation and told him to read the tract at the front of the Romans gospel. He bid me good day and we were on our way.

We dropped off Anna near her home and went to a restaurant in town to eat some decent Italian food and relax from a tiring and somewhat difficult day.

Prayer requests
I have what looks like poison ivy on my arms, neck and torso. It is really itchy and seems to be spreading. I will see a doctor tomorrow I hope.
Cathy and Jay seem to be plugged up from allergies or a cold.
Anna’s husband left her and his 3 yr old baby.
My Swahili abilities

This entry is tagged: Kingereka, Living in Africa, Ministry, Swahili, Tracts, Witnessing
Posted by BJ at 1:02 AM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

This past Sunday Tyler was feeling sick so he stayed home with Cathy while Jay and I went to church. In fact, Tyler had all the symptoms of Malaria so we had him tested on Saturday.

The test consists of going to the local clinic and elbowing your way to the reception desk while you stand in line. Line cutting is just part of the culture here so if you ever want to get waited on you have to guard your spot in line and purposefully block others from cutting in front of you. Cathy had a not so fun time in line at the hospital a few days ago. Maybe I can get her to write about it later.

Upon making it to the receptionist successfully, I requested to have the malaria test done on Tyler. You must pay before you get the test, so I handed them 2,000 shilings ($1.60) and waited for my receipt. We then made our way to the “lab” where they would do the test.

I noticed that the doctor had taken a glass slide off of the cleaning rack and rubbed it off with his thumb to make sure it was clean. He then opened a new needle and pricked Tyler’s finger. He then squeezed a drop of blood on the slide. He told us to wait for 30-45 minutes for the results. We used a good 20 of those minuets just trying to buy a Band-Aid. I am always amazed at how much this country is under prepared for life.

It was during the last 20 minutes of the wait when Tyler threw up. Fortunately we were outside in the parking lot and the mess was minimal. I was certain that Tyler had malaria after that incident. However, the results came back negative. It is possible to get a false negative, so if he continues to feel sick we will have him tested again.

So far everyone except Jay has been tested for malaria since we arrived in Africa and so far no one has tested positive. Our record is malaria 0, Schultzes 5. Praise the Lord!

Prayer requests:
Pray for our health.
Pray for our spirit. We have been feeling a little gloomy lately. We are tired and a little depressed for no apparent reason.
Pray for 2 men in our church who are arguing over some work our church hired them to do. Pray that they will resolve the issue and move on. Pray that it will not cause strife in the church.
Pray for God to provide some extra money this month. We have had some extra expenses come our way.

This entry is tagged: Family, Health, Living in Africa, Pray for us
Posted by BJ at 4:09 AM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

After spending 8 hours of my life on a one way trip home from language school, I wish I could say that it was uneventful. It actually went very well until the last 3 minutes of the trip. While waiting for the bus driver to open the bus door my cell phone was stolen from my backpack. I had placed it in an open pocket in my bag and forgot about it after I put the bag on my back. The phone was not very expensive ($60) but I lost many contact numbers that were stored on the phone. Cathy suggested that of all the things that could have happened over the past month that this incident was very minor. Very true. We thank God for his hand of protection.

I left language school on the 3rd anticipating a 4th of July celebration at the Wagoner’s house. They had invited several American missionary families to their home for a cookout and some games. I had my fill of chili dogs, salads, deviled eggs and various deserts. Afterwards, I went a few rounds in the boxing ring on the Wagoner's Nintendo Wii. I virtually boxed the ears off a few people before giving in to exhaustion. Who would have thought you could actually get tired playing a video game? We had a great time!

On Sunday I returned to our church in Kingereka for the first time in 5 weeks. It was good to see familiar faces and to understand their Swahili a little better. You may remember that I have been discipling a man named Majaliwa. He taught the Sunday School class that morning as he had been doing for the past 4 weeks in my absence. He did a really good job. He continues to grow as a young Christian. As a young man in his early 20’s he still has some maturing to do however. I am praying that God will use him in a great way to reach many people with the gospel of salvation.

This just for fun:
There are many items of business that a church must do that seemingly have little to do with the ministry of the Bible. Here is what we are facing in our church. We have a simple outhouse on our property. The two-stall facility has no water, no electricity and no doors. That’s correct, there are no doors. We have been using temporary curtains when we conduct church but remove them for the rest of the week. A few people have expressed a lot of concern that there are no doors. Their concern is that there are many other people in the community who are using the toilets and will only cause the outhouse to fill up that much more quickly. So this week we are meeting with a few skilled workers to discuss making some doors that we can lock and keep any would be freeloaders from using the facilities at our expense.

Please pray:
I have been experiencing daily headaches for the past week or more, pray for relief.
For Majaliwa to grow in grace and knowledge.
My Swahili skills

This entry is tagged: Holiday, Living in Africa, Ministry, Swahili, Updates
Posted by BJ at 10:47 PM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

Hello all, In the language of Chaaga the word “Kilimanjaro” means “long journey”. I find the word quite fitting in many ways. First, Mt. Kilimanjaro is the tallest freestanding mountain in the world as well as the highest place in Africa. It ranks 4th for overall height in the world.

I find the word fitting secondly, because it has been a long journey for our family. We started this journey to Tanzania Africa nearly 4 years ago. We arrived in Kenya on January 14 to begin studying Swahili. Upon completion of school in early July, we made our way to Mwanza Tanzania where we met up with the Wagoner Family. We assisted them with packing their house for their move to Moshi. I also was able to help in a few projects at the church in Mwanza. We will be working along side of the Wagoners during our first term. Our two families moved to Moshi the first week of August. Today I find myself sitting only a few miles from the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro and just a few blocks away from our soon to be home. It has been a long journey to say the least, but we have arrived. We are anxious to begin teaching our first converts. Please pray as I still have much language to learn. Also pray as we continue to translate and edit our Bible discipleship lessons. And as always pray for lost souls to be saved.

This entry is tagged: Updates
Posted by BJ at 6:28 PM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

Travel: Greetings from Mwanza Tanzania! We have made our journey from Nairobi Kenya to Arusha Tanzania on July 5th. On the following day we traveled to the Kilimanjaro International Airport near Moshi Tanzania. We had an excellent view of the top of Mt Kilimanjaro once we flew above the clouds. In less than 2 hours we flew 700 km to Mwanza Tz where we met our good friends and co-laborers, the Wagoner family. In Mwanza the rains have ended and we are approaching the very hot season. It is hot, very dry and dusty. We will be busy while we are in Mwanza. We have some household things that need to be packed up and shipped to Moshi by the months end. I have been given some Swahili homework to do and though it is very hard it is welcome. The Swahili in Tanzania is a little different than that of Nairobi and there are very few people here who can speak English.

Tilapia: Lake Victoria is beautiful and inviting even though it is polluted from industry and the surrounding city. The lake is well known for having plenty of Tilapia and Nile Perch. Polluted or not we had to grill some fresh Tilapia which were fished out of the lake the night before. Yum! If you get a chance, give it a try. Tilapia rates high on my list of favorite fish.

Tremors: As I was writing this entry the whole house began to shake for a few short seconds. I have just witnessed my first earthquake! It was likely an aftershock that I felt but it was still powerful! The news reported that there was an earthquake about 6 miles under the earth’s surface which measured between 4.5 and 5.4 on the Richter scale. Wow! What a powerful God we serve! It reminds me of Job 38-40.
Job 38:4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.

This entry is tagged: Cooking, Our travels, Updates
Posted by BJ at 4:20 PM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

We continue to get acclimated to our new surroundings. We have now entered our 4th week of language school and have discovered that going back to school is exhausting. Today we began our first day of working with a conversant. The conversant’s job is to speak to us in Swahili and listen to our Swahili. It took less than 10 minuets for me to realize that I have a lot of Swahili to learn. At times the mountain of language learning seems to be insurmountable. We are confident that the Lord will help us and give us wisdom as we work hard and study. Please continue to pray for us in this matter.

Two weeks ago I mentioned in an email that Daniel (1 ½ yr old) was very ill. Then very quickly he was healthy again. However, this past week he fell ill again. I am not sure if it was the same illness or a new one. Never the less, he had a difficult struggle with this illness. Everyday his fever would increase. One night he woke us with his crying. When we took his temperature it registered 106 F. After a sponge bath and some more Tylenol or Motrin his temp came down to a manageable 102 F. Needless to say we were worried. Three doctors had looked at him over the course of 3 days and all said the same thing. He has some kind of infection and probably a virus. They gave him an injection of antibiotics and some pain reliever/ fever reducer. It took 3 days of continued antibiotics and fever reducer to get him mostly back to normal. As of this writing, he has 2-3 days of antibiotics left and is doing well. However, the doctor mentioned the word “tonsillitis” as the possible culprit of infection. We are praying that this was a one time problem and that it will not become a reoccurring problem. Please also pray for the health of our family. There is nothing more disheartening than watching your children suffer with illness.

Thank you for your prayers,

In Christ,

BJ Schultz

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Posted by BJ at 4:23 PM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

Dear Friends,

We are really thrilled how the Lord has been working lately. It seems that things are falling into place perfectly. Interestingly, it's not been happening the way I would have planed it but we have always told the Lord to have His will over ours. Currently, we are in a huge rush packing and moving. It is amazing how much "stuff" you can collect over the years. Our container ships tomorrow (Thurs Jan 4) at 11:00 am. I had planned to spend about $1,000 hiring a crane to lift our container onto the truck, however, a local business has given me a quote of $285! Praise the Lord. We also had a quote of $12,000 to ship the container to Africa, but at the last minute we found Missionary Expediters who will ship it for $8,000! Can I have an AMEN? We are praying specifically that the crane will be able to handle the weight of the container and the logistics of moving it onto the truck with no problems. We also are praying that we can get the container correctly packed so that the move won't damage any items.
As for our plane tickets, the travel agent has contacted British Air and has gotten a guarantee that they will refund the original tickets minus a few expenses. We have purchased a new set of tickets for departure on Jan 10 at 10:30 pm. Now that Michaela is 2 1/2 she has to have a child's ticket. Daniel's infant ticket still costs about $400. Those two changes plus the fees included in the refund will cost us about $1000. Please pray that we will actually receive the refund. Airline seem to have a reputation of being stingy with refunds. Also, please pray that there will be no or very little extra baggage costs for us. Normally, British Air charges $195 per extra bag. We are praying for a few freebies since we will be ringing everything we need to stay alive for the next 6 months on the plane. Also, I have never traversed so far with 4 children, two of which that are under 3 years old. Please pray for us! ha ha.
The Lord has been very good to us as always. We are so grateful for His leading in our lives. We are also extremely thankful for your prayers. Prayer is the tool that God uses to do His work. Please continue to pray for us in this transitional time as we dive headlong into this work of ministry.

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Posted by BJ at 10:43 AM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

Dear Friends we are quickly approaching our time of departure. We have been given a green light for our departure to Tanzania just after Christmas. We have run into a small snag however. We are having difficulty with our plane tickets. Somehow our tickets are not showing up in anyone’s data base. The travel agent has been in contact with the airline as have I but so far with the holiday weekend we have not had any news. Please pray that this situation will work out and that we will be able to get a good departure date.

Also, today we had a couple look at our house. They looked at our house for nearly an hour and seemed very interested. There is no news yet but we are praying that they will make an offer to buy. Please pray about this matter.

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Posted by BJ at 8:50 PM | Permalink | What say you?(0)

Here is our latest prayer letter: October 2006 You will need Adobe reader to view it.
This letter is basically an edit of several of our past web entries. If you are on our mailing list you will still get a hard copy in the next few days, but if you can't wait and have internet capabilities you can click the link and down load it now.

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Posted by BJ at 10:13 PM | Permalink | What say you?(0)