Greetings from Morogoro, Tanzania. We can’t believe that April is finished already. The year has been flying by. The Lord has been so good to us, and we are always glad when we can report to you what God is doing over here in East Africa. We want to thank you all for the birthday cards and emails that were sent for Esther’s birthday. She had a wonderful 5th birthday. We surprised her by taking a trip to Dar; we never go to Dar unless we are going to pick someone up from the airport. Her Grammy from the United States surprised her for her birthday, so that was her biggest surprise. It was a blessing to have my mother-in-law here for two weeks. We enjoyed showing her the new ministry and just taking some time to relax. We knew she was coming, so we waited until she got here to baptize Esther. We were glad to share that special day with her as well.
Grace Baptist Church, by God’s grace, is continuing to grow, especially our Thursday service. Many families were not used to or even considered coming to our midweek Bible study. With preaching and love, we just kept encouraging them and challenging them to try it. We have been averaging 50 or so each week. It’s encouraging to us to see growth, and it motivates us to keep going. The Public School Ministry continues to be a success. We are in three schools, as we stated before; and, Lord willing, with training we can be in more. Just last week in one of the schools, there were 162 students, with 15 salvations. We give the students each a tract with the church information and tell them where the bus stops each service so they can be picked up. It’s a blessing that we can continue to teach them each week.
To give you an update on our church property, we were going to the different land offices and such to make sure we had all the proper and legal paperwork. We needed to change the land from residential to commercial before we could even think about doing anything. Sometimes that takes awhile when dealing with a corrupt government; however, we prayed that God would bless and help us, and we received that paperwork quickly. So now we are in the stages of making a blueprint for our building, and then we can apply for a permit to build. We will be going slowly as the Lord provides the funds. We are excited here at GBC, and our folks are too. We are all pitching in so we can stop renting the building we are currently in, mainly due to space.
Here is a story about how one of our church members started coming to GBC. Our choir has practice at our house twice a week. Our neighbor listened each time the choir practiced. So one day his family came to our house, asking questions about where the church was, etc. They have a Pentecostal background. The gentleman has been over many times to our house, asking questions and learning Bible truth. We are working with him slowly, and he is excited. Please pray for his wife, who is not interested at all in the truth at the moment, but we are hopeful.
Please note that we have a new Stateside address:
1687 Eagles Place
C204
Rock Hill, SC 29732
Thanks again for all the prayers and support that you all show. We appreciate you all so very much and love you.
Your missionaries to Tanzania,
Mshama, Martha, & Esther Kinyonga