Tanzania!!
 
From the 2nd - 26th June you may (or may not) have noticed, I wasn’t around much – fear not! I have returned.
As part of my year working here at PBC I had the privilege of spending over 3 weeks on overseas mission.
The weekly course I’ve attended on Thursdays this year - Kairos, which provides basic theological training and much more, also gave the opportunity to visit Tanzania. The course is run by St. Matthews Church in High Brooms so I went with the Pastor of St. Matts- Chris Wicks, and the youth intern there - Claire Steven.
I want to thank you all so much for sponsoring me (see above picture for proof and potential mockery/blackmail) and praying for me - I had 3 of the most amazing weeks of my life.
The trip was absolutely packed with fantastic opportunity, life-changing experiences and God’s glory and power.
Our 1st of 3 flights was London - Amsterdam, we then had a 9 hour flight from Amsterdam - Nairobi, followed by a short one from Nairobi - Mwanza in Tanzania. As we left Nairobi we flew straight passed Mount Kilimanjaro! Below is a photo I took from the plane window.
Once we arrived in Mwanza we had to take a ferry across to Geita, where we stayed for the first week (we would return the following week to spend our last 2 weeks in Mwanza). Whilst waiting for the ferry to depart we saw 2 lizards, 1 kingfisher and 3 naked fishermen. I’ve no idea why they had to be naked – no-one else was.
Geita was very undeveloped. After the ferry we had a 2 hour drive to where we were staying - I fell asleep in the car. Suddenly I was awoken by tremendous bumps in the road. We were told we had reached the end of the tarmac!
When we arrived at our guest house we were told they didn't have showers there. Below is a picture of my “shower” - boiling hot water in a bucket, with a smaller “pouring” bucket. It was surprisingly pleasant and very humbling.
It was a good first week in Geita. I got the opportunity to give my testimony to over 600 people, we saw two people delivered of demons & one day we ate 8 meals! Everyone was so generous, which was so kind, but at the same time unnecessary and frustrating. When you eat enough food for 3 people in 1 day yet you can’t escape the poverty that surrounds you, it makes it very difficult to remain silent. All in all though, it was a very good week.
After 7 days in Geita, we got the ferry back to Mwanza for our remaining 16 days.
Samuel Limbe, our co-ordinator for the week, was fantastic! He was so inspiring and such a wonderful person. His organisation was great and he provided us with such great opportunities.
We taught Children’s Ministry at churches, preached to a Christian union at an all-girls school, taught football & music, visited orphanages and children's refuge centres, spent time eating and playing with the street children & so much more!
I loved the street children! They were all boys and loved football and fun. We paid for them to have food and afterwards the leader thanked us in Swahili and ended by saying in English “God bless you”, it was clearly so heart felt and brought me close to tears. The time spent with them was both heartbreaking and heart-warming at the same time.
Another highlight for me was the football coaching. Before I went, there was a tournament of 500 14 year olds, which they then whittled down to 100, then to 50, then to 25. I was lucky enough to coach the elite 25 boys of the area! It was so great. I taught them passing, dribbling and set pieces. We even spent time learning a “special corner” which hopefully contributed to their victory the flowing week as they had the East-Africa tournament on Tuesday 22nd June. I’m still waiting to here of their success.
Due to the intensity of our serving Samuel had arranged a trip to the Serengeti for us on the Tuesday of our last week. It was such an amazing experience! If you love the zoo I can’t even begin to describe how much better Safari is. Just the spontaneity of turning a corner and seeing 30 elephants takes your breath away. It was such a blessing.
Below I have included a favourite picture.
Samuel also arranged a visit to “The Snake Museum” on another day. He told us that we may have to listen to the heritage of the people of Tanzania before we got to the snakes which we were happy to do and actually found very interesting. In the back of our minds the whole time though was - snakes in a minute!
We learned all about the tribes and kingdoms of Tanzania (did you know there were 52 Kings and Kingdoms in Northern Tanzania until 1962 when they decided to unite the country?) and then it was time! Snakes!
We were led off to a room. The snake guy opened the door, we peered in, it was cold and dark. I thought surely this isn’t the snake room!?
The guy picked up what looked like a postal bag tied at the top with string and took it outside. He then untied the string and flopped a huge python out at our feet! It was very impressive but I was thinking, “is this it?!”
What sort of snake museum has only one snake?! Then again technically Samuel hadn’t lied as the singular for snake is the same as the plural. The Snake Museum wasn’t inaccurate. (That is if you are happy to overlook the likelihood that one snake probably doesn’t constitute a museum – I don’t call my house a cat museum for instance.)
Once again can I just express my thanks to all of you at PBC. Thank you for your sponsorship, thank you for your prayers and support and thank you for blessing me so much with this trip and my year so far at PBC. It’s been so fantastic for me in every way and so much of that is down to you and the children and young people we are blessed with at our Church.
Thank you so much, God bless,
John Reynolds
Youth Ministry Intern
PS - At the most recent youth service many of the young people made a donation to be sent to an orphanage I visited. If you would also like to contribute or hear more from me about why it touched my heart please speak to me.
I am also going to be sending some football equipment for the team I have been coaching. Please please bring me your old boots, football shirts, socks, shorts, cones, bibs. Anything you can get hold of. It will be of such value to the guys there. Thanks.
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