June Newsletter
Habari za Leo (News of the Day),
This is actually going to be our letter for both June and July. Since it is already the middle of July and we are so busy at this time trying to get everything ready for our trip home while at the same time keep everything going on all of the different projects we have here, we are basically working night and day. I have been working today on a list of all of the things that I need to accomplish before we leave and it does not look like it is going to get any better. It actually looks like I have more “list” than I have days left.
Well, so much for all of that and let’s get to what has been going on since the last newsletter. As I mentioned in my last letter, June is the month that we have most of the seminars here at the mission. We do this because June is the month that our schools are on break and we have dorms empty for the people to stay in. We had the best turn out for the Preachers Seminar, Young Ladies Seminar, and Women’s Seminar ever.
We had 70 preachers come. This was a 3 day seminar that lasted 7-8 hours a day. That did not count the hours that they spent in the evenings discussing things amongst themselves and fellowship together. All of the missionaries spoke along with three guest speakers we had here from the states. There was a wide variety of subjects covered during the three days, including things such as Church Leadership, Stewardship (these were my 2 subjects), Doctrinal issues, HIV (taught by Dr. Frank Black and Kyle Vath, RN), The Preachers Work taught by Michael Fortson ( who served as a missionary here in the 60’s), The Need for Bible education for the children taught by Rob Fortson (Michael’s son who was born in Chimala mission hospital and now serves as a Youth Minister in Robison, Texas), and several other topics. Our turn out was better than it was last year by almost double. There are only a hand full of congregations in this area that were not represented by their preacher. We heard many comments from the preachers that they really enjoyed the seminar, so I would not be surprised if it is even bigger next year.
The Young Ladies Seminar had 107 young ladies in attendance, which was a new record for them. This seminar was organized by Melissa Vath. It was for 2 days and went really well including 4 baptisms. We use several of our more mature Tanzanian women to teach plus some of the missionary wives.
The Mature Women’s Seminar had 172 ladies along with 80 children. This was by far the largest crowd we have ever had for a seminar. Tam Raynor organized the Seminar. It was great to see so many Christian women to be able to come together to learn more about God’s word and have time to spend in fellowship with one another. So many of these ladies attend small village congregations where there may only be 5-6 other ladies in the entire membership. This gives them an opportunity to get to spend time with other women of the same beliefs and to encourage and build one another up as it speaks of in Hebrews 10:23-25. Tam taught along with the Fortson’s daughter Rebeka. Next year we are considering having classes for the children since we had so many children this year.
We also had the Return to the Bible Seminar at the end of the month. This is a product of the correspondence courses that are sent out from here on a monthly basis. Newton Lizima, one of our long time teachers here who attended school on the mission on the mountain behind the current mission, is the man who takes care of the correspondence courses. Twice a year we invite those who have been participating in these courses to come the mission to have additional teaching. This time we had 12 people come and learn more about God’s word. These generally always result in baptisms. This is just one of the many tools we use here to spread the Word here at Chimala.
We have spent a lot of our time since our last letter traveling. We have had a total of 36 guests here since the first of June. We had a group of 5 (the Fortson Family), a group of 14 (the Harding Group), and a group of 17 (the group from New York Ave.) here this summer. The Fortsons lived here 40 years ago and both Rob and Rebeka were born here at Chimala Mission Hospital. They spent time both here and in Dar visiting several congregations. They seemed to really enjoy their trip and want to come back again in the future. They actually hope to be able to bring a mission team with them when they come back. Rebeka has stayed on for a while working both at the hospital and the primary school. She seems to be adjusting well and enjoying the work. The Harding group this year came with an OB/GYN, a M.D., a P.A., two R.N. nurses, and 8 students. It was great for the hospital to have them here. To have people of their skills is such a blessing to the staff and the community. The New York Ave. group arrived on July 8th. This has been a great blessing for us. Our daughter Angie and our grandson Tyler were able to come with the group. We have wanted for a long time for our family to get to come and see what has won our hearts. I think they understand more everyday why we love the work here. Charles Hervey, his wife Denise, and his son Nathan also were able to come. Charles is one of the elders at New York Ave. and this is his first trip here. He was telling me yesterday while we were walking around that if every supporter could come and see what all goes on here, that there would a lot more money contributed to the work. He said all of the pictures and reports in the world just never convey the magnitude of work that goes on here. I told him that was the reason I encourage people to come, because everyone who comes says the same thing. The rest of the group consist of Julianne Stinson (my niece), Jennifer Gray, Jenny Gray, Cyndra Templeton and her daughter Allison, Christy Gragg Wyatt, Kurt and Haley French, Shenethia Mabry, Alleigh Bennett, Page Criswell, and Kristin Hall from Lancaster, Ohio (a friend of the Vaths). They are busy working with doing VBS’s, working at the school, the hospital, and various other work projects.
All of the schools opened back up on July 8th. Of course this also means more work during those first few days while we get every thing going. Every thing seems to be going well with everything pretty well in full swing now.
I have continued to preach and teach 3-4 times a week, which is still my favorite part. We have finally gotten our exemption from the government for taxes on the well equipment and we have gotten all of the supplies for piping and all of the pump equipment purchased just this last week. It is all here at the mission now and we should be able to finally finish this project shortly after my return from the states this fall. We are excited to have finally reached this point. We now have 5 of the buildings for the Secondary School completed. We will have 3 more to construct and finish when I return in the fall. Hopefully by then we can enough funds collected to go ahead and finish everything to get the school open.
We are busy getting ready to leave, as I said in the beginning of the letter. We will arrive back in the states on the 26th of July (which will be here before you know it). We still have some open dates and would love to visit you and your congregation to make a Power Point presentation and try to convey what all does take place here. Let me know if you are interested.
In Him,
Bill and Cyndi Stinson