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This week I am staying in the city of Arusha with Anthony and Shasta Brown, along with their son Josh who is visiting for 3weeks. I am having a great time visiting the missionaries here and we are doing a lot of work. I got here late on Monday afternoon, in time to go to the devotional over at the Gee’s house, at 6pm to sing and fellowship with each other. Tuesday Shasta and I went to the village of Monduli for a Bible study. It took us about 40min and 3 bumpy roads to get to Mama Bibi’s house, the lady we were studying with. On the way to her house we picked up Innocent and Samweli so they could translate for us during the Bible study. Mama Bibi is an older lady, probably in her 70’s and she is part of the Maasai tribe. The Maasai warriors are the most feared people in all of Tanzania. They believe that they own all the cattle and donkeys in the whole country. The men have gages in their ear so big they can loop them up around the tops of their ears. The women have earrings from the top of
The portable baptistery
There is not a permanent baptistery built at the Bible school yet. So we use the portable one for now.their ears to the bottom along with huge beaded jewelry that they wear all over their bodies. The men and women wear red and blue rap dresses and the men carry huge staffs to herd their animals. They are known to be mean, aggressive, tough people and they definitely are. But although they have this reputation, they can actually be very pleasant people. Mama Bibi was so happy to have us in her home to study the Bible with her. Shasta has been studying with her every Tuesday, so she knew we were coming. As soon as Shasta and I walked up she threw her arms around us and kissed us on both cheeks. She is a very sweet lady and wants to learn everything she can about God and what he wants for her life. The Maasai have their own language in their tribe. So during the Bible study with Mama Bibi, Shasta spoke in English, Innocent translated the English to Swahili and Samweli translated the Swahili to Maasai language. It was very interesting to listen to the Lord’s word be spoke in 3 different languages all in the same setting.
This Tuesday Mama Bibi decided that
Mama Ava and Mama Grace
These are the 2 ladies that came with us from Monduli to watch Mama Bibi get baptized. is was time she needed to be baptized in the body of Christ. She made the best decision anyone could make and how I loved beeing there, to see the gladness and excitement on her face when she made the choice. Even though she wanted to be baptized right then, she said there would be no one to watch over her house, kids, garden, etc. if she were to leave. So she told us, “Be back tomorrow morning at 10:00am…SHARP and I will go and be baptized then.” This is one of those cultural differences that we must respect and honor. Even thought we wanted her to get baptized right then, all we could do was pray that the Lord would bless us with another day so that we may add another sister to the Lord’s family.
Shasta and I got up on this morning (Wednesday) excited and prepared to go pick up Mama Bibi and take her to be baptized. What a wonderful day for the Lord!! We arrived at her house at 9:45am and she was there waiting for us to pull up. She didn’t even let us get out of the car to greet her….she
Mama Ava, Mama Grace and Mama Bibi
Mama Bibi is the woman sitting in the chair. She has a hurt foot and it is better for her if she sits as much as possible. was on a very important mission! The village of Monduli has an extremely bad supply of water; therefore there was not enough water to fill up the portable baptistery. So we drove her along with Innocent and 2 other sisters in Christ who wanted to be there for the baptism back to Arusha. We went to the ACSOP (Andrew Connally School of Preaching) to baptize her. Mama Bibi stepped in the water with a smile on her face. She was about to enter into the greatest family that she could ever be in and she was so happy. Innocent baptized her, we sang a few songs and we all welcomed her into our family. The family of believers and followers of Christ, but most of all we are the family of the all mighty God!!
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Pam White
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the baptistry
I had never seen a "portable" baptistry! I'd seen them taken to a nearby river or such. What we take for granted in the US. It is great to see the "harvest" after sowing the "seed".