The following post comes from our short-term missionaries, Roger and Trish Blomquist, who are serving for three months in Tanzania. Please read on to experience worship in Tanzania through our traveler's eyes.

Let’s go to church, but where!  Don Fultz was scheduled to preach at Ukumbi today and since there is a new Ag. Demonstration plot and a pythreum plot there that Roger hadn’t seen, we decided to join them for the day.  Asst. Bishop Gaville would be going along as the interpreter.  We are scheduled to leave at 7:30 as the service starts at 10:00 am and it will take a little less than 2 hours to get there.- just past Pommern where Gary Langness would be preaching.  Actual distance was 63 kilometers – 38 miles!  Hmmm!  First stop, however, is to get air in the back tire.

Check this out!

Two hours you say – well, you haven’t experienced the roads!  We were off the tarmac and on the rocky roads in less than 30 minutes.  The going was rough all the way to Pommern where we stopped to pick up the District Pastor.  The challenge was actually beyond Pommern.  As we were coming down a hill we could see a truck up ahead around a bend and sure enough, it had slid off the road, was stuck and there was no possible way for us to go around.  A tractor was there to pull it out but that took awhile.

In the meantime, Roger, Don, Pastor Gaville, the District Pastor, and Jaffet, the young man that lives at Gaville’s home and is in the Bachelor of Theology program at Tumaini, get out of our vehicle and are trying to give some guidance to the Tanzanians on how best to pull the truck.  Once the tractor successfully got the truck out of the ditch, it continued to pull it toward us, weaving and almost tipping over, as there were large ruts in the road.  Now it was our turn to try and pass through!  Don put the vehicle in 4-wheel drive and slowly maneuvered the ruts, mud, water, and got us through.

Roger in the mean time now has mud part way up one leg and his shoes look like he was playing in the mud!

We venture on, now the road looking more like a trail.  We arrive at almost 10 am to singing and dancing at the entrance to the church and parsonage. 

Next is tea and chapatti – can’t have a service without tea first!  Ukumbi is a new parish not yet partnered with a St. Paul Area Synod companion congregation and is a spin off from another parish because it has been growing so fast.  This is a big day for this church because now they have guests from America, the District Pastor and the Assistant Bishop in their presence.  That, of course, means there will be more than one offering and communion.  Their choirs sing and many people dance in the aisles.

The local secondary school students also sing, we are introduced and need to make our little speeches, and then it is time for Don’s sermon.  Pastor Gaville interpreted into Swahili for the members and we, of course, enjoyed the sermon immensely as we could understand it and did not have to have an interpreter!  During the offertory, a family choir sang and they were incredible.  One could say that all the music we hear here is incredible as they sing from their hearts and without music and take every opportunity possible to dance.  Today the students were singing songs in HeHe (local tribal language) and doing the HeHe dance that is encouraged by the pastors.

After communion and at the end of the service, the local pastor announced that there are some gifts for the guests and he quickly said that the women would be gifted to look like Tanzanians.  Eunice and I went to the front to be wrapped in kangas by the women.

The district pastor and Assistant Bishop received chickens.  Have you checked your watch yet?  Yes, we are well past 1 hour, in fact, we are on schedule as services here are never less than one and a half hours – we started by 10:30 and it is now approaching 1 pm.  Next on the agenda is lunch at the Pastor’s house – can’t leave without it, as it would be impolite!  Set before us is a 20 qt. kettle of rice, a medium size bowl with chicken pieces, mbitchi (chopped spinach), a tomato sauce for the rice, a small bowl of spaghetti – plain, and a few bananas.  There are 20 people in the room and it is like feeding loaves and fishes to the multitudes.  We all take small portions and they fill up their bowls with rice and begin to layer on the rest – the 20 qt. pan of rice is almost gone and the chicken has managed to stretch to almost all 20 people.  There weren’t enough spoons (tablespoon size) to go around so many in the group were eating with their hands, which is tradition anyway.  There was a definite “pecking” order to the serving and the conversation and we just sat and watched and listened in awe.  This was a big day for them as they don’t have guests often.  For us, we enjoy being part of the village experience

Secondary school students singing outside of the church

and the travel, people, etc. are all part of what church on Sunday is all about.  By 2:30 we are on our way home, with a stop first at the demonstration plot for pictures, then back through the mud and ruts and on to the rocky road, dropping the District Pastor back off in Pommern, arriving back in Iringa about 4:30.  Your church experience from the time you left home until you returned home more than likely didn’t exceed 2 hours where our church experience is typically 6 – 8 hours or more from the time we leave home until we arrive back but always a wonderful day, filled with the spirit and a reminder of why we are here.  Another wonderful day in Tanzania!   Mungu Akubariki!