Scott-n-July's Place

In September we traveled to Dar es Salaam for some medical treatment for several weeks. Before we left Dar to go back to Mwanza we took a few days vacation to rest in a little resort south of Dar we like to go to. We stayed in a little hut on stilts that when opened up get a nice sea breeze and also puts us above the mosquito line. The Indian Ocean is so beautiful and the beach is perfect and quiet there.

Over the weekend we saw dozens of Navy soldiers in their crisp white uniforms just walking around. A few came up and introduced themselves. It turns it they were from a Pakistani warship that was docked in Dar for a few days on a goodwill tour. One guy was a gunner and the other a deep sea diver and demolitions expert. The gunner had a wife a daughter back in Pakistan. His beard was partially grey and we were surprised to find out he was only 32 years old. He said seeing the effects of war in his country aged him. He had some good stories of how Somalian pirates came up to their ship thinking it was a merchant ship in the middle of the night. So they open fired on them and they took off. They got big surprise that’s for sure. The big guns have a 15 mile range on them.

The other sailor, the diver, came up to me and started asking me questions about the Bible (since we had told them we were missionaries). He said he went to a Catholic church in a small village in Pakistan and the priest read and then totally misapplied a scripture from the Bible. After the service he approached the priest and asked him why he was lying to everyone. The priest just told him how ignorant he was and how ignorant the congregation was and got angry. So, he left that church and tried other ones like Pentecostal, where they spoke in tongues. He didn’t see the sense in that since not even the people speaking in tongues knew what they were saying. He had so many Bible questions, but his English was very limited. I brought him back to the little banda we were sitting under so Scott could talk to him, too. We got his phone number and address and will contact our branch in Pakistan to have some literature sent to him. Who Knew? I didn’t know we had a branch in Pakistan or that there were other Christian religions there. What are the odds that a guy looking for the Truth would come up to us on the beach when there are hundreds of others hanging out there too? I have no doubt it was angelic direction. We will have to keep tabs on our new friend, Rafaqat (which means "friend").

We went to the resort next to ours for dinner one night and there was a film crew there. There were some Tanzanian actors making a move called Madawa (Drugs). They were filming a chase scene and then a kidnap and ransom scene with a little girl. When they took a break, a few of the actors came over for a chat, fake guns and all. They asked us some Bible questions like…Is Jesus God or the Son of God? When Jesus died and was resurrected what form was his body in, flesh or spirit? Things like that. It’s interesting to me how people are thinking about spiritual things but don’t know how to get the answers without being humiliated by their priest or pastor. So they fired off questions until their break was over and then returned to chasing each other around with fake guns and ducking behind palm trees for cover. Funny stuff, really. The part we had to laugh at was when we were leaving. They were shooting this ransom scene with this 7 year old girl was tied to a rustic style wooden deck near where the waves were washing up on the beach. So picture this, (I can’t believe we didn’t have our camera on us) a little girl with too much eyeliner tied to the outside of a wood deck with huge ropes. She’s crying pretty convincingly. There is a guy with a microphone hiding behind her and a big movie camera pointed on her. Now behind the cameraman is a bunch of bystanders watching, because this is not something you see everyday in Tanzania. The bystanders are in layers. The first layer behind the cameraman is the support staff like hair and makeup girls looking very professional and trendy. The next layer is a bunch of girls in bikinis and a couple of guys in Speedos. Behind them are two Masaai warriors in their full gear, including wrist and ankle shields, clubs, spears and tartans. Then there are a few local merchants looking pretty tattered selling their shells and beach wraps and hats. Then at that moment, a man is passing by in a dugout canoe. He is standing up and is holding a home made wood paddle and looks like a Tanzanian version of Tom Hanks from Cast Away. He sees the crowd and camera crew and paddles even faster and beaches his little boat and come running over to join the colorful crowd to watch. It really was surreal and words will never do it justice. It was hilarious! Gotta love it here.

We had our first visit from our new Circuit Overseer and his wife Jussi and Lisa Toika the last week of Oct. The brothers and sisters were so excited and made a huge effort to support the visit. We had huge service groups during the week and whoever was out was invited to lunch as well. It was just what we needed and eating and talking together at lunch was so encouraging. Jussi had the Kingdom Songs downloaded into he is phone so at lunch we could practice some of the new songs that we were going to sing at the upcoming Circuit Assembly. It was a lot of fun. To make things even better it happened to be a workweek for the C.O. and D.O. so we had Musa Mwasili and his wife Jeny with us, too. We had 100 in attendance for the Sunday talk with 51 publishers. We packed out our Kingdom Hall. It was awesome.

The following weekend was our Circuit Assembly. We had the privilege to break in our newly built expandable Kingdom Hall with a seating capacity of 750. It’s such a friendly circuit. I wish we had the time to visit some of these out of the way villages. Some came from nearby islands in Lake Victoria, and others from up near the Kenya boarder on the North side of the Serengeti. We had over 800 in attendance and 11 baptized, 3 of which were from our congregation. Jackson, Richard and Lushinge all 13 years old and very active in the ministry. As I’m writing this, Scott is out in some marshy field with a few of the boys cutting down papyrus. The plan is to soak it, cut it into strips, press it, dry it and make paper out of it (just like in ancient times). He has assigned each kid a chapter of the Bible to write onto their home made paper. So, a dozen or so of them have been practicing their penmanship in preparation.

That about catches you up on the goings on here in our little corner of the world. The last few weeks have been pretty busy but encouraging and fun filled. In Dec. Scott has elder school and in Jan. we travel to Dar es Salaam for the Zone Visit. Jeff Jackson and Bro. La Franca are coming. Some of the friends in the congregation are saving their money to go so they can catch a glimpse of an actual anointed person and listen to his talk. They have so much appreciation because it’s a huge journey to get there. Thanks for visiting our site and may Jehovah continue to bless you in your faithful service to him

Scott-n-July

Hello all,
A few weeks ago we had our DC here in Mwanza. Two circuits met together for a peak attendance of 1,462 with 26 baptized (and 17 cars in the parking lot). If you think that the number baptized was good, across Lake Victoria in Bukoba, they had 27 baptized with an attendance of around 750! Incidentally, they decided to open a missionary home there in Bukoba. A couple from our home, the Stackhouses and the Dimichinnos from Dar will be moving there within the month. Exciting for them to be the first missionaries permanently assigned to that region.

But now back to the DC. I worked in the Sound Dept. And unlike what they may have done at your local DC we had to set up almost everything, each morning! Security could not be counted on to protect our equipment, so all that we could leave was the speaker cable. So each morning at 7:00 we set it all up and tested it again to make sure it all still worked.

In case of a power cut we had two car batteries as backup. It was a good thing too, since the power cut twice. The power was switched without missing a beat. Interestingly, for the drama we only used the batteries, since there would be no way to find our place again on the CD should the power cut. But all went well and there were no real glitches.

The kids loved their little books and the parents were very thankful.

The view was not as great as in Moshi (where we were at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro), but otherwise it was a very similar stadium.

Big concrete steps and colorful Kangas laid out to sit on. Unfortunately, everyone was in the sun until about noon. And as the shade advanced over the audience, the umbrellas were passed down to those in front. It was great to see this little unspoken act of kindness taking place each day.