Circuit Assembly Time

Thought it was time I wrote a blog! I know the gaps between them are getting bigger.

We are fine healthwise. Steve is tense in the lead up to his big exam in January. We have had some difficulties in arranging permits to stay. We now have a temporary 3 month one. So we know we are here until the end of February. After that we are now not sure, which is disconcerting! We are doing all within our power to find a way. We feel like now after two years, the language is easier, we understand the culture more and now we want to use this knowledge, not leave!

Our circuit assembly is this weekend. It is busy busy busy leading up to it. Seeing as the hall is 5 minutes walk away we always seem to be very involved in the preparation. Also we will have Tanzanian special pioneers staying with us from outlying groups. We also have a Swedish pioneer who arrived last Friday staying. She is planning to stay for three months. She is called Anna, is 30 and is normally in an English congregation in Sweden. She is currently sleeping. Arusha seems to have that effect on new guests.

We have a few baptismal candidates. One is called Jane, she is about 17. She is the housegirl for a Tanzanian witness family in our congregation and has been drawn to the truth through them. She is from a very rural area and has a poor education but tries hard to understand in her study, she looks up lots of the verses. She has had a few different teachers since she started to study and I have been very happy to study with her these last few months. She started publishing earlier in the year but had some months of inactivity. It seemed that no-one was regularly studying with her. Anyway after some discussion it emerged that each Saturday she conducts Bible studies with some other girls. It seemed that she had been doing this for many months but not submitting a report. Finally I understand that she didn’t know conducting bible studies was preaching and that the time doing so would also be included on ones report. She has now submitted reports for those missing months and as a regular publisher we hope she will be able to be baptised. The elders did a local needs a few weeks ago on how to complete ones report so hopefully that will sort things out a bit.