Cicone November 2023

A big “Hello” from Tanzania!

We are nearing the end of our academic year so there are many activities to plan. We are so thankful for all God is doing here at the Rafiki Village in Tanzania. We know many are praying and God has been listening! We are excited to share what has been happening.

Outreach Opportunities

The long-range goal for Rafiki has been to have Tanzanian schools adopt and use our Bible study and classical Christian education curriculum. God has been opening many doors. We have been working with the assistant bishop for our region of the ELCT (Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania) in two ways this year. First, he is very interested in hiring teachers from our RICE Program to work in the Lutheran schools. We have twelve participants this year and we are delighted that they will have job opportunities when they complete the program in December. Second, the assistant bishop has helped us organize a day-long seminar at our Village with eighteen headmasters from Lutheran primary and secondary schools in our area. We will have the opportunity to present an overview of our Bible study and curriculum with the goal of giving them a vision for using these quality materials in their schools. Eventually, we can help these schools adopt our materials.

God has also opened a wonderful opportunity for us to work with Baraka Primary School nearby our school. (Baraka means “Blessing” in Swahili). This school is a new Lutheran school and recently one of our RICE students was hired to be the Head of School. She is very interested in using the Rafiki Bible Study with her staff and students. We are working to help train the teachers in how to use the Bible study materials effectively. We expect at the start of the new school year (January 2024), this school will be using our Bible study. Just think—a new group of over 150 teachers and students will be studying the Bible every day, and the school is still growing.

We are amazed and thankful as God continues to provide opportunities for us to begin working with other national schools.

Happy Early Childhood student

New Responsibilities

For us to take advantage of these new opportunities God has provided, we have restructured responsibilities among our three Rafiki missionaries (ourselves and Laurie Eastup) so we can effectively oversee the current ministries (School, RICE, OrphanCare, and Widows Program) and oversee these new opportunities. John is now the Head Education Administrator overseeing the primary and secondary schools. Gwen is the RICE Dean managing the entire RICE Program and teaching some classes. We will support Laurie in Outreach opportunities by providing school tours and visiting other schools to meet with administrators to discuss our resources.

Gwen teaching a RICE class

We are excited to assume these additional responsibilities. Please pray that we can manage all the areas we oversee effectively .

We thank you for your encouragement and support. We pray God will bless you during the upcoming Christmas season .

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