Maynard's Farm

Update

It has been a busy month and as a result we haven’t gotten a report out. We are so excited to share with you the things that have been happening in Kisongo. First, the new Kisongo church building is almost complete. This week they are working on the windows, doors, and plastering the inside. This is an answered prayer and we are so grateful to Huntington church of Christ and Central church of Christ as well as our incredible supporters who have helped make this happen.

The Central church of Christ came and spent two weeks here working with the Kisongo church. We are grateful to them for choosing to work with the church and putting in the time and effort to plan with them. Many great things have been said about Central by the Tanzanians and I want to share those words and why they are important.

When Central started planning their trip months ago they simply asked the Kisongo church what was needed and for the church to set a schedule. Kisongo  did and they asked for half-days of evangelism, follow-ups with those who have fallen away, a marriage seminar, and a youth day. The church also wanted to try and work on teaching more of the Kisongo church members to do Bible studies. Central was more than willing to do these things and spent four months communicating daily to try and be effective. They added a lesson in their evangelism on the church and what it looks like before they teach salvation because the church asked them to. We had Jeremy Hinote, a licensed professional counselor, preparing for the marriage seminar. He bought MANY books on African culture and had Justin interview men from many different tribes in our area to put together his lessons. Phillip Duncan and Roderick who work with the Kisongo youth put together lessons the Kisongo youth needed and then set out to invite the community. For their two week trip there was months of preparation to make it the best it could be and the results were tremendous.

First, the evangelism changed a lot with the church lesson. Instead of 30 baptisms (like last year) there were 8. Why? Because people understood the weight of their decision and the change that would have to happen and many chose not to obey the Gospel. But, the 8 that did even showed up to Thursday night Bible study and we cannot even begin to tell you how incredible that is. The goal is discipleship and this was the beginning. Also, since Central left two more of the people they studied with continued to study and chose to put on the Lord in baptism. To God be the glory.

Second, because of the time they dedicated going to those who have fallen away 30 (yes!) of those unfaithful came to church Sunday morning. We, the church at Kisongo, are continuing to follow-up with them. But everyone was amazed Sunday morning when all of the “back sliders”, as the Tanzanians call them, came to worship for the first time in months.

Third, Jeremy Hinote conducted a marriage seminar and all of his cultural background reading and interviews paid off. Some of the comments we received were, “All of Tanzania should hear these lessons”, “We wished he was doing morning to night seminars (they were two hours every afternoon)”, “He is not African but he knows us and reached us”. This last comment was huge. This is why we do what we do and help the Americans. Often times people come and the lessons are too “American” they apply to our culture and not the culture here. To give an example, many times when teaching on marriage Americans talk about “dating your wife” and that is just not something that they do and the lessons don’t mean much to them. We hope in the future we can do more to use Jeremy and his talents to help the churches here.

Fourth, the time and effort put into the youth day paid off! For the morning lessons we had more than 70 kids in attendance! By the afternoon soccer game there was more than 100 people at the soccer field. We are grateful to Phillip, Roderick, Shadrack, and Central’s Sam Welsh for all their time.

Last, the spiritual growth of the Kisongo members over the last month has been tremendous.  Before campaigns Bekah Duncan did an evangelism course with all of the women at Kisongo. New translators were trained and used from the Kisongo church and as a result our church was able to reach the people in their own backyard. Both Bekah and Anna have had women in tears they were so happy to be taught to do their own evangelism lessons. One of Anna’s friends at the Kisongo church said, “Now I can teach my mother and my family members who aren’t Christians. You have helped me know what to say.” It took more than just teaching them in class but having the opportunity to go with other people and hear lessons and this campaign opened the doors for the Kisongo church members to do just that.

We are so grateful to the Central church of Christ for choosing to work with the Kisongo church of Christ and for the long hours and days of preparation that went into this campaign. May God bless you all for your efforts.

Farming

I wrote this report Monday (4/29) trying to be on top of things and have this sent out on time. The irony of that is that in the middle of the night a huge storm came and changed many of the things I was reporting about. As you all know it has not been raining and as a result our corn crop has died. What you may not know is that a cyclone hit Mozambique and with it we knew storms could be headed our way. We were excited at the prospect of getting some rain. Over the weekend we got a few showers but they didn’t even leave mud puddles. Then, last night, a huge storm came that poured heavy amounts of rain on us all night (yes continuous for many many hours). From the wind and deafening sound of it we knew a flooding was the potential outcome.

In my initial report yesterday I was reporting the success of starting back up the broiler project. It was going really well. As of this morning all of our 1 week chicks drowned. I must point out the positive – our four week almost ready to slaughter chicks survived, our three week chicks survived, and our newest tiny grow-outs have so far survived.

Now, as you know we dug trenches and culverts last year to try and prevent this from happening again. However, last night was unlike anything we have had before. With that said, last year it took more than four hours for the water to recede even a foot and that was with us using a pump to pump out water. This year, the culverts and ditches did their job and the water has been constantly receding.

The biggest hit was to our layers. We lost all but a few of our layers and the few that remained were in bad shape and we slaughtered for meat for the school. We are very disappointed in the loss of the layers but we were four months shy of growing out new ones. Now, usually we sell off half and start with small ones and then do the same to the other half. Because of them dying clearly we won’t be able to this and so we will be taking a substantial hit.

A few questions you may be asking: 1) Was this the cyclone or the start of a very late rainy season? We aren’t sure. Due to the thunder and intense wind we are leaning on cyclone. But, if the rainy season is starting .. should we replant? Again, we aren’t sure.

2) How can you prevent this from happening again? Well, we thought we had already done that but a piece of metal blocked where the water was to exit near the chicken house and it led to part of the above series of unfortunate events. BUT it only took our ditches a few hours to drain what last year took two days. This is a huge positive and we now know we need at least two more culverts in the big road in order to help prevent this again. The one was not enough for the amount of water causing the water to break the road again and pour water into our chicken area.

Evangelism

Anna continues to do all of her weekly Bible classes and add more where she can. Last week Agustine’s daughters, Prisca and Vivian, were home from boarding school (at 13 most children here go to boarding school) and it gave them the opportunity to translate for Anna. Any time they are available she tries to use them to increase their bible knowledge and use their English skills. One of their studies was a lady who had fallen away and we were so happy to see her this Sunday. We pray that they were able to encourage her and that she is renewed in her faith.

I will be finishing up my course at ACSOP on Christian Evidences soon and starting the book of Acts.

Anna is teaching the women’s class at Kisongo as this next month will possibly be her last opportunity before we move. In just a few short weeks campaigns will be begin and the summer will be filled with visiting teachers.

Keep the upcoming campaigns in your prayers as we all prepare for them. Pray that God is glorified, the church is strengthened, and souls are reached.

There are exciting things just around the corner here and we cannot wait to share them with all of you in our future reports.

Farming

The rainy season has not come this year as usual. Some districts around us are getting occasional showers that we hope will sustain their crops but Kisongo is not getting even that. We request your prayers for the farmers whose crops still have a chance. Even if it started raining now the majority of our crop, if not all, would be lost but we hope that is not the case for the other farmers.

While this news sounds terrible – we have two years worth of corn stored from past harvests. But pray for those whose livelihoods depend on this rain and these crops. The school will be fine, it is just a setback, but many others desperately need this rain and these crops to feed their families.

We continue to harvest greens, onions, and other small crops on our raised drip beds. We are grateful for this technology that allows us to conserve water and still harvest.

Because our corn is a loss this year we will not be able to use the stalks for silage for the cows. But also, because there is no rain, grass is scarce even on our farm. Because of this we went ahead and bought 400 bales of hay before prices go up due to the drought. This is the first year since we moved to Kisongo that we have had to buy more than just a few bales where we ran out of silage a few weeks early.

Evangelism

It was not included in our last report but for the last month Anna has been visiting many women in our churches who are suffering for different reasons. Pray for our churches and pray for those who satan is trying to break them by others attacking them, attacking their marriages, their crops dying and not being able to feed their families and so many more reasons. It has been a difficult month but we know it is one of the reasons we are here. Despite the losses that continue to come we teach that God is still good and our hope is not in these things.

I am preparing and teaching a course on Christian evidences at ACSOP.

Please pray for rain. We need it for the crops but also to refill the water table that feeds most of the wells. And, as many of you know, power is ran on hydro-electric here. We need rain for many many reasons.

We are grateful to our Tanzanian family who is one by one in their own ways celebrating our last 3 years here and saying their goodbyes. This last week we went to the home of Bomoa for dinner. We have not seen more spiritual growth or maturity from anyone since 2015 as him and his family. It has been an incredible journey to watch and we are grateful to have played a small part.

If you don’t get their reports know that our teammates, Philip and Bekah Duncan, are a great fit here. Philip has helped tremendously with the farms budget but more importantly he has dedicated his time and effort to the teens at Kisongo. This last Sunday, it was awesome to see so many of our teens home from boarding school. But it was even more awesome for them to have a class, led by Philip and Rodrick, to help grow them spiritually. We hope that more churches take the time to begin teaching and training their teens in the Lord.

On Sunday it was announced at Kisongo that the church at Mto wa Mbu is in the processes of installing elders. We were thrilled to hear this! It is so great to see more and more churches choosing the biblical model of leadership. Keep this church and their possible new elders in your prayers.

Farming

Now that government regulations are more stable we have our broiler project back up and running. We currently have 800 and hope to be able to maintain this project again. Each 200 batch are about one weeks apart to hopefully get back on a good rotation.

We had to spray for fall worms in our corn again this year. However, if we don’t begin receiving rain soon (even just small showers) then we are going to lose this crop. The highest chance for rain is in the next few days so please pray it begins to rain.

Evangelism

I have spent the last two weeks teaching two short courses at Andrew Connally School of Preaching. The first week I taught Bible geography. Thanks to John Moore and his lesson plans and our 2018 trip to the Holy Lands I was able to provide the class with lots of information and pictures of the places in the Bible and how that affects the stories and our understanding.

This last week I taught a course on personal evangelism. I have enjoyed this class a lot as it is something I’m familiar with here and it created a lot of conversation with the students.

We meant to post this in our last report but forgot… we are so grateful to the North Tuscaloosa church of Christ. Since 2015 they have been so involved here with us and been a constant encouragement. Before we left to come back this year they sent us 10 water filters for families! Last year they sent one and it has made a HUGE impact on the family it was received by. Their children who were constantly at the doctor haven’t been sick in a year! Clean drinking water is difficult to come by here and the water filter they sent has been a major blessing. So, we passed out 10 more thanks to North Tuscaloosa and the recipients and their families are so grateful. (Yes, we know only 7 are pictured below but 3 had to leave.) And the man on the far right was the original recipient last year and showed the others how to use them!

Thank you all for your continued support as our time here is growing short. We are grateful to all of you for helping the church here in Tanzania.

 

Farming

The first week of March we were blessed to have Don Hendricks and his son, Corey, with us. They climbed Kilimanjaro and then came to us to help on the farm. We are grateful to them for their hard work. Sometimes farm work isn’t glamorous, just hard, and they didn’t complain as we dug ditches for several more days. We finally have trenches that run the length of the farm. We have also redone all of the raised beds to prepare for the rainy season. With that being said, we have only had a couple of small rains since the crops were planted. However the corn, beans, and sunflowers are all out of the ground. It has rained all around us but not in Kisongo this past week. So please pray that we soon begin receiving rain.

The farm continues to run well as we are still ironing out all of the last minute details for our summer departure. We know that even after we leave there will be things we did not anticipate so please be praying for all of those things and the transition for our friends and fellow workers.

Evangelism

Now that we are back our routine is finally back to “normal”. Anna continues to teach her children’s classes at the daycare and local school every week. She is also back in the routine of follow-up studies and new evangelism studies with members of our Kisongo church. 

This month the women of the local congregations met on the first Saturday for Bible study. This is something they do every month. They asked Anna to teach on Obadiah and for her to teach on Malachi next month. Two Tanzanian women also taught and gave wonderful lessons.

We are also slowly visiting our Tanzanian brethren house to house as we say our goodbyes over the next few months. This is so hard on us and them and please pray for this process as everyone grieves and accepts change.

Farming

The last two weeks of February have been slam-packed. Samantha and Joe Burns, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law, came back to Tanzania with us to help us with some final projects. Joe is a horticulturist who owns a nursery in Grovetown, Georgia. In November of 2017 he came, and along with members of the Central Church of Christ in Augusta, helped us start our grove of fruit trees. Only one year later many of these trees are doing well. He helped us replant those that are not and reassess what grows well where we are and just overall improve this project. Fifty more trees were planted and all of the trees were trimmed and the Tanzanians were taught general maintenance.

We were also able to get the corn and beans planted. The rains are supposed to begin this weekend and we pray that God blesses this new crop.

The greenhouse was also cleaned out and tomatoes and peppers were harvested for the school. Then, we replanted sunflowers in the greenhouse in the hopes that this will keep out the birds.

Bekah, Anna, and Samantha harvested the carrots from the garden. It was awesome to see the improvement in our soil in the last three years. In 2015-2016 we tried to grow carrots but the soil was too hard. However, this month we harvested 75 kg of carrots (165 lbs), 8 kg of peppers ( 17.6 lbs), and 44 kg of tomatoes (96.8 lbs). More has been harvested over the last three months of the tomatoes and peppers this was just the final harvest before we cleaned the greenhouse.

Evangelism

Anna and Samantha had a busy two weeks while Joe and I worked on the farm. Two days after arriving in Tanzania they held a women’s seminar at the Kisongo church. The theme was “God Heals the Broken” and there was a great turnout and wonderful responses to the lessons.

Anna was thrilled to get back to her Wednesday bible class at the local daycare, Walk in Love. The children welcomed “Auntie Anna” back with gleeful screams and loved learning about Joshua and Jericho. The neat thing was many of the children were new but the nannies had taught them the Bible songs while Anna was away.

On Friday they went to the local school where Anna, Paulina, and Mama Kashumba (both Tanzanian members of the Kisongo church) taught the children at the local public school. This year they have more kids than ever before. Even the floor from front to back is filled! A quick head count showed around 160 children (last year averaged around 120).

On Saturday Samantha held a children’s seminar for the local children of Kisongo at the Kisongo church of Christ. More than 100 children came and learned about David and Goliath and having a shield of faith in their lives. There were lots of games (like throwing “tape rocks” at Goliath’s head and dodging satan’s fiery darts with shields) and the children even acted out the story of David and Goliath at the end.

We are grateful to be back home in Tanzania. Please keep the church here in your prayers and the wonderful work they are doing to further grow the Kingdom.

Farming

The farm is doing well and we give thanks to God. We currently have two rooms of broiler chicks growing out at different stages and are preparing to add a third room of baby chicks soon. The school and Anna and I are grateful as chicken is hard to come by lately due to supplier and boarder issues.

We have spent the last few weeks cleaning and preparing and replanting the raised beds. Next week the students return from their break and food will be ready for them.

Harvest season is just around the corner. It has taken much longer this year for things to dry out but we will be very busy harvesting our corn in the next few weeks.

On a personal level – we were gifted rabbits as a thank you a few months ago. We are now bursting at the seams with baby rabbits. Anna and I are grateful, if you know us you know we loved raising meat rabbits in the States. Hopefully, this will help us since chicken is sometimes not available lately.

Evangelism

This month we had 3 guests from Tennessee come and help us with post-campaign work. We are grateful to them for their efforts. Many new Christians have been visited and encouraged and more souls have been added to the Lord’s church.

The Kisongo church is working hard to finish their building and we are so happy for them. They are also working hard with many classes to provide spiritual nourishment to all ages at the church and the new converts. On Sunday morning there are now six different classes for the church and we are happy to see them trying to encourage and mature one another.

Anna continues to teach two bible classes a week to different children (day care and local public school). She is also going out one day a week to evangelize and one day a week to encourage and strengthen our women in the church through Bible study.

Denton Landon from North Carolina is here teaching two Master’s courses at ACSOP. I am grateful to be able to take these classes and have been encouraged to see how well they have been received by the local brethren.

August 8th the Duncan family will be moving to Tanzania to join the TZ2000 team. Please keep Philip, Bekah, Micah, and Nathan in your prayers as they transition to the work here. We are happy to have them and pray the Lord’s Kingdom grows.

Trip to Dar es Salaam

Anna and I had the opportunity to travel to Dar es Salaam this month. Word of the leadership/eldership classes I had conducted at Kisongo church of Christ reached a church in Dar, the Temeke COC, and I was asked to come and conduct classes for them.

Anna and I left our home, with Agustine, in Kisongo Thursday morning around 5:15 am. After traveling by bus more than 12 hours we reached Dar es Salaam that night. We were met at the bus station by ACSOP student Shadrack and his friend Henry. After two more hours we reached our hotel room.

On Friday we spent the day getting to know our brothers Shadrack and Henry better and touring their city. We got to eat plenty of fish and squid from stands on the side of the road.

The seminar began on Saturday at 9 am and ran (both days) until 5 pm. It is hard to put into words our experience with the church at Temeke but we want for all of you to hear about the wonderful works they are doing and the maturity they have shown us. 152 people were in attendance for day 1 of the Leadership seminar and 167 were there for day 2. Temeke had recently selected two elders. (Please be praying for these men) They wanted to better understand their roles and wanted the church to understand and have the opportunity to ask questions. On both days there were two 1 hour long Q&A sessions. We talked about what a Christian leader is verses what the world teaches us a leader is.  We also talked about all the different roles in the Church and their jobs and roles. By the comments we received from the congregation, and hearing our friends here tell us about talking to the members there, the seminar went very well and was successful. The members and elders of the Temeke church gave me the highest form of compliment I could have received. I was told by numerous people that they were unsure of me coming because they did not know me but often foreigners do not understand them or their ways and their lessons don’t help. However, I was told that not only did they understand but they said I “knew the culture” because I gave examples that showed I had talked to and interviewed people here. This may not sound like much to you but Anna and I have a deep desire to understand the people here and make sure our lessons and examples are understood and effective. I spent a lot of time this year working on this through talking to the Tanzanians and for them to have noticed was huge to me. Again, this has been our prayer and desire and I hope to continue to try and make sure my lessons are applicable in their culture while adhering to the word of God.

What amazed us most about the Temeke church of Christ was their maturity. They work with the other churches in Dar es Salaam to provide a Bible school at the church. They had 168 first year students and 72 second year students! Two people were brought in over the weekend to be baptized who had been taught, not by their evangelist, but by two different members sharing the Gospel. They also work with the other churches in Dar es Salaam to pay for four radio programs a month. The churches plan out curriculum and a schedule and take turns teaching over the radio. On Sunday’s, after church, every member is divided up into a zone group. The different groups go to their “zone” and spend the day evangelizing. After evangelizing each group goes to a shut-in and worships with them that night.

These are only a few things we saw (we are leaving many many out) but it gave us so much hope and encouragement for the churches here. Temeke is not the largest or strongest church in Dar but they are doing so much to further the cost for Christ. It is our deep desire to see the same for the churches here in Arusha.