Azimio Baptist Church (ABC)

We had a great day of worship with the believers at ABC.  Last week, Pastor Jackson came by the house to introduce himself and invite us to worship with them.  Besides pastoring his flock, he also leads the morning worship time at the Kigoma Baptist Hospital Monday through Friday.  He prays with the staff and also with patients.  He has a passion to serve like a chaplain there.

He began the work at ABC back in 1998 where they met in the bamboo walled church building (in the distance behind the brick church).  Later, with help from various people, they were able to build the structure that they presently worship in.  Pastor Jackson and his wife Esther live about 100 yards from the church in the town of Ujiji.  (The church is called ABC because it is located in the area of Ujiji called Azimio). 

Ujiji is a town of somewhere in the range of 150,000 people.  It is said that it is >95% Muslim.  Ujiji is famous for a few things including being the starting point of the slave trade route which reached to Dar es Salaam.  It is also famous for the time in which Dr. Livingston was found by the reporter who is said to have said “Dr. Livingstone, I presume.”

We had a refreshing time of praising God through songs.  ABC has a choir that led some of the worship songs, but it was nice to see others in the congregation leading as well.  We were about 40 adults/youth and 20 kids.  It was really nice to see about 20 youth there, probably a 80/20 ratio of guys/gilrs.  After several songs,  we then heard a sermon on the truth that the Kingdom of God has come.  That we need to be about the work of inviting others to come to Jesus, to be doing the will of God every day, not just Sundays, to be overcoming the temptations of Satan and the world, and to live lives that follow Christ.  It was a challenging message.  After the message, there was a time of prayer for those who were sick, with each person prayed over by the pastor.  Finally, a closing song and prayer.  It was truly a wonderful day of worship.

Oh yeah, last Monday, we did get our container turned around by a crane at the port.  With the help of 6 stong guys together with Sally, Kelly and I, we got it unloaded in about 4 hours.  We’ve spent the week re-assembling, arranging, cleaning, etc. to get our home set up.  I think by the end of this next week, it will be looking pretty good.

Thanks for your prayers and support.  We are truly blessed to be here.  Tomorrow morning (Monday) we’ll be heading over to the morning hospital worship time to introduce ourselves and let them know I will begin working the following week.  I’ll post more this week.

Daily by His grace…