(Click on Image to read the latest newsletter)
January 2016 Newsletter
(click on the image to read the latest news.)
Nairobi Airport Ablaze!
Many of you may have seen in the news that the Nairobi airport caught on fire Wednesday morning, August 7th. This has happened 7 days before we are supposed to arrive in the same airport. Right before this happened, I was researching the embassy closings across the middle east and north Africa, to see if there were any alerts in Kenya or Tanzania. After a slight panic, and a much needed phone call from a missionary friend in Tanzania, I learned that there are no alerts or scares anywhere in Tanzania in association with terrorist activity. And though they still don’t know the cause of the fire at the Nairobi airport, it seems to be fairly certain not to be related to terrorism, because there are no injuries.
The first announcement was that the entire airport, which takes in 16,000 passengers everyday, would be closed for a couple of weeks. The most recent news is that they will be allowing some flights into the unharmed sections of the airport. Our flight agent has advised us to wait until Friday to make any changes, in hopes that our flight will still be landing in Nairobi by next week.
So be praying with us that God would direct our steps to the correct airport, and that our flight will not be delayed. We have much work awaiting us to start at Pamoja, we need to get there!
Our Work
For those of you that are new to the blog or newsletter, here’s the recap on what we will be doing in Tanzania.
Pamoja is discipling cultures through media. We use the powerful tools of literature, music, film, and animation to advance the Kingdom of God.
Media has the incredible power to transform the ideologies of people. To instill values or remove values; to instill morals or remove morals. When you think of what media has done to the American culture, then you can understand the power that it has. This tool in the right hands has the potential to have an enormous impact for the Kingdom, especially in a place like East Africa, which is 20 to 30 years behind America’s advancements in media.
I (Jonathan) will be working on numerous animation projects, one of which is a financial literacy course in partnership with World Vision, which will have a projected audience of 4 million in Tanzania alone! World Vision has a sister organization named VisionFund, which is best described as a financial bank in the 3rd world. They offer financial education as well as a place for the local people to invest their money and receive micro-loans to start a business and become self-sustaining. In order for anyone to receive a micro-loan, they must go through the financial literacy course that Pamoja is developing. We use Bible stories to teach concepts like tithing, giving, budgeting, saving, investing, etc. It is going to be a great tool with a wide audience.
Megan will have the incredible responsibility of raising our two kids in Africa. She will also be helping with the first ever Maasai school, teaching the teachers and helping to develop the curriculum. When time permits, she will also be coordinating the direct ministry of the media that Pamoja produces. Such as preparing movie showings at schools and churches, setting up projectors and sound systems, and ministering to the many locals that will flock to the screens.
With all that God has in store for us to do, we are incredibly thankful for your prayers and support. God bless!
We Are Returning
Well, as many of you already know, we have decided to return to Tanzania as full time Missionaries.
To be honest, we felt it even before we left for the first trip, but we believe in using wisdom in making decisions, especially ones so big. The trip we took was only confirmation on what God had placed in our hearts. There is now no denying or ignoring it. We would be absolute fools to ignore so great an opportunity and call that God has placed on our entire family.
As I mentioned to our youth group last week, God has called each and every one of us with the general purpose to know Him and to make Him known; that is what we should all be doing. But there are specific gifts and passions that He gives, that are different from one person to another. And when a person is working in their gift and passion for the Kingdom, the effect is exponential.
Imagine a power-wheels car. You know, the battery powered plastic cars that kids can ride in. If you put those things in grass, they drag slowly along and suck the battery life so fast. But the moment it hits cement, it takes off like a firework, and cruises effortlessly. It was meant to be on cement.
Some people are meant to be evangelists, some are meant to preach, some to teach, some to give, others to encourage, some to work behind the scenes. Unfortunately, there are many people who are meant to preach who are working behind the scenes. And some who are meant for hands on evangelism who are behind the pulpit. And all with good intentions, they do their work for the Kingdom, but are dragging along as if trying to run through mud.
I say all that to say that our family, when we land in Tanzania, will be landing on cement. Not just one of us, but all of us, and that is what is so amazing about this opportunity. We will be in our niche, so to speak. And when you are there, there is no comparison to your effectiveness for God’s Kingdom.
So, in case some of you don’t know, I will be working on animation and other media projects, that teach Biblical values that will be distributed to millions across Tanzania, and hopefully other countries in Africa soon enough. Megan will be working with the new Maasai school, teaching the teachers and hopefully helping to develop some curriculum, as well as other hands on ministry work with the local people. And of course, raising 2 kids in Africa (no big deal).
So, needless to say, your prayers and support are so greatly needed and cherished. God bless you all, and we will be updating you as our new departure date draws nearer!
We are Back
Well, we are now back in Louisiana. We made it back late last night.
The flight here was MUCH better, ya’ll must have been praying:) Thanks!! The kids slept ALL of the first flight which was about 12 hours. Then we landed in Amsterdam and the kids were HUNGRY, so we had to convert US dollars to euros and get food all within two hours and get to our flight. Needless to say we made it and spent about 60 dollars on 3 pieces of pizza and two drinks after all the trading and switching of the kinds of money!! We made sure we ATE it ALL:)
We got on our second flight, the kids slept about 3 hours of that flight. They had some other kids on the plane so we all just hung out in the back for the most part and let the kids play together and “run” around so it was really nice!
Then we were SO BLESSED to have Bart and Gina(Jonathan’s cousin and her husband) come pick us up in their camper!!! Talk about NICE, we can not say THANK YOU enough to them!! They went and got our broken down car and towed it behind the camper for us. We were able to sleep and take a shower, it was AWESOME!! We are so grateful for them doing that for us it saved so much trouble of us having to drive another 6 hours in the car home after such a long flight. Thank you guys for doing that for us, i know it was a long drive for ya’ll, we really appreciate it!!
We got home late last night and the kids played for about an hour and then CRASHED again!! we were able to get about 5 hours in which was really nice!
We are in the process of catching up on sleep and switching our time clocks back to US time, but its getting better!!
Thank you for your prayers!! We love you all and let us know if you want to get together and we can show you more pictures and share more stories!!
Community Outreach
The past week has been so busy for everyone here. We have been getting ready for the Maasai tour, doing the world vision project, and doing some outreach in the community and the other MANY MANY things everyone does here at Pamoja.
Specifically, I would like to talk about the community outreach. Pamoja was given some money to hand out tapes of a christian band that they recorded here. So Jacob had a wonderful idea to hand out the tapes to the Dolla Dolla drivers(the taxi/bus). So, we went to the market on Wednedsay and started to hand out the tapes. The market was BUSY, but we had our goal and it was to hand out 90 tapes free of charge to the drivers. However, we also had a condition that we could post flyers in the dolla dolla about a movie showing of Nipe Jibu. ( For those of you dont know Nipe Jibu is a movie that pamoja filmed here in Tengeru, and it is done really well with lots of music and dancing, but most importantly it has the salvation message in it. So we started to hand out the tapes and the drivers were very excited and of course we had a mass of people crowded around us the whole time wondering what we were doing. It was the perfect plan! It was wonderful to see people so excited about getting the tapes and then to see their excitement that we would be showing a movie, it was such a blessing to be able to do it for them. Everyone was very open to the tapes and letting us put up flyers all over. As we drove through town we could see the flyers all over the buildings and some we put in the shape of a cross it was a beautiful sight!
About 4 days after the tape distribution we had the movie showing. We were able to get permission to show it in a soccer field at nearby college. So we loaded Lyla and all of our equipment and headed out! When we got there there was a large crowd of people playing soccer, so it was the perfect start. The moment we got there people were crowding around us wondering what the wzungo’s(white people) were doing! Kids instantly started to gather around looking on with curiosity. We struggled through setting up equipment, which if you have ever dealt with any sort of technology know that a thousand things can go wrong and will. So we prayed and prayed, and prayed. It went pretty smooth with the help of God. We introduced ourselves and what we were doing. We started with the Yoeli movie first for the kids. Yoeli is a animation that tells a story of a kid whose is struggling with fear and how to overcome that fear with the help of God! It was great the Kids LOVED it.Many of the kids especially have not been able to see a full movie ever, so it was a HUGE treat for the kids. As the movie went one I had more and more kids coming to sit by me and Lyla was knocked out sleeping on the ground beside us. We had about 100 people gathered in the soccer field. After that one we started Nipe Jibu. About 3/4of the way through it we stopped it and gave the opportunity for people to receive the Lord as their Savior, just like the girl in the movie had. Many responded and it’s important that i mention we planned it out to be right in front of a local church. So, we made sure they knew that to continue their new relationship with the Lord it was important to get involved in a church nearby like the one behind the soccer field they were sitting in.(we planned that part out to be in front of the church:)
We then finished the movie, visited with those who wanted to stay and chat for a brief moment. Then packed up the truck using our flashlights and headed back home.
We do have some pictures but because we are about to head out on a 22 hour plane ride back home I will not be able to upload them for a few days.
With that said, Please pray for us as we travel back home, for safety, health(no tummy bugs again), Content children:) and understanding happy passengers(for those who have to fly with us)
Thank you all for coming along with us on this journey and praying and supporting us! We cant wait to get back and share more pictures and stories with you ALL! We love you all and are looking forward to giving you all hugs really SOON!!!
I figured it would be a good idea to give everyone a “behind the scenes” of what we’ve been doing with the World Vision Financial Literacy project. The picture shows you a snap shot of the main characters for all of the 13 episodes that will eventually be made. From left to right they are; Upendo, Maswali, Tuzo, Hekima, and Babu. They are ordinary people with ordinary lives that have to deal with the everyday financial struggles that people deal with in East Africa. Maswali and his family use the wisdom from Hekima, a successful businessman, to help improve their financial stability. The project will be accompanied with a comic book format for individuals to read when they can’t watch it. It’s main goal is to teach East Africans to be good stewards of God’s money: to tithe, give to the community, save, budget, invest, etc. A lot of concepts that are very foreign here. (and we have seen it first hand during this trip.) With these characters, World Vision will be able to improve the lives of millions of people and advance the Kingdom of God.
Behind the Scenes
Another Picture of inside of the classroom! Its SOOOOO exciting to see this such a milestone in the Maasai’s lives!ou!! To all those back home who helped make this happen its VERY much appreciated and NEEDED!!! Thank you! Lets help make it continue to grow so that All Maasai are able to get an education, something we all take for granted!
Classroom
This is the solution we have when there are too many people to fit inside the car!! Makes for a very sore bottom but its a beautiful view and its fun:)
Sparo Ministries 