Located on the plains of the Uluguru Mountains near the convergence of two major slave routes of the 19th century, the Lutheran Junior Seminary found itself located in a highly Islamic area when it moved there in 1975. The mountain areas had been thoroughly evangelized by the Roman Catholic Church for more than a century. The Anglican Church was well established among the Kaguru people to the west in Kilosa District for nearly a century. However, the plains area was basically considered to be nominally Muslim. The Maasai (Parakuyo branch) peoples of these plains had fiercely opposed the slave traders and thus remained aloof from Islam, holding to their traditional religion.

When the Lutheran Junior Seminary moved to its present site in this plains area, the Lutheran presence in the area was minimal. Two previous starts by Lutheran missionaries had resulted in the deportation of their German clergy and staff at the outbreak of the two World Wars and a closing down of the Lutheran work. Lutherans began to seriously establish work among the Khutu people on the eastern fringe of the Morogoro area with some meaningful success in the late 1950’s.

By the time that the Lutheran Junior Seminary moved down to these plains, the students and staff had already begun a program of going out for evangelism with choirs from the school. This program continued and even expanded since the Morogoro area had such a limited Christian presence on the plains area. The district pastor from Morogoro encouraged this outreach and by 1992 trips were already begun to the one existing Massai congregation at Kambala.

In 1994 a new diocese was formed, consisting of the Morogoro area, from the Eastern and Coastal Diocese. The rationale for forming this diocese was based on the tremendous mission and evangelism potential of the area. The writer who was appointed to the position of Advisor for Evangelism for the new diocese at this time was a full time teacher and language school administrator at the LJS but was able to go out for evangelism on many weekends.

Matters changed considerably when a group from Asbury United Methodist Church in Tulsa, OK came as an exploratory team for establishing evangelistic work among one of the Unreached Peoples in 1997. The congregation decided to work among the Kami, a group closely related to the other Islamic groups on the plains. They decided at the end of that year to support fully the work already done by the Lutherans in the area rather than establish a competing Evangelical work. This partnership as resulted in tremendous church growth as they poured their resources into education, buildings and support of evangelists in the area. They now have had a full time evangelist from their congregation working in this area for nearly five years. In addition to that, a Methodist mission group has also sent another couple to serve in the evangelistic outreach of the mission district.

In August of 1999 the other heads of districts mete and divided out the areas that would comprise the Mission District with no limits for future outward expansion. The bishop also agreed that the finances of the district could be channeled through the treasure of the LJS. At this meeting, 34 preaching paces were assigned, with the total number of Christians being about 1,900. The work has expanded beyond anyone’s expectations until the number of Christians is now over 10,000 in 95 congregations and preaching stations. Since the founding of the district over 3,000 adults have been baptized (more than 1500 in 2006). The greatest growth has been among the Massai who have come to the faith in great numbers, often large segments of villages at a time. An amazing parallel has been the growth in the Islamic Kami area supported by the Asbury congregation which accounts for about 25 % of the growth. There are already three village areas started through their efforts with over 100 Christians. Their first village of outreach (Gezaulole) had exponential growth with the baptisms of 60 people on two consecutive Sunday in November of 2006. One can only attribute this tremendous growth to the workings of the Holy Spirit and can only humbly accepts the tremendous responsibilities of Christian nurture for all these people.

An interesting sidelight to this tremendous growth is the outreach from one linguistic group to another through evangelism. One cannot assume any degree of ethnic majority in any of the preaching places. In Kambala, the earliest of the Maasai congregations, they reach out to the Islamic Pare people form the Kilimanjaro region, who were removed by the government into the area. At present the baptism of these people has ld to their making up of over 25 % of this congregation of over 200. Work was begun by the baptism of 57 people form the Kami linguistic group in the Asbury area at Lubaya. Now over a quarter of the congregation is made up of their Maasai neighbors. The largest congregation of Maasai at Sokoine has reached out to three other tribal groups that have moved into the neighborhood, the Gogo, the Sukuma and the Barabaig. These are examples of real evangelism where a group cannot refrain from sharing the Gospel with their neighbors.

Other groups have now contributed to the growth of the mission district. The Evangelical Lutheran Mission of Bavaria has sent a pastor and wife who faithfully serve the western Maasai area of the mission district. Sergenfri Luterhan Congregation of the greater Copenhagen area of Denmark has taken on themselves a greater part of the education costs for the Maasai area. Lutheran Junior Seminary has also played a tremendous part in the growth of the mission district. Office facilities have been given for the district and rooms for weekly Bible studies of the evangelist. Choirs of the secondary students go out regularly to enhance the worship services in the surrounding areas. Staff members of the Junior Seminary do tremendous amounts of volunteer service for the district, including allowing a pastor of the seminary to serve as the secretary of the district. Facilities are provided at the end of the year for a five day seminar which has been attended by as many as 400 people from the district The Christian Education course and kindergarten training courses have been generously opened to young people of the district. Even a number of our beet Maasai youth are admitted to the very exclusive secondary school program which serves the entire Lutheran church of Tanzania with its 3 million members.

The work among the Maasai deserves a very special mention since the numbers added are in the thousands over the past few years. The Maasai had been very much put off by the outreach of sectarian groups from the U.S. that had insisted that they put off their traditional clothing and jewelry ( a very integral part of their self understanding as a people) and dissolve their polygamous families. They had been told that there was no salvation in the traditional Christian groups (Lutheran, Roman Catholic and Anglican) and that their baptism was not valid (the volume of water was not adequate) nor was the Holy Spirit present in these denominations. The few people that had been baptized by them were put into an adversarial relationship with their fellow Maasai.

The challenge in working with them is compounded by the fact that many of the Maasai are pre-literate, since their early traditional emphasis was on involving the youth in the care of their vast herds of cattle. This has changed, and the Lutheran church is now seen as an ally in their attempt to enter into the modern society. The polygamous family structures have not been broken but the future order will see the taking of no new wives and the younger generation of men taking only one wife. The work among the Maasai has been greatly helped when the diocese chose Pastor Jacob Mameo as Assistant to the Bishop. This was an historical step since only six of the more than 120 delegates were Maasai at this election. He comes from the original Maasai congregation of Kambala.

Since the inception of the mission district, no resources available have been spared in the training of new evangelists, with over 55 young people being trained in two Bible schools of other dioceses (Usangi in the Pare Diocese and Ilambilole in the Iringa Diocese). Two of our evangelists have been accepted in the Moravian Theological Seminary in Mbeya where they are completing their second year of training to become pastors. At present there ate 27 students in Usangi, thirteen of whom will graduate in July and six at Ilambilole where they have just begun their two year course. So far their studies have been supported by the Asbury and Sorgenfri congregations with help form some other U.S. Lutherans. Thirteen young people have been trained in the one year Christian Education teachers’ courses of LJS over the past three years and four more will study this year. Twenty six young people form the district have been trained in a Montessori kindergarten training course at LJS and five more will study this year. Of special interest is the fact that even a number of Massai of the warrior age group have been trained as kindergarten teachers and have returned to start kindergartens in their areas.

A special challenge arose for the year 2006. Two special theological courses have opened up for our evangelists in schools of neighboring dioceses. Five Evangelists from the Kami area will begin a two year pastoral course next week in Kidugala Seminary of the Southern Diocese. In the coming month seven Maasai evangelists will be accepted in a special two year course at Tumaini University in the Iringa Diocese. This brings a double challenge, that of providing spiritual care for the vacated preaching places as well as finding adequate funding for their two years of study. The spiritual care has several serious aspects, first the fact that many of the Christians are new to the faith and need solid teaching and preaching and secondly because the sectarian groups are concentrating most of their efforts to reconvert these new Christians to as special “saved” condition which can only be found among them.

These are but some of the growing pains of this fast growing new district (of course, who among us adults didn’t have to go through growing pains). There is a need to help the new groups establish places of worship since twenty-five of the groups now worship under the trees. This worked well since most of the area had lacked rain since June of 2005. Since this time the area has been fortunate in that rains have returned which reduces the drought but does increase the need for more houses of worship to be built.

The lack of literacy in many of the areas is being addressed by a focused literacy campaign. The evangelists have received basic training in teaching literacy in the last two years of seminary training. The people who attended the seminars know that their evangelists have been trained to help them and are quite anxious to be trained. We have secured a thousand beginner readers from the Literacy Evangelism center in Nairobi and most of them are now in use. It is especially heartening to see the young men of the warrior age group asking for reading lessons since previously they often were too proud to ask.

The introduction of kindergartens in both the Kami area and the Maasai areas has borne much fruit. On a number of occasions, the establishment of a kindergarten in an area has led to the government building a primary school with the funds that have come from the international debt forgiveness program. In all areas, the kindergartens give the young people a desire to go on in school and they then put pressure on their parents to provide for their further education.

The Asbury group has been in the forefront of providing clean water for the people in the areas where they have concentrated their work. They have drilled some deep wells at great cost which have proved to be great blessings for the new Christian groups and have drawn others to share with them. Another very positive opportunity has arisen when the World Bank has offered to introduced some very complex water programs to the villages. If the villages raise $5,000 then the government of that district would grant the same amount with the World Bank adding a grant of $90.000. We have now been involved in providing $2,000 to four different villages. The Ark-Ok Synod of the ELCA has also been active in this program and has raised over $30,000 for water wells.

As this report is going to people who have been supportive of the work of the mission district through prayer as well as monetary support, it is probably appropriate to indicate the areas where help can be used an specify amounts and ways to help. One special area is that of medical care sine we often are the first to find a lot of people in need of medical help, who have despaired that they will be able to be helped. We bring these people to a private hospital. St. Mary’s, run b a member of our mission district board. Here excellent medical care can be found with special concern and rock bottom costs. We also hope to extend the program of HIV testing that was so successfully begun at the seminar to as many preaching places as possible. These needs cannot be given a special price tag but are met on the basis of resources available.

Now for some concrete needs that are to be met on a regular basis. Asbury supports the allowances of 23 evangelists. This leaves thirty eight to be supported by ad hoc accumulations of funds from various sources. For now, this amounts to $1,280 a month not counting the regular medial needs for the evangelists and their families up to now, through the generosity of many people, the evangelists have not lacked their very meager allowances. This expenditure has been subject to the criticism of some who say that this is not the role of the overseas churches any more. We feel that our situation is a very special one in that it involves the spiritual care of over 10,000 new Christians, a situation comparable to early “mission days”. Also, the council of the mission district is monitoring a program of assigning increasing percentage of this amount to each of the preaching places. One new congregation has agreed after January to increase their contribution from $2 to $8. Another heartening factor is the way in which the groups raise money for building though auctions and harvest festivals. One Massai congregation raised over $800 for building at their congregation site as well as at one of their branch preaching places.

Another pressing need is to assist various preaching places in erecting places of worship. The past two years building teams from the Ark-Ok Synod have helped us with pilot projects of putting up adequate buildings with eleven concrete pillars and a corrugated iron roof. They helped in the erection of four such buildings and the Wartburg College May term group helped us with another one. At present, such a building can be put up for $6,000. The Ark-Ok group also raised $6,500 for an evangelism center at Makuture. This allows us to divide up our district into manageable administrative districts since it branches out in about a 100 mile radius from the Lutheran Junior Seminary. Asbury has also contributed to an even more elaborate canter. There are needs for twenty five building starts and the possibility to erect at least three more evangelism centers. Also, groups of volunteers to come out as a building teamd would be greatly welcomed . Such a group is being organized again for the summer of 2007.

One very challenging need has come to light. At the seminar, where representatives from all 95 preaching places, together with their evangelists met in groups, they evaluated the evangelism activities and were asked to critique the existing work of evangelism. Together with suggestions for improvements, they identified 48 new places where they would like to go for evangelism. Therefore, it looks like the challenges will continue. Other needs are for water wells. $2,000 can provide a shallow well (where such water is available) or provide contribution toward a World Bank project. $7,500 would provide for a deep well such as have been drilled by Asbury Methodist and the Ark-Ok Synod of the ELCA.

We will be sending a female Maasai evangelist for a two year Montessori course. We have the funding for this year but the $450 for next year is in question. It costs about $3,500 to send 27 young people to Usangi Bible School each of the three terms. This amount should be available for this year but will be in question for next year. At the same time it costs about $450 to send an evangelist for training as a Christian education teacher for a year and $500 to train a kindergarten teacher for a year. These courses have been provide for this year but opportunities to train others will arise again next year.

I beg your pardon for coming to you with specific requests but have been encouraged by others to be specific about our needs. We ask your prayers as we continue to work in this area plagued by poverty, illiteracy, the scourage of HIV-AIDS as well as tension between farmers and cattle raisers exacerbated by the series of droughts.

In His peace, Pastor Herb Hafermann, Mission District Hear, January 12, 2007

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