Anna's FirstServe Prayer Letter - February 17th - March 1st

Hello once again!

The time continues to fly by, and with every passing week, God’s faithfulness and goodness has been so evident through everything happening around us! We have had a very busy two weeks, which I’ll tell you all about below!

Devotions

Rachel and I have been in Dar Es Salaam this week visiting other missionaries and helping in their kindergarten for a few days, and while we’ve been with them we have read through the book of Psalms together, taking 25 Psalms each day (yes, it did land on Psalm 119 when it was my turn to read, of course!). It has been such an amazing reminder while reading the Psalms of God’s goodness to His people, both in times of rejoicing and times of suffering. In Psalm 145, David calls us to take time to look back on our lives and reflect on the goodness of our God. Verse 3 is a good summary of the theme of this entire Psalm: 

Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and His greatness is unsearchable.

No matter how we search and discover the goodness of God in our own life, we will never fully understand the extent to which it reaches. Just look at the blessings listed in Psalm 145 alone...

The Lord…

Has unsearchable greatness 
Is gracious and merciful
Is slow to anger and abounds in steadfast love
Is good to all
Has mercy over all He has made
Has an everlasting kingdom
Has a dominion that endures throughout all generations
Upholds all who are falling
Raises up all who are bowed down
Gives food in due season
Satisfies the desire of every living thing
Is righteous in all His ways
Is kind in all His works
Is near to all who call on Him
Fulfills the desires of those who fear Him
Hears the cry of the lost and saves them
Preserves all who love Him

This is the God we love and serve as Christians. At times when you don’t feel like praising God, or feel like there’s nothing to be thankful for, seek His perspective and listen to Him. Be filled with gratitude and trust in His character. When circumstances or feelings tell you otherwise, rely on what you know to be true. As your perspective changes, then no matter which way you turn, you will see His goodness!  

Kids club

Last Saturday, Kelvin, one of the centre workers, organised a day club for kids from the centre and living in the surrounding areas. We had roughly 70 kids who came and great opportunities to share the gospel. Rachel and I ended up getting a lot more involved than we expected! We started the day with singing and the Bible story, and was then told that Kelvin had forgotten to ask someone to teach a memory verse, so asked us to come up there and then and teach one… which was quite difficult when it had to be in Swahili! We were also given a group of 10 kids each to look after for the day, helped with the craft, did a football tournament and a water fight, and ran the quiz! It was a great opportunity to continue to get to know the vijana (teens) better aswell, as we relied on them a lot to translate!

For lunch with the kids we had a dish called pilau, which is actually quite nice! However, being Northern Irish, I can’t work out with my accent how to actually pronounce the word pilau, and have been teased many times for my valiant attempts. So if any of my Northern Irish friends want to help me out, please let me know!

Kids club activities

LCK

We haven’t been in the kindergarten as much over the last two weeks between being in Dar and other projects around the centre that we’ve been involved in, but it is still very busy when we are in kindergarten! I have found that I’ve begun to build close friendships with the teachers which has been an answer to prayer and has made working in kindergarten a lot easier.

Rafiki Foundation

We have started to make some good friends from church over the past few weeks which has been really nice! We are getting to know an American couple and another American lady who are all missionaries at Rafiki, a nearby Christian school through going to the church Bible study, and were invited to go and visit the school a few weeks ago. They provide education from pre primary age all the way to GCSE level, as well as a teacher training programme. They also run a Christian course and Bible study free of charge, which is offered to anyone.

Baking with Elizabeth

We are still having Elizabeth, our neighbour, around every week to teach her to bake, and we are definitely building a close friendship with her. She was very excited when she saw the chocolate cake we made for the barbecue a few weeks ago, so we showed her how to bake a cake last week! Please pray for us as we continue to build our friendship with her.

Dar es Salaam

As I mentioned previously, Rachel and I had the opportunity to visit Steve and Gill Davies, who started Watoto wa Thamani (WWT) kindergarten in Dar Es Salaam. We were able to visit and help at WWT last Thursday and Friday, and it was really interesting to see another kindergarten after working at LCK for the last 6 weeks. They have two classes made up of 25 children each, and do all of their teaching and talking with the kids in Swahili. My strategy to break the language barrier was to get the kids to create the best outfit for me that they could come up with from their dressing up costumes,,,

The finished look!

Steve and Gill run kids clubs twice a week which was a great experience! We helped with one on Thursday which had roughly 40 kids who attended, and another on Friday at the kindergarten, with nearly 260 kids! It’s amazing that even though we didn’t understand a lot of what was going on, as it was in Swahili, to know that kids with all kinds of backgrounds were coming to learn memory verses and hear the Gospel.

We also had the opportunity to visit their church on Sunday, which was at the kindergarten. It was quite different to the church we’ve been attending in Moshi, in that it was all in Swahili and between breaking bread, Sunday school, the preaching and the prayer meeting, the whole morning lasted nearly four hours! It was really lovely to get to know some of the Christians and worship God together!

With Dar being right at the coast, we did just about manage to squeeze in a couple of beach trips in our busy schedules! Although we love being in Moshi and all the kids at LCK and MCCC, it was really nice to get a break for a few days, have a change of scenery and take some time to rest. We also had our first Tanzanian takeaway, which tasted great! We tried our first ever chip mayai, which is basically chips mixed into an omelette (which I would definitely recommend!)

LCK safari car

Since arriving back from Dar on Monday, Rachel and I have been pulled from helping at LCK for a few days to sand and paint a metal safari car for the outdoor play area of the kindergarten, which has been a fun project! Despite being covered in paint at the end of each day (Rachel in particular!), it is so worth it when we see the kids light up every time they walk past and see the progress!

Prayer points

Please pray…

• For the kids who came to the kids club last Saturday.

• For Steve and Gill Davies and all they’re involved with in Dar.

• For the kids at MCCC and LCK.

• For Kara as she continues to settle into her placement at the hospital in Uganda.

Thank you so much for your continued support and encouragement as I continue my year with FirstServe. The impact of your prayers has been immense and I am so humbled and grateful to have the opportunity to witness the power of prayer in so many ways!

God Bless,

Anna x