The Board of World Mission (BWM) benefits from its long-standing relationships with Moravians around the world. Just as we are often busy working with the Mission Areas we supervise (Peru and Sierra Leone) and the Mission Provinces we accompany (Cuba and Labrador), we also get to work in partnership with the full Unity Provinces with whom we have partnered with for decades.
The Moravian Church in Western Tanzania (MCWT) is a full Unity Province, and so the BWM works directly with the Provincial Board of MCWT when they pass along project requests to help further their ministry. Often times these requests for partnership are to further their own mission work and evangelistic outreach.
One such project is the work being done among the Sukuma people. MCWT began work with the Sukuma people nearly 20 years ago. Many of these people live in remote areas around Lake Victoria, and when the work began many of these people would categorize themselves as “non-believers”.
Pastors and missionaries supported by MCWT, and with funding from the BWM, have worked to host open air gospel meetings where they could preach, and provide people with Bibles, Hymnals and Liturgies for their use and study.
Through this work over the years, there are now 13 congregations in this area. The names /locations of the congregations are Magu, Ginniniga, Gambajiga, Imalanzala, Sangira, Nowola, Mabomba, Mwasihi, Ilungu, Ngogo, Sengerema, Geita, and Bariadi.
Following further seminars and gospel meetings in early 2019, leadership from the Sukuma congregations asked MCWT for support in building permanent structures to be able to worship and meet as a community. Construction has begun on three separate church buildings, with local materials, labor, and financing for much of the buildings.
BWM was asked, and approved, that the 2020 funding for the Sukuma outreach be used finish the roof on one of these churches. We have now received a report detailing the materials purchased and also have photos of the completed work.
This project is very much worth sharing to demonstrate the commitment of our brothers and sisters in MCWT to continue to look beyond themselves, and to care for the mission work among the Sukuma people… even as this is in addition to the five mission areas they also supervise and support in Eastern Africa.
An excerpt from the report sent by Bishop Ezekiel Yona, MCWT:
Please receive our report and l take this opportunity to thank all who thought about these good news and provided big support for the Sukuma outreach. There is a long and good relationship between BWM and Western Tanzania, and we continue to gain experience in mission work because at the moment we supervise five different mission areas: Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, and South-Central Tanzania.
– Bishop Ezekiel Yona, Moravian Church Western Tanzania
We hope everything is clear take my sincere greetings to all brothers and sisters tell them we love them we pray every time about CVID19 against our two provinces in USA God bless you.
