Church Plant

The Anglican church is one of the larger denominations in Musoma and they recently (like, three weeks ago) launched a small church plant in our area of town.  I (Misha) am quite supportive of their efforts, since I think there is a definite need for another church here.  They are meeting under a little group of trees at a crossroads near the market, so people are constantly passing by and can't help but hear a bit of the service.  Most listen for a minute and then move on, but some the kids hang out for a while longer to see if there is anything interesting happening.

I once heard a statistic that said something like half the population of Tanzania is under age 16.  There are kids everywhere!  This morning the Compassion Children's Choir came and sang at our service, so that was about 20 kids.  (Yes, that is Compassion as in Compassion International - all the kids in the choir live in particularly difficult circumstances and are sponsored by people overseas.)  The people attending the service brought their kids with them, so that added about 6.  Several groups of neighborhood kids congregated nearby to listen to the children's choir, which made about 10 more.  One group of siblings was bold enough to come sit under the trees during the service, which added 5 more.  So for the 9 adults at the service today, there were about 41 kids!  There was no Sunday School, no chairs for the kids, no memory verse game, no Bible story pictures to color, no children's message, just a straightforward Anglican church service aimed at adults.

I am not personally interested in starting up a major children's evangelism project, but it seems like the perfect opportunity to reach out to the kids in that area of town.  A few kids stayed to watch and listen, but most kept on walking.  If there were some sort of fun kid's program that welcomed all and any to join, there could be over a hundred kids there each week, I have no doubt.  I hope the Tanzanians in the church plant see this opportunity and do something about it!  Or perhaps one of you reading this might be interested...