Dear praying friends,
Last time I wrote, classes had not started here at Waama Bible School.
Shortly after that update (on Oct 28) we had our teachers' meeting when we decided who was teaching which classes and the next day we started teaching even though the teachers had not received the 2-months' salary they demanded. I love my classes this semester! I'm teaching English, Computer, Philippians, and Biblical History. This is the first time I've taught Biblical History. It is a 2-semester class, so I'll be teaching that until Easter (Thankfully! I still don't think I'll come close to covering all the material I want to cover even with the extra semester).
We seem to have another good bunch of students this year, which is a huge blessing. On final count, we have between 60-65 students. Though it would be great to have the capacity 72 students, we are thankful that we have more students this year than the past two years. So this semester is moving along nicely... and quickly, too! We have two weeks of classes left and then its finals already! We continue to be impressed with the new Dean, Pastor Dallei, and his leadership of this school. We also have a new treasurer this year, and between the two of them we have seen many changes for the better. We praise God for that.
Despite the many good things that are happening, there continue to be problems facing this school. The most recent problems have to do with faculty here. Presently we have three teachers who are pastors: the Dean
- Pastor Dallei, Pastor Mao, and Pastor Diame. Pastor Mao has been here since last year and Pastor Diame just started this year. Well, the church recently called both Pastor Mao and Pastor Diame to different jobs far from the school, effective immediately. So as of this week, they are supposed to report at their new work. The rest of us teachers are trying to figure out what we are going to do to try to cover their classes for the rest of the semester, write their finals, and give grades for all the classes they started but couldn't finish. This is a huge problem but I think between the eight teachers who are still here, we will be able to figure something out. We still have not heard a good reason why these pastors couldn't finish the semester first and then move, but the leadership still insists that they must leave now. Please pray for this situation.
There is another problem facing us that an even more serious problem...
The bishop (who is also chairman of the school board) announced last week that as of January Waama would be offering a music course. This announcement was given without asking or even informing the Dean! So not only have we lost two teachers, but now we have to add a fourth course in addition to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year Bible! In other words, between losing the two teachers and adding the fourth course there will be about a 50% workload increase for all teachers! Needless to say, that is not a happy proposition. We at Waama are still discussing how to respond to this. Please pray for wisdom.
On a more positive note... electricity has almost reached Waama! The national power company has set up all the power poles on campus and have started running wires on campus! This is amazingly good news. We are still a little ways from actually having electricity in the dorms, classrooms, houses, etc. as all the buildings have to be rewired to meet code before we can be "hooked up" to the national grid. But we continue to praise God for his blessings.
This past Friday, Jesse and I went on our first Jesus Film trip of the school year. We went to a primary school in the village of Bambe where a Lutheran evangelist is meeting with 3 other Christians and is trying to start a church there. We were thrilled to encourage this evangelist in his ministry, encourage the believers who were there, preach the gospel in the local language by means of the Jesus Film, and give this small church plant a lot of good publicity - about 350 showed up! Due to a short semester and some schedule conflicts, that will be the only Film trip of the semester. We look forward to continuing this ministry during the second and third semesters. A lot of students have asked us to come and show the Jesus Film at their home churches. Pray for wisdom for us as we try to discern which places to go to and which places to skip.
There are just not enough weekends to show at every place.
One last praise item. Thanks to those of you who prayed for us about our residency permits. On Oct. 10 we went to the regional capital of Babati to look into renewing our residency permits. This is a process which is known for being long, drawn-out, and frustrating (our first permit took
3+ months to process, a trip to Dar es Salaam, and a $400 fine for
something they did wrong). We arrived at the office and turned in our paperwork to the assistant of the immigration official. The assistant said everything looked good but that we should wait for the immigration official. As we waited on the front porch, all the workers came out and we talked... mostly in Swahili, but some in English, and some in Portuguese as one of the guys had learned some while living in Mozambique for a couple years. After three hours of conversing with these guys, the official came back. We went into his office and he asked us what was wrong. We said nothing was wrong. He asked why we came such a long time before our current permits expired. He said that everything looked fine but that it was too early to give us the new ones. He allowed us to pay for the permits (which is a guarantee that we'll get
them) and told us come back in January to pick up the new permits! We praise God for how easy this potentially troublesome process turned out to be.
Thank you to each of you who have partnered with this ministry through your prayers, encouragement, and gifts. May God bless you for your sacrifice.
Ben Jore
Wa/ama Bible School
Mbulu, Tanzania
