Sara's Kenya and Tanzania Trip

By Sara:

During March I had the exciting opportunity to travel to both Kenya and Tanzania.  In Kenya, I was at Care of Creation Kenya's facility in Kijabe.  Brett (who wrote the Bible study curriculum with me) and I had been invited by them and spent a week teaching a group of some of their staff, missionaries, development workers, church leaders, and farmers.  We took them through our entire Bible study curriculum along with a few agriculture lessons.  It gave the group the chance to see how they can utilize the Bible studies in the different types of work they all do. 

Most people appreciated the inductive Bible study method in itself and had an interest in using it with other passages, not only the agriculture/creation related Scripture from the curriculum.  They especially mentioned the importance of including obedience to God as a part of Bible study.

The following week, I traveled to Tanzania and joined up with the World Renew Tanzania team as the facilitator of their spiritual retreat.  We were in a beautiful location on Lake Victoria.

I loved being able to catch up with friends on the Tanzania team.  The organizers of the retreat did a great job of planning, not packing too much into the short time, but also creating space for fun, quiet reflection, and fellowship.  Since I had recently read the book "The Celebration of Discipline" by Richard Foster, I decided to focus on spiritual disciplines in our group sessions.  I myself enjoyed spiritual refreshment by practicing some of these disciplines together with the Tanzania team.

It was especially fun to introduce an early Christian writing (the earliest known church order document) called "The Didache" to the group.  Despite being from around 100AD, it is extremely relevant to today and easy to read.  For example, it talks about how, if a prophet comes and starts asking people to give them money (unless it's to give to the poor), they're a false prophet.  Everyone had a lot of appreciation for that section!  We also had a good discussion on the section which describes how baptism should be done in cold, running water if possible - how does this apply for people living in cities? or in the desert where there is a scarcity of water?

We also spent time praying, meditating on Scripture and on God's creation, and discussing fasting.

On the way home, I caught a ride with friends driving from Tanzania to Kenya for a retreat.  Once they got to their destination, they dropped me off at a taxi park and I got public transportation the rest of the way home.