Hello, dear friends,
The best news to start with: We were able to experience Samuel's baptism on August 10th at Lake Malawi. We celebrated the service together with some dear acquaintances and friends from Mbeya, heard Samuel's baptism wish and confession of faith, and marveled at God's grace in his life. His baptismal verse is in 2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: what he was before has passed away; behold, what is new has come into being!" Samuel is a visible example of what God can renew and change when a person connects with Jesus in faith.
Friends
Rebekka and Samuel met old friends who they had met in our first years here in Mbeya, but who no longer live in the country. It was a real party at our house.
Vacation and Media Conference
We spent a few days on holiday at Lake Malawi and then in the very north of the country, in Arusha, where Damaris and I then attended a media conference. At this conference, around 80 representatives of Christian media organizations met to exchange ideas, exchange training offers and learn from each other. On our tour through the colorful expanses of the country, we enjoyed a few nice stops: eating pizza in Dodoma, visiting an art gallery, glass blowing workshop and shopping in Arusha, eating cheese in Lushoto and looking out to sea in a Mediterranean restaurant in Dar es Salaam. But our children were looking forward to going home again, to a final party with their friends, Rebekka to her animals, Elia to his Lego city and Samuel especially to the gym and reasonably stable internet.
Young people help us
We currently have Anna (pictured) with us, who is doing an internship in our Ethnoarts department from Wycliffe Austria and helps us a lot with practical work in the office and at the workshops. She also supports us in school and will unfortunately be leaving us again at the end of September. Dina has been with us as a new learning assistant since the beginning of September and Christina will be joining us at the end of October. We have the prospect of having two learning assistants with us most of the time by summer 2025. Thank you for your prayers, we can clearly see how God provides for us and also opens doors so that Damaris can do a little more in our service. She can well imagine working on video productions in the SIL Ethnoarts department.
Dry Season = Travel Time
I could write so much about everything that has happened at work in the last few weeks and months, but there is so much that it doesn't fit into a newsletter. So I'll just give a few highlights.
In April, I was able to hold a workshop on the use of local arts in the far west of the country for representatives of five peoples in whom the New Testament is currently being translated. The almost thirty participants were relieved to hear that God values their cultures and cultural expressions, wants to sanctify them and use them for his glory. With great enthusiasm, they developed ideas for their peoples on how they can tackle their social problems, be they marriage and family problems, witchcraft or drug abuse. Now they have high hopes for the effect of biblical texts in combination with local arts, traditional storytelling or typical Tanzanian choral music. I will certainly be able to give you more interesting reports on these projects in the future.
Songs for Freedom
The Ndali people on the border with Malawi discussed the topic of addiction in the summer. We met with eight song composers in June. They learned all the Bible verses that are intended for a one-year addiction support program developed by missionaries. Each of them chose three texts, then wrote the songs at home, and in August we met again and together theologically examined fifteen of the twenty-four songs and improved their content. I am always very grateful for a good theology degree, which is very beneficial to me in this kind of work.
Image: Conversation with the Ndali about the meaning of a Bible verse about which a song was composed.
The mountain landscape of the Ndali
A Feast for God
and many new Bible groups
among the Sangu
In July we had another workshop with the Sangu. For the first day, all 45 artists and other employees who had taken part in the theater and artist workshops and the entire Joseph tour in recent years were invited. Almost everyone came. We celebrated with good food, and in a large group many people talked about what God had changed in their lives, their communities and their villages during their participation in the Joseph project in recent years.
The Sangu happily talk about the spiritual fruits of the past years. To those who have donated to the Sangu project, here is our personal thanks to you:
It was very moving to hear that congregations are increasingly using the local language in church services and that people understand God's word much better, that small groups have formed in the villages and people have found faith in Jesus. Then, from the second day of the workshop, small group leaders from Bible listening groups joined the group. A colleague and I spent a few days teaching on the subject of Bible interpretation. It was particularly exciting for the participants to discover the 36-unit, over 140-page small group material based on the Joseph story that had been developed over the last few months, and to watch film sequences from the Joseph theater performance. The participants were divided into village groups, and while they eagerly discussed the questions about the text, I was overjoyed to see that at least one, usually several, of our artists were present in each village group, often very committed or even in a leadership role. The Joseph video sequences were distributed on USB sticks up to Unit 15, audio Bible devices went out to leaders in about 20 villages, and we gave away 2,000 calendars that the small group leaders can use to invite more people to their groups. When I counted the small groups that were started by these leaders, I could only be amazed and give glory to God. In 2021, there was a functioning small group that met to read the Bible in the Sangu language. There are now at least 48 small groups in over 20 villages in the Sangu area. And from September 8-12, we are having another seminar for these small group leaders to continue teaching and encouraging them.
Below are two examples of the individual episodes that are based on the Joseph play. In the first video you can see the storytellers and how the play is faded in. The children and storytellers appear again and again in the videos.
In the following video you can see how Joseph's four brothers, the children of Zilpah and Bilhah, bored of herding goats, dig up old Sangu children's games, express their hatred towards the brother who gave father Joseph the beautiful coat, and how the Bible text that goes with the video is read at the end. The questions that are intended to stimulate discussion in the Bible study groups and link the story of Joseph with the culture and life of the Sangu are then based on such video sequences.
Immediately after the workshop, we received videos via WhatsApp from our very active small group leaders. They show the small group work in the Sangu area, which is now really picking up speed again in the dry season when there is less work in the fields. It is wonderful to see how people hear God's word and start reading the Bible in their language.
10 Songs and a Play for the Mbugwe
In July, Mwasandube, Anna and I also traveled to the Mbugwe people. I taught at four smaller pastors' conferences in different villages on the use of local arts for church building and mission. There was a celebration to hand over 11 finished videos with Christian songs in 9 different traditional song genres and a play. The church was packed and the festival ended with live outdoor dancing. The artists took USB sticks with the songs and advertising posters to their villages to promote the material in local video stores. An artist over 70 years old, who has been involved in the research we conducted back then and the whole process, training and travel since 2018, was baptized this year together with his entire family and is enthusiastic about Jesus. We have heard further testimonies of what God in his grace has already done among the Mbugwe through our ministry. We know that we are only small tools, but we are in God's mighty hand.
Thanks for your donations and
Request for support for new projects
I would like to make the following explicit: Many of you give a lot of money and we cannot do all these services without you. It is really wonderful how you get involved and support us and the service. Many of you have been doing this for many years, even before we left for Tanzania. Thank you very much for that!
Now in 2024, we can see many fruits from the past years and after years of learning, we are now entering a new phase in which we want to expand our work.
I would like to ask for your special support for three major fundraising goals.
1st project:
6 tribes from all over Tanzania
at “Arts for a Better Future”
One-time requirement: 6500 euros
Now in September, from the 15th to the 20th, we have another workshop here in Mbeya, called "Arts for a Better Future". For this very practical training, those responsible for SIL Tanzania have proposed Christians from six tribes in Tanzania for whom the Bible is currently being translated. Representatives of two tribes, the Manda and Kisi, will travel for about two days from the very south of the country near the border with Mozambique; the Sandawe people from the middle of the country are also taking part; the Ngoreme come from the northwest of the Serengeti; the Nyika from far to the west; and the Safwa, who live around Mbeya. In some of these tribes, a so-called oral Bible translation is currently being produced because people hope that this will have a much greater influence than a written Bible. The local arts are highly valued by these tribes and are still actively practiced, but unfortunately hardly or not at all by Christians. For a whole week, the participants learn how to carry out the research in their peoples relatively independently, for which I usually have to travel far and pay a lot; they practice practically how to initiate and carry out projects independently in their peoples. For this training, I receive support from very experienced colleagues from the USA, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The four of us train and coach 33 participants. We believe that with this training we will reach a milestone in providing more impetus for more independent building of the Kingdom of God. We hope to see new beginnings in these peoples like the Sangu. We still need just over 6500 euros to be able to carry out this training. This will cover the participants' travel, food and sleep, and a plane ticket for the teacher from Nigeria, who is crucial for this workshop and who has no financial means of his own, is also included. I would ask you all very warmly to support this project with a special donation, as usual to our donation account with the note "306090 ABF Tanzania". We are so grateful to you for investing your faith, prayers and donations here.
2nd project:
Further employment of Mwasandube
Monthly requirement: 300 euros
Gideon Mwasandube, who has worked at my side with great dedication since 2019, my only close companion in this work, has so far received his salary mainly through the Sangu project, which unfortunately will come to financial completion in September 2024. There is currently no organization abroad that has as much vision for the Sangu or the ability to help with donations for the further translation of the Old Testament or our ethnoarts work. This also means that the main source of Mwasandube's salary is lost. But without him I can only do less than half and am looking for Christians and communities who will donate monthly towards his salary. How nice it would be if Mwasandube's salary, the equivalent of only about 300 euros a month, could continue to be paid from October. If you would like to participate, please state 306090, Mwasandube when transferring to our donation account.
Mwasandube on the left, together with Alamu and Obadia from the Ndali people
3rd project:
Additional needs for clients, school
and smaller projects
Monthly requirement: 1000 euros
The distance learning school that teaches our children has raised the school fees significantly and we now have to buy French from another provider. We also need a little more income to be able to cover everything. Could you, could you please take another look and see if maybe 10 euros more a month would be possible? We need almost 1000 euros more in donations to support our family and to cover basic labor costs for our ministry and smaller projects for which we have no other sources of income. We are praying that a few more churches will come on board and participate in this ministry. Can you put in a word for us in your church? Special donations also make up a significant portion and help us a great deal.
News from the Prayer Hotline
If you would like to hear from us more often, you are welcome to send Damaris a message on her cell phone via Whatsapp or Signal. Unfortunately, her cell phone broke and a few numbers were lost. If you were there and haven't heard anything for a while, then you are one of them. Feel free to contact her again on 255 719 655 189. She will then add you to the mailing list for prayer requests and you will find out what is currently going on and can participate more in prayer and also in the experiences we have with God.
God bless you and yours, all love,
Daniel and Damaris with Samuel, Rebekah and Elijah.
daniel.kliemt(at)wycliff.de
255 743 938 744
Address in Germany:
Siegenweg 32,
57299 Burbach, Germany
Address in Tanzania:
Karibuni Center
POBox 6359
Mbeya
Tanzania
www.wycliff.de