FIELD UPDATE | TANZANIA
In April, Pastor Charles Kurari, Neopolis Regional Director for East Africa, had the opportunity to visit and connect with Oasis Baptist Church International (OBCI) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. OBCI is a strategically located church with a great opportunity to reach a large population.
Charles shares with us some background to the church, highlights from his time there, and next steps of which you can be a part!
THE OPPORTUNITY
Location Oasis Baptist Church International (OBCI) is located in the Makumbusho area of Dar es Salaam right next to a major transport terminus which means that people from every part of this sprawling metropolis that is home to over 5 million can easily and cheaply commute to the church via public means.
Demographics OBCI is within easy reach of several institutions of higher learning with thousands of students enrolled. When you consider that the median age in Tanzania is about 17 in a nation of 65 million, you then begin to see the immense gospel opportunity at this strategically located church.
Godly Leadership God has gifted OBCI a humble and God fearing diaconate with whom I have an excellent rapport and who have joyfully opened the door for collaboration in the advance of the gospel.
THE CHALLENGES
However, roses do have thorns and silver fountains mud therefore amidst the bloom of opportunity that beckons at OBCI Dar es Salaam are challenges to be prayed through and overcome by the Lord’s help.
Correcting Course I was in Dar es Salaam at the invitation of the church leadership to help in the charting of a new course as the church transitioned from its former leadership structure and into an elder led model keen on expository preaching. This was in the wake of the exit of its former pastor and in anticipation of the adoption of a reworked constitution that reflected this new approach.
Transient Leadership & Membership The church is presently without a pastor since the beginning of the year which unfortunately is a problem that has plagued this congregation over the years. Being largely made up of English speaking expatriates in a country that is predominantly Swahili speaking, OBCI has had and still continues to have a great need for Tanzanian nationals to be nurtured and equipped for leadership in the church.
HIGHLIGHTS
Preaching & Teaching I was able to preach for three Sundays through the book of Titus as well as at the Wednesday and Sunday morning Bible studies where we worked through various attributes of God. What I saw from this was:
Joy - The congregation as a whole delighted in the expository preaching and teaching of the Word. A congregant told me how he had to drive some distance through the dense Dar traffic to get to the Bible Study and when he got stuck, he and his wife tuned into the Whatsapp broadcast as they continued to make their way to church. Such is the hunger for the Word of God at OBCI.
Numbers - One of the church leaders told me that they did a head count on each of those three Sundays recording a spike in attendance on each of them. Having been at OBCI for over a decade, this leader from experience attributed this spike to the simple fact of there being a sound preacher to listen to.
Pastoral Care Pastors are held in very high esteem in Tanzania and many look up to them as role models from whom to find the answers to the big life questions. On this visit, I was overwhelmed by the need for pastoral counseling at OBCI especially among the young adults of the church who have so many questions even as they seek to honour God in their homes and places of work. One of them on my last Sunday for instance, waited patiently till after the church lunch after service, the business meeting that followed, and a few interactions afterward with the deacons and some members, before finally getting to sit down with me in the parsonage where he unleashed a notebook with several pages full of questions!
Ordinances The church had refrained from observing the Lord’s Table after the departure of its former pastor and it was with much joy and solemnity that we were able to partake of this ordinance on my last Sunday at OBCI. Afterward, a new unbaptised congregant approached me to ask about the possibility of this ordinance also. Oh for a pastor at OBCI!
NEXT STEPS
Prayer As you can tell by reading this report, there is need for much prayer for OBCI. This is a strategic church with significant opportunity to become a hub church both for the city and the nation, while at the same time facing significant challenges as it transitions into its new identity under the new constitution.
Please pray that:
The church will be able to find a pastor who will be strong against error, loving toward the flock, and rooted in the gospel; an expositor who will feed the hungry sheep at OBCI.
The diaconate will be replenished by godly men who love the Lord and His people.
The Holy Spirit will work unity in the church in this transitional season.
The Lord would make of the campus outreach ministry an effectual net that will bring in the young men and women in the universities campuses.
The Lord would move the hearts of His people to give financially toward this work to cover expenses such as travel, translation, and theologically sound literature for the OBCI library
Leadership Development The gracious leadership of OBCI has given us an open door to lay the groundwork for the development of Tanzanian nationals as future leaders of the church with campus outreach being the tip of the spear in this initiative. The Lord has been pleased to provide within the membership certain individuals who work in educational institutions and are keen to see this work unfold.
We are presently working to get the various permissions necessary to freely do gospel work on campus even as we plan for a major push at the beginning of the academic year in Nov/Dec of this year.
Translation It is a well documented fact that Tanzania is home to the best Swahili in all of East Africa. The language has been crucial in moulding the nation into a cohesive homogenous unit that has not been afflicted by the tribalism that has threatened to tear apart sister nations in East Africa with the worst case study being the 1994 horrors in Rwanda. That said, the entrenchment of Swahili in the culture has had an adverse effect on the capacity of even university trained individuals to capably work with the English language.
In order for us to be effectual in our aforementioned task of building a long term leadership development pipeline at OBCI, we must face the fact that English will simply not do as the primary medium of instruction. It is therefore a very present and urgent need that we work on translating into Swahili foundational texts that will be used not only for the work within OBCI but also Lord willing, as a resource for pastors across the city of Dar es Salaam. Translation was a significant factor in the Protestant Reformation and 500 years on, it is still as critical now as it was then.
Theological Resource Center In as much as we shall strive to be prolific in our translation efforts, we must have the good sense to know that it will not be possible for instance, to have in Swahili the 7000 titles that are a prerequisite for the setting up of a seminary. In this apparent thorn is the rose of an opportunity to turn the modest English language library at OBCI into a theological resource center that can serve both the church and the city
— Charles Karuri, Regional Director for East Africa
You can support the growing work in East Africa as well as our other Global Regions by donating here.
