16 October, 2024

Building connections in Tanzania

Colin recently spent some time with Fabian in Tanzania, here is what he had to say:

“Fabian has a vision to plant a reproducing church and a training centre in each of Tanzania’s 27 provinces. This trip was a chance to travel with him and meet some of the people that he has built relationships with in two of the provinces, Dodoma and Tanga.

I have realised that the main goal of these initial trips is to gain credibility among the local church leaders for the training. Bringing new training into an area is frowned upon if it hasn’t been checked out by the local leaders. So this means taking the time to invite the local leaders, providing a good lunch, and trying to give them a meaningful idea of what the training entails, without keeping them for more than a couple of hours.

Thankfully, the leaders I engaged with were genuine, humble followers of Jesus, and were extremely open hearted towards me, welcoming me to come and teach in their cities, and plant churches there.

The highlight of my trip was undoubtedly visiting the church in Tanga which was planted in a completely Muslim dominated village. All the congregation were converted from Islam, including one older gentleman, who gave me a very warm greeting. I later found out that he had threatened the pastor with a knife when his wife had been converted, but later also came to faith.

Here we can see the potential for multiplying leaders who will carry the good news into places that have never heard it. If you want to understand the heart behind Mobilise Global, the reason we do what we do, the last sentence says it all.”
 
Here is Fabians feedback from their time together:
 
“The mission trip with Colin to Dodoma and Tanga was amazing and we experienced many new things. There is a high demand for training in the churches in Tanzania, many pastors leading churches have never had any training. They are so faithful and doing all they can, but they need help. 

Spending a few days in these two regions made us realise we need more substantial training. We need a training centre so leaders from different regions can come and spend a few months being trained. After training with Colin, I now feel equipped to understand and teach through the training on biblical theology.”

And to top a successful trip, Pastor Mabisi from Tanga gave Colin Cookoo the chicken as a ‘thank you.’