An interview with our tutors Lea and Samuel

1.) Lea, could you introduce yourself a little and also say what you have done so far?

Hello my name is Lea Hofmann. I am 20 years old and come from the beautiful Upper Lusatia region. After successfully completing my Abitur (university entrance qualification) last year, I did a voluntary social year with the Christian organization Zedakah in the Northern Black Forest. There, I worked in a guesthouse in the service and kitchen areas.

2.) What were your reasons/motivations for spending a year abroad with Wycliffe?

There were many different reasons for this. The fact that I would go abroad for more than just a few months was never in doubt for me. God has repeatedly given me various encounters, conversations, and moments throughout my life where I learned about missionary service abroad through others. Over the years, this desire and need to go abroad with God myself grew within me. For example, my mother works for Youth With A Mission, and I often went to her office with her as a child; my godmother also spent a year in Africa a few years ago; my best friend and her family served abroad with Wycliffe for several years, and there was so much more.

This opened the door wider and wider for me, and I wanted to experience what I had always heard about from others. I then decided to dedicate a year to God after graduating from high school, to grow with Him, and to discover His plan for my life.

I wanted to get away from Germany with all its overconsumption and rediscover the luxury I actually live in. I wanted to learn to appreciate the little things and not take all the blessings in our country for granted.

I also wanted to experience a new culture, far away from my own.

3.) Why did you choose Tanzania?

That it would be a country in Africa was always certain. It had always been my mother's dream to travel to Africa, and she then passed that dream on to me.

4.) What do you particularly like about Tanzania after your first 5 weeks?

What I like best here are the fruits; they are so incredibly fresh. I'm really enjoying the weather; it's consistently pleasantly warm. But I also like the people; they're cheerful and they greet you – a nice contrast to my home country.

1.) Samuel, could you introduce yourself a little and also say what you have done so far?

My name is I Samuel Schulz And I am 21 years old. I have been a qualified educator since this summer. I completed my training at a vocational school in Marburg and I am originally from this area.

2.) What were your reasons/motivations for spending a year abroad with Wycliffe?

My plan for some time had been to spend a year abroad after my apprenticeship and dedicate my life to God's kingdom in mission work. I knew that experiences abroad could broaden one's horizons and shape one's character. Furthermore, I greatly enjoy learning new languages and experiencing new cultures. I had previously spent a year and a half in Micronesia with my family and six months alone in a children's home in Romania, and I wanted to gain further international experience.

3.) Why did you choose Tanzania?

At first, I didn't even know which country I wanted to go to. All I knew for sure was that it had to be an African country. While searching for a mission organization, I attended the Youth Mission Conference (JuMiKo) at the beginning of this year. Besides making several new contacts, I also got talking to a staff member at the Wycliffe booth. He told me about the Kliemt family, who were still looking for tutors. I was immediately enthusiastic about this and, after some prayer, decided to go on this mission to Tanzania.

4.) What do you particularly like about Tanzania after your first 5 weeks?

I'm really enjoying the openness of the people here and have already had the pleasure of meeting several new people. The weather is also lovely at the moment; I'm delighted by all the sunshine. And the fruit is a real treat. My personal favorite: passion fruit 🤩😋

A new feature in our office: EthnoArts & Media

In September, the director of SIL Tanzania wrote to all staff members that the financial situation for SIL Tanzania was very strained and that we should consider how we could save even more money with our existing resources and perhaps take on more tasks without incurring additional costs. This gave me the idea of whether we, as the EthnoArts team, could provide more support in the area of media work, for example, by making audio recordings of translated Bible passages. Shortly after this idea was considered, funding was approved for two part-time positions for people who could provide support in the media field. Around the same time, a church in Germany pledged financial support to my long-time colleague, Mwasandube. His position was also at risk.

We are now very relieved that we will soon be a team of four in a new department for EthnoArts and Media. Damaris will be working part-time in the media department.

Joy over local missionaries

In recent years, I've noticed something sad: here in Tanzania, mission is understood as an undertaking by missionaries who come to Tanzania from other countries. Yet the Lord Jesus made it very clear that mission originates in Jerusalem and spreads throughout the world; that is, mission begins here and now, wherever Christians are, and spreads from there, so that ultimately people from all places and cultures go to all places. But here in Tanzania, I've only heard of very few Tanzanians who have gone to another people group in Tanzania, learn a new language there, and introduce people who don't yet know the liberating message of Jesus to Jesus. Basically, this "bring others and we receive" attitude is the sad reality. But there are indeed local missionaries.

In mid-August, our family attended a mission conference in Dar es Salaam. This conference is held annually by a mission school in Tanzania, where Tanzanians are trained for missionary work in their own country. The conference was attended by fully trained and already active missionaries—cool people, some very young, others a bit older, about 80 participants in total. They are all serving in unfamiliar cultures, working as farmers on the fields, as soccer coaches, or as full-time pastors, and specifically reaching people from other cultures. A key focus of the conference is the personal accounts of these missionaries—as they call themselves. Many testified that God performs miracles, people are healed through prayer, and people come to faith. But some also go through very difficult situations, especially in areas where intolerant religious beliefs do not allow for any change of mind or different perspectives.

We experienced a warm sense of fellowship with the teachers of this mission school and many of the participants. I had the opportunity to speak on two days about the use of local arts in mission work, and several participants showed great interest in this topic, as the use of local artistic expressions is usually prohibited by churches. Some of these missionaries work in languages into which SIL Tanzania also translates the Bible. Therefore, I hope that valuable connections will be made and that we can, in some cases, contribute to the future by ensuring that biblical content is also conveyed through local music and other oral arts.

The plan was to teach the graduating class at this mission school for a whole week, from November 17th to 21st. But contrary to what was written in the printed Kliemtpost, I stayed home because of the emotional strain caused by the unrest in the country.

I hope to be able to make up for that at another time.

Freedom Ascent -

first time in Africa

"The Dream of 100 Leaders Among the Ndali"—that's how we titled our vision in the last Kliemtpost, and that we would soon be traveling to the Ndali people to train pastors on addiction recovery. In July, we conducted five training sessions throughout the Ndali territory, reaching 96 pastors. They confirmed how serious this problem is among their people and in their congregations. Several of them had themselves previously struggled with addiction. Following these training sessions, the pastors sought out suitable addiction support group leaders in their congregations, whom they then sent to a further training session in September.

In September, we began a training program in Mbeya. Three trainees from the Ndali people participated, along with six others from three different ethnic groups in Tanzania, where alcohol and drug addiction was also considered a major social problem. Five people taught us this program, called "Freedom Ascent", for three weeks: Ed, a 70-year-old from the USA, a former Bible translator and now the director of a small mission organization (Storyweavers Global) that, among other things, helps people with addiction problems through Bible-centered small group work; Valerie from Colombia, who teaches Scripture Engagment to Bible translators; her husband, Jorge, from Venezuela; and two Nigerian missionaries Olayiwola and John, who provided support.

I also invited people from our church in Mbeya to this training with the goal of launching a pilot project in Swahili, since there are many alcohol and drug addicts in our city, but no real therapeutic or spiritual help for these people. A widespread belief is that if you pray and are serious about following Jesus, you will automatically be freed from addiction quickly. Yes, God does grant this from time to time, but often He wants people to go through a longer healing process. Expertise in overcoming addiction is scarce. That's why it's so important to explain to pastors that, yes, addictions have a spiritual dimension, but also that in over 80% of cases, addiction develops on fertile ground of emotional wounds and a misguided way of dealing with them, and that different addictions have different physical consequences. In short: to become free, those in positions of responsibility within congregations and those affected themselves must accept that the path to freedom is often lengthy, profound, and painful. Therefore, the entire program, in its shortest form, is designed as 55 weekly meetings in small groups, where biblical texts are discussed and applied to the participants' lives. Personal faith, prayer, and loving support of the participants are of paramount importance in this process.

This song, in the style of a Ndali artistic genra, was spontaneously created during the workshop in Isoko based on 1 Peter 2:9.

"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light."

This verse is the guiding verse of the entire addiction recovery program, which will be repeated in the small groups every week. My colleague Mwasandube (in the yellow hoodie) comes from a neighboring language group, understands parts of the Ndali language, and sings along enthusiastically. Creative elements play an important role in this program: composing and singing songs, adapting biblical texts into a short play, or using images to memorize key concepts.

After the first week of training, we traveled with two cars and a team of 19 people to the village of Isoko in the Ndali region on the Tanzanian side. We were equipped with the newly completed 140-page small group training material in the Ndali language.

The trainees from the other three ethnic groups, who had completed their training in the first week, then led the practice sessions with the participants. At the end of the week, we said goodbye to these six trainees and are now praying that they, too, will soon start groups in their respective language areas to gain experience with this work and, hopefully, one day become multipliers for this addiction support program. We are very grateful if you will pray for the start of addiction support groups among the Sandawe, Nyika, and Safwa peoples.

On two evenings this week, we showed the short movie we had produced on the topic of addiction, once in a village next to the pubs and another time in the middle of the market square. Over 200 people watched the film, heard how Jesus had freed one of our Nigerian missionaries from addiction, and some joined in the prayer that Jesus might forgive them and come into their lives.

Immediately following the three weeks of training with our international team of teachers, as described above, we suffered a serious setback: suspicions grew that something had gone wrong financially. I then asked someone some revealing questions. There was also dissatisfaction with a necessary but unpleasant financial decision I had to make, after which I received a letter from representatives of the Ndali people informing me that we EthnoArts people should please continue without them and their assistance in the future. We met for a clarifying and reconciling discussion almost two weeks later. Thank God! Satan really tried to destroy this work. Please continue to pray that we communicate well in our collaboration with the Ndali representatives and find common conflict resolution strategies despite significant cultural differences.

The work with the Ndali people continued peacefully, and so the group leaders met again at the end of October for two one-day meetings, one in Malawi and two in Tanzania. This time, the participants received the audio version of the group guide in their own language on an audio player. Using this device, the leaders learned how to navigate through the book and the associated audio Bible texts and questions. We created these nearly 1,000 individual audio files over several weeks in recent months. In addition to the audio version of the Ndali New Testament and other listening materials, the device also includes the 24 new songs for singing along, which we recorded this year to accompany the learning verses of the addiction recovery program.

We will be in Germany from the end of November to the beginning of February to see you all again and visit many congregations. We are very much looking forward to this time and warmly invite you to attend one of our sermons or talks. If you would like to host an evening talk for your small group or congregation, we would be delighted to receive an invitation. Here are the dates currently planned for the end of 2025 and the beginning of 2026:

November 30 – 10:30 a.m. Short mission report; Church for Siegen; www.kirchefuersiegen.de

December 6 – 7 p.m. Mission report EFG Gotha; www.efg-gotha.de

December 7 – 10 a.m. EFG Gotha; www.efg-gotha.de

December 9th – 7 pm EFG Limbach-Oberfrohna, Christuskapelle; https://www.efg-limbach.de

December 14 – 10 a.m. EFG Schmalkalden; www.efg-sm.de

December 21 – 10:30 a.m. Evangelical Community Heuchelheim; www.egh.de

December 28 – 10:30 EFG Heubach; www.efg-heubach.de

December 30 – 7 p.m. EFG Schorndorf; www.baptistengemeinde-schorndorf.de

January 4th – 10 a.m. EFG Ludwigsburg; www.baptisten-ludwigsburg.de

January 7 – 7:30 p.m. Mission report, Evangelical Community Heuchelheim; www.egh.de

January 11 – 10 a.m., EFG Düren, mission report following the service www.efg-dueren.de

January 14 – 3 p.m., Mission report, Senior citizens' group, Church for Siegen; www.kirchefuersiegen.de

January 18th – 10 a.m., EFG Celle, www.efg-celle.de

January 19 – 7:30 p.m. Mission report, YMCA Wetzlar www.cvjm-wetzlar.de

January 23 – 7 p.m., Mission Report, Christ Church Hohenahr-Erda, www.efg-hohenahr.de

January 25 - 10:30 am Church for Siegen; Retransmission; www.kirchefuersiegen.de

February 1st – 10:30, Christuskirche Hohenahr-Erda, www.efg-hohenahr.de

Thanks

Thank you for your unwavering support of us and our ministry! We are constantly amazed by the faithful prayers and contributions of so many of you. Thank you, thank you, thank you for everything!

All our love, Daniel, Damaris, Samuel, Rebekka and Elia