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Tanzania – A Wonderful Story

Rev. Cornelis Kant - 20 March 2019

A Wonderful Story – This is how you can call the birth of Christians for Israel in Tanzania. Pastor David Mbago came into contact with Christians for Israel International through Youtube a few years ago. He was so touched by it that in 2017 he attended our biennial International Forum in Jerusalem. Back in Tanzania he was convinced that he had to do something with this in his own country. His country and especially the churches should bless Israel. Instead of starting with actions he started with prayer. He asked several friends to pray for God’s guidance. He still expects everything to be grounded from prayer. After a few months, he established six prayer teams throughout the country. Now there are prayer teams in 10 places. He translates the international prayer letter of Christians for Israel into Swahili which is being distributed by his teams to a growing circle of people involved. There are already 500 readers now. The prayer teams grew into teams which also develop activities. They visit pastors, organise Bible study evenings, and even visit prisons where they provide practical help to prisoners, as well as doing Bible studies on Israel. They ask prisoners to pray for Israel. Because of the openness of Christians to biblical information about Israel, the work has grown rapidly in the last year.

The church where David was a pastor was afraid that he was founding a new church. Although he strongly denied this, he was fired in 2018. This gave him several difficult weeks, both emotionally and financially. Yet he accepted this and saw it as a sign from God that he had to continue with Christians for Israel Tanzania. His wife is a secretary at an educational institution, so there is monthly income.

With zeal and enthusiasm, he continues to build up the work in Tanzania. He is supported in this by his prayer teams, who pray for him daily, and a team of dedicated volunteers. He mainly works in education. He has good contacts with many pastors, Bible schools and seminaries, and is frequently given the opportunity to preach about Israel in churches. This has resulted in him being able to organise a speaking tour to 10 churches in 6 cities in February 2019 for lectures and Bible studies on Israel. Many hundreds of Christians and pastors have attended these meetings where Cornelis Kant and David Mbago have spoken and taught. Several Bible schools and seminaries have indicated that they would like to receive representatives from Christians For Israel International for a number of days for teaching to theology students and future pastors. There is an enormous growth in work and there are clearly rich blessings from God. The next step is that a booklet about Israel is about to be translated into Swahili and social media will also be used to reach Christians with the message about Israel’s place in our Christian faith. There is every reason to thank our Heavenly Father. Please pray for David and his teams for: (1) God’s indispensable blessing and wisdom and (2) that it will be financially possible for him to continue and expand the work.

 

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