Mission Moments: Tanzania 2021

Training hits home for Kilimanjaro guides and porters

Dauson Chonjo speaks during the Kilimanjaro Chapter’s prayer meeting on Sango Mountain. (Photos by Damson Samson, unless noted)

Before diving into two days of studying evangelism strategy and effective discipleship in October, Kingdom worker Damson Samson asked the Kilimanjaro Chapter’s advanced class of DMD students a question. “How has what you are learning impacted your community and clients coming to climb?”

Dauson Chonjo, a guide from Marangu who has helped lead the Kilimanjaro Chapter since we started it in 2008, shared about his mother. He had been trying to introduce her to Jesus, but she would not listen to him. He also told his sister about Christ, and she embraced Him as her Savior and Lord. When Dauson’s mother became ill his sister started to care for her and would pray over her. Finally, when their mother was hospitalized, she listened to her daughter and accepted Jesus. “This mother asked the daughter to pray more for her and the next day the mother died and is with the Lord,” Damson relayed.

“So, the question was, what would it be like if we were not trained in DMD? How could this mama be saved?”

The face of a saved soul: Dauson’s mother who passed to heaven last month. (Photo provided)

Others also testified to how God was working in their lives as disciples to make disciples.

Eliason Misha, a porter, shared about being on Kilimanjaro and he asked the others in his group to join him in praying for the trip to be successful. “Many despised me,” he said of the experience. “Only two prayed with me while other were asking, ‘Are you the pastor?’ I said, ‘No, I am just the servant.’”

But as the trip progressed the others came to him and asked for prayer.

“They marveled and wondered, ‘Where did you get [learn] this?’” Eliason said. He told them about Climbing For Christ’s DMD training and now they want to join, too.

Our classes were full for Damson during this visit to Tanzania, which began Oct. 11 and continued until Oct. 28. He started the advanced DMD study with our second group of 30 students who graduated from the introductory training in March. Then he spent time with the older group of 26 guides and porters. They also held leaders’ meetings to discuss ongoing Bible studies within the chapter. Then he took a week to make house visits.

Visiting the home of DMD student Mozes Kimaro, seated.

When he went to the home of Elia Yona, “I learned a lot about what Climbing For Christ is doing (to impact families and communities),” Damson said. “I learned that the extended hand that Climbing For Christ has been teaching all these years has a greater impact than what we thought.

“I was there, and it was proved that the work done in the village is more than what the (local) church could do. It might be (we do) two days of training or three days of training (four times a year), but we have thousands of people being impacted through all these trainings.”

Thousands!

God is a multiplier, an exponential expander.

Jesus told us in the Parable of the Four Soils that seed that falls on good soil – “those who hear and accept God’s word” – will “produce a harvest of thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times as much as had been planted” (Mark 4:20). Climbing For Christ teaches 63 guides and porters how to make disciples. They in turn are reaching countless souls in their villages all around the mountain.

“The understanding of the Bible has been brought to people who were blind from the beginning,” Damson said. “Disciples Making Disciples has proven to have great [power] for sharing the truth from the Bible. This is an outstretched hand. The chain is growing longer every day.”

As Damson traveled to homes even more heard the Truth. In Marangu, where he visited three homes one day, “this was a day of great harvest. The Lord yielded to Himself five people, and many were healed of their pains.”

Aman Minja with his chickens.

We have seen the spiritual blessings being poured into and through the Kilimanjaro Chapter. We also addressed physical needs. Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, Climbing For Christ initiated a chicken project for the guides and porters.

Back at Elia Yona’s house, Damson learned that this porter has raised more than 150 chickens from the original 10 he received. He has sold chickens to provide for his family, which has added a daughter, and expanded the livestock to include goats, turkey, rabbits, and guinea fowl (called kanga in Swahili).

“Aman Minja is another person who has benefitted,” Damson said, sharing how he sells eggs to help with family needs. “Where things were not working on the mountain (because of the pandemic), he found himself surviving through this project. He thanked Climbing For Christ and all its members for the blessing.”

Climbing For Christ has been teaching about evangelism to guides and porters since the Kilimanjaro Chapter was formed in 2008. We began using resources from The Timothy Initiative to teach DMD (disciples making disciples) during Mission: Kilimanjaro 2017. Damson visited four times each in 2018 and 2019 (including Mission: Kilimanjaro 2018 and 2019) before the COVID-19 pandemic halted training. We resumed training in June on Mission: Kilimanjaro 2021. Damson will GO again to Tanzania before year end and Mission: Kilimanjaro 2022 is scheduled for January.