Tanzania Orphanage and Outreach Ministry
A Partnership between the Lutheran churches of Tanzania and the States
An initiative of Grace Lutheran Church of Jackson Center, Ohio
Location:
- Bariadi, Tanzania
Main Activities:
- Addressing the needs of poor and orphaned children
- Leading the children to find salvation in Christ
- Teaching the Bible and equip them with a strong, active faith
- Providing sufficient and healthy meals
- Giving kids the opportunity to play safely
- Sufficient health and hygiene care
- Creating an environment where the children can feel loved and cared for
- Establishing a successful academic path that can lead to adequate jobs and a successful career
- An evangelist reaching out to 3 remote villages in the Bariadi District with the Good News of Salvation in Jesus Christ
- A social worker serves these remote villages with training opportunities, counseling, and connecting the people with resources in their communities
Purpose:
- The purpose of the Orphanage and Outreach Ministry in Tanzania is to partner with Christian Lutheran churches both locally and in the USA to provide holistic care (spiritually, emotionally and physically) to people struggling in remote villages, and orphaned children so that they can be integrated well into society, but also be sufficiently equipped to lead effective change in their communities.
- We believe the only way to achieve this goal is to point all to Jesus, so that they can find life in Him, experience His love and grace, and then start to share that with the community around them.
Interesting Facts:
- The median age of Tanzania is 18 – we have a lot of kids!
- Tanzania is about 1.5 times the size of Texas
- We have very small business that we call “pet businesses”
- We have 120 tribal languages, but we all speak Swahili as a bridging language
- We have lovely African animals and you can enjoy watching the Great Migration in the Serengeti of Tanzania between July and October
Challenges:
- High unemployment
- Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is still part of rural customs and very dangerous to young girls
- We struggle with high infant death rate
- Our men are often not fulfilling their roles as husbands and fathers as they should
Dream:
- The dream is to lead as many as possible children through this transformational process, but to also bring transformation for God’s glory in the villages where the kids come from.
Prayer Requests:
- Sufficient funding to help more children and employ more adults
- Providing adequate spiritual and social care to children and their extended families
- FGM to stop
- Men to be raised up to lead Godly lives
- Children to become great leaders and affect deep change
- The lives of people in the designated villages to experience deep and lasting change
- Funding, strength and wisdom for all the ministry workers
One Plus God Ministries helps manage the Tanzania project as an official Partner Agency of the NALC.
Contact pastor Wayne de Wet for more info, or to visit your church anywhere in the States and present the Tanzania ministry – wynand@oneplusgod.org