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The Lutheran World Federation
Lutheran World Information |
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| 01.07.2008 |
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| Worship in the Land of the Maasai |
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Visit to Local Lutheran Congregations
ARUSHA, Tanzania/GENEVA, 1 July 2008 (LWI) – Congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT) invited participants of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) Council meeting in Arusha to their Sunday worships on 29 June 2008. This included the congregation in Mtowamu, northern Tanzania, near the Ngorongoro Crater, a two-hour drive from the Council venue.
Rev. Eberhard Hitzler, director of the LWF Department for World Service (DWS), who served for eight years as a missionary in the area for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria’s Division for World Mission, delievered the sermon in both English and Kiswahili, while Bishop Julius D. Paul, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malaysia pronounced the greeting on behalf of the LWF and blessed those attending the service.
The congregation’s name means “mosquito river,” referring to the large number of mosquitoes in the area, resulting in a correspondingly high malaria prevalence. The situation has improved considerably, thanks to improved access to health care and more efficient hospitals. The infant mortality rate has also declined.
The congregation’s pastor Christiane Eckert, a German missionary from the Leipzig Evangelical Lutheran Mission Society, welcomed the 12-person LWF Council delegation, gave the visitors a tour and description of her mission station, inhabited by the Maasai people, which she has served for over three years.
Referring to Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth, Hitzler’s sermon before the 250 worshippers, focused on love and the need to distinguish between a person and their respective works. “With confidence we can declare together with the South African theologian Desmond Tutu that God loves wrongdoers, but God cannot abide or condone their works,” said the DWS director.
Bishop Paul thanked the congregation for its hospitality. Following the service an auction was held on the church steps of the offertory gifts that church members had donated. These included a billy goat, enormous bananas and fruits.
The delegation members were also received by the Christian community in Kekiyambuzi Mungere, a small congregation started by Hitzler in 1985, which has also built a small church. Visitors from LWF member churches and their hosts enjoyed a meal of roasted mutton, after which, the guests visited a Maasai village.
They visited another congregation located near Esilatei, which meets for worship in the open air under a tree, and presented an elder of the congregation with a special altar crucifix. The approximately 0.5-meter-long cross was fashioned out of a spent grenade from the Liberian civil war. (413 words)
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