This past week my friend Frank Mills went to teach the 9th course in a 12 course training program at Nassa Theological College (NTC) in Mwanza, Tanzania. While he was there, I asked him to research some statistics about the impact of the ministry there in that East African country. Here’s what he sent back.
Youth Ministry International in Tanzania
- There are currently 11 students in the Youth Ministry Diploma Discipline at NTC.
- These students represent 21 churches.
- Two of the students in class are the leaders for youth ministry of the Gaita Diocese—which has 500 churches. These 2 guys (Nyuma and Yusufu) are responsible for giving Youth Ministry leadership and direction to those churches.
- One of the current students is currently teaching. His name is Nyuma from the Gaita Diocese. He has also been asked already to come back and teach at NTC.
- There are 1150 youth in those 21 churches where the students are serving.
- The students have done 80 “informal trainings” in the last year using YMI course material—primarily teaching material from three of our courses—Principles of Youth Ministry, Programming for Youth Ministry and Youth Culture.
Those are incredible numbers when you think that this program is only two and a half years old! These students will eventually train more and more youth workers who will serve in more churches and minister to more young people.
Tens of Thousands of Young People
Frank finished the first email to me by saying that he would talk with Nyuma and Yusuf to see if they can find out how many youth are represented by those 500 churches in their Diocese.
When he wrote me back, he said this, “I talked to Nyuma about the number of youth in his diocese…Gaita Diocese. He laughed and said: ‘tens of thousands’.”
Tens of thousands of young people in Tanzania are being impacted by the students who are taking courses with Youth Ministry International! Praise God for the opportunity to be a part of this ministry.
The plan is that I will go to Tanzania in January 2017 to teach the final two courses of the program there, and these students will graduate to move on and teach others the Biblical youth ministry principles they have learned throughout the program.
Please pray that God will continue to move in East Africa and that we may be open to serving Him wherever He calls us.
