#8 - Pastor Shao

#8 – Pastor Shao

I guess I should mention that these 10 are in no particular order. They are just 10.

This is Pastor Shao, with his wife Lillian (who he has known since primary school – ahhhh) and their daughters Loveness and Annette. Isn’t each one of those smiles the most genuine?  (Now this might be my new favorite picture of the entire summer.)


Pastor Shao has been at Uswaa for about two years. He did part of his internship at Uswaa and then was assigned back here for his first call. He is a good pastor, he cares about people, he is incredibly faithful to God, and he has true joy in what he is doing.

One of my favorite things about Pastor Shao is just sitting in the dining room having tea and talking. He loves asking questions about the church in America and about how our lives are different than life in Tanzania. When I tell him something that he can’t quite believe, like “I drive a car that I own,” his response is usually a skeptical “sure?”

Pastor Shao snaps his fingers when he’s thinking. He prefers coffee to tea. He’s not very skilled at driving the piggy piggy, but he’s doing his best to learn. He has two teenage girls (from difficult family situations) living in his home with him, he pays for their school and they help to take care of his house and daughters. He prefers counseling to preaching. He loves his family.

Last weekend Pastor Shao took us to his home in Mwika, which is west of Mt. Kilimanjaro. (Uswaa is east.) We rode the dala dala from Uswaa all the way there. We stopped in Marangu along the way and enjoyed lunch and sodas right by the most beautiful waterfall. We met his parents, his mother-in-law and niece, his aunt, and nephew. We saw his home church, primary school, and Bible College. It was so much fun.

Pastor Shao and John enjoying our sodas by the waterfall.

Pastor Shao with his wife's brother's baby.  

He was meeting her for the first time and quite pleased with holding her.

Pastor Shao, his father Jonathan, his mother Esther Mary, and his aunt who's name I cannot remember.

 

Pastor Shao taught me a few of the greetings from the KiChagga dialect in Mwika. I worked them into my sermon on Sunday morning at the Kiruweni Parish in Mwika and he must have told me six times on the drive back to Uswaa how happy he was about the KiChagga in my sermon.

Pastor Mlay from Kiuweni Parish (Pastor Mlay used to be at Uswaa too), Me, and Pastor Shao.  This was right after the Sunday worship on July 31.

Monday Pastor Shao took us on this walk around the Uswaa village. The village is divided into 10 parts and when we returned to church in the evening he informed us that we had walked through 8 of those 10 parts. It was a long walk, but a great great day spent with one of my favorite people!