Page 249 - LD215 History of the Church in Africa A4 final

The Twentieth Century and Beyond

Tanzania

Research evidence indicates that the first Pentecostal missionaries
came to Tanganyika in 1913. They traveled to Dodoma but within a few
months several died, and those who survived were evacuated during
World War I (1914–1918). Then, in 1921, missionaries from Sweden and
Finland arrived and developed a church under the Swedish Free Mission
that is now called Umoja wa Makanisa ya Pentecoste Katika Tanzania
(Union of Pentecostal Churches in Tanzania—UMPT). Although the
UMPT chose Tanzanians as leaders in 1964, the mission still has a strong
voice in how the churches function. Records reveal that the UMPT has
over 2,000 local churches in the country.

Elim Pentecostals from the United Kingdom planted the Elim
Pentecostal Church of Tanzania. Of special note is the following report
from Garrard: “By 1992 the Elim churches had spread to the Muslim
enclave on the island of Zanzibar.… [They] have one central church and
three house groups on the island” (“Tanzania,” 266).

The Pentecostal Assemblies of God began in Tanzania when believers
and missionaries affiliated with the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada
moved south from western Kenya in the 1940s. They opened a Bible
school in Mwanza, and the work has spread to other parts of the country.

The Tanzania Assemblies of God, the fellowship with whom we
labored, dates its origin to the coming of independent Pentecostal
missionaries, the Derrs, to southern Tanganyika in the 1930s. Later, the
work affiliated with the Assemblies of God when the Nilsons transferred
from the Belgian Congo; however, by 1948, the missionaries were gone
and the work was struggling. In 1953, Wesley Hurst and his family
arrived to assist the church and open a Bible school near Mbeya. With
the training of leaders and the assistance of other missionaries, including
the Norman Corrells, the work began to grow. A second Bible school was
established in Arusha, in the north, in 1958.

When my wife and I arrived in 1967, the church had fewer than 100
Assemblies. The Tanzania Assemblies of God chose Immanuel Lazaro as
General Superintendent that year. Since the church featured an aggressive
evangelistic ministry and the systematic training of workers, it began to
grow. Ranwell Mwenisongoli succeeded Lazaro as leader in the 1980s.

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