Rafiki

These are my new friends:

Pray for Janet & Mike, they have been dating for 6 months, and they are very much in love - infatuated for sure – you should see this girl light up – lol – the universal language! Janet is 22, and Mike is 27. He works with supply for petrol stations. Janet & Mike want to get married. Life is very difficult in Tanzania they say. Janet asked for prayer about her relationship with Mike. I’m not sure, but it may have been in regard to purity.

Matilda is not married, but she has a 3 year old son. It is very difficult for her - she had a conflict with her son’s father 4 months ago, and she left her son with his father. Although sometimes she goes and takes him [to spend time with him], it is hard. His name is Valentine. Matilda emphasized to me how difficult she knows it to be a wife or a husband. Muslims divorce and remarry sometimes 3-4 times, but Christians marry only once and are with the person forever. As she mentioned her 3 year old son, I noticed her eyes. As I asked her his name, the corners of her eyes welled up. “Life in Tanzania is hard. That is why I work hard, hopefully I can make money, and…” her voice trails off and gaze shifts down in sadness and shame.

These ladies are two of the 4-6 staff that have been waiting on us all day shopping, preparing, and serving our meals, cleaning our rooms (and relocating our stuff – lol), and doing our laundry.

Ross, our road engineer on this trip (assistant for plumbing and w/ww engineer)has been asking us to consider ways that we can serve these ladies in return for all that they have served us this week. Ideas have been to take them out to eat with us, to wash our own dishes after one meal, or sketching and framing a nice sketch of their brand new hotel building. For me, I see service as an everyday event. While there job is to cook, clean, and serve, we serve them when we both show our appreciation for how each of them do their tasks well and how we treat them as just as valuable in God’s eyes as us, the ones they are serving. I desire to serve them by building relationship with them to learn how to love them best. Though receiving these acts of service in the business relationship we have, I find other ways to show them love. Whether stumbling with Swahili while accepting my meal, or learning their names each one by one, I seek to develop relationship. We’ve been exchanging an increasing amount of laughter over the last few days, and we are getting to know one another better each day. This evening, I saw Matilda do a dance move or two from a glance out my bedroom door, I laughed heartily, and she smiled beautifully, then ran to get Janet and the both hustled over to my door. You see, I had done a few silly dance moves to random music that came from a cell phone or from a tv, and laughed at myself with them to share that common language of laughter. They came inside my room. Then inquired about the stuffed bear on my bed – haha – it filled out into a full conversation about their lives, ending when they got a call to get back to work. What a blessing to get to know them better, and the joy of being charged to pray for their needs. Praise God for these new friends!

HOTEL STAFF:  And my new friends Janet and Matilda.