Mission Moments
Kristi Larson
I’m an elementary teacher who taught in a higher socio-economic school. I only speak English. What would I have to offer the secondary students and teachers in Tanzania, Eastern Africa? Those questions troubled me persistently while I was preparing to go on the summer of 2005 mission trip.
While I was there, it became apparent that I was there for a multitude of reasons and that I should NEVER have doubted God’s plan for me. One of the reasons I believe that I was placed in that situation was because God knew that my presence would provide “hope” to the students and staff that I was able to work with. In a land where there is so much poverty and suffering, just knowing that people care about you gives you great hope. When you have hope, you can overcome many obstacles.
Another reason I think I was “supposed to go to Africa” was so I, personally, could get closer to God. I have never felt such a personal relationship with the Lord as I did when I was there. The students were always praising God, despite the tragedies in their lives and the poverty in which they lived. Without the material things that I’m used to, I was able to focus my whole self on God and really listen to Him and marvel in His word and world. It was such a spiritually powerful experience that I pray that everyone is able to have the opportunity to go on a mission trip. I always feel very safe in Africa. You feel God’s presence everywhere. When planting trees at a youth camp, a very small youth with very BIG eyes would bring me, and only me, a plant. He would look at me very shyly, then smile back at me and hand me the small tree. We did this for a whole day. Was that God?
Mary Carstens
Having been to Tanzania, Africa 5 times, the 25-hour airplane ride is no longer boring and long, it is exciting and filled with anticipation because once again I am going home to visit my brothers and sisters in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania, Northern Diocese. Not only is the countryside beautiful in Tanzania, Africa, the people are more beautiful. Then once again, another 25 hours of wonderful anticipation of being reunited with my family in America.
A pastor at the ELCT headquarters dropped me off at a bookstore to purchase books he wanted me to bring back to Southwood while he did another errand. While waiting outside the store, several young men came up to me and started to hassle me a bit. All of a sudden a young man walked between two parked cars and said something to those young men in Swahili, this young man, or perhaps my guardian angel, stayed with me until the pastor came back to get me. Each time I go to Tanzania, I have an agenda. Each time I also realize I am back riding my spiritual tandem bicycle…me pedaling on the front seat and having God sitting on the back seat to keep me safe. Also each time, after a few days there, I realize that I am really sitting on the back seat and God is on the front seat taking me for a ride of my life that I will never forget.
Faye Koehn
We were on Africa time, which meant that it was an hour later than planned when the five of us from Southwood piled into the back of a small Toyota SUV and started up the mountain, in the foothills of Kilimanjaro, to visit our sister parish, Uswaa. It was cool and a light mist was falling; slowing us down and adding slipping and sliding to the bumpy ride. The SUV climbed for awhile and then started down into a deep ravine with a rushing stream at the bottom.
The road up the other side hugged the mountain with lush vegetation on either side. We passed some boys walking on the side of the road, headed up to what we later learned was the Uroki Secondary School. As we turned the corner we drove past the rows of low concrete school buildings. It was about 10 minutes later when we started to see people standing in the mist and fog on the side of the road. People were waving palm branches and as we approached, the women and children started the customary greeting with their tongue in the roof of their mouth that sounds a little like lalalalalalalala. The line stretched farther than I could see and as we rounded the corner the large, square, two story concrete structure of the Uswaa Parish church was directly in front of us.
Our vehicle followed the line of people up to the front porch of the church where we stepped out of the truck and were greeted with increased volume of tongues and a brass band. As they pinned roses on us we were hugged and passed from one person to another to be greeted. Everything was surreal and there was this overwhelming emotion of unworthiness. Tears came with muffled sobs as I tried to determine why they would wait for hours in the rain to greet the five of us. What did we bring? A few small gifts. Greetings from Southwood. Nothing with much material value. But they did not seem disappointed. It wasn’t anything we did or brought that was responsible for their enthusiasm. The greeting came from their heart as they welcomed their brothers and sisters in Christ into their church home. Halfway around the world, we were as loved and cared for as if our own family were greeting us – because of course, they were.