Our Miraculous Journey to Tanzania, Africa!
-- by Ken Henderson
A precious Muslim family and a wonderful Christian Church in Tanzania hosted two Mission Journeys teams this past summer. Each team spent one week in with the Muslim family, and one week with the church. The whole experience was life-changing and miraculously so.
The Muslim family was so gracious and loving to everyone, it was wonderful in that way. But, not only were they great hosts, they also were interested enough to attend our morning devotions and evening worship. The wife even interpreted for one of the ministers, and was great at it. They helped transport the group to work projects and ministry locations. They pitched in to help with the physical work and benevolent work at the orphanages and schools. Also, they taught us about Islam and they were interested to learn about Christianity. We met and enjoyed visits with 15-20 of their Muslim family & friends. The whole situation was a neat kind of miraculous!
The story of how this family came to be dear friends of ours is that Carol and I befriended them in January, 2005, while the wife was visiting in the USA. She had been denied her flight home to Tanzania because she might deliver her baby on the plane trip home. So their daughter was born in Lexington, KY. It was tough enough being pregnant and stuck in a strange country, but it got worse when the baby was born. The child had a heart defect that required 3 surgeries in the first 8 days. If the mother had been allowed to fly home earlier, the child would have died after birth in Tanzania.
Carol and I visited Tanzania on a Mission Journey setup trip in the summer, 2005. The Muslim family kept us and took us on a Serengeti safari. The family came to Lexington for additional surgery in spring, 2006, also bringing their other two daughters. We hosted them for some major site-seeing in the U.S.
They offered to host our teams in their home (it is more like a 13 room mansion) in Tanzania. They made most of our contacts for us, and transported the whole team everywhere. Culturally and religiously, they owed us nothing, but their friendship was that genuine and deep. Do you see why we say, “Miraculous!”?
As a side note: Please know that Muslims are usually loving family folks who desire peace and friendship. Most are not radical or violent like the image terrorists have created. And, many really desire to know more about Christianity. We hope and pray that our genuine love for them was a strong witness for Christ and Christianity.
This year we started building a church, cemented the dirt floor of a feeding center, fixed up a home, built 5 cow stalls, worked with children in schools & fed orphans & homeless children, conducted a Vacation Bible School. Both teams encouraged the people and the missionaries.
Obviously, we plan to return to both cities to continue to witness and work. If you want to go in late July, ‘07, you should sign up soon. It is such a popular tourist destination, that we had to purchase our airline tickets in late February for July travel just to get group seats and prices.
While building the foundation for the church in Dar es Salaam, one African Muslim worker wanted to become a Christian. Rashid was baptized in the Indian Ocean and afterward he changed his name to Mark.