Tanzania is an amazing country; the people and the scenery are absolutely beautiful! The people that attend the church that we minister at this month are prime examples of Christian men and women and I am just going to brag about them for a little bit.
To start off our month our contact/preacher was only here for 1 day before he left for a village ministry that he already had planned, so we were left in the hands of the members of the church. We have become very familiar with Tanzanian hospitality and it is incredible, the women are always bringing us food and the men are always asking us if we are in need of anything. We have been very lucky to be so spoiled this month and blessed by every single member of the church.
Oh and they can cook rice and beans (which we all know is my favorite) like nobody’s business, I may never look at a bowl of rice and beans the same way… lol but maybe it’s just because they are made with such love.
The women in every country so far have been completely different, but always the same in their smiles, their hugs, and their laughter. The women of Mzimbu (mah-zim-boo) have the best senses of humor, even through the language barrier. One day while Ruth and I were walking to the church, it had rained and left the ground super muddy, and there are these three ditches that we have to jump over to get there… anyways, Ruth jumped over one and I was too scared to fall into the muddy ditch to jump over and so Ruth held out her hand and obviously that made me brave. So I took off jumping and of course I barely moved because I was sunk in the mud by the time I got brave and I landed right in the ditch. Bringing Ruth with me because the mud that she was standing in was not any less slippery than the mud that I jumped from… So there we were on our way to church and covered in mud… it was hilarious!
But here is when the sweetest little lady comes in, we cannot understand what she is saying but she is obviously pointing at us and buckled over laughing, barely able to catch her breath… saying something along the lines of “oh those white girls, hahahaha, oh well that’s Tanzania for you, hahahahaha…” we are all covered in mud and getting laughed at but we both couldn’t help but laugh at ourselves and each other, which made life much more enjoyable. Then the woman finally caught her breath and came over to me and pulled me down into the creek and started washing everything… she washed my hands, arms, feet, shoes, shirt…. All with her bare hands, worrying more for me and the mud then herself and her clothes… It was a humbling experience that I am forever grateful for.
The main point of the story is that each of the women in the church have the greatest way of showing love and hospitality and being super cheerful while doing everything…. I want to be like them, they have shown and outdone Proverbs 31 and I cannot wait to use some of the skills they taught me this month when I am a good little wifey :]
more to come soon! miss yall and love yall all dearly!
