While serving in Tanzania, I joined the girls on Hope’s team to minister in a remote village to a Maasai tribe. The same girls who walked into that village…under the African heat and sun…along the dirt path…were the same girls who walked out…
yet something was different…something had changed…
but as they looked around at one another…they couldn’t see it…
it could not be seen.
It was felt.
Hope has a passion to write and her team encouraged her to do something a little different to document our experience. Instead of writing a simple blog, she captured the tale through a short story, found at the link below. It’s her story. It’s our story. It’s Miriam’s story. A story worth re-telling.
But first, her disclaimers…
1) It’s a bit long, so I recommend grabbing a Coke, kicking up your feet and reading it all in one sitting.
2) The experience I wrote about happened among the girls on my team, so the guys (Adam and Geoff) are not included.
3) Here are a few pictures of some people, places and events that you’ll meet in the essay…
(church building and the drum)
(traditional Maasai child, design burned into her face)
(the white sunglasses)
(Hope wearing her khanga, standing with her toothless friend)
(me standing behind the gigantic spider and web)
(Miriam and her daughter)
A preview:
Reagan tells the woman to continue. She mumbles to him quickly again, and again he has to cut her off to translate for us, “Four of her daughters have been stolen and sold somewhere into marriage. She is scared her other daughters will be taken too.” He points to the small child on her lap – “this is one of her daughters.” She is two, maybe three years old. I catch a glimpse of her big brown eyes – they speak of innocence. I wonder how long it will last.
“There are as many ways to live in this world as there are people in this world, and each one deserves a closer look.” – Harriet the Spy
For the full story, please read me.
