Pass it on

August 30th 2007

Wait wait wait, Hold on just a second!!! The Episcopal Church has missionaries? No way. That doesn’t seem very Episcopalian of us! Who are we to go out into the heathen communities and preach the Good News of Jesus to save more souls from the evils of this world?! Since when do we hold a Bible in one hand, and a banana in the other, asking, begging people to come throw themselves down before the Lord?!

Simple answer---we don’t do that. That is not the Episcopalian way. We go out into the world to show God’s love. To show the love that he has given us---so much that the only thing we know to do is to pass it on. We show it in various ways---through teaching, preaching, curing, researching, caring, translating, organizing, etc. The purpose is not for us to come out here and convert people through what we say…and really it isn’t even through what we do either. Missionaries for the Episcopal Church, are people who just feel called.

We feel called to leave what is comfortable. To leave our friends and families, go to a new place, a new world where we are able to feel God more intensely in our daily lives.
Because every day is never like I expect it to be. Each day I feel more grateful than the one before. I feel challenged to love, challenged to keep on trying, to keep on working despite daily difficulties with culture, language, loneliness, and confusion.

Surprisingly, or rather, not so surprisingly, some of the most difficult interactions I have had here in Dodoma are with other Christians—who are not so much like me. “Let’s pray for all those who have not yet found Jesus! That they may find the right path!”

And don’t get me wrong. I love Jesus. And I love how so many here are able to readily express their love of Jesus, “I'll shout it from a mountain top! Praise God! I want my world to know...” And in this culture, part of daily greetings between friends always includes some mention of God. “I am thankful to God, yes, everything is okay. May God bless you. God bless you.” There is no taboo, no fear, no holding back in regular mention of God's will, God's love, God's grace in our lives.

But never in my life would I be able to pray that “those others,” those who have found God in a different way, change to be more like me. Like us Christians. Because to me it is the same God. A God who is in us, through us, above us and behind us each and every day.

Bishop Mdimi Mhogolo of this Diocese of Central Tanganyika, holds a bible study once a month for “us missionaries.” We read a passage aloud together, then he essentially preaches on the material for an hour or so. One Wednesday evening he was talking about “Whose God?”
Unfortunately for me, being the daughter of a priest my whole life Sunday school just never seemed necessary. I somehow imagined I would just learn more about the Bible’s teachings through osmosis of growing up at GTS and being surrounded by super dorky seminarians all the time, (and of course going to church twice a week). It worked. Somehow anyway. But I could never compete with a Southern Baptist in a verse-throwing contest; which is my way of saying I don’t have a clue what passage we read at bible study that night.

But I do remember the message from Askofu Mhogolo: When you come here, to Tanzania, you come to work. You come here to do the job, to use the skills that God has given you. You are not here to change people’s minds about God or about their theology. God has been here in Africa for a very long time. God is strong and active in the lives of the people here—in town, in the villages, wherever. When you come here, do not bring your ideas of your Western God, your Western theology and expect it to go over well. I welcome you to share your thoughts, to preach your message; but just remember that you are here not to change—but to exchange…

And today I just want to give thanks to God (and 815!) for bringing me back to Tanzania. I nearly cried this morning on the way to work. Everything, every sound, every person I passed just moved me in such a classic, wonderful, cliché, ha ha, happy way. God is in the construction worker who pauses and falls to his knees when he hears the mosque's call to prayer, in the woman in her burqa and hijab, contently covered in black from head to toe in the 90 degree desert heat, in the children who see me and say, “Good Evening!” at 11am, in the three men who pile onto one bike, in the women's colorful kangas that proclaim messages in kiswahili thanking God for his many blessings, in the babies, babies babies that are everywhere, in the icon hanging from the taxi-driver's rear view mirror, and God is present in this land whose manner of getting attention is saying, “Bwana Asifiwe!” (Praise God!), to which all stop talking and join in responding, “Amen!”
Oh yes. What a wonderful place to be. To experience God in a new way, each and every day.
To God be the Glory!
(…I got that one from my dad…)