I try not to complain about things but this last week has been hot. In fact when sending a message to my church’s online chat where they ask you say how many are watching because you know God takes attendance, I wrote “One from the face of the Sun watching”
To explain just how hot things are I am first going to tell a story of a conversation I had with one of the older Maasai men. I kept hearing him say the Kiswahili word for fire over and over again. It was mixed with a Maasai word I did not know so I kept listening to see if I could pick up on it from context. After about 20 minutes I thought I had it and turned to a gentleman that knows both languages to see if I was right and he said yes. The Maasai man was the ground is like it is on fire. The ensuing conversation centered on the fact he never remembered it being this hot.
The second story I am going to tell you make my point is about my thermometer. They keep breaking so the current one goes to 105 degrees F. Sometime between 7:30 and 8 AM it taps out at the max it can read. It stays there until about midnight. Those hours between the two it drops down to somewhere between 90 and 95. So I have no idea how hot it actually is getting. But today I saw an article in The Citizen about the Tanzania Metrological Society warning about the high temperatures and that it is going to get hotter because of no rainfall.
What does this mean other than it is hot? Well you don’t want to cook because that means using the gas stove top. You don’t want to clean dishes because that means boiling water. You don’t want to do your trash because that means burning it. You don’t want to put clothes on. Your house smells like a locker room because you sweat everywhere. The only electricity I want to use is for my fan but it only runs a couple of hours before it drains the batteries down.
While this is going on the teacher is telling a student they need to remember to wear their sweater. Say what? At least in Moshi it is nice (80-90) and I get to go there this weekend to mark Veteran’s day. I am proud I have not been sitting in my car running the air conditioning but I love the fact it is there if needed.
He went on to tell a story to the guests around the table. Noticing how each had tried to elbow into the place of honor, he said, “When someone invites you to dinner, don’t take the place of honor. Somebody more important than you might have been invited by the host. Then he’ll come and call out in front of everybody, ‘You’re in the wrong place. The place of honor belongs to this man.’ Embarrassed, you’ll have to make your way to the very last table, the only place left.
“When you’re invited to dinner, go and sit at the last place. Then when the host comes he may very well say, ‘Friend, come up to the front.’ That will give the dinner guests something to talk about! What I’m saying is, If you walk around all high and mighty, you’re going to end up flat on your face. But if you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.”
Luke 14:10 The Message
So I choose the verse above to tell the story about Pastor Stephano being promoted to District Bishop of Tanzania Assemblies of God (around 60 churches) because of a story from the service for that promotion. As I have mentioned in previous posts, I stand out here as you can also see in the photo above. Because of that, I try to sit at the back of these events so I don’t cause too much disturbance of people staring or kids coming up to run their hands over my arm hair.
When I arrived at the event it was still about 20 minutes until it was to start and they had two big tent tops set up with seating for a couple hundred people and tvs to broadcast what was goin on inside the church. So I went to sit in one of the outside tent areas. Someone quickly came up and made me move to the inside where I sat at the back. In about five minutes someone came to get me and move me to the front. Then to rows set up for other district bishops. By the end I was sitting two rows off the bishop for Tanzania. This verse popped into my head with each move especially when I saw them move out a couple of pastors that tried to get into the bishops seating. Thing is that I am not that important to what was going on, everyone just assumed so because of my skin color.
The Tanzanian Bishop even had to speak directly to me during the ceremony at one time to request I help all the churches that Bishop Stephano is now over.
It was a typical Tanzanian service lasting over 4 hours before they moved to eating. The ladies who prepared the meal for the hundreds of people attending and all the kids who showed up worked as hard as I have ever seen them work. The meal included small portions of goat, lamb and some cow beef in stew plus a larger portion of chicken then all the potatoes and rice dishes. I am certain because they insisted I eat with the bishops I got a better meal than those not invited to eat with that group (we had our own serving line)
