Tanzania Mission Trip update # 4
Tuesday, July 16
Written by: Cate Watson

Before I start my reflection for today I just want to say a quick prayer. Thank you Lord for putting this journey in my path, and the path of all of the other youth and adults. So far the trip has been amazing and I truly feel like my life has been changed and opened up to the true beauty and struggle of our world. Amen.

Today has actually been my favorite day so far, even though they have all been eye opening. Our day started with a long drive to a school called Engorika Primary School. I usually get very car sick on long, windy, up hill drives but today was a different story. I was truly distracted from my own issues by all of the beauty on the way. The shops and houses were beautiful, the terrain was beautiful, the animals were beautiful, the people were beautiful, but most of all, the community was beautiful. Today’s devotion mentioned community and unity and I am very confident to say that the community in America doesn’t even begin to compete with the community shared in Tanzania. One example was how a bus had broken down, and about 15 people just walking along the side of the road put aside what they were doing and helped to push this bus. They might not have known each other, but the way the people naturally pushed aside themselves and helped each other seemed extremely innate. Once we arrived at the school we were immediately welcomed with the warmest open hearts. The singing and jumping and smiles personally made me feel welcomed and just happy. We started with serving porridge and eventually ventured into serving rice and beans. As I was serving I truly recognized how much us being in Africa and at their school meant to them, which is everything. After our amazing adventure at the school we needed to go find a place to eat where I again had my eyes and heart opened to something amazing. Shanga is an attachment onto a resort where people who have disabilities can work and make beautiful art, where they would be turned away in most other jobs. Their art pieces truly represented the beauty of Africa and African culture. They then sold their creations in the gift shop where part of the proceeds went to helping people with disabilities. We then ate lunch at the resort where I happily played with and fed an adorable blue eyed kitten!!

Today was an amazing day where I saw God numerous times. One specific occasion, and my favorite of the day, was after we had fed the 912 children their porridge. We separated and went to play with the children and we all had huge swarms of kids run up to us. There is some kind of thing about touching a white persons palm in Africa that we had talked about a couple of nights ago and today I truly understood. No matter where I walked hands were grabbing out to touch my palm and after I got used to it, I truly felt the connections formed between touching someone’s palm and holding onto something so dear to the human body. If you looked at their hands they were dirty, their nails were broken and they had cuts. If you look at my hand my nails are thick and long and my hands are soft and seem untouched. The coarseness of their hands represented the struggles they go through in life, and although the hands are so important to the human body, they take in that pain and love with happiness in their hearts and their souls, which I and all Americans should aspire to be like.

Concluding this post I want to inform all of you readers of something we talked about in our devotion tonight. We talked about how although they aren’t as privileged as us, they live their life’s based off of making the best of what they have and living in community and unity. America is more of a “you, yourself, are the most important” while Africa is more of a “you, being another person, is the most important”. I will end with the slightly altered but same message quote from Jeremy Early: “They may not have much, but they have each other.”