I can’t really express the joy of seeing Erick and Debora face to face for the first time. With the help of the translator, I reminded Erick that the reason we had come was because he had begged us to come visit him for 11 years. They loved the shirts we had brought them from Fresh Grounds. For years, we had provided money to buy Erick gifts (and more recently, Debora) and necessities, but this was the first time we’d had the pleasure of going to Walmart and to Fresh Grounds to buy them gifts ourselves! What a privilege!
Erick and Debora’s mothers (Debora’s mother on the left and Erick’s mother on the right) and Erick’s two-year-old brother also came to meet us. We talked to them through the interpreter as well. Erick’s love for his little brother was so clear!
Donn is a man of few words but, although I longed to be able to talk to Erick and Debora without a translator, I took advantage of the opportunity to talk to “our children” about many important things. At the end I said, “The most important things we can do is to decide to follow Jesus no matter what and decide to trust Him no matter what. If you don’t remember anything else I said, remember that!”
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After we finished our talking time, we went in two cars to the Indian Ocean where we ate at a rustic eating place. I didn’t even know that the Indian Ocean was in Tanzania!
We continued to have conversations there with lovely breezes from the ocean helping to alleviate the 90 degree heat. One of the children’s mothers also shared her concerns about not having been able to work while they had come on this trip and asking if we might be able to help them with the shortage of funds. Praise God we could do that with funds that a woman in our church had given us to help meet our expenses on this trip and a surplus of funds we had given to the Tanzanian Compassion Team.
That morning one of my devotionals had been based on Matthew 25:31-46 “The King will say to those on His right, ‘I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in.’” I praised God that He had given us an opportunity to do that because He says that if we’ve done it to “the least of these” we’ve done it to Him.
All too soon, it was time to say our good byes, but the love that we’ve felt for these precious ones is felt now at an even a deeper level.
Heavenly Father, thank you for providing not only for us to make this trip to Tanzania, but also for all the expenses incurred by all the others who came to Dar es salaam. Truly you are the One who says You are “able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.” Amen.