Thursday, September 25, 2008

Emmanueli's first message of the day came at just before ten o'clock at night: "I don't know Mzee what God did in the hearts of the people of Bulimayinga to cause them to work like they are working! They are still working even now to load the trucks with bricks, and they plead for the work to go on again tomorrow."

At just after midnight, came Emmanueli's last message: "Sleep well Mzee, we have finished and we are all going now to rest our bodies."

The people of Bulimayinga had worked all day. I try to imagine in my mind the sight of those three trucks, in the dark, with hundreds of people using the light from the headlights of those trucks to form a human chain to load and unload bricks into the trucks. This was the work that had been going on now for three days. This was the work that they wanted to go on now for yet another day.

What began last month in Bumilayinga has now attained almost mythical proportions, spreading throughout the villages where we are building here, as village after village imitates what is now know as "the spirit of Bumilayinga". We were visited early yesterday morning by a delegation of government officials who had driven from town to tell us that they will be going this weekend to Bumilayinga because they too have heard of what has been happening there. And all of this is changing our carefully crafted program of building these schools.

In the beginning, the very beginning, we used to rent vehicles to transport our construction supplies from the city to the villages where we were building schools. Then we got Chapakazi (Hard Worker), and then we got Mwanaume (The Man), and just a few weeks ago we got Mjukuu (Grandson) and we have been using them principally to haul construction supplies. These trucks have saved us a lot of money and perhaps more importantly having them has enabled us to send them on missions on our schedule and not on the whim of when we could luck into renting someone else's vehicles. Every now and then, we were able to use one of the rented trucks to do some "extra work" hauling a couple of loads of sand or stones.

But now! Now we are seeing that there is great value in what we used to think was "extra work", mere icing on the cake. Sending all three trucks together to haul construction supplies to a school is great, but then rather than having the trucks turn right around and head to another school, we're opening the doors to people to use the trucks for a day or two or three, or now in the case of Bumilayinga, four days, to haul whatever stones they've quarried, whatever sand they've dug out of the river beds, whatever bricks they've burnt. What we used to see as "extra work" is now slowly becoming in our minds the most important work that Emmanueli and his team and his three trucks can possibly do.

I am thrilled that the school in Bumilayinga is being built. Soon there will be hundreds of kids studying there. I'm thrilled that Emmanueli is turning into such a fine leader. I see so much potential in him. But right now, after a very long, hard and almost wearying day, it was so good to get Emmanueli's message. I was weary and hungry and tired -- Godfrey and I didn't make it home to Madisi until after midnight -- but then I got Emmanuel's message.

And I answered that message of his with glee. I can't remember exactly what I wrote but it was something to express the almost giddy happiness I was suddenly feeling and the thankfulness that I had for him and Fenet and Abdu and the work they were doing.

But it was Emmanueli's response to my message which turned my very real happiness into deepfelt and very profound joy.

"I thank God, but I also thank you Mzee, because you gave of yourself so I would get an education and a new and excellent life in Christ. Kweli Mungu OYE."

I don't think there's a good way to translate fully what Kweli Mungu OYE really means, and so I won't even try. But I will tell you all that I sleep tonight remembering that eight years ago Emmanueli was a young man in a small village in the western corner of Tanzania who had no hope of ever going to school. I now have the immense pleasure not only of knowing that I got to help someone like him get to go to school, I got to be his teacher, I was the one who got to share the gospel with him and see him understand it for the first time, and I'm the one who gets the incredible pleasure of seeing him now spend his life bringing change to the lives of the poorest and the neediest by giving them hope of an education for their kids. And I get to get a message from him in the middle of the night that says thanks for an education, that says thanks for sharing the gospel and that says Kweli Mungu OYE.

I am so tired, I've been feeling so weary deep in my soul these past few days, overwhelmed almost, but I got Emmanueli's messages just before Godfrey and I made it home here to Madisi, and even though it's after midnight, finally I can honestly say that I have ceased to be tired. Even if all my years here in Tanzania had brought change to no other person than Emmanueli alone, right now I can certainly say it would have all been worth it.

Kweli Mungu OYE.

Steve Vinton