Emmanuel, God with Us

In honor of the Lord’s Day, I thought I would like to share a little of the spiritual experience I am having here.

When people are spiritually oriented, those who have less tend to be more grateful for what they have than those who have more. This is one of the great paradoxes of life. Jesus’ words are literally true, “blessed are the poor” because the poor indeed feel more blessed.

As a spiritual person in this culture, I am exposed often to this sense of God’s great blessing, which is often described as miraculous. It has been a great joy to share in this experience with the people around me, many of whom are now praying for me and the success of this adventure to change peoples’ lives.

At times in my life I have experience ‘super-coincidences’; things that seem so improbable that I have attributed them to God. This has been happening frequently here; sometimes a few times a day. Some days the sense of God’s presence is nearly palpable. I feel God before me making a way and behind me watching over me.

Here are only a few of many examples:

• Driving in Dar es Salaam is incredibly slow because of terrible traffic. It can take 1-2 hours to get most anywhere. One day my Muslim taxi driver for the day noted that God must be with me because I took a series of unexpected phone calls from people when I was within blocks of their location. Once, we were driving past the driveway of the office when the phone rang.
  
• One day while stopped in this bad traffic I took a picture of a man’s bicycle because I had an idea for the bike factory (featured in other blogs). Hoping to sell me some of his bananas or get money somehow he highly objected and began yelling at me in the car, though he had been a few cars away when I took the picture. A policeman saw this and forced the car off the road to the shoulder. He saw a similar opportunity. He began making the international money symbol: rubbing the thumb and two fingers together. He wanted a bribe for us to continue. Unknown to me and by ‘chance’, two cars behind was Chilwa Kiliaki, a prominent local person, who has provided me a place to stay and a car to drive. Recognizing the car, she sent a man riding with her to intervene. Shortly after this she came herself, terrifying the policeman.
  
  
  

• Finding people like Chilwa that you can trust is difficult when they are from your own culture. There has come to be a practice of corruption and of taking money from donors, so this risk is real and great. One day I was given a ride by Gerald Mongella to a dinner meeting – he insisted even though I had other arrangements. Gerald is a trusted friend of many people I know and so I had lunch with him and his wife though there were no prospects for business. Out of kindness he took me to my dinner meeting. I had a great meeting. I liked the person I was meeting and his project. I was ready to begin doing further work leading to an investment. When Gerald returned get me, he warned me to not enter into business with him. Very reluctantly he shared that this business prospect owed many people money and that he was not to be trusted for he constantly lied. This in a city of 4.5 million people – and the man at the dinner meeting was from a city 200 kilometers away and just happened to be in Dar es Salaam when I first met him.
  
• Constantly people tell me that I am an answer to their prayers. They wonder how I could have found them since they never called me. (I am networking with many and walking randomly through their doors.) You might think that everyone is praying for help and so I am help to all – perhaps an answer to prayers but no real coincidence. One evening a Pastor told me no, it was more than this: that I am Jesus in their lives. The next day, three different people told me I was Jesus to them: one in the morning, one at midday and one at evening. I rejected this with all, but all insisted it was true.
  

You need to know that when you are supporting Cheetah, you are Jesus to the people whose lives we are touching every day. And the reverse is true, if you so much as give a cup of water to the least of these, you do it unto him.


The work of Cheetah is so important to these people; it brings such hope; it is so desperately needed. Some days I return to my room at night afraid that I will fail. That I will fail to receive the resources needed here, that I will fail to choose the right partners here, that I will fail to help these businesses succeed…so people’s lives can be changed.

So many have tried to address poverty and failed, how outrageous and arrogant is it to even try?

One night this burden was very heavy. I slept little and prayed during the night. The next morning after tea I returned to my room to gather my things to depart for the day. I felt God’s direct prodding to open my Bible – that he had a word for me. I let it fall open and my eyes fell here:

And if you give yourself to the hungry
And satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
Then your light will rise in darkness
And your gloom will become like midday.
And the LORD will continually guide you,
And satisfy your desire in scorched places,
And give strength to your bones;
And you will be like a watered garden,
And like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.

Amen and Amen.
(Isaiah 58:10-11)

(Below: the Great Ruaha River in Tanzania)