The kind of walk that wakes you up....

         Every morning, I walk to the school that I teach in. It only takes about 10 minutes and it's quite an interesting walk filled with little fruit stands, Tanzanians in bajaj's trying to give you a ride, lots of traffic, and TONS of people. Walking is one of the main forms of transportation here and frankly, it's been these walks sometimes that have been the thing that wake me up in the morning and get my mind working for the day at school.

     However, on Sunday night, I took a different walk.

     My roommate, Jen, loves to take walks on the weekends to just rest her mind. She invited me to join her. When it came time to choose the route that we were going to walk, she asked me, "Would you like to see the neighborhood?" Quite frankly, I thought I had seen the neighborhood between grocery shopping and walking to school and buying credit for my cell phone/internet. However, I was curious to see what she meant so I agreed to go.
    She led me down this little windy road behind our compound that I hadn't even noticed was there, and told me that we were just going to "walk around the block."
    I've been searching for words to describe what I saw on this walk ever since it ended and honestly, I still haven't found them. It shouldn't have shocked me. I'm in Africa for heaven's sake! However, there's something very different about watching the images of poverty in Africa on film or in a documentary vs. walking through a impoverished neighborhood.
    The smell of the neighborhood was of garbage because the people have no way to dispose their waste so they dump it in the street. The people look like they are probably wearing one of the only outfits they own. Many of the houses, I struggled to be able to tell whether they were the house or the chicken coop. Many of them were built with srap metal, cardboard, or whatever that family could find.
      Even more amazing were the people...
I don't speak the language much. I only know a few greetings and basic phrases. However, that didn't stop almost every person in the village from greeting me with a huge smile with the phrase "Hujumbo!" (hello) or "Karibu sana!" (you are MOST welcome!) I even had one girl grab my hand and walk with me a few blocks.

As I listened to my roommate explain the surroundings and tell stories, I couldn't help but think one phrase over and over.

"Lord, it just doesn't seem fair!"

I did not pick my race. I did not pick to live in America. The children in my neighborhood in Tanzania did not pick to be African or in an impoverished lifestyle. So why did I get to live in a nice house in Franklin, TN with a closet full of clothes while these children live  with their families in single rooms, one outfit, among the trash.

As I wrestled through the night on this, I felt the Lord tell me,

"You are blessed so that you may bless."



New Favorite song for Encouragement:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9_caMq_iYc&feature=related