Go Africa – 🇹🇿 Tanzania – Sharing the Maasai Bible on the Way
Early in the morning, we headed toward Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania.
Google Maps said it would take 11 hours and 20 minutes,
but it was obvious that it would take much longer than that.
Five packed vans, each carrying 12 to 13 people,
broke down one after another,
sometimes stopping together to make repairs,
and repeatedly stopping and moving again as we continued our journey.
At one point, we stopped for a late meal.
Daeeun, James, and I ate, saying,
“Hmm, it’s actually not bad?”
But everyone else said it was really bad.
And what was amazing even in the middle of all this
was that our team members were faithfully sharing the Gospel
even while eating,
and while waiting for their food.
Only a very small number of people asked
why we were eating so late,
or why these things weren’t being communicated properly.
Most of them were right there,
praying and worshiping,
and sharing the Gospel with the people they met.
The estimated 11-hour journey
was already passing 12 hours,
and it was getting late into the night.
When Roah fell asleep, I slept with her too,
but I had a lot on my mind.
First, how could I help the Korean team members who were struggling?
And second, the very thing we had hoped to do:
sharing the Bible.
How could we do this more actively?
I had loved the time we spent sharing Maasai Bibles in Engikaret,
but it had been too short,
and it also bothered me that we still had many Maasai Bible SD cards left
that we had copied in Kenya.
I wished we could have done more.
It was frustrating that we still didn’t have a duplicator
and had to copy them one by one manually.
At the same time, I was grateful that we could still do it.
But I also kept thinking about whether I should eventually erase the Maasai Bible from the SD cards in my pocket
and copy a different Bible onto them.
Could we meet more Maasai people?
Then, when we briefly stopped because there was a problem with one of the tires,
I got out of the van for a moment to stretch.
When I happened to turn my head,
I saw a group of Maasai people on the other side of the road.
“Yeah!”
I ran straight toward them.
I took out the Maasai Bible SD cards and said,
“Do you have a Bible? Would you like a Bible? It’s the Word of God.”
The team members who followed me as I ran over excitedly
helped install the Bible for quite a few of them.
The team members in another van that was waiting nearby also called out,
“Joshua! I have more Maasai Bibles!”
and handed them to me.
We were able to share the Bible with quite a large group of people.
I was excited.
It was joyful.
It was fun.
As we were sharing the Bibles with them,
Cory kept shouting something,
but because of the loud voices of the Maasai people,
I couldn’t hear what he was saying clearly.
I only heard him tell me to hurry back,
so I said,
“Okay!”
and turned around.
HOOOOONK!
A huge truck carrying a large container
was right in front of me.
It was incredibly close,
and although it was only a split second,
I thought,
“This is how I’m going to die.”
Zaya was even right in front of me,
and I could almost see her getting hit first.
I came to my senses and stepped backward,
and one of the Maasai men grabbed Zaya and pulled her away, saving her.
Cory came running toward us, shouting,
and the team members behind him all looked deeply shocked.
They said that from where they had been standing,
it looked like a much more serious accident was about to happen
than we had realized.
We were safe.
And I was grateful.
My thought wasn’t,
“I should never run off like that again to share Bibles.”
It was,
“I need to do it more carefully,
more safely,
and in that way.”
I was grateful to be alive.
And if I had been given another chance to live,
then I wanted to live this life with even more gratitude.
In the end, after 18 hours of traveling,
we arrived at our accommodation in Dar es Salaam.
It had been a long journey,
and it was late at night,
so we quickly got ready for bed,
put Roah under the mosquito net,
and fell asleep.
Completely unaware
that all five vans had not made it.