A year ago I had the opportunity to travel to Tanzania with my wife, Christine, and Sue and Dave Klevan on behalf of Immanuel Lutheran, St. Paul. Our journey was part of the ongoing Bega Kwa Bega relationship, and we benefited by traveling with a group from Fish Lake Lutheran who took the lead on the trip organization.
Since our trip we have had the opportunity to share our experiences through pictures and stories. I’ve also had the chance to reflect on my experiences and learnings. And I’d like to share one of those reflections about building relationships.
So, let’s go back to a month after I had returned from Tanzania. The jetlag had disappeared, and the afterglow excitement of the trip had started to fade. I was reflecting on what I might like to do differently on my next trip.
In my reflection, I wished we had had more of an opportunity to talk with individual members of our partner congregations – Magubike, Mkimbizi, and Sayuni. Our time with each of these congregations was celebratory and full of immense hospitality. But our schedules just didn’t allow enough time for us to get to know some of the individuals in each congregation. In a future visit, I would want to have more individual time with people from the congregations to get to know them more deeply.
However, more recently, I’ve shifted my thinking. As Immanuel has learned about and embraced the public church framework, I’ve learned that although building relationships should be intentional, there is also the need to take the time to be in a relationship with who is in front of you, whoever you interact with and meet. So, as it turns out, I had many opportunities to build relationships – just not with congregational members – the people I had assumed it would happen with. Instead, it was with a variety of other individuals I crossed paths with during the trip. Here are some examples:
At our first breakfast after we arrived in Iringa, we met two individuals who were not part of our group. Godfrey and Joseph were in town for a meeting, and just happened to be staying in the same location. They were both willing to talk about their jobs as accountants, why they were in town, and they were interested in our visit and why we had traveled to Iringa.
During our trip we spent lots of time traveling – sometimes on roads, sometimes on mountain paths. So we were thankful to have professional drivers and guides taking care of us. This travel time allowed us to have conversations with our guides while en route. One of our travel guides was Siah. We asked her questions about her education, her family and her culture. She was open to answering our questions and was also interested in what brought us to Tanzania and our motivations.
Geofrey and Salamahe were nature guides for us during our visit to a national park. These professional guides shared their knowledge for our enrichment and enjoyment. But they also spent time just talking with us and these conversations uncovered how they care about how Tanzania is developing and what they see as the potential of the country. They shared perspectives on basic community services and job availability for young people.
At the university, we spoke with a librarian who told us about how library shelves from Iowa ended up at in the library in Iringa. It was a fascinating story about timing, determination, and knowing how to make use of resources.
These are a few of the conversations I’ve now realized were the conversations that I needed to have in those moments, and they are all part of being a neighbor in the world. These were not the conversations I expected, but because I listened and engaged, they provided me meaningful relationships.
Meeting people on my journey through life is part of being a neighbor, as God calls us to be a public church.
Loren Danielson
Immanuel Lutheran Church, St. Paul
