I was a stranger and you welcomed me

 

Dave and I and our fellow orientees had been in training for two months and we’d soon learn how well prepared we were for the third and final phase of our orientation: Each family would be on its own, scattered throughout remote African villages in mountains named the Taita Hills.

 

We would no longer have the comfort of living alongside our fellow orientees. Our directors, Brian and Jenny, would leave the area—but only after dropping off each family (or single person) in their new settings.

 

Dave and I were the last of our group to arrive at our new “home.”

Well after dark on Saturday, November 6, Brian pulled The Pearl (our group’s trusty Toyota Land Cruiser) to a stop high in the Taita Hills. We hadn’t seen another dwelling or signs of humans for quite a while. Trees and darkness surrounded us, but The Pearl’s headlights shone on a little mud-plaster house.

 

Brian walked to the door and spoke to the people inside. Then he turned and ambled back to us.

 

“They didn’t get word you’d be living with them,” he said. “It’ll take them a few minutes to get ready.”

 

Only later did I realize that they had already gone to bed.

 

Before long, Brian introduced us to our hosts, an older couple, Rafael Mwakodi, whom we called Bwana, and his wife, whom we called Mama. Looking back on it, I suspect this “older” couple was younger than we were.

 

Brian said goodbye and headed out into the still dark of night. The “village living” phase of our orientation course had begun.

 

In the dim glow of a kerosene lamp, we visited with Bwana and Mama, all smiles. Bless the Mwakodis’ hearts—I would not have smiled if foreigners awakened me at night and announced their three-week stay.

 

After a few minutes, they led us to our room, and Dave and I settled in for the night.

 

Only much later did Dave tell me that the Mwakodis had moved out of their own bedroom to let us have it and that they slept on the floor in another room. That makes me want to cry. In Bwana and Mama, I beheld the sacrificial heart of God Himself. (From Chapter 3 of Grandma’s Letters from Africa)

 

And, looking back, I recognize that Bwana and Mama, and their home for three weeks, were part of “God’s hundred times as much” —an answer to my daughter Karen’s prayer based on Matthew 19:29:

 

“Everyone who has left houses

or brothers or sisters

or father or mother or children

or fields for my sake

will receive a hundred times as much. . . .”

 

You see, before Dave and I left the States and moved to Africa, everything within me screamed that it was not right for us to leave our 21-year-old daughter, Karen, alone at that point in her life. But God had made it clear that it was okay for us to go. It broke my heart. It broke my young Karen’s tender heart, too.

 

 But in Karen's guest post, “When Jesus’ words are difficult, sharp, and real,” Karen wrote this about the last night she spent with us in the States:

 

“I prayed that [Matthew 19:29] for my mom that night. I asked God to give her a hundredfold for all her sadness, for all she was leaving behind. I remember writing that verse down to give her. I wanted her to know that I understood, that I trusted God, that I believed Him and His promises—for myself and for her.”

 

Neither Karen nor I knew what, specifically, 

those “hundred times as much” blessings might be, 

but now I can say for sure: 

Bwana and Mama Mwakodi were part of 

the hundred times as much, 

directly from God’s hand.

 

Jesus was speaking of people like the Mwakodis 

when he said, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me” 

(Matthew 25:35).