Greatness usually arrives veiled in humility.
This week, I was privileged to spend many hours with Bishop Mdimi Mhologo who leads the Anglican Diocese of Central Tanganyika in East Africa. He presides over more than 200 parishes serving more than a half million people in the villages around Dodoma, the capital city of the United Republic of Tanzania. The area is the poorest in his country, with most people living on less than a dollar a day. Mdimi was one of the first African leaders to understand the gravity of the HIV/ AIDS pandemic; and for nearly twenty years, his Diocese has provided education, home health services, and life saving medicines.
In 2006, Mdimi traveled to Maryland to raise the funds to launch a new project called “The Carpenter’s Kids” to care for the more than 60,000 orphans of HIV/ AIDS in his Diocese. For $60 per year, his churches provided uniforms, school supplies, shoes, and a daily breakfast that allow AIDS orphans to attend government funded public schools. Without these funds, the children receive no education.
While visiting our church in 2006, Bishop Mdimi met Res Batamula, a deaf Tanzanian. Mdimi was thrilled to discover that his new friend was now a professional working in the U.S. and one of only two deaf Tanzanians to ever earn a college degree. In what we call at our church a remarkable co-HIM-cidence, God brought together two men from East Africa so that the Bishop could envision a future for the deaf children in his parishes.
The Bishop also met a number of other deaf leaders at our church. He already knew that deaf people in his country were the poorest and most marginalized of all his people. He told me this week that seeing our deaf leaders in action was God’s way of speaking to him saying “That’s it!” Deaf people of Tanzania, he said, could fully participate in the life of their communities just like they do here.
A team of deaf and hearing leaders from our church traveled to Tanzania a year and a half ago, and formed a partnership with the Diocese. Our church now funds an office of deaf ministry in the Diocese and provides interpreting services in the main Cathedral in Dodoma. The first Sunday an interpreter was provided; three pews were filled with deaf people who were able to worship in their own language for the very first time. We expect to soon establish interpreting services in 20 additional parishes, and we will begin to sponsor the education of deaf children, starting with HIV/ AIDS orphans who are also deaf. We are excited to see God transform the lives of children who otherwise would never have the opportunity to learn any language at all – we can give them hope and a future.
Thanks to Mdimi’s vision, the abundance God that has entrusted to us can now be used to make a radical difference in the lives of the children of Tanzania.
So this week, before you over-eat on Thanksgiving, please consider how you can make a difference in someone’s life who has far less than you do. Local food pantries are desperate for donations this year. Local homeless shelters are gearing up for a long cold winter. Write them a check. Buy a bag of groceries. Or best of all, volunteer to make a difference. If you’d like to provide hope and a future to a Tanzanian child who has absolutely no hope today, send me an email. We will gladly provide you the opportunity to make a difference for one or many of the “Carpenter’s Kids.”
Mdimi said his job description comes from listening to the prayers of his people. When they cry out to God for food, shelter, or a better life for their children, he knows where God has called him to act. Be an answer to someone’s prayer this Thanksgiving – and they will be thankful to God for you.
