Auction in the Valley

Simple Gifts in Makambalala - July 2008

It sounds like I missed an incredible weekend.

A string of e-mails and messages from friends and colleagues in Minnesota relayed to me the details of the Tanzania Partnership Weekend at my home congregation in the valley of apples.

From them I learned:

+ Thousands of voices joined together, worshipping and singing in both Swahili and English.

+ A Handicraft Table raised enough money to help put roofs over the heads of the lay evangelists in Makambalala and Mapogoro.

+ Prayer cards were passed out with the names and stories of 50 of our brothers and sisters in Tungamalenga to build understanding of their lives and our own culture of prayer.

+ Confirmation students practicing stewardship announced that in one month they had raised enough money to sponsor a secondary student's education for the year and buy flashlights for students at Idodi Secondary School to study with at night in the hopes of preventing another tragic fire.

+ In just 15 minutes, following the 11am services, the congregation gathered for a Tanzanian style auction* in which more than enough was raised to bring Tungamalenga's new mchungaji (Pastor Naftal) and his wife to Minnesota in the fall and the congregation at large was able to experience another part of Tanzanian culture and church practices.

Half a world away, here in Kuala Lumpur, I still find myself being inspired by and inextricably bound in a web of relationships that stretches from the American heartland to the Tanzanian central highlands - a people who walk together Bega Kwa Bega.

Putting those stories from home in conversation with my current experience, serving as an Intern/Missionary sent by the Global Mission unit of the ELCA, I'm better able to see just how unique and powerful the companion synod relationship between Saint Paul and Iringa truly is. While it is certainly not without its significant faults and challenges, even the brief update from Apple Valley demonstrates the effect it is having in congregations on both sides of the Atlantic. As a region wide network of grassroots relationships linking 60+ pairs of congregations on two continents it still stands out as a compelling, concrete model of this mode of ministry I've learned to identify as 'accompaniment.'

As I near the halfway point of my sojourn with the Lutheran Church in Malaysia and Singapore and the field of post-internship question marks begins to become more immediate, these notes from home reinforce a yearning to return to that territory.

It isn't that I'm necessarily pining for the 'mystique of Africa' or the austere beauty of the upper midwest in winter, rather it is the sense of being part of something larger, of collective action undertaken by a large missional community that I'm longing for. Preparing to transition back to a life of professional ministry, increasingly I'm finding myself desiring to be part of a robust, world-spanning, relational culture once again - wherever and in whatever form or capacity that takes.

What is a Tanzanian style auction? In Tungamalenga, the auction is an extension of the worship offering; people who have no cash bring humble offerings—eggs, firewood, baskets, clay pots--that are auctioned at extravagant prices. "In this way, we encourage one another and show that every gift is valued," our friends tell us. [From the Jan 30 News for the Flock]