Pastor Mwanga

Pastor Mwanga
(FYI - Pastor Mwanga is not to be confused with Pastor Mmanga, the pastor at Uswaa who I regularly write about.)

I met Pastor Mwanga something like 10 days ago. He had lunch with us at Uswaa after a funeral. He was formerly a pastor at Uswaa, for about 5 years in the early 2000’s. Now he serves a church called Nkwatira which is “upstairs” (or up the Mountain) from Uswaa but in the same cluster of churches.

I met him again last week at a Pastor’s meeting he was hosting at his church. Pastor Shao and I arrived by piggy-piggy a little bit early. We hiked up the front steps of the church and found Pastor Mwanga bundled up in his winter coat and stocking cap sipping a steaming cup of tea. He welcomed us in from the cold. He said "I have been sitting here so cold, but now that you have arrived I am warm again." He gave us this tour around the church property, proudly showing us the church’s projects and dreams.

Nkwatira is high up on Kilimanjaro, once the sun came out and cleared all of the clouds away you could see for miles. Pastor Mwanga took me by the arm and led me over to this outlook and showed me how you could see Uraa (his home church) and Uswaa (our church). As he stood there at one church and looked at the two others he said, “so this is my home.”

Yesterday we saw Pastor Mwanga again. Again he was bundled up and talking about the cold weather. I was standing by Pastor Shao and he looked at Pastor Shao with a scolding look and said “you should not be taking Pastor Sara on the piggy-piggy, you are not a very good driver.” He was serious.  For some reason people in Tanzania have permission to be blunt like that and it is completely acceptable. We all laughed about Pastor Shao on the piggy-piggy.

Last night I wrote in my journal, “I love Pastor Mwanga, he is such a genuine, humorous and faithful man.”

Early this morning Pastor Mwanga passed away. My heart is heavy. The beauty of our global mission partnerships is building relationships, the relationships are our mission. The bad part about building relationships is that your heart breaks when you have to say good-bye.

Just yesterday we were standing face to face. He was patting his chest with his hands searching for his pen, I reached up and took it from behind his ear and handed it to him. Today I sat in his home and prayed with his grieving family.

Two men will be working together in the field; one will be taken, the other left. Two women will be grinding flour at the mill; one will be taken, the other left. So you, too, must keep watch! For you don’t know what day your Lord is coming. Matthew 24:40-42

I know this text usually gets distorted by some who would like to make us fearful about the very non-biblical notion of the rapture. I find that it is much simpler than that.

One day a person is here, the next day they are not.

It is a calling to remain faithful in the work that God has called us to do, to be diligent about caring for people and attentive to the relationships we have been given. It is a reminder to be at work each moment of each day because we do not have eyes to see the future.

This is what I shall think about when I attend Pastor Mwanga’s funeral next week, I saw him on his last day when he was fully at work serving God and God’s people.