"I've been doing this for a long time....."

"I've been doing this for a long time..." that's the near-audible voice I heard while on my last trip to Tabora, Tanzania. I had gone there with a plan...to deliver funds that "I" had raised to help pay for children to be tested and treated for malaria free of charge and to purchase hundreds of mosquito nets to distribute in an effort to ward-off avoidable deaths. Oh...and I was to be priested in the diocese as well...the first "foreigner" to be priested in Tanzania. I had no idea that I had developed in preparation to my trip a sense of self-importance but as is always the case with the Holy Spirit, He sought it out and revealed it to me....I thought I would be filled with a sense of "well done, good and faithful servant!"...but instead it was a still, small voice saying "thanks for saying yes to me and caring for my people, but I've been raising up leaders for them and ministering to their needs since they first ran from me in the cool of the morning in the Garden"... thanks be to God He has been doing so, for if it were up to me, we'd all be in a heck of a big mess. I await with great joy the day when Jesus will return and we will no longer be in need of any other leaders..

Blessings...

b