Tanzania feels very different from the islands. It is the sort of Africa they talk about in books and that you see in the movies—Wide open spaces and dusty roads that seem to go on forever, acacia trees, and baobabs, monkeys, bush babies, baboons. Tanzania is home to Mt. Kilimanjaro and the Serengeti, so it truly is a place of fame and wonder.
We had the opportunity to visit Tanzania this week. We’ve never been there before. As we’ve explained at other times, we are looking forward to leading a team of workers, introducing them to life on the islands and training them to do this sort of work for the rest of their lives. As part of this preparation we went to Tanzania to learn more about leadership.
We learned a lot this week. It was wonderful to be among so many wise and experienced leaders willing to share their successes and their failures with us. We had many good conversations and have been reassured that this road we are traveling will be tough but worthwhile. We learned that there are many kinds of leadership, many ways of leading, and even ways in which leaders must shift their techniques over time, but the one constant should be love and service. There are many examples of strong leadership in this world, but very few of them involve humility. The greatest leader of all time once said, “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant.” and he added that he came, “not to be served but to serve.” And he proved it by his actions. 
This week we hobnobbed with some of the top leaders of our organization, godly people who have worked in Africa for decades and have every reason to feel superior to us. But these leaders modeled for us servant leadership. The director of our whole organization is the one that bused our bags when we first arrived. The director of the team program served us our drinks each night. Some of the senior regional leadership offered to watch our kids so we could have more fun. And the final night the entire administrative team donned white and black to serve us a fancy dinner. We were blessed and encouraged by their examples.
PRAYERS ANSWERED
The kids did really well this week. There was a lot of travel and sleeping in new places and meeting new people and spending the day with other people while Mommy and Daddy went off to meetings all day. They did great and we are very thankful. The conference went well and things continue to move forward for our plans. One of the striking thing about this week was that of the five groups of leaders (some husband and wife, some single) each was from a different country—Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar, South Africa, and America. It’s wonderful to see such diversity in this program. We are also thankful for the peaceful transition of government that happened this past week on our island home.
PRAYERS REQUESTED
We head back to the islands tomorrow. Pray for our safe travels. We are also entering the home stretch before coming back to the States for a time, so please keep our next two months in your prayers as we still have a lot to do. Pray for the other leaders that we met and the teams they will be leading all over Africa.
SPECIAL PRAYER REQUEST
This week we learned that a friend and fellow worker died in a car accident. He left behind a wife and 4 children (ages 8-18). When we were in South Africa for our son’s birth, Tom worked closely with this man and gained a lot of great help and encouragement from him. Please pray for his wife and children
