By Thursday I was getting worried; I hadn’t seen Alex at all. At Morogoro Bible College the term had started on Monday. Over the weekend students had been drifting in to resume their studies, but Alex wasn’t among them. “It’s not like him to be so late.” I said to myself. What could have happened at home to delay him this long?

No other students came from the same village as Alex, but I asked some from the neighbouring village whether they had heard anything. One student thought that Alex’s wife had been ill, but he didn’t have any details. In the villages there are very few clinics or doctor’s surgeries and it can be difficult getting hold of medicine even if you know what’s wrong. Alex would have been reluctant to leave his wife or three children to come back to college if they were sick. I began to understand how much faith it takes for the students to leave their families at home, often on their own, in a village where communications with other villages and towns are at best poor, and come to Morogoro to study. The families may have no regular income and rely on any crops they can grow to survive. If the husband or wife is away at college it makes farming and looking after the household much more difficult.

Yet I remember how keen Alex was to come to college and how thankful to God he was for the chance to study. We have few problems motivating our 30 students: they have a real thirst for God and his Word and see it as a privilege to be able to study here. They come and live in this strange environment, often sharing a room with up to eight others and a bathroom with 25 or more. They study, go to church placements every Sunday, as well as helping with cleaning, food preparation, growing vegetables on the farm land we have and caring for our cows. Life isn’t easy but we persevere and thrive.

Alex hasn’t been to secondary school and so he is on our two-year certificate course, learning in Kiswahili. Two years away from his wife and young family. Two years with plenty of work to do and an uncertain future at the end of it. Meanwhile, he’s delighted to be here and I count it a privilege too, to know him and others like him. Alex has been a Christian for 20 years and is happy to share in loving detail how he came to know Jesus. Shortly after his conversion he became an evangelist and has many stories to tell about the way God has worked through him. He wants to study so he can be more effective as an evangelist, and to make sure that he is teaching the truth to the people he meets.

A couple of days later Alex arrived at college. “Karibu” I said, “welcome back!” I was relieved to hear that everything was alright: his children had been sick with malaria and he had waited until they were better before coming back. He left his family with maize growing in their field and was confident that God would provide for them while he was away during the next four-month college term. This was Alex’s second and final year so I asked him if he was looking forward to it. He said he was, and particularly excited about going out on field work. We send all the students out towards the end of their course: they go in groups of three to villages where there are no Christians and they plant a church, putting into practice what they have learned at college.

When he came back from his field work I spoke to Alex again: it had been hard, and there had been a lot of opposition from local Muslims. Some of the students had been told when they arrived that they were not welcome, some reported that people had run away as if they had seen a lion when the students appeared in the village, and others tried to bring lawsuits against our students to stop them sharing God’s Word. In the face of such hostility Alex and his friends simply settled down in the villages and started get to know the people there through helping them in their everyday lives. As they got to understand some of the needs they were able to start short meetings; teaching English, sewing, or other basic skills. In that way they were able to build relationships and start slowly to share the Gospel.

Alex has now finished college. He’s looking forward to going back home for a short while and then he will go back to the village where he did his field work. In the two months he was there they couldn’t plant a church, but seed has been planted in peoples’ hearts and Alex is praying for a harvest. He trusts God that he can show more people the love of Jesus and draw them into a living relationship with him.

As I write this the new students are in the middle of their first term, but I’m also praying for Alex and the others who have gone before. Alex will have a tough time in that new village, on a low income and with little support (the rest of his family is unable to join him for the time being). But he has learned many things and grown in his faith. God has equipped him and will continue to give him all he needs to take the light of Jesus to those who still live in darkness.

Crosslinks magazine August 2003 index