Previously I have shared with you about our night guard we are required to have, whose name is Dominik. As you remember, his family’s house recently burned down, and they are now trying to rebuild. By the way, please continue to pray for the short circuits we continue to have in our home – sometimes it is every 15 minutes the main breaker is tripped all through the night making sleep nearly impossible.

Anyway, Dominik came up to me the other night wanting to talk. He spoke VERY fast and slurred Swahili so I could only pick out a few words. One word he kept repeating was “michango.” I didn’t know this word, so looked it up in a dictionary. It said the word means “intestinal worms.” I told him I was sorry for the worms he had (very common out here), and could tell he wanted money (supposedly for worm medicine). Fortunately Holly happened to have some worm medicine at home that our family periodically takes, so I offered it to him, and was excited we could help. He smiled and left.

Two days later, I noticed the worm medicine sitting on a shelf in the area where he hangs out. When I asked him why he hadn’t taken it, he didn’t say much. I asked him if God had healed him, since our family had prayed for him, and he smiled and said yes. I figured this was the end of the issue. Praise God!

Then a few days later, I was talking with Dominik, but this time there was a Tanzanian friend with us who also spoke English. When I asked him to check with Dominik how his stomach was feeling, Dominik talked a long time, and my friend burst out in laughter. Naturally I was confused and so my friend related to me the hilarious story. Dominik’s family is requiring each family member to pay a certain amount in order to rebuild their house. Although we had already given Dominik a financial gift for the rebuilding of the home, the other day he was asking for more money to help with this “collection” (michango – same word as “worms”). So my response to his request for money for rebuilding the home by giving him worm medicine totally missed the mark. When I handed him the medicine, he didn’t know how to fix the misunderstanding, and didn’t want to embarrass me, so just accepted it. We all had a good laugh, and I admitted that worm medicine is not terribly useful in building a home.

The moral of the story – even when you think you completely understand someone, you may be totally missing the mark. It’s a lifelong journey to effectively communicate with people from another culture.

Pressing on patiently, by God’s grace. Eric