Last Lessons #85 – VILLAGES

“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.” Psalm 127:1

To continue the history of Rafiki, the first decade of the twenty-first century was spent building Villages, although we did not call them “Villages” in the beginning. We started with building an orphanage in countries where we were invited and where we were given 30 acres of land.

The first country that wanted an orphanage was Kenya, but Ghana offered land first. Through the efforts of BSF missionaries, a man in the town of Kotoku said he would give us 30 acres for an orphanage if we also built a school where his children could attend free. A contract was signed and Rafiki began to build.

Then an amazing thing happened. I received a phone call from Seattle, Washington from a man who told me that he was from Malawi and that he had heard that Rafiki was building orphanages in Africa. His name was Egbert Chibambo. He informed me that in the town of Mzuzu where he was mayor, there were thousands of orphans and that I must put an orphanage there. I told him that I had never been to Malawi and that we would need 30 acres of land, that we would need to be registered as an NGO, and that I would need to meet with the President or the First Lady before considering putting an orphanage in Mzuzu. He assured me that he would see that those three requirements would be met. The rest is history. We went to Malawi, registered Rafiki as an NGO, I met with the First Lady, and we were offered 175 acres of land to be given by the chiefs in the Mzuzu area!

As I left to fly home, I asked God why he would give us 175 acres of land when we needed only 30. I said, “God, we could build a whole village on 175 acres!” It suddenly occurred to me that that was exactly what we should do! Build a village that would house an orphanage, a school, a clinic, and even send widows-made products to be sold in the USA. What an exciting prospect! In Malawi we accepted 75 acres from the chiefs, and from then on, we asked for 50 acres of land for a “Rafiki Village” in the next eight countries that asked for them.

In 2003 Uganda and Nigeria gave us land and we built Villages.

In 2004 the Kenyatta family gave us property with beautiful buildings already on it on the outskirts of Nairobi. We built more buildings there and Mama N’gina Kenyatta (wife of the first president of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta) dedicated the Village.

In 2005 the Rafiki Village in Malawi was finally finished and dedicated.

The year 2007 was very fruitful with Villages built in Zambia, Liberia, and Tanzania. Zambia’s land was given by the Chieftainess of the area. The Liberian Village was dedicated by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Tanzania’s Village was built on land given by the Lutheran Church and dedicated by the Archbishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania.

Finally, in 2009 the last two Villages were built in Ethiopia (dedicated by President Girmo) and Rwanda (dedicated by First Lady Janette Kagame).

I learned so much from the process of building these Villages. For instance:

• I learned that we should limit the number of Villages to ten because we could not supervise more than that number. What I found out is that you cannot EXPECT what you do not INSPECT.
• I learned that we could depend on God to enable us to do what he wants us to do as we cooperate with others.
• I learned that unless God built our Villages all our labor would be in vain.

Building something for God’s glory is so exciting. It takes a lot of work! But whether it is an actual building, an organization, a book, a painting, a church, or an orchestra, building is exciting especially when it is done with others who have the same goal and passion to build something for God’s glory!

Are you in the process of building something for God’s glory? If not, why not?