7 BAPTISMS IN AN OLD ELEPHANT WATER HOLE

By Graydon Baker

Years ago, the land that our mission uses in the heart of the Rufiji was owned by a German entrepreneur. He built and opened a safari camp, and in the local tongue called it his little dream. He worked hard, often in tension against the local village. This is not to his discredit. In a village that regularly dances out in the open to satan, within a country forever inclined to corruption, it is no mystery why a hardworking man would be at odds with the tribe surrounding him. He worked for many years until he reached his end, and with no graceful exit in sight he burnt the property and his little dream to the ground. The land recovered; Africa has a short memory.

In the days that the German still owned the safari camp, he had constructed an elephant watering hole. He dug into the land and cemented a three-foot deep bowl to hold water and attract passing bush elephants for a drink. After burning the property, the water hole covered over with debris and filled in with dirt. The jungle overtook it and for years it was forgotten.

As part of East Africa River Mission, one of our foundational works is the reading of the Bible God’s word. It seems consistent that satan preys on ignorance, whispers, and deeds done by the cover of darkness. The Bible is the most direct sword for reversing ignorance and bringing about darkness to light. Given it is a safari business which hosts our mission, we employ numerous Tanzanian and particularly local Rufiji staff where we can to cover safari lodging operations, security, ongoing construction and maintenance, The Rufiji Lighthouse school management, and many local deliveries of building and food materials. Every morning we share breakfast on our property for all the permanent and visiting staff. Before any business happens, we insist on breakfast, this includes the reading of the word of God. One chapter at a time, we’ve covered the New Testament of the Bible a few times over, each chapter accompanied by a lesson and prayer. Our morning teaching supply comes through the mission. God’s word never returns to him void. We can confirm that this is true.

Many neat stories have come from the pure and simple reading of God’s word. One such occasion saw a delivery truck visiting from another Rufiji village on the fringe of the district, two-three hours by bush road. They were bringing rocks from Kibiti for construction of our walls. They arrived early in the morning, in time for breakfast and the reading. The visiting men stayed to themselves, off to the side with their morning tea and chapati. They were just in earshot as we read and taught from the morning devotion. That day in particular we were covering the section in the book of Hebrews, ‘Jesus the Great High Priest’. Recent history knows the Rufiji as a Muslim tribe, to the Rufiji Jesus is a mere prophet. Not much is known about Jesus. This ignorance is a source of strength for the darkness.

That morning we were together with the visiting delivery men from Kibiti, Rufiji, following the breakfast a couple of these men approached our EastARM worker. They were curious about our collection of Bibles, translated into Swahili and Arabic. This teaching and insight into the eternal significance of Jesus, they had never heard before. They were hungry to know more. They asked if they could take some Bibles home with them, and they did. This was our only encounter with these men. In Jesus’ parable of the sower, this is seed taken into the home of good soil.

A seed takes time to germinate and bear fruit. Some do the work of breaking hard soil, pulling out the rocks and slashing the thorns. Some are sowers of seed. Others water, still others take in the harvest, but God causes the growth. By God’s design we’ve seen a full rotation at EastARM from hard soil to harvest and a variety of labourers to accomplish the task. Seven have been baptised in that old elephant water hole. What follows is a few of their stories.
 
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Amani. A Swahili name meaning ‘peace’. He came to us on loan from a larger Tanzanian construction crew. After the crew was finished, Amani stuck around our village. He enjoyed deeply the morning breakfast and Bible and felt drawn to stay with us in any capacity. Amani was originally from another tribe in the south of the country, a Muslim tribe and family. We gave Amani a posting as a night security guard. He was eager to take the position but not as adept at staying awake throughout the night. This was an obvious issue, and we were ready to let him go but gave him one other opportunity as a utility worker for us during the day. Over time he worked with diligence, into a permanent staff position with the safari company. It seems God has had his hand on Amani from the beginning. Amani deals with addiction, but his sincerity of heart and hardworking attitude has kept him moving forward where others have fallen by the wayside. As Amani grew in his understanding of Jesus Christ, partnered with our Christian staff they saw a powerful witness in the local Rufiji village. There was a family in the village and sickness had touched their mud and stick home. The family had tried the resident witchdoctor for healing but were losing confidence in his methods and motivation. Moses, our Christian staff member took Amani and they offered to pray for the sick in this house. They prayed with conviction, in faith. When they were done, the family asked Moses and Amani what the payment should be for these prayer services. After all, the witchdoctor charged a chicken for a home visit. Moses and Amani were taken aback, but assured this Rufiji family that their motivation was pure, without cost, and they would return again. Word spread in the village, as it does in a rural African community, and more prayer has been requested. More importantly, Amani has trusted his life with Jesus his Saviour. Amani was among those who have been baptised in the elephant water hole.

Amos. He was part of the earliest construction crew that has been with us since we first broke ground on the land in the Rufiji in 2014. His tribe is from the interior of the country famous for wild honey production. Although not a permanent staff member, he has returned to the Rufiji more than any other temporary contract worker. He is an active member of our morning breakfasts together. In August of 2016, Amos’ crew was finishing work on the premier guest cottage at the safari camp. At the same time, we had an independent local worker doing some carpentry, who, on that fateful day, left our site slightly disgruntled and with bad intentions. This worker went to the village police station and filed a false report against our company. When we sent one staff member, Moses, to the station to explain the truth of the situation, instead of listening to Moses, they locked him up. The police officer sent word back that this disgruntled worker should be given his full payment (outside of our agreed contractual timeline) before they would release poor Moses from jail. It was a time when we were light on cash, with only a handful of shillings at our disposal. By the officer’s order we needed one hundred thousand shillings to release Moses. Illegally the officer would receive a portion of the money he recovered for this worker, which lends clarity to the reader. With no ATMs or banks within 100 miles of our bush village, we had no access to other funds, and we did not know how to help Moses or stop the situation from escalating further. Amos, however, had been following the situation, and quietly orchestrating a solution. While we made phone calls, tore apart rooms looking for loose shillings, Amos called his wife who was at their house in the big city, and had her withdraw funds from their savings. Through her phone, she was able to wire this money and Amos could collect it in the village. When Amos had cash in hand, he humbly presented it to us as the solution to our problem. With an air of relief and overwhelming joy, in a giddied state we all piled into the Landcruiser and drove into the village, handed the money to the officer and released our friend Moses. This act of Amos and his wife was sacrificial, loving your neighbour, uncharacteristic of the culture in which they come from but very characteristic of the culture to which they now belong. At the time, neither Amos nor his wife were professing Christians. You are not far from the kingdom of God, Jesus told the teacher of the law[1]. Over a year later, Amos’ wife joined him for a new work contract with our mission in the Rufiji – erecting The Rufiji Lighthouse. They decided as a household to follow Jesus Christ and as a couple were among those baptised in the elephant water hole.

An Unnamed Rufiji Fellow. I’d love to tell you his name, but frankly I don’t know it. God, however, knows it full well. Another compelling evidence that this work is not mine, not ours, but His. On the day of the baptisms, the last Sunday in January 2018, we connected with a new, smaller body of believers in another Rufiji village, called Ngorongo, about half way up our bush road between Mloka village in the heart and the beginning of paved road on the Rufiji fringe in Kibiti. This is the only other pocket of believers that we’re aware of in the string of villages along the bush road. We invited Ngorongo church to join us in Mloka that Sunday. We rented a van to collect the whole group. Included in their numbers was the pastor, his wife, their kids, a younger and older lady, and a young man. We worshiped together in the Mloka church, dedicated the new Sunday School ministry, and walked together in unity through the village to our bush safari camp where the old elephant water hole had been cleared out of debris and filled up with water. There were six of our workers ready to be baptised, including Amani, Amos and his wife. The believers from the combined Rufiji churches and special visitors from a church in the big city Dar es Salaam gathered around the water hole, singing songs as we topped up the water. It was an old hole and over years had developed some slow leaks into the earth. By the time we had finished topping up there were seven standing, ready to be baptised. We had gained an extra fellow now standing with the others. The seventh was a young man, by all estimations a Rufiji native, the same young man who had stepped out of the van from the visiting church in Ngorongo. We were told that he saw his opportunity, spoke with his pastor, and there he was with the others to be counted in the number – seven baptisms in the old elephant water hole. Akin to an older African account of the Ethiopian eunuch, Look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptised?[2].

While the seven were baptised and the congregation sang, though surrounded by bush, through the trees a group of onlookers from Mloka village gathered on route to the river, unaware that we could see them and curious at this public demonstration of faith in Christ. Counter cultural to the usual public demonstrations of drums, dark clothes, and dances to satan so prevalent in the Rufiji; the light shone on our water hole as born-again believers identified with their Saviour through the waters, from death to life eternal. The grave has no hold on them.

[1] Mark 12:34

[2] Acts 8:36