Luxury Cars or Walking Dusty Roads

He doesn’t have money for bus fare, so he walks miles every week to Tanzanian public schools to share the Story of God with teenagers.

This man is my friend. He went through our Bible School program. He is a wonderful husband and father, a faithful Christian committed to Scripture. He is an English speaker and savvy businessman with many skills, but finding regular sources of income in Tanzania can be challenging. 

Yet his heart is for ministry. In Tanzania, public schools welcome outside teachers to cover religion classes. There is no pay involved, just a strategic opportunity for God’s servants to teach hundreds of kids about the Word of God. 

This friend built a team to take the gospel to these schools. But he doesn’t own a vehicle and has no money for bus fare (about 25 cents a day) because any money he earns from side businesses goes towards feeding his family and sending his kids to school (which is never free). So he walks. Every week. He walks miles and miles to get to these schools. 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, I watch a commercial for a luxury vehicle: A perfect man with a perfect suit drives on a perfectly smooth road in his perfect car, and the voice-over lauds the heated seats, 14-inch media screen, aromatherapy, and champagne holder.

Two men, living under the same sun. One with very little in his life to make him comfortable, yet prizing the kingdom of God. The other – epitomizing comfort. 

When we lived in Tanzania, the worst nights were when the power went off. It took about five minutes for the remnants of cool air in the room to give in to the monster of humidity that lurked outside our windows. The suffocating air seeped in while we shoved off covers, bodies pricked with moisture, air harder to pull into our lungs. Eventually, fully awake, I would sigh, climb out of bed, and stick my head under the shower, letting the water run over my head and shoulders. I would then drip back to bed, fall into a restless sleep, and repeat this process every few hours. That is, until our water reservoir emptied. Without electricity, it couldn’t be filled again.

On one of those nights, Gil got so desperate for sleep that he slept in the car with the A/C on. Several times, in the middle of the night, he drove to school and slept on the floor of his classroom. 

This has never happened to us in America. In the past four years, the electricity hasn’t gone off for more than 30 minutes. 

My dryer makes my clothes softer than the sun-baked ones in Tanzania. Everything, it seems, is softer: The toilet paper, the couch, the carpet. The floor stays cleaner, the roads are smoother, the water gets hotter, and I haven’t seen a single cockroach in my kitchen in four years. 

America is on an eternal quest to make life easier, more convenient, more comfortable. We can order tonight’s dinner, car parts, or a refrigerator at the touch of a finger. And if our fingers get tired, we don’t have to use them to turn on our music, the lights, or the TV.

I remember these things and consider: I have so much more energy these days. I sleep better. I am less irritable, more patient, less stressed than I was in Tanzania. My skin and head and feet are not nagging me for relief. This life is so nice. I like this. 

But is it actually better for me?

I think of those long, hot nights and consider how, in the darkness, God flayed me open and shone a light on my dependence on comfortable things to keep me happy. When I was irritable because I hadn’t slept well, the flour had bugs, or the car got four flat tires in a week, my weakness was exposed. I thought I was a strong, kind, self-sufficient person – but, it turns out, only when I was comfortable. During one year, when the power cuts were especially bad, a friend lamented, “We Westerners are fragile creatures, aren’t we?”

Paul Miller writes, “Dying to self shapes the contours of the normal Christian life….If rising is embedded in dying, then not running from the customized dying that God permits in our lives is essential for resurrection. That’s why endurance is the glue of the Christian life. To taste resurrection, we need to endure the death.”

Discomfort taught me to endure the deaths. Is my comfortable life actually causing me to miss something more important? Perhaps this is why, despite America’s increased comfort of my body, my soul sometimes feels like it’s shriveling. For I’ve tasted and seen the Lord’s goodness in the lack. 

And then I consider – now that I am more well-rested, well-cocooned in softness, with less work, fewer interruptions, and encased in climate-controlled air, am I using my comfort to be more productive for God’s kingdom? 

Then I think of my friend, choosing to walk miles on dusty red roads under the blazing tropical sun to share God’s hope with teenagers. Last month, he told me that he and his ministry team are expanding to prisons now. I think about how Jesus said the poor in spirit are the most blessed. How the last will be first, and the first will be last.

And my comfort starts to make me a lot more uncomfortable. 

I sent this article to the person that this story is based on, and he sent me a moving response. Click here to read it and also find out how you can help his ministry.

Related:
African Women Make Me Feel Like a Wuss
Darkness, Prayer, and Entitlement
When Her House Was Scheduled for Demolition