A Room Full of Americans

It almost sounds like I am getting ready to tell some joke. "So there was this room full of Americans . . ."

But today, I was in the unusual circumstance to be one of a number of Americans gathered in a conference room at the New Mwanza Hotel.The US Embassy sent a representative to Mwanza today to assist any expatriates in the area with passport related issues. I went to add pages to each of our passports. A missionary's passport can get so full of the stamps issued when crossing borders (the visas issued to enter a new country), that there is no more room for anymore. No room for stamps, no travel.

Because of this great favor from the American government, I was able to get pages added to our passports without having to pay for an expensive trip to Dar es Salaam to do it later. I was also able to sit in on some of the election watch party that was a part of the whole event. They projected up on the wall CNN's coverage of the election results and President Elect Obama's acceptance speech. I was able to meet some Americans who are working in the area, which is a helpful thing for the future. But what struck me was that I was able to have the (now) unusual experience of being in a room of people that spoke my language, and that this felt comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time.

Comments

[Craig]

Do you suppose some of your discomfort may have been from the election results themselves? The longer I live the more I love the biblical truth of God's sovereignty. His secret will is often mysterious and, at time baffling to me, but I take great comfort in picturing a God who never wrings his hands!

[Dan]

The Presidential election has been a real subject of interest here. For our first month here, there was hardly a day that passed that I was not asked about it. There is overwhelming support for Obama, largely because of his East African heritage.

It does my heart good to know the biblical command to pray (1 Tim 2:1-2) and respectfully submit (Titus 3:1-2) to our leaders was given at a time when God's people had far more reason not to.

Admittedly, some of my discomfort may have been from the election results.