Sent to Wish Me Farewell
Rock of Remembrance
Little Bee-eaters huddling for warmth outside my tent in the early morning in Tarangire National Park, Tanzania, 1999.
August, 2004. West Kilimanjaro.
Under a month remaining for me as manager of Namuai Farm before I’d fly to New Zealand to begin a new chapter.
Leaving wasn’t easy.
God had made it clear since May that it was time to go, but clarity doesn’t make obedience painless. I was slowly coming to peace with leaving a place I’d dearly loved: a beautiful home, meaningful work, good staff under me, and the best boss I’d ever had.
In those last weeks I’d been talking to God a lot about all I was going to miss. There was plenty. I was excited about what lay ahead in New Zealand, but right then I felt kinda subdued and wistful. Grief and obedience were walking together.
One lunch hour, sitting on my sunset-facing farmhouse verandah, I told my Heavenly Father what He already knew: I hoped to return to East Africa, but only if He was involved in it, and that I wanted to be part of a closer-knit team working on a project I really believed in. But if this was my final farewell, then so be it. Flights were booked and my container was packed and about to ship out.
Right then I couldn’t see any further than helping my recently injured Dad run his farm until I’d start theological studies in Auckland early 2005.
As I sat looking out over the lawns, flowering gardens, and fruit trees, I noticed the arrival of some unusual birds.
Tanzania is full of birdlife, over 500 species, and after nearly nine years birdwatching had become one of my favourite pastimes.
But this was different.
A flock of at least sixty bee-eaters swooped in and all perched together in a tree at the northwest corner of the garden, maybe thirty metres away. I’d never seen a flock of this particular species of Bee-eater before. Not at Namuai, not anywhere else in East Africa.
These weren’t just any birds.
Bee-eaters were my favourite brand.
So rather than racing inside for my camera and tripod, I decided to simply enjoy them while I could in case they all took off after a few minutes. As I watched these lovely creatures noisily sorting out their perches, I wondered half aloud where they’d come from, why they were here, and whether they might stick around a while.
Then, with no-one else around, I heard this very clear whisper in my spirit:
“Andrew, they’ve come to wish you goodbye. Goodbye from Tanzania.”
“Wow. That’s such a cool farewell gift. Thanks, Lord.”
The rest of the lunch hour they flew constant little fighter-plane like missions, darting out in a straight line up to a 100m away to snatch insects on the wing. Flitting back to scoff their prize in front of their mates. Every now and then one would wing over to the radio tower guy-lines above me, giving me a nice close-up view.
They were chatty, occasionally grumpy with each other over prime perching rights, but mostly they seemed to be having a marvellous time hanging about in my yard.
I didn’t want to head back out to work in case they’d leave while I was away in the pickup.
But come 5pm they were still there. At dusk an hour later they suddenly flew off together in the opposite direction they’d come from.
I wondered if that was it.
But they came back to the same tree just after sunrise the next morning.
And the next.
And every single day of the remaining three weeks until I left them behind to wing away from Tanzania myself. My gardeners noticed them - saying they’d never seen birds like that anywhere on the farm, neither wider West Kilimanjaro.
Eighteen months later I was back in Tanzania for a short visit on my way home to NZ from Europe. I stopped in at Namuai to greet old friends and familiar faces, and while talking with gardener Lilian, the bee-eaters came to mind. I asked if they still turned up.
She said, “Manager, those many birds left the same day you did. They’ve never been back since.”
That settled it.
What I heard on the verandah wasn’t sentimentality. Me getting poetic because I was emotional about leaving. The Lord had done something very specific, very personal, and very kind.
Who but my loving Father God would send me a new sub-species of my number-one favourite bird? In numbers too large to ignore, a farewell gift lasting the remaining time I had in the country I loved, even though I knew He was calling me on.
That flock didn’t change my calling.
It did something better.
It reminded me that the God who leads us away from places we love is not cold about it. He knows what leaving costs us. He knows what gladdens our heart. And He is kind enough to leave traces of His tenderness right in the middle of our obedience.
No small thing then.
It still isn’t now.