They Turned Up Again
Spiritual serendipity
The next time I saw any bee-eaters, after my West Kilimanjaro experience, wasn’t until over four years later, in December 2008, while staying at The Kingfisher lodge near Jinja, Uganda.
I was there with our whole Uganda mission squad for a three-night annual retreat. I was expecting an interesting few days, not least because Eden and I were planning to float the idea of both of us travelling to Tanzania in early January, and we had no clue how our superiors would respond.
At that stage we’d only met a few times during work-related visits to each other’s mission stations, nearly fours drive apart, but we’d connected easily. Similar outlook and interests, and easy conversing.
She’d heard I’d worked in Tanzania. Told me she’d been sponsoring a Tanzanian girl through Compassion International for seven years. They’d built a close relationship through their letters, and Eden had been praying that God might somehow help her visit her pen pal before she had to head back to the States next March.
I’d said that if the chance to go came along she should absolutely take it. I could supply lots of good people to contact there, and help her decide where to go and how best to get about. Best sightseeing opportunities etc.
What I never expected was having an official reason to go myself.
Not long after I’d started in Mbale, my senior expat colleague told me my three-month tourist visa would expire before the mission’s application for a new NGO identity would be approved. This before I could apply for a proper two-year work permit under the newly registered NGO.
They didn’t want me having a work permit under the old NGO status, but the new NGO registration had already dragged on for over four years with no sign of being resolved anytime soon.
So in late November he’d told me I must duck out of Uganda briefly and come back in on a renewed tourist visa. Hopefully a three month one.
His suggested crossing into Kenya in early January to stay five or six days in Kisumu, by Lake Victoria. But I’d no desire to visit Kenya alone. Done enough of that already in years past. I had no contacts in Kisumu so I asked if I could make it a week-long trip and visit my friends in Tanzania instead. Some of them were doing some interesting farming things that might be useful for updating my own work brief. Plus I’d cover the extra cost and subtract the extra days from my annual holiday allowance. It made sense to the mission and was approved.
Two days later I remembered what Eden had shared with me a month earlier.
I found myself thinking, what are the chances this isn’t a God thing? Too many pieces had dropped into place far too neatly.
First, a totally unexpected opening for me to go.
Second, a godly young woman hoping and praying to finally meet and encourage another young Christian woman she’d known by distance for seven years.
Third, having lived there for nine years, I knew Tanzania, its people, and its language better than anyone our Ugandan mission was likely to be connected to.
Fourth, I reckoned I’d enjoy having her along, given what I’d already seen of her character and humble but adventurous nature.
So I emailed her to say maybe God was on the move and might be about to do something super special for her and her African friend. A lot of other things would have to fall into place, so you better keep praying.
Late in the afternoon on conference check-in day I was hanging down at the shore of Lake Victoria, chewing all this over while watching the various birds who were out and about — cattle egrets preening, a pied kingfisher helicoptering, marabou storks stalking. All carrying on as only birds do.
As I finished sharing my thoughts with my Heavenly Father and stood up to head back up the low hill to the lodge, I saw a flock of the largest bee-eaters I’d ever seen zoom in to perch all through the only big shade tree nearby.
I carefully edged closer to observe them. There were maybe two hundred. Wow!
Beautiful things, busy chattering away while constantly perch swapping. I wondered whether the tree might be their nightly roost. But about twenty minutes later, as dusk dropped in, they suddenly lifted and headed south.
Gone.
Straight away I remembered my last encounter with bee-eaters in Tanzania.
So I asked God if He was up to something again. He seemed to say yes, but I knew I wanted to hear that so didn’t trust my hearing overly much.
As it turned out, He was.
God moved in some remarkable ways clearing obstacles some people threw up that we thought insurmountable. Some cleared right at the last possible minute. Our resulting wonderful ten-day trip to Tanzania became a real His-story.
Eden got to meet her pal Elizabeth. Tears of joy and all that.
I got to greet familiar faces and visit the old haunts I loved.
My closest Ugandan workmate came with us. He was a great help with the huge driving load and dealing with the mechanical issues the old 4WD Toyota Carib wagon gave us. He also learnt a lot about me, and about new-to-him farming ideas and practices through meeting many of the people I’d worked with over my years there and through inspecting their current projects. This built a solid level of trust between us that was a real boon to our work upon returning to Mbale.
Within days of our return to Uganda, the new NGO approval finally came through, clearing the way for the proper work permit process to begin.
Stuff like that. God is so good!
I can’t speak for others, but I know this: in all the many times I stayed at The Kingfisher during the next eighteen months, I never saw bee-eaters again, despite keeping a sharp lookout.
Maybe you’d call that coincidence?
I don’t.
To me those birds were one more reminder that God my Father knows how to encourage His children when they’re standing on the edge of something bigger He is lining up. He’s like “Hey! Stay sharp, I’m working on something for you…”
Not the full plan.
Just enough to encourage you not to quit when what you thought He might be doing seems a vain hope, or a lost cause due to the machinations of those with the power and inclination to scuttle your dreams.