Love God Love People

An interesting event occured in my life on Sunday 27th February 2011 here in Dar es Salaam. Through it I was reminded that obedience is better than sacrifice.

I am part of our worship team at Dar es Salaam Pentecostal Church and on this day we had scheduled our monthly Praise and Worship Service (or concert if you prefer). Having been at the Sunday morning service I was heading home somewhere in the north of the city at Mbezi Beach, hoping to take a quick break and change of clothes before I returned to help with the sound setup which had to be done before 2:30pm.

About 3 km from my house I passed an accident scene where an SUV with some people in it had apparently broadsided a three wheel powered passenger scooter (popularly known as 'bajaj') and it appeared the scooter had made an abrupt turn into the opposing lane while the suv was overtaking him

As I drove by the sidewalk along with other curious drivers, I somehow saw the suv was fully packed and recalled seeing women and children. On the side were a rowdy bunch of onlookers surrounding this man in a heated discussion and I left it at that. 100 metres ahead I felt the sudden urge to go back and help but drove on. A few minutes later I heard that still voice in my consience saying you should have gone back to help. Immediately the 'Good Samaritan' story leaped into my mind followed by the words made famous by Samuel to Saul: obedience is better than sacrifice. Here I was trying to excuse myself out of obeying the Holy Spirit by pulling the 'I'm going to be late for ministry' card!

I immediately turned around and drove back and parked my car on the other side of the road and walked over to see this poor man being harassed by other Bajaj drivers and the family still in the car obviously in fear and shock after having hit the mini taxi. I immediately asked the parties to calm down and called the gentleman, who was obviously the driver, and asked him if we could first remove the women and children (there were two under 3 year olds) and get them in my car. He agreed and I walked them accross the road and got them safely in my car off the road. I then saw the driver of the bajaj and asked what they were doing about getting him help. Somehow I managed to convince another bajaj driver and some other folks to take him to hospital.

Getting back to the discussion the apparent owner of the bajaj wanted some kind of compensation for the damage and the car driver had agreed to take that route rather than call the police, have his vehicle impounded for days and go through a court case which he may have won but would have taken weeks or months. We negotiated heatedly until he agreed on a sum and I ended up contributing towards it.

Eventually the drivers relatives came and we transferred the women and kids to their car and after a brief chat to make sure all was well, I left them.

What I did not mention from the beginning of this blog entry is that they were Muslims and that only that morning I had led a prayer at church to pray for Muslims and an alarming report of Muslims burning some churches in a place in Northern Tanzania after being upset with some of them attending an outdoor meeting. I prayed that as Christians we would not use revenge or anger but what Jesus taught, which is love. Little did I know that the Holy Spirit was setting me up for a practical application of what I prayed for.

I am sure those women and kids and the driver must have been perplexed at this stranger dropping in and helping for no reason. But I am also sure Jesus showed Himself to those people as I left them my business card which they asked for and later on, though we started about 30 minutes late, there was such a heavy presence of God and the anointing at the Worship meeting that I knew could only have been curtailed had I not been obedient.

We must make it our desire to love God and obey Him daily and manifest this by loving others, even those that may not particularly take a liking to us.

Stay Obedient! Stay Blessed!

By John Kagaruki