AMEN

I don’t mean to step on anyone’s beliefs, but here we go….

Before coming on this trip, I always had a negative attitude towards organized religion. Every Sunday for 16 years, my parents would drag me to a church that I didn’t think was sacred. Then, I would proceed to pray to a god that I didn’t believe in, and now looking back, I’m nothing but appalled by how I acted. In a church that did nothing but accept me, all I did was reject it. I’m also appalled not only about how disrespectful I was, but also about how much faith I lacked as a person.

Before this trip, I always thought that, regardless of what you believe in, religion provides a person a place where they are welcome, and nothing more. I always thought church was a place for old people that had nothing to do on a Sunday morning. But it wasn’t until I got a rare opportunity to come to Tanzania and realize that religion has the ability to give a person the strength and other rare qualities that are bigger than man himself.

Speaking materialistically, the general population of Tanzania has remotely nothing. But speaking spiritually, they have everything. You can hear it in their voices when they sing the National Anthem, and you can see it in their hearts when they pray.

I’m not saying this trip has completely transformed me into a born-again, die-hard Christian, but one of the many things I’ve taken away from this trip is that believing in something can be empowering. For the longest time I have heard people say that, but it wasn’t until now that I realized it. As Paul (the Class II teacher) said to me before I left today, “Those who believe in something bigger than man will be able to achieve something bigger than man himself.”