News...

i received an email today from Gemma, my teacher when i attended YWAM in Tanzania. so told me some sad news, and truly i am broken in my heart. my eyes are trying to hold back the tears, but it's not working.

the reason for my sadness is this wonderful woman has gone home to her Maker.

this is yunis. you might remember the photo of her when i posted more than a year ago. Yunis has the most happy eyes of any one i have ever met. her eyes danced with joy. it still makes me smile when i see her in my mind's eye. she loved me from the moment we met. i hardly knew any swahili, but that did not stop yunis from talking with me. she forced me to use the little swahili which i knew. and another thing, this woman worshipped her Savior with passion. it radiated from her. Yunis and her husband Mapunda were the most gracious people. Mapunda is the guy on the left, then Japheth, then Abraham.

this is what i wrote when i was in tanzania about Yunis.

one of our projects for the second week was to help put a roof on a small church in the middle of a corn field which located about 4 miles from our base. mostly that consisted of the guys pounding nails thru small tree trunks used as the tressing. plastic bags sewn together were used as the roofing material. pastor mapunga and his wife, yunis, made a tremendous impact on my life. they were serving in a church in Dar Es Salaam when they both felt like they were being called to mkata to open a new church. that's courage, bravery and humility all mixed together. pastor has a heart to know people and to see them come to know Jesus. and Yunis's heart is so gentle, yet she possesses one of the strongest faiths which i've ever seen. she's been diagnosed with breast cancer and travels to dar es salaam ever other week for injections. they don't have a cell phone, live in a 2 room house with a tin roof, don't have a post office box or address, and are people of purpose. they are trusting God to give them members for their little church and healing for the wife's cancer. and i believe they will see the effects of these two prayer requests.

Yunis took me in and from the moment she met me, she tried to get me to speak swahili and express myself. she was patient with me when i stumbled thru my broken swahili, and she continued to speak slowly so i could attempt to understand her questions. she's the first person i've found so far who tried to speak slowly so i could understand. one can recognize that she's an amazing person by one look into her eyes; she just has a way about her that radiates light and kindness. i had opportunities to spend quite a bit of time with this couple the second and third weeks in mkata, and i've come to love them thru that time. yet i may never contact them again, since they have no means of being contacted, except personal visits.

it feels like yesterday when i wrote about Yunis.