William and Stella

I have a friend here in Tanzania named William.  He is the head of our cleaning department at HOPAC, and is the most joyful, upbeat, willing-to-help person I know.  Ever since the cleaner for my classroom left to have her baby 2 months back, William has been stepping in and cleaning all our classrooms as well as the others he regularly does.  With a joke every time he comes in, and a heart shining for Jesus.

William was the first person I met at HOPAC.  When I first arrived, and was told to "get a bajaj" to get to training, I went straight to him for help.  His response?  "Stay here.  I'll get one for you so that they don't give you the mzungu (white person) price."  He had only met me once, but dropped everything to do this.  You get the picture. 


In his spare time, (you know, when he's not cleaning at our school, jumping up to go above and beyond with helping someone, or fixing something...) William is a pastor.  A preacher.  An ambassador.  For Christ.  He purposefully moved into an impoverished local Muslim village in order to serve the people there and share about Jesus.  So on Saturdays, he has kids club with dozens of kids in the village.  You can bet playing soccer and other games is a big part of this.  And on Sundays, he preaches. 

I mentioned that William is continually joyful.  Which says a lot about him, because he's been through a lot.  Besides the busy servant-hood of his life, William is also married.  And in the past 3 years of their marriage, they've lost 4 babies.  One to miscarriage, and 3 others that were born alive but died shortly after because they were born too soon.  When this last happened, I almost wished we could tell the kids at HOPAC what had happened.  Because, as much as William was hurting, he was still singing praises to the Lord and going about his job with a willing servant's heart.  We could all learn a lot from him.

Stella, his wife, is pregnant again.  She's spent a lot of time at the hospital throughout her pregnancy, just to be careful, and is back there now by doctors' orders.  The doctors are extremely optimistic, and the HOPAC community has been able to do a lot with helping with transport costs and bills so that William can make it daily to see her.  But she is currently at 31 weeks, and all three of her premature babies were lost at week 32.  Due to lack of medical options available, her baby just won't be able to survive if it's born this early.  

PLEASE pray with us that the baby would stay put for AT LEAST three more weeks. Pray that their baby would be born healthy and strong.  And please ask people you know to be praying as well. 

For more of their story from a friend and co-blogger who has lived here a lot longer than me, click here and here.

Thanks!!!