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Tales of the Unexpected - Part 2
Luke 24: 13-33 - The Road to Emmaus
"Jesus Himself drew near and went with them"
The Bible passage I used last week in Part 1 of these Tales of the Unexpected is still applicable for us to consider again today. When Jesus comes along side us on our road he often comes when we least expect him and that is not because he was not there from the beginning of the journey but because, usually, we are so engrossed in ourselves that we did not recognise his presence.
A story from our time in Tanzania had an unexpected connection. One of our Tanzanian Officers was to retire, he wrote to us at Headquarters asking us not to send him his pension because he wanted us to send him a Salvation Army flag. He would pay for it from his pension until it was all paid for. He was to retire to his home village where there was no Salvation Army church, and he wanted to start one. He would make his own drum, but he needed the flag. So that is what we arranged. The Brigadier had his flag, I don’t remember how many months it took him to pay off the flag, but it would have been several, and the Salvation Army started in that small remote village.
Many years later, our daughter and son-in-law were sent to Aberystwyth in North Wales as their summer placement from the Salvation Army Officers Training College. Eric and I had a holiday there with them. We led the Sunday’s meetings and Eric told the story of Brigadier Mbete, and to our surprise a young lady (a student from the University) came up to us after the service and introduced herself as the grand-daughter of that Brigadier. The moral of this story is: "Be careful how, and where you tell your stories, you never know who might be listening!"
A story from our time in Tanzania had an unexpected connection. One of our Tanzanian Officers was to retire, he wrote to us at Headquarters asking us not to send him his pension because he wanted us to send him a Salvation Army flag. He would pay for it from his pension until it was all paid for. He was to retire to his home village where there was no Salvation Army church, and he wanted to start one. He would make his own drum, but he needed the flag. So that is what we arranged. The Brigadier had his flag, I don’t remember how many months it took him to pay off the flag, but it would have been several, and the Salvation Army started in that small remote village.
Many years later, our daughter and son-in-law were sent to Aberystwyth in North Wales as their summer placement from the Salvation Army Officers Training College. Eric and I had a holiday there with them. We led the Sunday’s meetings and Eric told the story of Brigadier Mbete, and to our surprise a young lady (a student from the University) came up to us after the service and introduced herself as the grand-daughter of that Brigadier. The moral of this story is: "Be careful how, and where you tell your stories, you never know who might be listening!"
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After our second spell in Tanzania, in 1963 or was it 1964, can’t remember, we were appointed as Divisional Commanders in Uganda. At that time it was a Division in the East Africa Territory, now it is a Territory on its own. We were stationed in Uganda for 6 years, it was an unforgettable experience, a truly beautiful tropical, lush, green country and lovely gracious people.
We were looking for a property in Kampala, the capitol city, for an old people’s home, we had a number of destitute elderly men living in a small cottage, and we needed more space. An advert in the local paper offered a house for sale. We went to look. What an unexpected surprise to find that the house was owned by a member of the Royal House of Toro, a real live African Princess – and would you believe it, her name was Princess Elizabeth! She looked for all the world like Queen Mary, tall, elegant and truly regal. You see Uganda was a country made up of a group of tribal kingdoms, and here before us was a princess of one of those ruling families, in her rambling old house, needing quite a bit of repair. We thought it was just what we needed, but it was too expensive and needed too much work done on it. But we were invited in for tea with the Princess in her very “Victorian” parlour, the walls all decorated with pictures of our own Royal family, bric-a-brac everywhere. Princess Elizabeth sat in all her regal splendour wearing a magnificent wig. A regal, yet a little sad figure, who because of the overthrow of the government of the time the new President had abolished all the kingdoms. The wealth, power, influence and livelihoods were all lost and indeed the lives of many in these royal households were at risk. The Princess was selling up to return to her tribal area. This was an unexpected outcome for her and her family and would have led to a life and standard of living much different to which she had become accustomed. As Eric and I prayed with the Royal lady, “Jesus Himself drew near”. A truly unexpected encounter. [Philip adds, if you want to find out a bit more about Princess Elizabeth and how her life changed dramatically and completely unexpectedly then look on Wikipedia for her story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Elizabeth_of_Toro ] |
Eric leading a meeting in a 'make-shift' Army hall in very rural Uganda.
Taking 'The Salute' at another, more established,
Army corps in Uganda. 
Opening an Army hall in Uganda.
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Note: This series of 'Pause for Thought' started on Monday 4th May. To find these previous thoughts go to the Archive section of the website listed under the 'more.....' tab at the top of the page. On the 'Daily Pause for Thought' section of the website we will only keep 2 weeks of contributions before putting them into the Archive.
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