“True faith supplies great strength for life and opens us to experience greater possibilities and miracles.”
Christopher Lee, twenty-five years old when we conducted his interview, is from Northamptonshire, England, and is a deacon in the Anglican Church of England. He worked at the Kiteto Christian College Mission in Kiteto, Tanzania, a tiny town in the rural area of the Manyara region, for three years after he graduated from university. He is now studying theology at the University of Cambridge, and once those three years are completed, he looks forward to the next adventurous chapter of his life as an Anglican priest. (www.dioceseofkiteto.org)
The Interview
One night while I was traveling and working in Africa, I met two British doctors who had volunteered at the mission Reverend Lee ran. When I told them about Epiphany, they suggested I talk to him, but they never told me his name. The night went on, but I never met the reverend, and the next morning we were leaving. I remember being upset with myself for not seeking him out and trying to interview him—here I was in Africa and I’d blown an opportunity to get an interesting interview. As we were about to leave, the driver of our van started talking to this man with a backpack who needed a ride. We were headed in the same direction, so I told him we were happy to have him come with us. We introduced ourselves, and I asked Chris what had brought him to Kendwa Rocks. He replied, “I was just vacationing for a bit; I help run a mission in Tanzania.” That’s right—the missionary priest I was so upset to have missed the night before had just climbed right into my van! On top of that, the doctors had told him about me too, so he’d thought about what his greatest epiphany would be. Kismet? Serendipity? Whatever it was, it was meant to be. We conducted his interview in a speeding van en route to Stone Town, Zanzibar.
