Marwa's Bridge

Photo Credit Ryan Klinck

By Davis Rhodes Jr

(Trigger warning, some language here is threatening to LGBTQ+ folks and some language here is threatening to women. None of this reflects my own beliefs. It is an attempt to capture what I think these characters would say if these events were to really happen.)

Most Tanzanians are peaceful, but Marwa’s tribe thought machetes were meant to be used for more than cutting up firewood. They were great for keeping your women in line too. When Marwa was seven, he, like everyone else, stopped going out alone after dark, in fear of the ragged gang of twenty-somethings, eyes red from alcohol and marijuana, who had decided it would be fun to see how many of their neighbors they could skin alive. 

He was one of fourteen children, son of one of the most feared witches in town. Marwa’s home was not a happy one, and, after just two years of elementary education, his home completely broke up and he was forced to find relatives to live with. He never received any more formal education. When he was born in 1979, 99% of United Methodists never would have expected Marwa to offer the United Methodist Church a way to reconcile.

In 2010, Marwa found himself working at an orphanage. Things changed for him when a short-term American volunteer accidentally started a new Church. Since she was a United Methodist, it became a United Methodist Church. Marwa became good friends with this volunteer and decided that he also wanted to follow Jesus. The volunteer explained to him that this meant, mainly, that he would become a more loving person, because Jesus had first loved him. Yes, the volunteer had explained, that means that you can’t beat your wife. A whole string of problems had come to Marwa’s mind: How will I keep her from cheating…from running away…from seeing her friends too much and getting ideas? Marwa had felt the futility of even stating any of these objections to the volunteer. He had to admit, things hadn’t turned out too badly. He hadn’t ended up with a second divorce—his wife seemed to have slowly lost her desire to run. These days, he never had to worry about her running away. Then, when the volunteer said that following Jesus meant helping the vulnerable, he had started trying to feed the street children. That had been easy enough. At what point had they consumed him? How did he ever become someone who regularly made new enemies by insisting that the street children be treated better?

Hard work had always been his trademark, and it had been a natural step to become devoted to the church and to the streets kids. After a few years, he found himself being handed larger and larger responsibilities by the UMC leadership. He felt a little awkward about this, and he knew the more educated folks resented it every time they were passed over. Everyone knew, though, that Marwa would do a better job, so there wasn’t much to argue about.

As lay leader for his district, Marwa found himself at Annual Conference 2019. The endless reports and meetings seemed important, but pretty standard, until it came time to discuss who they would send to General Conference 2020. The bishop talked about how this was an important year, about how the UMC was probably going to break up over the issue of whether they perform LGBTQ+ weddings and ordain LGBTQ+ clergy. They needed to send a delegate who would represent Tanzania well and who would vote to stay true to the Bible, which condemns LGBTQ+ lifestyles.

He could hardly believe his ears. He knew that Americans were very different, but homosexual pastors? They were ready to break the church over this? And the African Methodist Church was also willing to watch the church break up? No one was even trying to save it?

Marwa may not have been educated, but he was never one to fear anyone. When he got up to speak, many were tempted to laugh, until they realized that he insisted on being heard,

“I’m sorry, respected father bishop, but I don’t see it this way exactly. I do agree with what you are saying about the Bible, that indeed is true. We, ourselves know that the law of God says that the issue of marriage should only be between a man and…a woman, and therefore we know that same-sex marriage is sin, polygamy is sin, adultery is sin, having sex with random young people is sin. But why, now, are we breaking the Church on this issue? Why now?

“I myself have worked with Americans a lot. Do you know this? It was an American that helped me to be saved. Yes, it was. And I, something that I know, is that American behavior is very different from our behavior. Very different. But father (Marwa paused for a second) why do we need to break with them and make our own church, apart from them? Respected father bishop, in Tanzania, don’t we say, ‘unity is victory’? Unity is victory, come on!! Isn’t our motto ‘freedom and unity’? We have many, many different tribes, many different languages, but here in Tanzania, we all speak…Swahili. We work together, we do not fight like other African nations do. It is difficult. Yes, it is. It is very difficult. But for us, the thing we know, is that the benefit of working together is a very good thing, it is a surprising thing. When we disagree on something, we do not start fighting with each other like they do in Kenya. So say it now, father bishop, why are we breaking the Church over this quarrel?”

Of course, the bishop gave a polished, clear rebuttal. Someone listening to both arguments would probably say that the bishop had the better argument. Marwa had won the only battle that mattered though; he had stirred the hearts of the uneducated, bivocational Tanzanian pastors. He had showed them that breaking the Church on this issue was inconsistent with their identity as peaceful Tanzanians who work together. When the votes were in, Marwa was elected as the lay delegate to general conference, though none of the more educated leaders voted for him.

Had Marwa been any more educated or proud, it might have occurred to him to try and prepare for general conference. For Marwa, though, there was earth to till and children to feed and a new baby to stay up and rock and always, always the maddening work of trying to get these troubled, dirty, forgotten young men to leave the streets, to be reunited with their families, to stop stealing scrap metal. There were the endless fights with the church about how they were supposed to use the money that the white people sent them to actually help the youth instead of eating the money and complaining about how the street kids were just bad kids.

And the questions gnawed at him. The people of America, they are really ready to break the church? So that they could marry men to each other? So that they could marry women to each other? They really wanted to do this?

As he swung the jembe into the soil, preparing to plant the new crop of corn, the mindless work faded into the background as the thoughts came.

Americans are strange. They are people of surprises. Once, he had gone to another village with that American volunteer, and she hadn’t stopped to eat all day. When they had somewhere to be, they walked in the rain. And Africans normally ran out of money. Running out of money was a fact of life. But Americans didn’t run out of money, they always had more. They spent more and they still had more…

But they weren’t crazy. At least, the volunteer hadn’t been. She was ignorant of a lot of things, but that was because she was a stranger—her brain seemed to work normally. Did she, too, want the church to marry men to men and women to women? Did she want these folks with broken brains to be pastors?

Were there really female homosexuals? That was harder to believe, and as he tried to picture it, nothing came to mind, only the giddy, leering young men who would live together, normally four or five in a house, a dirty, secret house where they drank liquor and did their mischief together.

Or worse, the drunk, bored nightguards with red, wild eyes carrying machetes that were seldom used to defend the pretty shops and often used to prey on the young men sleeping on the streets. The days when he had also been a drunk nightguard, numb to the miserable boys trying to run, the crying of the one whom they always managed to catch, and the men’s heavy, excited breathing and muffled moaning. Before he cared. Before he ever imagined that thoughts of the young mens’ welfare could consume his thoughts like this.

More ridges to be made, more soil to be tilled.

What is wrong with these Americans? They told me to believe the Bible! And what do they like about this? He had never understood why they weren’t more excited about having children. With their endless money, why didn’t they all have twelve or fifteen? But marriages that couldn’t produce children? Surely she would never have approved of that!

More rows, more ridges, the sweat began to pour in steady streams as the sun came up, he licked the savory stuff as it flowed over his lips.

She had been right to tell him to stop beating Neema (the wife he had married after the first had run away). Why did it work? What had the missionary known that he hadn’t? It had been weird, at first, to help the stubborn young street boys, but now he loved them—more than he thought his heart ever could. She had been right when she showed him that you solve conflicts with your kids by talking to them…who knew that you could reason with children? Why did it work?

Was this—marrying women to women—another great surprise that he hadn’t learned about? 

But those things had always come from the Bible. She had always been clear about that. She had always shown him the chapter and the line, where God had commanded it. God’s commands were for our good, because God loves us, she had said. But the book made it clear…yes, the book made it clear. And she had always insisted on the book. She had encouraged him to read it over and over again on his own. She always talked about it whenever she preached. She wanted him to get to know it so that it could guide him, she knew that she wouldn’t always be around, but if he could get to know the book he could keep learning about God that way.

The Bible was a surprising thing. It had helped him to heal marriages, it had helped him to get the young men back with their families, it had gotten the families to take back the young men. She had been right about the power of the book, it must be from God.

But this time, the white people, the money people, were going against the book? What was happening? Why had she told him to get to know the book if she didn’t obey it? If it was from God, why wasn’t she obeying it? And all the people of America with her? And just to allow these people with broken brains to get married to each other? To make people with broken brains into pastors, missionaries, servants of God??

Neema was yelling something, and Marwa noticed that he was now redoing the ridges, he was about halfway back, the cool sweat having soaked through his shirt and now working its way into the gym shorts that he wore under his pants.

She had left the kitchen and was stomping towards him, “Father, father, come on! Can’t you hear this child is crying, and I am trying to boil the tea and get ready to go to the market. You, you are doing what, father? You have already finished the ridges and now you are just doing them again? You do not have brains this morning? Now I need you to take this child, right now.”

He stopped swinging the jembe as she went on. Everyone else’s wife was afraid to talk to them that way, but everyone else was afraid of their wife leaving. How had the volunteer known that this was a better way, to give Neema freedom and not to beat her? Love, love, that had been it…Jesus had loved him, so now he should love other people and everything would go better. And the book was clear about that.

Americans were strange. Marwa couldn’t explain many things he saw in Minneapolis. Why were there so many bridges in areas where there was no water? Why did they have these great bridges just to have car pass over each other? Why did the drivers all just drive in straight lines? 

And why did they fight? It hurt him to watch the church fight. Why weren’t they trying to work together? He was intimidated, but, as the fighting got worse, he couldn’t bear to continue watching. He asked to speak.

“My name is Marwa from the country of Tanzania. I apologize to everyone who knows more than I do, but I want to ask why we keep fighting, instead of trying to work together. I know in Tanzania we always say, ‘unity is victory.’ I know you are all from other countries, so maybe you see that differently, but why don’t we try to forgive each other and to work together? I know in the Bible Jesus prayed that we would all be one.

“I myself am called Marwa, from the nation of Tanzania, and I ask forgiveness from every person who knows more than I do, but I have one question. Listen, for what are we continuing to fight, instead of even trying to work together? A thing that I know is that in the Bible it says that Jesus prayed for us all to be one.”

Awkward silence.

“I ask your forgiveness if I have said something bad, I just don’t see why we aren’t even trying to work together.”

Finally, a reply, “Thank you, sir, for your spirit of love. It’s not that simple, though. Something that you don’t understand is that as a homosexual, I feel personally threatened when these people say that my sexual orientation is sin, and when they say that they can’t continue with a Church where I am a pastor. I can’t just try and get along with people who are personally threatening me.”

He breathed deeply. Love had worked with Neema, and it had worked with the young men.

“Thank you, mama. I did not understand that, and I appreciate you explaining that to me. I am really sorry to hear that you feel threatened. I hate being afraid. I hate it when my family and I are threatened. I hope that I, myself, have not made you feel threatened. Jesus has never made me feel threatened, and I should never make anyone else feel that way.

“So now, I ask you, my dear brothers in Christ, mbona (strongest Swahili word for “why,” it demands an apology), are any of us, who have been loved by Jesus and never once threatened by him threatening other Christians? Why are we making them feel unloved, why are we making them hurt in their hearts?? We have been loved so much and we should just be sharing love, but look! Instead we are just making them hurt.”

Silence.

Silence for a minute.

Marwa continued, “Earlier, I said that I apologize if I have said something wrong. But this time, I don’t see how anything that I just said could have been wrong. I may not be educated like you are, but I know Jesus.”

Silence.

Neema had been happy when he had returned. “Tell me, father, what was America like?”

“It is a place of surprise, they have many, many bridges, even where there is no water…”