The village of the world

Today I once again had the privilege of taking an African to visit the birthplace of David Livingstone at Blantyre. (I've been there so often in the past year or so that one of the staff asked me if I'd like a job as a volunteer tour guide!)
This time my guest was Rev. Simon Githiora Njuguna, the Director of the Youth Department of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa.
He had been attending last week's General Assembly and I was asked if I would 'look after him' today as part of a programme of visits around Scotland and Northern Ireland. I was delighted to do so, and decided right away that Blantyre was the place to take him.
First of all, though, I had to 'collect him' from Abington.
I guess many exchanges (legal and otherwise) take place in motorway service stations but this was a very slick handover, timed to perfection.
Simon had been staying overnight in Dumfries at the home of another minister there, and we decided to meet each other more or less half-way at the motorway services for the handover. Poor Simon - shunted from one car to another, like a parcel in the post. (He didn't seem to mind, though.)
And he really enjoyed the visit to Blantyre.
Here he is pictured in the very room where Livingstone was born and brought up with the rest of his family.
When I see the enthusiasm and appreciation of African people for all that David Livingstone was able to do among them, and the respect in which he is still held all over Africa, I am saddened by the indifference (and even ignorance) of so many Scottish people to this courageous and committed man, whose story is quite astonishing.

As we sat and talked over a cup of tea in the cafe at the David Livingstone Centre and Simon asked me about my previous visits to Kenya it suddenly became clear to both of us that we had 'met' before. Five years ago I had spoken to a group of ministers in Nairobi. Simon was still a 'probationer' at that time - not yet ordained, but he had been sitting in the back row.
After we returned to my home, I was able to confirm it all by digging out the old photograph album from the 2002 trip to Kenya, and there he was - or at least his head-partially visible behind another minister. Well, Simon claimed that he could see himself in the picture. I had to take his word for it, and since he could remember (better than I could) what I had been talking about that day I have no reason to doubt that it was his head.
As they say... "It's a small world!" And getting smaller every day.