The Beautiful Baobab

After finally landing in Arusha, Tanzania, we met up with our Eastco safari team and drove out to our first destination, Tarangire National Park. Immediately we saw wildlife of all kinds – elephants, giraffes, wart hogs, and zebras. I caught my first glimpse of the huge termite mounds that are scattered all over the landscape, as were the beautifully shaped acacia trees. But in the midst of all that wonder, what took my breath away initially was the sight of the baobab trees.

 

Magnificent specimens with massive trunks, they towered over the grassland as if ruling the African landscape. Known as the “Tree of Life”, these majestic trees have huge hollow, barrel-shaped trunks that act as water reservoirs in the dry seasons of the year. The trees are used for the nutritional and medicinal properties of the fruit and leaves, fiber is made from the bark, which is also a food source for animals of all kinds, and even shelter can be found inside the hollow trunk. A local story suggests that the size and beauty of the tree caused it to become so proud that it was picked up, turned upside down, and its branches thrust into the earth, its roots left up in the air.  And truly a more accurate description of this spreading often-bare-branched beauty can’t be found.

 

I was simply fascinated by the sight of them, and laughed at the thought that when people would later ask me what was the most wonderful thing I saw in Africa, expecting me to name one of the incredible animals roaming the landscape, my answer might just be this tree! I can’t help but be inspired by the baobab to be a similar spiritual reservoir for the people I am planted among, collecting the drops of Living Water that come down from Heaven above in my devotional times, so that in any dry season of life I can feed off of and be sheltered spiritually by what was collected earlier, offering others the same, and thus be sustained and thrive in even the harshest of climates I may face.

 

“He will be standing firm like a flourishing tree planted by God’s design, deeply rooted by the brooks of bliss, bearing fruit in every season of life. He is never dry, never fainting, ever blessed, ever prosperous.”

(Psalm 1:3 TPT)