I can’t believe we’re already coming into our third week in Tanzania…and I really, REALLY can’t believe that in just six short weeks, my Race will be over. It’s July 18th and I will be home August 31st…WHAT?!?! Where has this year gone!?!!?! At first, Tanzania was not all I had hoped it would be. For the first week of ministry we discovered that our contact unfortunately didn’t have much for us to do. Other than leading an evening church service the entire week, we tried to fill our time with constructive things to do. I kept asking God, “Why are we here? What is our purpose for being in Tanzania? What is your plan?” and after all my wrestling and praying, we found a Pastor who was desperately seeking help and encouragement for his church. The catch? This Pastor’s church was not in Dar Es Salaam, near where we were staying. It was, as we Americans say during Christmas time, “Over the river, and through the woods…” only instead of a river we had to go over a canal of water and instead of woods we had to go through the metropolus of Dar in rush hour traffic. With Nurielle the day he got Saved at church.
We set out to help Pastor Lawrence our first afternoon, unaware of the journey that would be in our future and we got a bajage (which most other countries call “a tuk-tuk”). In the United States, if they were even legal, a bajage would only be meant for one driver in the front and two passengers in the back…IF THAT. Here in Tanzania, a bajage consists of a driver and as many people you can pack into the bajage without crashing or tipping it. In this case, we had five people, plus the driver. So we set out for the first dala-dala (bus) station about 5 kilometers away. Piling our group out of the tiny bajage and into an already packed dala-dala looked like something out of a cartoon and when we first saw the amount of people on the dala-dala we laughed because we honestly thought there was no way we were going to be able to fit. This is Africa, and they make everything fit…regardless of comfort or safety regulations.
We headed off, standing shoved in the middle of a very smelly African body odor filled dala-dala. Once we got to our next dala-dala station we had to switch dala-dala, this time heading towards the city center. Once we got to the city center we had already been traveling for two full hours, since the traffic in Dar is so horrible. We had to board yet another dala-dala to get to the port and from there we got on a ferry boat that took exactly two minutes to get us to the island of South Beach that was only seperated from the mainland by a canal. We walked for some time once we got onto the island and met up with Pastor Lawrence and then, you guessed it, boarded another dala-dala for Pastor’s church. After getting off our sixth mode of transportation for the day, we were ready to do some ministry and I was more than ready to preach on the importance of putting the Lord first in your life, above anything else (Matthew 22:37-40). I had a nice, long sermon prepared with notes and scriptures and pages marked in my Bible and everything and I couldn’t wait to deliver it to the congregation. So we got to the church, where Pastor had told us we would do a service, and no one was there but a group of children.
My team and I figured this was OK because in our minds as experienced month 10 World Racers, this meant that we would be doing Children’s Ministry first and then the Main Service for everyone else. Well, the time with the children came and went and still, no adults. So there we were, with twenty children, one church elder named “Momma Mary” (no joke, that was seriously her name) and Pastor Lawrence and all eyes were on me to preach. I was flabbergasted. I mean, I had been learning for the past 10 months on how you have to be flexible and good at improv as a missionary and here I was with a 45-minute sermon prepared on a topic much too mature for children. I wanted to include examples like Abraham obeying the Lord and being prepared to sacrifice his young son, Issac on the alter and some real-life-today examples of martyers all around the world suffering for the sake of putting God first. What was I going to do?!?! I was feeling like this entire day had turned into a disaster.
This is when my team mate, Nikki came up to me and said that she felt the Holy Spirit telling her to remind me that I was preaching to an audience of one, and that was the Lord. All I had to do was preach to Him and nothing else mattered, because it was all about giving Him the glory and the honred. Nikki also made me remember that God has purpose and reason for all things, and that my message was still meant for someone specific in the room, whether it be the church elder, the Pastor, the team or one of the children. So I prayed and asked God to speak through me, because at this point I was still so nervous I couldn’t do anything on my own. I began the sermon and children started getting restless and running around the sanctuary, but I continued praying that God would give me the patience and discipline to continue on without getting flustered or distracted. By the grace of God I was able to maintain composure the entire time, something I seriously doubted happening.
Then, about 10 minutes into my sermon, a young man came into the back door of the sanctuary and sat near the back. He looked to be around my age and I thought to myself, “Lord, is this the man you have the message for? Is it him in the back?” and I continued preaching, believing in my heart that even though the majority of my audience was either picking their nose or crying or running up and down the aisles, I was still there for a divine reason. I concluded the sermon, just under an hour, and completely surprised that these parent-less children had stayed to hear it through. I was getting ready to leave, still feeling confused, when the young man in the back approached me. He said his name was Nurielle and that he was a neighbor of church elder, Momma Mary, and that he had heard we were coming and wanted to hear what we had to say. I asked him if he was Born Again and he said he wasn’t but felt very touched by the message of the Gospel and was so filled with love during the service and after it was over.
I realized at this moment, that our three and a half hour journey to this island and all the preparation I had done for that sermon was for this man standing in front of me, so he could hear the Gospel presented for the first time. I asked him if he had anymore questions and he said that he would pray that evening for more love and truth to come and that he would return the next day. I prayed over him, walked out to meet the rest of my group, and realized that the entire day had been all about me. It hadn’t been about preaching the Good News of the Gospel, it had been about how hard the travel to get there was and how hard I had worked on the sermon and how nobody showed up to hear me preach. It was about ME, ME, ME which is ironically the exact OPPOSITE of what my sermon was about. The amazing and miraculous thing was, however, that even though I was being prideful and embarassed no one had come to the service, God still chose to use me, my narcissism and all and that He was able to speak through me to reach this young man, who He so dearly wanted a relationship with. I was so humbled and convicted that I asked the Lord for forgiveness and rejoiced at the fact that even at our weakest and lowest points, God can and will still use us for His glory and His Kingdom.
The next day when we went back to the island to preach again and do ministry, that same young man came to know Jesus even better and made the decision to get Saved and become Born Again into the Family of God. I was so happy for Him and decided that the next time I was confused or uncertain about something in my life or in my ministry, I would trust that God was in control and that he was working all things together for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28). I want every preacher out there, whether that is your profession or one of your spiritual gifts, to know that no matter how big or small your congregation is, the most important thing to remember that you are truly preaching to an audience of one, and that everything you’re doing, you’re doing to glorify the Lord.
The ferry boat we take to the island to minister.
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Giving my sermon on Matthew 22:37-40.
