From the red dirt, to the children who run at us, or cry running away from us (because they have never seen a white person before), to loving the most welcoming, gentle people I have met. Africa has been my favorite continent because the people in Kenya and Uganda. They have welcomed us and loved us into their homes, their lives. And its not easy taking in a team of 7 into your home for a month.
Physically life is harder, but it's so sweet.
Tanzania has been different than Kenya and Uganda. It has been challenging for me. Judgement is such a stronghold over the churches and a large part of the believers we have met. From focusing to our outer appearance to the people we talk to and the things we do… I realized very quickly that they are still living under the law.
As I sat in the third row of our small half finished church our first Sunday. I watched the women laying on their faces crying to God. They sang worship songs in beautiful Swahilee and danced as the service progressed. Then, the pastor started speaking. He taught on love. He talked about Jesus' life and the way he loved.
I heard a noise in the back of the church, as I turned I saw a woman who was clearly drunk and very upset. She was squirming and screaming. I watched as one of the elders of the church took her out of the church, spoke to her and walked back inside.
Why would you kick out what He has brought in?
The only thought I heard.
I saw Leanna and Brandon jump up and head out the back doors. By the time I made it out the doors they were praying with her. She was completely calm. She explained to us that she believed her mother in law had put a curse on her and she couldn't stop drinking.
Africa Disclaimer: We hear about curses very often. From witch doctors who convince people to do things as simple as chanting, to as extreme as eating their families. All this is done in hopes that the witch doctor can heal them. Africa is known for having an extreme demonic presence.
We say its a better place to see God do big things.
As I sat with Leanna and Brandon as they talked with this woman. We found out her name is Juliette. She lives with her mother-in-law and son. I watched as she started smiling and hugging us. She went from completely drunk to sober in a matter of one prayer. She went from screaming at a church to hugging us. I honestly didn't grasp what happened right in front of my eyes.
The church service finished and the congregation filled the front field around the small building. As a few of the women walked out they looked down at us on the ground and started staring and talking about Juliette right in front of her. They were looking at her with disgust. They walked away laughing.
We lived with one of the women, so I had to walk over to her to ask if we could walk Juliette home. She looked at Juliette again, then back to me and said, "She isn't worth it, she is a drunkard."
….
That's the pause I took as I thought, before I almost let out the words on the end of my tongue. Instantly I remembered this dorky highlighter colored bracelet my Dad wore when I was young. W.W.J.D. Well Dad, it stuck. I asked her if Jesus would leave Juliette on the ground.
She didn't respond.
After that day I knew the Lord was calling us to an Evangelism that looked much different. It looked like a month of building relationships, a month of letting the Lord lead us all.
We live in a village outside of Morogoro, Tanzania. We walked the streets each day and asked God to lead us to the ONES… And He did.
I want to share with you some of the stories that came from this month.
Get to know my team a little better 🙂
Dan:
Earlier this month while trying to figure out what we are doing here in Morogoro, we were sent with one of the pastor's friends. We were told that we were going to a market where this guy worked and we could pick up a few souvenirs- instead we saw four, run down shacks, where men carved wood.
Little did I know, this is where I would spend my month.
We met some of the wood carvers that day. We placed a few orders for a few items and left shortly after. A few days later there was a meeting at the church. Other than the seven of us, one person showed up to lead the meeting, one person showed up to attend it, and one person accidentally attended it while trying to find us.
His name is Magnus.
He came to see if he might be able to sell something. I had enjoyed the work he had done on my order and decided to place another. I paid him in advance and the next time I saw him he told me he hadn't had money to buy food that day and was grateful for the work.
As our team tried to figure out what to do this month for ministry, other than attend church services, we let the Lord lead us.
And he kept leading me to Magnus.
So I'd hop on the crowded matatu* with another teammate and get dropped of at the busy intersection and walk towards the little shacks.
(*the matatu is a little van that says “14 passengers” on the outside, and in reality, has 30+ people inside; believe me, we counted once.)
I visited Magnus whenever I could. I would sit alongside the wood carvers and chip away at scraps of ebony, trying to forge something to take home from Tanzania. I'd sit in awe as the men around me chiseled away at pieces of log to find the elephants and giraffes that were stuck inside.
Magnus is one of seven children and within a (less than) one year span he lost his three sisters and his mother. He told me that at a young age, he decided that he never wanted to be a beggar on the street. He knew that he was fully capable to work and earn money to support himself. He is a man of passion, creativity, and perseverance.
When asked what his dream is, if money was not an issue, he said, “to go to school.” Magnus is twenty six and wants to go to university for philosophy or business. School costs about $400 a year, but with the inconsistent business flow from carving wood and tutoring several grade levels of students whose parents are reluctant to pay for his services, it seems like saving money for school isn't a reality when you have trouble paying for a room to rent. He tutors the kids anyways because he sees the value in their education. It breaks my heart to see someone of great talent and character essentially stuck in a place where they can't move up.
Building a relationship definitely takes time. I had a handful of significant time spent with him before he really opened up to me. We sat upon the piles of wood chips that came from the years of carving ebony into various figurines and souvenirs. Magnus didn't seem like his chipper self and just laid with his head rested on a piece of ebony. I pulled up next to him in hopes of finding out what was troubling him.
And so he opened up and shared where he was at in life. He shared how many times he simply appears happy to people, but felt like he has lost everything. He really didn't seem like himself. He shared how just a few months before we arrived, he was helping to run a hostel for students and would help tutor them there. Due to the inability of the students to keep up with the payments, he ended up selling his motor bike and some land he had in order to make up for the dwindling number of students. But it just wasn't enough. Magnus shared some other problems and stresses that have been running through his mind; as a result, he hasn't been eating or sleeping much lately and has been having lots of chest pains.
I was able to really speak some life into Magnus after he opened up. He really needed to hear some truth and believe it. He needed to stop focusing on the past and where he once was. You can't live in you past mistakes, failures, or successes. He needs to focus on the season that he is in, and trust God to bring him through it. After all, we serve a God who works all things for our good.
The next day when I returned, Magnus was like a new person. He was joyful and kept thanking me for the conversation we had the previous day. He said he ate dinner that night and had a night's rest with peace in his heart for the first time in over a month. He said it felt like he was alive again.
It was an awesome confirmation of how much power we have with our words, and how speaking life really does bring life. Each time I see him, he thanks me again for giving him advice and telling him to shift his focus back to God. If God brought seven of to Morogoro, Tanzania just to meet Magnus, then it was all worth it, because God is all about finding the one.
Heather:
The first time I saw Halima she was shuffling into our Wednesday night service. She took her shoes off at the door and came slowly inside. There were only ten people in the church; seven of them were white. Halima wore a yellow scarf wrapped around her hair and shoulders. She kept pulling it tighter around her like she expected it to make her bulletproof. But what I really noticed about her was the way she kept shaking her head from side to side during the pastor's sermon. The motion sped up during prayer times.
We asked to speak with Halima. In the course of the conversation, I asked our translator why she kept shaking her head. Lawrence asked in Swahili, and I listened to her soft reply.
"She says she shakes her head to distract herself from the voices in her head," Lawrence told us in English.
We asked to pray for her and, to my surprise, Halima got on her knees in front of us. Brandon and Lawrence laid hands on her shoulders. I got down on my knees behind her and put my hand on her back. While we prayed, I felt her relax.
But my spirit wasn't satisfied. I knew the LORD wasn't done with her. Or with me going after her. He loved her too much to let me be still.
Later that week, the LORD gave me the opportunity to visit Halima's home. Once again, we brought a translator with us. We met her three children and her sister. We were able to pray over most of the family and the house. We could talk through the translator, but actual conversation was difficult. We smiled a lot and held hands.
Halima feels unworthy of love because of her past. Because she's a former devil worshipper. Because she has three children by three different men. Because she's very, very poor, completely reliant on her sister, who is still heavily involved in the occult. The voices she hears tell her she's worthless and evil and that nothing good would come near her.
But when Jesus looks at her, he doesn't see what she's done or where she's been. He doesn't want her to deal with the voices. He doesn't want her to feel unloved. Instead, he loves her so much that he sent a group of white missionaries to her neck of the woods to show her love instead of just talking about it. He made it nearly impossible to communicate verbally so that I would be forced to love her in other ways: like choosing to sit with her in church or coming to her home or holding her hand. This is how Jesus loved while he was on earth.
Love is a verb.
It's an action.
It's a chance to move.
It's a choice we make to have a ministry of presence, even when we can't have a ministry of words.
And in this, those who feel unloved, unworthy, and unwelcome realize their identity in Christ.
Love changes things.
"Later, Matthew invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many other tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. But when the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, 'Why does your teacher eat with such scum?' When Jesus heard this, he said, 'Healthy people don't need the doctor but the sick do. I want you to show mercy not offer sacrifices.'" -Matthew 9:10-13
Brandon:
I have a personal question to ask you. Who is your God? I think that this could be one of the most important questions there is. Our portrayal of who He is has an incredible amount of influence on who we are and how we live and think. Is your God always good or does He pour out His wrath and punish? Is His will on this earth for sickness to be healed or does He send illness to teach you a lesson? Well who is He? So many desire to know!
I have my own portrayal of who He is. If I didn’t, I might be guilty of being a robot. My life has been filled with masks and when one of the many was on, I would agree with just about anything anyone said so that they would like me and there would be no conflict. It got to the point of not really knowing what I thought for myself. Glad that’s over. Who He is to me continues to change and mold as I walk with Him and learn more of His characteristics. One of the best places to look, is in the gospels. Jesus said He can only do what the Father does (see John 5:19). This means that He actually lived out the will of the Father. Good place to start.
I guess what I am getting at is that I don’t want my lack of understanding or experiences to taint and disfigure His perfect form and neither should you. I think that it is so easy for us to explain away our own experiences. I have prayed for healing and then tried to explain away the reasoning behind why we didn’t see anything. When bad things have happened, I blamed Him. I think that so many of us have at some point in our lives, thrown blame on the God who is for us.
I have had bad things happen in my life. Lots of them. Though not nearly as many as so many that I have met around the world. I am not even going to try and have the audacity to tell you why bad things happen to others. But I have no problem telling you that most of the junk that I have walked through had to do with my own failings and sin. Another question that I have wrestled with for years now, is “Why did my mom die?” Well I definitely blamed Him for it for most of those years. Such an important realization that I came to recently is that it’s not His fault. It’s not His fault!
Todd White, one of my favorite “Men of God” has really brought some inspiration to the table for me. Coming out of teen challenge and a life of drugs, he chose to take the gospel literally and started praying for healing. He prayed for close to 800 people before he saw anyone healed. Now when he doesn’t see healing when praying for someone, he is surprised. What is his response to not seeing? He says, “Maybe I need some more faith”. He doesn’t pin it on anyone but himself and not in a condemning way, but in the reality that there is always more for us. Peter carried the presence of God so well that his shadow brought healing. Paul touched clothing that when brought to those in need, cast out demons. Many deliverance ministries these days have step by step ways to cast out demons and are constrained by legal rights. Paul did it without even being there. This is where my paradigm is starting to shift to. I no longer want to explain things away, but know that there is a deeper place to go and that I can always continue learning how to better steward His Presence.
I was in Kenya in May. One of our weeks there was spent door to door evangelizing. On the morning of the third day, the pastor told us that we were going to go and visit their oldest member, Mama Agnes. She’s in her 80’s and walks almost an hour to get to church. As we neared her home, she met us on the road. She said she was looking for fire wood, but I smelled something fishy. It turned out that three days previous, she had had a vision of us coming to her at the very spot where she was waiting for us. So we followed her to her home and were formally introduced to four generations of her family. Before we left, we prayed for her. She had a tumor on her stomach and was blind in one eye. I was quite literally expecting this tumor to either disappear or fall off and her eye to be restored. Nothing happened that we saw. I asked her if she would like us to pray some more. She waved it away and told us how joyful she was for us to be there. I gave it to the Lord and we said our goodbyes.
The pastor wanted to visit another family close and asked Mama Agnes’ daughter to show us the way. As we started walking with her, I received a word of knowledge about pain in her chest. I told the pastor, he inquired, she confirmed. I got excited and wanted to pray for her right there, but was advised to wait until we were at the house. As we walked up, there was an older man sitting next to the gate. The pastor went to shake his hand and he “ignored” it. Turned out that this man could only see shapes. The people we came to visit weren’t home and so we went into their house anyways and prayed for these two. Both were healed and the man that just had his sight restored, had leg pain that had tormented him for a year healed as well. On the walk home we also saw a man’s knee reconstructed by the power of God. Why did some get healed but not others?
Two days ago, in Morogoro, Tanzania my brother Ryan and I went out for a little treasure hunt. We worshipped and prayed and then let God lead. We walked down a random trail and found a Muslim man that wanted to show us around. We told him that we were Christians and he started preaching to us about Islam. Then he said, “Jesus powerful?” with a questioning look. We both rushed to say “Yes”. This is when the strangest thing happened. He took us to a woman with a bad knee to pray for her. She had been in a car accident and could barely walk. I honestly couldn’t believe that he wanted us to pray for her.
For months, my only experience with asking to pray for Muslims had been an awkward no. Now we had one leading us to another to do just that. We prayed and didn’t see a difference. She said thank you and we said our goodbyes. It was now time to say goodbye to our buddy Nasoro. I asked him if there was anything that he needed prayer for. He pointed towards his knee. So Ryan and I got down on our knees, laid hands in his and prayed. I was pretty stunned when a piece of knee that wasn’t there previously appeared and pushed my hand out of the way in the process. I looked at him and he was laughing and unsure. I felt a couple more things pop into place and then we said amen. I asked him to move it around and when that found no pain, he started jumping on it. He then tried to pay us for his healing. We told him it was the power of Jesus that he had been asking about and that it was free. He literally ran off with a big grin and actually came back again to show us how well his knee worked.
Later in the day, we prayed for a blind woman, convinced she was going to open her eyes and see. We saw no change. Why in Kenya did we see a man’s sight restored and a woman’s pain taken away and yet with another we saw nothing? Why a couple days ago in Tanzania did we see nothing with one knee and then power and love with another right afterwards. Why after that miracle when our faith was high did we see nothing with a blind woman? I don’t have all the answers and I am not going to pretend to. The people that didn’t receive healing visibly on the spot were still very blessed.
All being said, I choose to see a God that healed a blind man rather than one that did not heal Mama Agnes. I choose to see a God that healed a lost Muslim rather than one that didn’t heal a blind woman. I choose to see a God that has healed two blind men with my hands rather than one that left the others that I have prayed for blind. Who do you choose to see Him as? What God do you serve?
Caitlyn:
Today was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
It all started this morning at 2:39 am when I awoke to a man shinning a flashlight into the window in our bedroom. Frozen with fear I waited until I no longer saw the flashlight to wake up my roommates, Kenra and Heather. After waking up (almost) the entire house, we made sure all the doors were locked and attempted to go back to sleep.
I woke up several hours later around 7:30 am to someone crying. After checking all the mzungus (white people) in the house, I went into the bedroom of Stella, one of the women who also lives here in the house with us. I sat with her for 20 minutes as she cried. Later when I asked the house mom what Stella had been crying about she informed me Stella had 184,000 shillings stolen, roughly 115 US dollars, by the same man who had been shining the flashlight into our window.
This was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad early morning.
Around 10 am I headed into town with Heather in hopes of having a productive morning. After spending 30 (horrible) minutes in the bus station trying to get tickets to Dar es Salaam, we headed to the hotel to get some internet. Upon arriving our team leader, Kenra, informed us that a ferry had sunk the previous day on the way to Zanzibar, killing many people. Which meant that our mini trip to Zanzibar would not be happening.
The trip we had been looking forward to all month; the trip to tropical, beautiful, white sandy, clear watery Zanzibar. And even more importantly, over 1 hundred people had been killed or were missing. So many families were morning the loss of loved ones.
This was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad, mid morning.
Heather and I decided it was best if we spent the afternoon watching movies and eating chocolate. We left around 4:30 pm to head back into town to meet our friend Niheeda for dinner. Town is a 15 minute drive by motorcycle, the local form of transportation, from our house. As we were feeling the wind through our hair and the freedom in our spirits, Heather’s moto driver stopped. He had run out of gas, and we were a few blocks away from the nearest gas station. So, as her driver walked his moto to the gas station Heather jumped on another moto to take her to the gas station to meet her first moto driver.
This was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad afternoon.
When we finally arrived at Niheeda’s house we were excited to meet her family and spend time with her and her sister. I was a bit nervous about meeting her family, all I really knew about her was her family owned the small convenience store we always visited and they were Muslim.
Heather and I were welcomed with open arms. Niheeda’s mom cooked dinner while we sat in the living room with her and her sister. We talked with them, asked them about their faith and their lives, and her sister gave us both beautiful henna tattoos.
Then we sat down to the most beautiful dinner Heather or I had seen in all of Africa. There was cheesy pasta, fried mashed potatoes, vegetables, meat, wonderful chai tea and juice, not to mention the amazing drink that tasted like a strawberry milkshake.
What a beautiful surprise. A dinner filled with wonderful company and delicious food. I would never have thought the day could have ended so beautifully. I knew this was God’s little surprise for us. A gift that He gave us because He knew we had struggled through the day but had given it to Him.
This was a terrific, definitely not horrible, excellent, very good night.
Sometimes we just have to remember the Lord is in control. I recently read a book that talked a little about trusting God and having faith in His plan. Today as I talked with Heather about how terrible, horrible, no good, and very bad our day seemed, I decided to just trust God’s plan. The day happened the way it did for a purpose. And even though someone broke into our house, even though we can’t go to Zanzibar, and even though our moto ran out of gas; God is still good, and the best part is He still has a plan.
Sorry, I know this was a long one, but I get so inspired by my team and their heart that I just wanted you to see a few of their blogs from this month.
So Juliette led us to our ministry for the month.
And if Becca and Leanna would hurry and post theirs I'll add them too.
We head to Malawi on Saturday for our last month.
I love you all!
