July 14th began like any other day… I awoke to the noises of our contact Martin shouting outside our window in Swahili… I wasn’t particularly joyful to be awake at 7:30 in the morning, but what do you expect?! I stumbled out of bed slowly, and struggled to make my thoughts come together, I grabbed my book and bible and plopped myself on the couch in the living room. I prepared myself for the day nearing my presence. As the time passed one by one my teammates staggered into the room. At this point I can’t particularly say that I expected the events that would unfold that day, but I went willingly as it came.
Recalling back there wasn’t very much that happened that was out of character for our ministry in Tanzania except 
maybe one or two things. One being that my teammate Jessi wasn’t feeling good, and two she wouldn’t be joining us for door to door evangelism that day. So before leaving we prayed for healing, and as the team prepared to leave Jessi grabbed my arm and asked me to pray over her room… I of course replied with an immediate yes!! I walked into her room knowing that all power and authority were mine in Jesus name. I prayed a pretty simple prayer stating that no evil was allowed to enter the room and that the windows and doors were sealed from evil in Jesus name. And that was that.
Door to door was powerful that day… It’s crazy how God’s so faithful to be your strength when your weak. I went into ministry lacking joy and energy but WOW God really came through. You see for some time now many have told me I have the gift of healing but I have lacked the boldness and faith to go out on a limb and ask God for His help… which He so willingly gives us! That day I got to pray for a woman named Asalma… Asalma was suffering from partial paralyzation in one of her feet and it sometimes caused her pain. By God’s grace I got to ask for her healing in Jesus name… seconds later she was dancing on her feet and saying that her pains were leaving!! How cool!! I then got to lead her in the sinners prayer and she proceeded by asking Jesus into her heart!!!! I remember thinking YES I finally have something blog worthy to write about!! Little did I know the events that were going to occur later that evening.
The rest of the day didn’t surprise me in all its normalcy: lunch, church, bananagrams, and a little P90x. However, the moments to follow are ones that will remain painted in my mind forever.
Everything about the night seemed ordinary minus the silence that had fallen over our little slum village. Around 8:00 that night a very unlikely event occurred. As I was about to sit down for dinner there was a VERY loud large bang at the door… I didn’t think anything of it at first, so I continued what I was doing, then all of the sudden I heard another extremely loud bang, by this time I had realized that this wasn’t the simple knock of someone selling girl scout cookies. But someone who had a very different agenda!! I think by the second or third knock Jessi had yelled THEY’RE BREAKING IN!!!! I watched panic wash over my contacts faces, they took off scrambling for a place to hide. I remember thinking this is it… they’re coming in and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. This is it, I might not come out of this…. I ran to the front door looking for some escape from the oncoming predators, finding the door was locked I looked for an alternative place to hide….I ran to my room and dove behind my bed where I tried desperately to find comfort under it!!! I covered my eyes with my head to the floor, praying the men would disappear and that Jesus would protect us. I was shaking so bad at this point, fearing they had come for our lives, as the days before we had preached the gospel to many Muslims in our village. There was so much banging going on in the rooms around us… I could hear the threats upon my teammates “money or I’ll kill you.” I held on to who I thought was Jessi so tightly while the robbery was happening but when a man tapped me and asked for my watch I noticed that the figure I was grabbing onto was one of my contacts… I hadn’t even noticed it was him. I then also realized that Jillian was huddled up with us to, I grabbed her wrist, trying to hold on to some kind of comfort. After a couple of minutes of ravaging the house. they left. I later found out from my teammates that there was about 15-20 men in on the crime and that they had come in with a shotgun and many other clubs and beat sticks. Upon entering the living room I found my friends, I was beyond ecstatic they were safe, no one was hurt!!! PRAISE GOD!!!
My eyes searched Jillian and I’s room… clothes, journals, change… was strewn everywhere across the floor. I 
searched for my belongings… my big pack gone, my tent gone, sleeping bag gone, my laptop, clothes, small book bag, my phone, it was all gone. But at this point none of that stuff mattered, that could all be replaced!!! We were all safe, and that was all that mattered!!! God is and was so good he protected us and kept each of us safe from harm!!!
The robbers had dumped out my purse all over the floor and because of this they failed to notice my ipod, and left my passport lying on the floor for me to find. I was so grateful. Had they simply decided to take my purse I would’ve lost both of those things. Next my eyes scanned to a table where they had knocked everything to the floor, and I then noticed another thing that was strange… there sitting perfectly in the same place was my camera!!! Right in plain view… they had knocked everything off of the table and gone to all the trouble to leave my camera sitting right in its same spot!!! I lost almost all of my travel stuff but I still had my ipod, passport, and camera… I know it might not seem like much but to me at this time I praised God.
One of the craziest God things in the event was the fact that the robbers were unable to enter Jessi and Jenae’s room so for the most part they didn’t have the bulk of their stuff taken… but the sweetest thing about this situation is… if you recall earlier that day we had prayed that no evil could enter the room in Jesus name… and the robbers weren’t able to get in!!! Gosh what a cool miracle!!
The moments after the robbery each of us lifted our praises and thanks to God we were ok… we may have lost a good majority of our stuff but God had protected us and was with us the whole time... Praise God!!!
