Category: How Africans Think Page 1 of 2

The Executive Order That Makes My Blood Run Cold

Of all the startling executive orders announced in the last few months, why does halting the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act scare me the most?

This is why.

It was a Sunday morning in Tanzania, we were on our way to church, and we needed gas. We pulled our rickety white van into the nearest station (which were always full-service) while Gil and I fished around for cash (which was always the only payment option).

Gil only had 50,000 shillings, which he passed to the gas station attendant. As the attendant filled the tank, I triumphantly rustled up another 30,000 shillings from the depths of my purse. “Aha! We can top up now!” I declared. 

I rolled down my window. “Please add another 30,000,” I called in Swahili to the attendant.

Oddly, instead of adding extra gas to our tank, the gas station attendant pulled a large wad of receipts from his pocket. He sifted through them and handed me an old, wrinkled receipt for 80,000 shillings. 

I sat there for a moment, totally flummoxed, until it dawned on me. The attendant had misunderstood me. He didn’t realize I was asking for 30,000 shillings of extra gas; he thought I wanted a receipt for 30,000 shillings more than we had paid. 

Why would the gas station attendant make that assumption and then nonchalantly comply? Because people in Dar es Salaam who are wealthy enough to own cars often hire drivers. The drivers run their errands and, of course, fill the car up with gas. And if a driver can produce an inflated receipt to his employer, he gets some extra cash on the side.  

So when customers left their receipts behind, the gas station attendants collected them, ready to dutifully pass them on to pilfering drivers. If I had wanted a false receipt, all I needed to do was ask. Embezzlement was that easy.

Those Wordless Bracelets Might Not Be Saying What You Think They’re Saying

Much to my astonishment, this article has received over 11,000 views on A Life Overseas. If you would like to share it, please use the original link.

You’ve got plans to hold a VBS this summer in a cross-cultural or overseas context, and you’re feeling the challenges: How do you communicate effectively with kids who don’t speak English? How do you come up with activities that you can fit into a suitcase? Maybe you’ve got a limited budget or time constraints. Yet you have a sincere desire for your team to share Jesus during your trip. 

So maybe you are considering the classic go-to activity for sharing the gospel with kids from a different culture or language: the simple wordless bracelet.

You can order 12 kits for $5.99. They’re fun, they’re cute, and kids love them. Plus, the children now have a tangible reminder of the gospel, right there on their wrists, no language skills required. Perfect.

Maybe not so perfect. Sometimes cross-cultural communication is a lot more complicated than just a language barrier. This classic VBS activity might not be communicating what you think. 

Before you put wordless bracelets into your cross-cultural VBS curriculum, take a moment to consider the following thoughts.

  1. Many cultures in Asia, Africa, and South America have strong beliefs in the spirit world. In order to protect their children against evil spirits, they will often tie an amulet around their wrists. This will be a cloth, twine, or leather cord and may include a few beads. 

    So when a group of religious foreigners arrive in their country and put on a children’s program and start tying bracelets around the kids’ wrists that have spiritual meaning…..

    Unfortunately, you may have just given those kids a new amulet. 
  1. Languages divide up colors differently. For example, in English, we have a word for red and a word for pink (not light red!). But we say light blue and dark blue. Other languages might use the same word for blue/green or red/orange. And when a person doesn’t have a word for different colors, he might not see them as different. This is fascinating stuff – and something we need to be aware of.
  2. Other cultures assign different meanings to colors than we do. We may see green as representing growth. But in Indonesia, it’s associated with exorcism. In China, it can be associated with infidelity, and in South America it’s connected with death. White is correlated with purity in Western cultures, but in some Asian cultures, it’s a symbol of death. The children in your host culture may not understand the gospel story the way you intend to tell it if they are not making the same color associations. 
  3. Contemplate for a moment the implications of a missions team with lighter skin visiting a group of people with darker skin and telling them that black means sin and white means holiness.  
  4. The gospel presentation that goes along with wordless bracelets is grounded in a guilt/innocence paradigm, which may not be the best way for the message to make sense to the people you are trying to reach. If you are unfamiliar with what I am talking about here, check out this excellent 7 minute video on guilt/innocence, honor/shame, and fear/power worldviews. 

I realize that this list might make you feel a little uncertain about not just wordless bracelets but your entire VBS program. Because if something as simple as a colorful craft might be communicating something different than what you intended, then what does that mean about all of your other activities? So if you are feeling that tension, great! That’s a good place to be. That’s where learning and growth start.

So what should you do?

Start with some research. In the time you have available, your team needs to learn all they can about the history, customs, worldviews, and religion of the people you will be visiting. Hofstede Insights is a great resource for this. Remember–don’t assume that what works in your own country will automatically translate to another culture. 

Most importantly, before you set any plans in stone, run your entire program–teaching, activities, games, songs–past your missionary or local contact. Make it very clear that you want feedback and are open to change. Even better—if there is any way that a local person can do the teaching instead of someone on your team, make that happen! The best way for you to impact a community is to train others to do the program alongside you and then later—without you. 

For more reading about short-term missions, check out these links:

Have you considered how Your Short-Term Trip Should Be About You (And That’s Not a Bad Thing)? Perhaps what God wants to do in you during this trip is more important than the service project you are taking overseas. 

This one has a similar idea: 3 Quick Ways to Improve a Short-Term Missions Trip. How can you reframe your trip for maximum impact in your life and the team’s recipients? 

Also, Sarita Hartz’s What to Do About Short-Term Missions provides a comprehensive list of ways to prevent your team from causing more harm than help overseas. And Short-Term Missions: Is the Price Tag Worth It? offers some thought-provoking insights on ensuring we are stewarding our resources well. 

If you are an overseas worker who is hosting a team this year, then this one is for you: How to Host the Best-Ever Short-Term Team

Also, this excellent video series Helping Without Hurting in Short-Term Missions by the Chalmers Institute is extremely valuable for any church or organization that wants to prioritize short-term missions. 

Luxury Cars or Walking Dusty Roads

He doesn’t have money for bus fare, so he walks miles every week to Tanzanian public schools to share the Story of God with teenagers.

This man is my friend. He went through our Bible School program. He is a wonderful husband and father, a faithful Christian committed to Scripture. He is an English speaker and savvy businessman with many skills, but finding regular sources of income in Tanzania can be challenging. 

Yet his heart is for ministry. In Tanzania, public schools welcome outside teachers to cover religion classes. There is no pay involved, just a strategic opportunity for God’s servants to teach hundreds of kids about the Word of God. 

This friend built a team to take the gospel to these schools. But he doesn’t own a vehicle and has no money for bus fare (about 25 cents a day) because any money he earns from side businesses goes towards feeding his family and sending his kids to school (which is never free). So he walks. Every week. He walks miles and miles to get to these schools. 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, I watch a commercial for a luxury vehicle: A perfect man with a perfect suit drives on a perfectly smooth road in his perfect car, and the voice-over lauds the heated seats, 14-inch media screen, aromatherapy, and champagne holder.

Two men, living under the same sun. One with very little in his life to make him comfortable, yet prizing the kingdom of God. The other – epitomizing comfort. 

Magic Charms and Contingency Plans


A few nights ago, Mama F came to me terrorized, begging and screaming for a certain plant in our backyard. 

I’ve lived in Tanzania for almost 14 years now, but there are still stories that blow me away.

I have a good friend, Allison (name changed), who has lived here as long as Gil and I have.  I don’t get to see her often, as she and her husband live several hours away in a remote village in Tanzania.  We may be living in the same country, but her life is very different from mine.  While visiting us this week, Allison told me this incredible story.

For a long time now, Allison had been sharing the gospel with Mama F, one of her neighbors.  And just a couple weeks ago, Mama F declared faith in Christ and started attending a Bible study led by Allison and her team.  They all praised God for this, not knowing that the story was just beginning….

This is how Allison tells it:

“A few nights ago, Mama F came to me terrorized, begging and screaming for a certain plant in our backyard.  Of course, I let her in to grab the unknown plant she named.  I soon saw that something had taken hold of her precious four-year-old daughter.  She was writhing and gurgling, clenched in her mother’s arms, and foaming at the mouth.  

Hearing Mama F’s cries, other neighbor women were coming to aid and we all followed as she ran back to her house while smearing my basil plant all over little F’s head.  The father had run for the witchdoctor to buy emergency witchcraft to ward off the attack.  Mama F
would not accept my westernized offer to take them to the hospital.  

We women entered into her home, trying to be of help in any way we
could.  One woman shook and rubbed a live chicken over little F — spraying who knows what all over her.  Another brought a pouch with herbs to burn and handfuls of a certain type of dirt to make a mud mixture to smear over her disrobed body.  Mama F frantically gulped a liquid from a cup and spewed it onto her daughter.  Then she placed knives under her armpits and behind her neck, wrapped F in banana leaves and tied a new black cloth charm around F’s wrist to join the others that fruitlessly encircled her body already. The ladies began to burn the weeds gathered so that smoke filled the room.  All the while, F was writhing and foaming, enveloped in darkness.

A long time ago, the Lord compelled me into these neighbors’ lives and now–as I walked that night with these women I love who were so fear stricken, so
desperate to save this child in the only ways they knew of– I prayed silently and out loud for His Light to shine in the living nightmare.  Then He enabled me to speak simple, childlike words in this dark chaos of fear and despair.  ‘God is able to help and heal F.  This witchcraft will not work.  May I pray for her in Jesus’ name?  May I hold her in my arms and pray for God’s healing?  I can ask for help from Almighty, Holy God because I believe Jesus shed his blood to pay for my sin so I am forgiven. Please let me pray for her.’

Miraculously they agreed!

But I knew there was more needing to be said.  ‘Mama F, because God is holy and only He deserves glory, you have to stop this witchcraft.  He wants you to see it is by His power and grace alone that F is healed. Please remove the
knives, the leaves…’

Miraculously they agreed and placed her in my arms!

I squatted down on the dirt floor, holding that precious, terrorized little
girl in my arms and I prayed.  As I prayed, I felt the conviction of the
Holy Spirit that this was not just a physical need for healing, but
spiritual.  So, in Jesus name, I prayed against the powers of darkness
over this little one. 
In Jesus’ name, I rebuked satan and told him to
leave.  In Jesus’ name, I entrusted F into God’s arms of healing and
protection.

And God heard and answered!  As I prayed, the convulsions and foaming and gurgling ceased and F laid peacefully in my arms.  I heard the women’s voices declare,  ‘Wow!  The prayer is working!  God Heals!  Jesus Heals!  God hears the prayers of Christians!  Let’s go find more Christians to pray for her!’  So we returned to my house where my teammates had been waiting and they too surrounded F with prayer and praise to God for her healing.  And with F still in my arms exhausted, but at peace, my teammates and I lingered with our neighbors in our front yard and on our front porch, praising God for His healing in word, prayer, and song.”

But the story is still not over. Allison sat in my kitchen Wednesday evening, telling me what had just happened the night before.

She continued: “Mama F had attended the ladies prayer group in our home again and gave praise to Jesus for his healing in her child.  Then a few days later F came to our home to play, wearing her charm necklace again.  

I spoke to her Mom that God does not share His glory with another and F does not need the charms for her health and protection when we cry out to the one true God through Jesus Christ.  She agreed, but the necklace charm remained.  I also shared that with believing in Jesus Christ as her Savior, she is now a daughter of the King and she herself can ask her Father God for anything in His Name!   There is no need to fear, nor appease the forces of darkness. But the necklace remained.  

Tuesday evening, the terrors came again to F.  Since we were here in Dar when the attack came on, little F’s family sought the help of our team (Tanzanian and American) who together prayed and read Scripture over her, but this time she was not responding and they agreed to take her to the clinic in the neighboring village.  

When I received word of this, I asked if she was still wearing any charms.  And she was still wearing her charm necklace.  My husband called Baba F and exhorted him to remove the charms as God will not share His glory with another.  Meanwhile the doctor was not able to help F and so they brought F to our local evangelist where they cut off her charm necklace and began to pray for her again.  She was immediately restored to normal!”

Glory be to God!

It is, indeed, truly a remarkable story–especially for those of us who assume that this kind of thing ended in the New Testament.  But it would be a shame for those of us from westernized cultures, who scoff at magic charms and witchdoctors, to think that God isn’t trying to teach us the same lessons that he was teaching little F’s family.

He wants the glory alone.  

And his glory is never evident in contingency plans.

I’ve thought about this constantly since I heard Allison’s story.  How often do I have a contingency plan?  How often do I say the words that God is faithful and God is good, but in the back of my mind, have my own little plan of what I’ll do if God doesn’t show up?

Sure, I say I believe in heaven and that it’s forever and that life here is only a shadow of what’s to come.  But really, I want to enjoy that shadow with as much comfort as I can muster and as much pleasure as I can hold onto–just in case heaven doesn’t come.

Sure, I know that God is the rightful king and sovereign over the universe.  But I’d also really like to be under a government that is just, safe, powerful, and holds to all of my values–and I’m distressed if I don’t get that.

Sure, I believe that God is the source of all peace and healing.  But my first instinct in times of pain or sickness or fear is to turn to doctors and medicine, not to prayer.

Sure, I believe that Scripture tells me that God will provide for all my needs.  But I want that savings account to be steady and that income to be regular, just in case.

I know there’s a balance here, because I need to be wise and prudent and God’s gifts to me include homes and medicine and savings accounts.  But where is the source of my trust?  Am I really trusting in God, or in my contingency plans?

And sometimes, God might just be waiting for us to cut off the magic charm.  Because He will not share His glory with another.

10 Myths About Africa Many Americans Believe

1.  Africa is a country.

Geography is a lost subject from where I come from, so let me just remind everyone that Africa is a continent.  A large continent, in fact, as you can see from the diagram below.

Source: Kai Krause, “The True Size of Africa”

Africa is also an incredibly diverse continent, made up of 54 countries. Those countries north of the Sahara tend to be more Arab, those south of the Sahara tend to be more “Bantu” (what you would traditionally picture as African), and those on the Horn (Ethiopia, Somalia, etc) tend to be a fascinating mixture.  But even then, I am being incredibly general, as there are thousands of African tribes and ethnicities that are as diverse as as a European would be from an Asian or South American.

I am going to debunk the following myths with what I have learned by living in Tanzania, since that is the country I am most familiar with.  However, keep in mind that I will be speaking broadly, and knowingly countering the stereotypes about Africa with more stereotypes (albeit, hopefully more accurate stereotypes).  In any culture or country, people live along a spectrum, and it’s important that we don’t ever lump an entire group (or continent) of people under any particular label.  My main goal is to use what I have learned in Tanzania to change the mental picture many Westerners have of Africa.

2.  Africans are all poor.

Yes, poverty is a huge problem in many African countries.  (Of the 25 poorest countries in the world, only 4 are not African.)  But that doesn’t mean there aren’t any middle-class or rich people.  Even though Tanzania is one of the poorest countries in the world, there are many rich people here.  Economic class distinctions are huge, and since the concept of equality is not valued the way it is in the West, rich people are usually treated better and with far more respect and privilege than poor people.

3.  Africa is not clean.

It’s true that public areas in Tanzania are often trash-filled and untended.  However, that says more about a lack of infrastructure than the character of your average Tanzanian.  Tanzanian homes, vehicles, and businesses tend to be very clean–much cleaner than what I have often seen in America.

4.   Africans do not have access to clothes or shoes.

Maybe that was true in the past.  Maybe it still is true in some war-torn countries.  But in Tanzania, it is absolutely not true.  Fabric is locally designed and printed and plentiful.  Hundreds of tons of cast-offs from American and European thrift stores are shipped over and sold in the local markets.  I buy most of our clothes here now.  There is no lack of clothing–and therefore, no need for you to send over your shoes or clothing.  If you are supporting an organization that needs clothes, send money instead and support the local economy.

5.  Africans dress in rags.

I have found that Tanzanians dress far more professionally and formally than those from my home state of “casual” California–and this is regardless of their economic status.  Women hardly ever wear shorts in public, and you rarely find a woman in the supermarket wearing the equivalent of yoga pants with unkempt hair.  Dry cleaners and salons are everywhere and people regularly have their clothes individually tailored.  Even those who work manual labor dress professionally for the bus ride and change into work clothes when they arrive at their job.  In social situations, I often feel under-dressed.

6.  Africans all live in villages.

Like most of the world, Tanzania is rapidly becoming urbanized.  We live in a fast-growing city of five million people, and it is predicted to reach 20 million in the next 30 years.

7.  Village life would be perfect if white people weren’t messing it up.

So I’m not going to get into the complicated mess of colonialism, but let’s just say that yes, I agree that white people have done a lot of messing up in Africa (to put it mildly).  But let’s not swing in the other direction and assume that village life was or is peaceful and idyllic.  Of course, beauty can be found anywhere, but female circumcision, child marriages, polygamy, alcoholism, albino murders, women who walk miles to find water, illiterate children, lack of basic health care and high infant and maternal death rates are not to be sugarcoated by some convoluted notion of the “noble savage.”

8.  All Africans are black.

If all Africans are black, then all Americans are Native American.  Colonialism happened on both continents.  However, European diseases managed to wipe out most Native American populations, and African diseases managed to wipe out most European settlers….and the rest is history.  South Africa probably has the most well-known white population, but I also have white African friends from Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Tanzania, whose families have lived here for generations.  There are also hundreds of thousands of Indian (Asian) families who have been East African citizens for over 100 years.

An Indian (Hindu) wedding ceremony in Tanzania.

9.  Poverty is Africa’s biggest problem.

Absolutely, poverty is a huge problem.  But I am convinced that worldview is a bigger problem, and specifically how that plays out in governmental corruption.  Which is why sending “aid” to Africa (in its many forms) is really just sticking band-aids on a cancerous tumor….and why the gospel offers real hope.

10.  Africa has been evangelized.

Northern Africa?  Definitely not.  Sub-Saharan Africa?  Partially.  There are still thousands of villages in Tanzania without a church.  There are still dozens of languages in Tanzania that don’t have a Bible translation.  However, it is true that Christianity has spread like wildfire throughout sub-Saharan Africa in recent decades.  Unfortunately, it’s often a version of the Prosperity Gospel.

Missions has most definitely changed in Africa in recent years.  Gone are the days of pith-helmet-clad white men tromping through the jungle to preach the gospel to remote villages.  In fact, there are far fewer white missionaries who are engaged in church planting and evangelism.  Instead, western missionaries are narrowing their focus to equipping and training Africans to do the job themselves.  I don’t have statistics, but I’m quite confident there are many more African missionaries in Africa than there are western missionaries.  And that’s how it should be.

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