Category: Life in Tanzania Page 1 of 3

When the Story Doesn’t Have a Happy Ending

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On June 9, 2022

In Life in Tanzania, Thoughts on Missions

We’d been on the mission field only six months, and we were already experiencing every missionary’s dream story: a Muslim convert. We participated in his baptism, guided his discipleship, and supported him through persecution. We had so much to write home about.

It all started when Gil and I—both just 24 years old—moved to a large city in Tanzania in 2001. We lived in the heart of the Indian section of the city, serving a subgroup from Southeast Asia who had flourished there for generations. We lived in a tiny, 600-square-foot, concrete block house, and all day long we could hear ripe fruit from our giant mango tree slam onto our tin roof. 

Right outside the gate of our compound, a dusty road hosted small fruit stands, a butcher shop, and taxis that bumped through the potholes. Just down the street, a Muslim school educated hundreds of young Indian boys. Soon after we arrived, the school asked Gil to coach volleyball, and that’s how we first met the young man I’ll call Abbas. 

Abbas was 19—only a few years younger than we were. We joined an Indian church plant, and when Gil started inviting the boys on his volleyball team to the youth group, Abbas jumped right in. Gil and Abbas quickly became fast friends. It wasn’t long until Abbas spent nearly every afternoon at our little house—playing chess or volleyball and arguing with Gil over soccer teams.

Abbas got used to my American cooking and developed a special affinity for cheese. I can still remember him imploring me daily, “Hey, Amy, do you have any cheeeeese?” He’d also scold me for throwing away the chicken neck because “that was the best part.”

He had eyes that danced and an infectious smile. During the regular greeting time at church, he’d make us all laugh by personally greeting every person in the room. He was smart, he was a jokester, and he was hungry to know about Jesus.

Abbas began meeting with Gil twice a week to study the Bible. We didn’t want to pressure him, so we let him set the time and determine the length of study. “How many weeks do you want to meet?” Gil asked. “Until I understand,” was Abbas’s reply.

Read the rest here in the Christianity Today Globe Issue.

We’d absorbed the unwritten rule in missions: Failure is unacceptable. I’d grown up immersed in missions culture, yet I couldn’t remember a single time that a missionary story, presentation, or newsletter ever included failure.

Drinking From the Jug of Suffering: The Steadfast Faith of Sheshi Kaniki

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On November 2, 2021

In Eternity, Life in Tanzania

Sheshi Kaniki loved to dance. Anyone visiting God’s Tribe Church in Tanzania witnessed this pastor engaging in delighted exultation, full-body worship. Always in the front row, next to his wife Trudie, Sheshi danced in praise — that same joy then radiating through his preaching.

After a brain cancer diagnosis in May 2020, Sheshi soon lost the strength to dance. Despite this devastation, his story of personal sacrifice and submission to God’s sovereignty in suffering has challenged the church in Tanzania — and beyond. 

Sheshi was born in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, but his father’s job as a professor provided him an international life. He was one of those kids who gave his parents a run for their money, pushing boundaries, the life of any party. 

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My Authentic Self Does Not Like Ticks

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On July 14, 2021

In American Worldview, Life in Tanzania

Last week I told my cousin about our year in Tanzania infamously called the War of the Ticks. It was so nightmarish that every day I pulled 25 of them off my tiny dog and I stopped even trying with our big dog and they had infested my kitchen and we rarely let the dogs in the house anymore but the ticks kept crawling in under the door anyway. 

We paid the children money for the number of ticks they killed and so there were always cups of water sitting around with dead ticks drowned in them by my children. Drowning did not always work though, because ticks would go through the washing machine cycle and come out alive. I became an expert at beheading them with a fingernail. Sometimes the engorged ones would fall off the dogs and burst open which meant the live ticks would crawl through the dog blood and leave their tiny tracks on the floor.

When I found ticks in my daughter’s bed, we contemplated putting the dogs down. We had tried every tick prevention we could find, and until a friend of a friend sent us magical tick pills which killed them all in 24 hours, that year felt like some sort of creepy tick hell. 

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All I Knew Was That I Didn’t Want to be Michael Scott

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On July 7, 2019

In Life in Tanzania

I’m so used to processing my thinking in this space. These past two years, It has been odd for me to do a job for 45+ hours a week and yet write so little about it. And now that I’m in America (did you know that? I’m in
America for the summer–surprise!), people ask me, “So how is it being
principal?” And I open my mouth and I smile and nothing comes out. How do I even start? How do I begin to describe an experience that I haven’t really processed yet?

I think I watched way too much of The Office before I became an administrator. Michael Scott gave me the impression that bosses just prowled around all day, looking over people’s shoulders and distracting
them from doing their jobs. I knew I didn’t want to be him, but I wasn’t
exactly sure what a good boss did do. 

I had spent almost 20 years involved in education, so I had worked for principals before, of course, but I really hadn’t the foggiest idea of what a day in the life of a principal actually looked like. How would I figure out what I was supposed to do all day? It’s probably a good thing I didn’t admit this two years ago. You might have wondered why on earth I was qualified for the job. I actually wondered that myself, honestly. I just blindly trusted the people around me who assured me that they knew I could do it.

It took me approximately five minutes to realize that I didn’t
need to worry about figuring out what I was supposed to do. It’s like a
game of Whack-a-Mole. The first mole popped up, and as soon as I whacked it, five more took it’s place. And from that first day, I just kept whacking moles for the next two years. They just never stopped popping up. If this had been Chuck E. Cheese’s, I definitely would have earned 20 bazillion prize tickets. (Don’t worry; no children are actually whacked.)

So. Other than being really busy, how is it being principal?

I love it. Yes, I love it. I say that with no hesitation. This is a school that Gil and I helped to build, how could I not love it? I get to be a part of the 100+ staff from all over the world that make up Haven of Peace Academy. I supervise about twenty of them and work alongside the rest. The level of love and trust we have for each other, despite occasional conflicts, is extraordinary. We are not just a work place, we are a community.

I love these kids. Oh my gosh, I love these kids. Some of them crack me up. They come up to talk to me and I start laughing before they even
speak, because I know it will be hilarious. Lots of them make me
cry. There’s the ones who are struggling to read but then win every race
on Sports Day. The ones who are struggling to speak English but create
masterpieces in art class. And the ones who are very familiar with my office. I think those ones hold the deepest places in my heart.

I read and commented on 150 report cards during the last week of
school. It made my head spin and drove my stress up to an unhealthy level but I felt like a proud parent. So much progress evidenced on those ordinary pieces of paper. Evidence of teachers who poured their very souls into
children–countless hours of energy and love. Evidence of children who read and calculated and imagined for 180 days, who allowed their minds to be expanded and their responsibility to be stretched. I’m so proud of
my school. 

That’s the easy part to talk about. Yes, I love it. But this job, these past two years, have been so much more complex than that. I love it, and it is intense. That intensity is the part that I haven’t really processed, nor can I really write about in detail. Teachers struggling through anxiety or depression. Kids with learning disabilities that we don’t know how to handle,
nor are there better options available in Tanzania. Kids coming to school with emotional needs that we can’t meet but suck us dry. Countless parents desperate to get their kids into our school, and I have to break their hearts.

And the recruiting: Not enough teachers. Never enough teachers. A teacher who says yes and then has to back out due to medical concerns. Will God provide? He always does. Somehow. But still I am anxious. It all is a weight I fight to cast off my shoulders and onto His.

And then there’s me: Will I be enough? Can I be enough? Every time
I think I’m ahead, another five moles pop up. I’m a task-driven person, and
this is a job full of tasks, but I worry, constantly, that I’m choosing tasks
over people. In working with teachers/parents/students, I straddle the line between grace and policy, forgiveness and law. Am I getting it right? I second guess myself often. Did I say the right thing in that email? Did I handle that discipline situation correctly? Well, no time to ponder that, because I’m off onto the next thing. Make me enough, I pray. But I won’t ever be. It’s only God who is enough. So let the stress go, Amy.

Two years down. Have I succeeded? Well, at least I know I’m not
Michael Scott. At least there’s that. And that’s something, right?

My core Primary (Elementary) teachers this year. We’ve been through thick and thin, we seven. I am so grateful for them.
HOPAC Primary Team
My “other” team….the office staff: Principals, operations, procurement, finance, counseling and other admin
Our brand new beautiful Performing Arts Centre
This is why I love Primary: First grade teacher asked her students to copy down their favorite Bible verse….and this is what one of them gave her. Now I just made your day, didn’t I? You’re welcome.
My heart.

Magic Charms and Contingency Plans

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On September 16, 2017

In African Worldview, American Worldview, Life in Tanzania


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.

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