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

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. 

At 23, Sheshi found himself in crisis mode. He was working on his Master’s Degree in Zimbabwe; he had recently become a father and felt overwhelmed by life. Someone slipped a gospel tract under his dormitory door, and Sheshi was challenged by its questions. He connected to a Christian group, and immediately his life began to change. “Up until that time, I was living for myself,” Sheshi recalled. “An opportunity to live for Christ was very compelling.”

He befriended Trudie, a Zimbabwean, around the same time. She had already been a Christian for six years, but remembers, “By the time we were married a year and a half later, I felt like we were at the same place spiritually. He had accelerated in his faith so quickly.”

A few years later, the Kanikis jumped at the chance to help plant a church in Johannesburg, South Africa. On the day Sheshi was ordained as an elder, several people spoke prophetically: “This is just a training ground. You will go to the nations.” The Kanikis were confused — they had just arrived in South Africa. Where else could they be going?

But God began drawing Sheshi’s heart to his homeland, Tanzania. Twice during trips to East Africa, Sheshi experienced a strong call to plant a church in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s largest city. Both times, Trudie struggled to consider moving. 

For eight years, Sheshi waited. In 2011, God convicted Trudie: “Who do you obey?” She wept in repentance. Trudie confessed, “All those years, I was disobeying.” Immediately, she told Sheshi that they needed to move to Dar es Salaam.

They both knew the sacrifices would be significant. Johannesburg stands out as one of the best-resourced cities in Africa, and Sheshi had a PhD in Economics and an upwardly mobile job. Their eldest son has special needs, and moving to Dar es Salaam meant he would no longer attend a specialized school. A close friend, Rufaro Chitsike explains, “Sheshi and Trudie had a glittering life ahead of them, and they chose to lay all of that down. What was to their gain, they considered loss for the sake of Christ.”

In September 2013, God’s Tribe Church in Dar es Salaam was born. Eight years later, the church is thriving. 

Half of Tanzania’s population identifies as Christian. Churches intertwine with the busy roads, colorful open-air markets, and maniacal buses in this tropical mega-city. So what makes God’s Tribe stand out? 

In a city where many are drawn to pastors who emphasize miracles and spectacles, Sheshi was unique. He didn’t prioritize a building: God’s Tribe started at a fitness center, then moved to a movie theater, before finally landing at a school auditorium. Like much of the world, Tanzanian culture is hierarchical, and being a pastor can put you on a pedestal. Sheshi intentionally pushed back on this mindset. He once said, “If you are serving, you are not on your way to greatness — you have achieved greatness.” Arthur Kyara, one of God’s Tribe’s elders, related how Sheshi always arrived early on Sundays to help set up chairs, and brought an extra shirt to change into before the service. He expected to get sweaty, refusing to put himself above menial labor.

From the beginning, Sheshi ensured that God’s Tribe was not about him. He honed in on potential leaders and invited them into discipleship. He pursued so many one-on-one relationships that church members were stunned to realize they weren’t the only ones. Sarah Majengo, women’s ministry leader, marveled, “I don’t know where he found the time.”  

Sheshi built grace into the DNA of God’s Tribe. He knew what he had been saved from, and he had endless patience with the sins and failings of others. Sode Matiku, another elder, stated, “He showed us that even in our brokenness we can dare to stand in the presence of God.” Gentleness and humility characterized him, but when it came to preaching the Word of God, he spoke with authority and conviction. 

Sheshi was not content with church bystanders. He routinely urged his congregation to share the gospel, to serve the city, and to live as a transformed community. Amongst the body of 150 believers, numerous ministries have sprouted: outreach to prostitutes and prisoners, marriage seminars, and Sunday school for scores of children from a nearby neighborhood.

The first rumblings that something was wrong started in January 2020, when Trudie heard Sheshi say something strange in a sermon that was ”just not like him.” The following Sunday, it happened again. Within a few weeks, he began to struggle emotionally and thought he was burned out. Starting in February, he took a sabbatical from ministry. 

One day in May, Sheshi unexpectedly collapsed. And then, the unthinkable diagnosis: glioblastoma — terminal brain cancer. He was 45 years old, and the youngest of his four children was 12. 

The specialized surgery he urgently needed was not available in Tanzania. Thus ensued a race not just against time, but against COVID border shutdowns and cancelled commercial flights. Friends around the world rallied to raise money for an evacuation flight. Miraculously, a week later, Sheshi landed in Kenya. The surgery helped, and his health improved. Chemo held back the cancer for another year. But by the end of August 2021, the tumor was still growing, and doctors gave up hope. 

“We have drunk the cup of suffering before,” Trudie sighed, then added, “But this one is the jug of suffering.”

Is God obligated to heal those who demonstrate enough faith? In Tanzania, like everywhere in the world, Christians wrestle with this question. Against this backdrop, Sheshi and Trudie lived out their faith in suffering.

In early September, Sheshi shared how he dealt with this tension. The cancer had slowed down his speech, and he spoke carefully but steadily. “I have felt that there is this expectation that I am going to be healed. But healing can come in different ways. God may not choose to heal me here.”  

Long before Sheshi’s diagnosis, he had already prepared God’s Tribe with a biblical view of suffering. But that doesn’t mean Sheshi’s story isn’t challenging the theology of others in the city. Trudie shared, “Some are going to have to come face to face that God is in this somehow, even though it’s difficult. I call it the mystery of suffering. We cannot fully comprehend it. That’s why He is God, and we are His people.” 

As the cancer continued to ebb away his energy, Sheshi refused to stop investing in others. Friends would stop by to pray for him, but he would insist on praying for them as well. Arthur, the God’s Tribe elder, noted, “In the pain, Sheshi was not offended at God, but still wanted to use the gifts God has given him. [He taught me] that it’s not my circumstances that determine how I act towards God, but the truth of what I believe.”

But that doesn’t take away the agony, and many who loved Sheshi wrestle with God. Trudie contemplated, “This is taking the church to God. We have nowhere else to go, nothing else to hold onto.” Sheshi’s defining purpose in life was to “preach the Word.” Perhaps, through the mystery of suffering, God’s Word is speaking louder than even Sheshi could have imagined. 

During the 17 months after his diagnosis, Sheshi continued to preach every few weeks. He sat while preaching, fatigue lingering in his eyes. Yet as his strength was stripped, his conviction remained anchored. During the September 19 service, he told Trudie he wanted to pray after the singing. But the service moved faster than he could process, and he missed the chance to go up. Trudie reassured him: “After the next set of songs, I’ll bring the mic to you.” 

Sheshi prayed for several minutes. Trudie opened her eyes, surprised: recently, he hadn’t been able to speak that long. Sheshi prayed, “Lord we trust You; Lord we look to You; Lord our hope is in You. Lord, our desire is to follow You and You alone. Make us a people of your Word, a people who love your Word more than anything.”

It was the last public prayer he would pray for God’s Tribe. Sheshi went home to His Savior on October 3, 2021. 

On Sunday, October 10, the day after his funeral, Trudie fulfilled Sheshi’s last request: to read a letter he wrote to God’s Tribe. With her teenage son’s arm around her, and only a slight quaver in her voice, Trudie read with conviction, “I want to charge you, God’s Tribe, that my going home is cause for the gospel to advance. You are living in the reality that this life on earth is short. How will you live your life in light of the gospel?”

While living in Tanzania in early 2020, I heard Sheshi teach, “Nothing you experience will ever compare to what you have been saved from.” I wrote it on a sticky note and stuck it on my desk, reminding myself of its truth as the pandemic brought upheaval to my life. When Sheshi said those words, no one knew that the tumor was already growing. Yet even in the face of the worst possible news, Sheshi and Trudie stood steadfastly fixed on the sovereignty and goodness of God.

When I talked to her recently, Trudie chuckled as she recounted a frequent, lighthearted debate with Sheshi in their pre-cancer days. Trudie loves to sing, so she would ask Sheshi to reduce the preaching time so that they could add more worship songs. “Not on my watch!” he would say. 

Trudie would retort, “Oh well, I will worship God all I want in heaven.” 

Sheshi would counter, “All the more reason for us to preach the Word, so more people go to heaven to worship God!”

None of us know the number of our days, but I eagerly anticipate the Day when I get to meet all those who are in heaven because of Sheshi and Trudie Kaniki. Trudie will be singing her heart out, and Sheshi will be right next to her, dancing. 

A GoFundMe campaign has been set up for Trudie and the kids.