What HE wants you to do

It is hard to believe that it has been over a month and a half since I last posted an update.  I am truly sorry… life here in Tanzania has been very busy.  A good busy.  A busy that I praise God for because busy here means that God has granted many opportunities to further His Kingdom!  I feel like I blinked and the month of April was gone!  So much has happened and is happening since my last update but I will try to be as thorough as possible without making this too excruciatingly long to read.

At the end of March we had the opportunity to travel to Zanzibar, an island off of the coast of Dar, for about a 5-day break.  This was very much needed and very much appreciated.  Since I had not been outside of Dar since my arrival in January (the others went to Uganda and Morogoro, TZ back in February), I was itching to have a break, do some exploring, and just relax.  This time away encompassed all of those desires!  We stayed in the historically famous, Stone Town and were able to do some exploring and tours, take a boat to a smaller island to snorkel, enjoy all of the foods and shopping that the island offers, and even have a little down time to be refreshed and restored by the Lord.  I really loved every second we had in Zanzibar.  There is such a middle-eastern influence there because of being previously controlled by Oman and because of the Arab slaved trade that took place there.  But there is also a mysterious charm about the island that I found to be very intriguing.  The people were different from the people in Dar… there was definitely an “island mentality” about them.  I have never heard “hakunna matata” (Swahili for “no worries” or “no problem”) so much since I last watched the Lion King.  That seemed to be everyone’s favorite phrase there.  I am very grateful for the time I was able to spend in Zanzibar for so many reasons but ashamedly I must admit that one of my favorite things about my time there was staying in a nice hotel that had air conditioner and consistent power and water. J   After 4 nights and 5 days there I was spoiled! 

 Jamie and me on the beach at sunset

 the famous Zanzibar doors

 Fordani's --outdoor local market that offers fresh and local Zanzibarian food

 Slave trade memorial 

 Chumbe Island

 Wishing I had Rob with me here :)

Baby Collin- my friend that I visited often during my time in Zanzibar

 Chumbe Island

Snorkeling in the coral reefs on Chumbe Island

At the end of March, two women that I have been pouring into trusted in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior!  This was obviously HUGE!  This was what I was brought here for!  To share the gospel and make disciples of the people God so graciously gives me relationships with here.  In that moment with those two women sitting on my couch in my apartment, every frustration, discouragement, annoyance, and struggle I have experienced here went out the window, and I was able to celebrate the adoption of two daughters into the family of God.  Tears of joy were streaming down my face so heavily that one of the women even asked, “why are you upset?”  I explained to her that I now do not have to dread saying goodbye to them in a couple of months but rather, I get to anticipate spending eternity with them in Heaven praising our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!  What an unexplainable feeling!  I am still so honored and humbled by the reality that God has allowed me to be a part of what He is doing in these women’s hearts but also in the hearts of many more people He has given me relationships with here.  What a privilege that I pray I will never take for granted! 

Mwajuma and Anna

The Saturday before Easter Sunday, we had the opportunity to visit Muhimbili Children’s Hospital in Dar.  We planned a little Easter party for the children and invited some of the University students that we minister to and share life with here, to come along with us.  This was hands down one of my favorite days I have had in Dar!  We took print outs of “He has risen” Jesus coloring sheets, crayons, snacks, juice, books and other goodies with us to celebrate our risen Savior’s life.   A couple of guitars were even brought and we had a time of singing, clapping and praising Jesus together!  To see the smiles on these children’s faces despite their cancerous conditions was one of the most touching moments that I know I will cherish and remember forever.  For those short hours, they were able to forget that they had tubes that fed through their noses that allowed them to actually “eat”, or a missing eye or limb, or had bandages that covered half of their face due to infection, or the reality that they may not live to celebrate another Easter….yet there was joy.  There was a deep joy that affected each one of us there in a way that we needed to be affected.  This was one of my more sobering times in Dar.  It reminded me of the passage in John 9 when Jesus healed a man that was born blind.

“As He passed by, He saw a blind man from birth.

And His disciples asked Him,

‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’

Jesus answered, ‘It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that

the works of God might be displayed in him.” 

John 9:1-3

That last statement explains it all.  As we were on our way home, Miriam (a good friend that God has given me here) asked me, “why would God allow those children to suffer in that way?”  It was so good to be able to confidently answer her with Jesus’ own words.  “So that the works of God might be displayed in them.”  You see, at any point God could so easily heal these children but for now He has chosen not to.  In His perfection, He has chosen to instead display His glory through them.  And boy did he do that for us on that Saturday!   

Sweet girl

 So proud of their Jesus worksheet they colored

 Children showing me the goodies we brought them

 Carol teaching some of the children

 LOVING their dolls Lindsey brought them

 Sweet baby being bathed by his Mama

Ah :)

Celebrating Easter here in Tanzania was such a sweet gift!  Not only is it my favorite holiday but I was able to celebrate our Savior’s life and resurrection with the people that God had specifically called me to and in the place that God has specifically brought me to.  Nate “brought the Word” at church that morning and then we had a huge Easter lunch/dinner celebration with all of the University students that we have built relationships with here.  We grilled out hamburgers and hotdogs and enjoyed potato salad, chips, baked beans, brownies and even a cookie cake that Jamie (my good friend and Journey-girl here) whipped up for us.  This too was one of my favorite times in Dar!  Ochu (my bajaji driver) and his precious wife and son even came!  We had such a sweet sweet time of enjoying food, fellowship, and laughter for hours together.  This Easter Sunday was so special to me… if I wasn’t going to be married to the love of my life and getting to share next Easter with him as husband and wife, I’d say that this year would be hard to top!

 Ochu, his wife and precious son on Easter Sunday at the Easter celebration

 Easter Sunday celebration

 Carol, Khamphat, Joyce and Keziah

 Delphine, Lydia and Sophie

Zoe and Lukkman

Not only have things been very busy here the past couple of months but God has also been teaching me so much about myself and my total depravity and Himself and His unconditional love.  Every day that He gives me here He teaches me more about my desperation to depend on Him for EVERYTHING.  Not surprisingly, this too I have had to learn the hard way at times and am continuing to learn daily.  But praise God that He is a gracious and merciful God, “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love”  (Numbers 14:18).  As most of you know, after spending a month here I would have told you that I was called here to minister to the children and female teachers of the primary school that the Lord opened the doors to so early on.  This no doubt has been and is part of my ministry here but the past month or so God has revealed to me how He would have me spend the rest of my time here.  This came as a big surprise because I thought I had it all figured out.  Something my very wise supervisor, Andy, asked me during his visit to Dar back in March was, “Webber, I know you know what you want to be doing here but have you ever asked God what HE wants you to do?”  This became a question that I have wrestled with ever since he left two months ago.  The Holy Spirit really began to speak to me through Andy’s words and direct my steps in where HE would have me invest in for my remaining time here.  This is where all of the University female students come in. 

Upon arriving to Dar back in January, I immediately jumped into an all-girls Bible Study that was led by the University girls themselves.  Jamie had been a part of it for a while and graciously invited me to join in.  At first I thought this would just be a once a week commitment but I would spend the majority of my time with the children and teachers.  God eventually corrected me and as I asked Him where He would have me serve in my last couple of months here, He so clearly showed me.  He was calling me to invest in these 10+ University girls.  To make disciples of them and to “teach them to observe all that God has commanded” (Matthew 28:20).   All of these girls are saved and have had some sort of background in Christianity.  The majority of them are from Uganda but are here in Dar for school and will most likely return to Uganda after graduating.  Because they were believers and they loved Jesus and were meeting to study His Word, I was under the impression that they didn’t need me and I should invest elsewhere.  What a false perception!  I think so often because we have come to Africa to be missionaries (or other parts of the world that have not necessarily been reached well with the gospel), we think that we should only seek out people that have never heard of Jesus.  This is where I feel like we have gone wrong.  Again, if we read the entire “Great Commission” and really obey it then we will be seeking to minister to and disciple EVERYONE that God decides to put in our path… saved or unsaved.  This is not just a tell people about Jesus and then your job is done there.  There is SO MUCH more to the rest of that command that Jesus gave us in Matthew.  We are to “teach them to observe all that He has commanded.”  So that is where I am now and that is what I have been striving to do and will continue to do until I leave in 4 weeks.  These girls love Jesus and want to obey Jesus but they have not necessarily been taught how to do that.  They are in dire need of a mentor or a teacher.  Someone to pour into and disciple them in the ways of God.  These girls are all intelligent, and fluent in English, and leaders on their campus and in their community.  God was so gracious to give me these girls to disciple and share life with.  They have so much potential to impact their campus, communities here, and even impact their villages back in Uganda when they return home for holidays and after graduation.  Here I was trying to do it all on my own all the while, God was pointing me to these girls and saying, “Here they are!  I have brought them to you!  Now teach them!  Invest in them!”  Oh, how we so often think we have it all figured out and we fail to even ask God what we should do or where we should be! 

            So the past month or so I have really been trying to connect with these girls on a deeper level, love them and teach them how to walk as disciples of Christ and then how to make disciples.  Right now we are in the middle of a relationship series in our Bible Study.  I was asked to teach on relationships with the opposite sex a couple of weeks ago.  It was not until then and meeting with these girls one on one did I see their desperate need and eagerness to be really taught what God calls us to as women in Christ.  This week I will be teaching on Biblical Womanhood.  As you all know, our world and culture has completely perverted this and we have left God and His Word.  If you think about it, please pray for my preparation, what I share with them, and for their hearts to be receptive to what God has to teach them through me.  There is so much to discuss on this subject and God has given me such a passion to share what He calls us to be as women – I just pray I will be a good steward of His Word as I teach from it.  Below are some pictures of some of the girls – most from a poetry recital that they put on.  Please lift them up as a group and individually (Khamphat, Carol, Keziah, Joy, Delphine, Lydia, Heaven, Angela, Brenda, Miriam, Jane).

 Carol and me at the Children's Hospital

 Carol and me at the Poetry Recital

 Cute girls getting ready to recite :)

 Khamphat -- the M.C.

 Keziah

Delphine

 Brenda

Joy 

Celebratory dinner for Miriam's Birthday

Thank you all for your continued encouragement, support and your commitment to pray for me and my time here.  God has been so faithful and I know He will continue to be as we strive to glorify Him by making disciples of all nations!  I love you and thank God for you.