I wake up every morning, roll out from under my mosquito net in our little cement house, and walk outside to absolute pure natural beauty. I walk around and I see mountains upon mountains upon banana trees and wildflowers of every color.
Tanzania is without a doubt one of the most gorgeous places I have ever been.
And underneath it all are some of the hardest things I have ever faced.
From the moment we stepped off the bus into this country, I could feel a weight over myself – a heavy one that has not gone away in any of the weeks that we’ve been living here. Tanzania is a tough mix of the most beautiful and most spiritually dark place I have ever set my feet on.
There is a darkness here, a darkness that I can feel, and it tears at my heart every single day. As I spend this time walking through villages and streets filled with witchdoctors, and conflicting religions, and a lingering feeling of darkness and godlessness and brokenness, it saddens me this is the only world that most of these people know. They live amidst this unseen tension. Although the beauty may hide it at a first glance, this is a dark place. This is the condition of this country, and it is sad.
I walk outside at night to brush my teeth and the feeling of darkness exceeds the mere fact that the sun went down. I wake up exhausted after ten hours of sleep because there is such spirit of tiredness and confusion and distraction and disorder here. I lie awake and listen to the eerie sounds that fill the nearby town. The feeling I often have being in this place is not something that I can easily explain or give justice to, but it is physical and tangible feeling in my body and my spirit.
Even though living here has been an emotionally and spiritually and physically stressful experience, it is also the place where my eyes have been the most opened. I have witnessed firsthand what the essence of spiritual warfare looks like.
Missions is not always cake and ice cream and holding hands with cute little kids. Evangelism is not always about walking around and telling happy people about a happy message that will merely make their lives happier. No, this hard. This is breaking chains and dealing with bondage and casting out things that choke.
It seems so far from it sometimes, but it is no doubt that God has blessed this land. I look around the villages and farmlands where crops grow and the rain falls and the rivers run full and kids burst with laughter. God loves Tanzania. I love Tanzania. And although this is a hard place to be, I am thankful for every minute that we have spent here. Every house that we prayed over and every person we confronted and every night that I went to bed a little scared was not in vain. There is no instant gratification here, and I may never see the fruit of the seeds we have planted or the ministry that we have done here.
But I am confident of this
I will see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.
Psalm 27:13
I may not see it fully by the end of the four weeks of our living here.
Firsthand, I may never.
But I am thankful for this promise. And I am thankful that He who started good work here will carry it to completion. I am grateful that when we leave here next week, that the Spirit of the Lord does not. I am grateful that the believers who do live here who we have worked with are some of the strongest and most committed ones that I have ever met. I am thankful that the people here are wise and aware, and I am thankful for the fact that they are so committed to prayer. They are living fully alive despite the darkness. They are the living. And I am thankful that I can be confident that Tanzania is seeing the goodness of God, and that though there is a battle, this is becoming the land of the living.
