Several months before I took my last trip to Tanzania, a wonderful lady from our church told me multiple times that she saw a woman in a white shall when she prayed for me. She was not sure what it meant but she saw it multiple times, and could not shake the feeling that it was something from God and important for me to look out for. Beings that this woman has spoken prophetically into my life before, and it came to pass, her words were worthy of consideration. However, I thought to myself, if God was going to bring a woman in a shawl to me, then I did not need to seek it out, but just let it happen.

Continued…

As the campaign was winding up, I was more than content to spend the last day of ministry attending baptisms with some of our other team members. As a partial introvert, I had had enough human interactions, and used enough of my words that I was quite comfortable, sitting back and watching people be baptized. God had other plans. Pastor Tim was with me on this trip, and he encouraged us all to go out and do random street evangelism in the city. After wrestling with my laziness, I concluded that that is what the Lord wanted me to do so I went. We did not have a specific destination, but the bus dropped us off in a busy area in downtown Dodoma. The group decided to stay in a small park area in the city and meet back at the bus after about an hour and a half. I started out ministering to a Muslim at the gate of the park who did not receive Jesus, but was open to praying about what I was saying. I spoke to another man who was a government worker, and wanted me to give him money. I did not offer him money at first, but I explained to him the true Gospel, and he seemed to genuinely place his faith in Jesus! As I walked into the park area, praying and thinking about who I would talk to, we passed a guy with no legs who was begging. My translator encourage me to move on, but I we were walking away I could not shake the feeling that I should’ve talked to him. I decided to go back and look for him, but he was not there. While I was waiting, Pastor Tim came up to me and pointed at a street sign with a name on it we could not believe. We were in downtown Dodoma Tanzania and the street corner that we were on was named “CDA”. In case you don’t know why that’s relevant to me, that is the abbreviation of the city I live in. Pastor Tim wanted to go out to the street corner and do ministry, so myself and my translator went out to the street and started ministering. When we came to the corner of the street we were even more surprised to see the cross street was named “Tembo” which was Tim’s nickname growing up! To think, of all the places in the world for us to be and we are on the corner of CDA and Tembo…God is amazing. After ministering out there for a little bit, I decided I wanted to go back into the park and look for that beggar who had no legs. I left my translator with Pastor Tim and paired up with Tim’s translator. We looked and saw that the legless man was already praying with one of our team members so I decided to have a conversation with a lady who was making homemade candleholders. She was already a believer, but we got to pray with her and give her a copy of the Bible, which she was grateful for! It was just about time to leave, and as we are finishing up with this lady, a young woman walked up to me and I looked at her and she had on a white shawl. I begin to speak with her and discovered she was a Muslim. I shared the simplicity of the true Gospel of Jesus with her, and she not only believed it, she confessed Jesus as the son of God (something a Muslim will not do), and received Him as her Lord and Savior! The more I spoke with her I concluded that this was the person the lady in my church had seen in her vision. I proceeded to tell this new believer, how God showed her to us before we saw her while tears streamed down my face. I asked her how she felt after we talked and she said “I have joy”. After we got her information and prayed with her we all left and got on the bus. I could not believe how amazing God is. The sovereignty of God and the free will of man working hand-in-hand came together for something that God ordained from the foundations of the world and prophesied months before it happened. This young lady returned home to her Muslim husband, who received a phone call from one of his friends that she was praying with us in the park. He asked her if she accepted Jesus and she said “yes!” He was furious, and going off the council of their parents, attempted to lock her in a room and beat her to death with a chain. By the grace of God, she was able to escape and flagged down a passing motorcyclist who took her to safety. She was pregnant at the time and the doctor that we sent to look after her said she was in bad shape and needed hospitalization. They weren’t sure she or her baby was going to make it. After a lot of prayer, both and her baby survived! She is now out of the hospital and living in a safe place, and a part of a church. Please keep her in your prayers as she will have many hardships in front of her as a single woman with children, and no one to provide for her. Through all of this, all she would’ve had to do is deny Jesus, but she refused. Her faith was tested and proven genuine!

(1 Peter 1:6-9).

*For her safety, I did not include a picture*