My 'Tanzania Story' about Divine Providence -How God ALWAYS Used to Provide for Me

originally TUESDAY, JUNE 15, 2010

My 'Tanzania Story' about God's Providence

So, for about two years Jesus has been speaking to me in prayer about ‘Tanzania,’ and especially the AIDS babies there. After a long series of events, two specific orphanages run by religious sisters were ‘pointed out to me’ and I’ve had them bookmarked on my computer for about two years. Each time ‘Tanzania’ comes back to my heart, I keep giving it back to Jesus, asking Him to really make clear His will and push me to do it if He so desires.

This past February Jesus strongly put this mission (along with sisters working with AIDS babies in Lesthoto or South Africa) back in my heart. I remember receiving something in prayer about ‘caring for My children in Africa’ and I assumed that Jesus simply wanted me to help them somehow. Because my life is given as a sacrifice for priests in a particular way, I decided that I had to do something more for not only ‘African orphans’ –but one who would also someday be a priest. I scrounged together the last money I could find (in my room and bank account) and spent it all on ‘sponsoring a child’ through Christian Foundation for Children and Aging –but I specifically asked for an African boy who was very young (and I asked Jesus to make sure it was someone who would be called to the priesthood someday.) I received little Edgar from Kenya –and fell in love immediately:

But after this all settled down, Jesus began pushing my heart even harder in the same direction as before: “No, I want you to GO to My children in Africa.” Those who might not know or remember my experience in Nigeria will not understand how difficult this request of Jesus’ was for me in a physical/mental way. I know what Africa means –not in the way tourist or school groups travel –but the way a poor, lonely missionary travels. It means rats, snakes and cockroaches in my room. It means complete misunderstanding by those around me (for my experience was that the Africans understood my way of thinking much less than the Europeans who did not speak my language). And if I go, I go to love completely as Jesus did on the Cross –which means exposure to the poorest of the poor there, to disease, parasites, dirty water (if there is water), etc. So, in my emotions I did not jump at Jesus’ request. But luckily God does not look at our emotions -He looks at our will to love.

And so, as Jesus' desire for me began to grow a little clearer, I mustered with all my heart’s will, love and smile and simply said, ‘Jesus, if YOU want this –YES! Fiat! I want it. I want to forget my body, comfort, health, etc. to obey and go serve those who You love, the tiniest victims in this world, needing the greatest love (these AIDS orphans), etc… If this is Your will, Yes. Make it happen. But only if You want it. Because if this is not Your will, I will never be able to handle all this.’ I asked Jesus for one concrete confirmation, though. I was going to a talk given by a priest on the vices of anger, envy and greed. I told Jesus I would go only if that priest said something about Africa that night. Well, when this priest began his talk, I heard him speak about East Africa –and the disgusting parasites that get into people’s bodies from the water. I laughed out loud to myself –not only that Jesus answered me so clearly ‘in my face,’ but that He used the very fears I had (parasites) to confirm His will to me. In this I heard Him speak again, asking as He had many times before about things in my life: ‘Do you love Me ENOUGH to even do this?’ And once again I said, simply, ‘Yes.’

(Later, I may note, this priest told my sister that he did not talk about Africa that night –he spoke about the Amazon –but he was not surprised that I had heard ‘East Africa,’ for he said many times people have told him that they hear something from the Holy Spirit through him which he actually did not say.)
So, this confirmed beyond a doubt in my heart that Jesus wanted something more from me for Tanzania -most probably to GO there in a more physical way than I had planned. How, why, when (I felt like He gave me a schedule for this fall, but I was not sure) were all things He would have to ‘work out.’ I had no connections and absolutely no money for the trip (and although at times I don’t eat and I sleep in airports or train stations, etc. I still need quite a bit of money for plane tickets).

So, this was all on the ‘back-burner’ of my mind. I was waiting for Jesus to act –but I was not telling people about it (as always) until it was a ‘done deal’. But this story is so cool, I have to share it now….

So, a few weeks ago on a Thursday Amy came to have coffee with me. As she was leaving she asked me, ‘How can I pray for you, Mary?’ and I blurted out (not pre-meditated) ‘For $5000 for Tanzania.’ She was confused and I just said, ‘That is what you can pray for.’ (That is the money I would need for Tanzania, South Africa and Russia’s plane tickets, visas, etc.) So, as she was pulling out of the driveway, Dad and Mom pulled in and Mom ran inside to get something before they left for Rome City (the Shrine of Our Lady of America). There was a group coming for healing prayers with Dad that day. He rolled down his window and asked, ‘Are you sure you don’t want to come?’ I quickly answered ‘no,’ for I was looking forward to a silent, empty house. Then he added, ‘There are going to be 14 African missionary priests there.’ Wow. I heard Jesus say, ‘Go!’ in my heart, so I ran inside, threw on shoes, grabbed my coffee from the microwave and was off. My intention for going was very far from Tanzania. I had spent 3 months in Nigeria, and in general in America most African Missionary priests are Nigerian (there is one in every parish in New York, I have been told). I figured they would love to hear about where I had been, and vice versa.

When we arrived, the priests were finishing their meeting and one of them stood up and spoke to a small group who was also visiting the shrine that day. He said, ‘I think you also should know a little about us as well. We are from an order that began in Germany, but now we are centered out of MOSHI, TANZANIA!’ My heart began to pound. Moshi, Tanzania: that was where one of the orphanages that I had been trying to contact was located. I approached a group of these priests at a break, introduced myself and told them that Jesus had strongly been guiding me to visit Moshi, Tanzania as my next mission –especially to work with the AIDS babies in an orphanage run by sisters. I asked them simply for their prayers for my endeavor. One of them said to me, ‘Oh, you must speak to Fr. Teo over there. His blood sister is a religious sister with the Missionary Sisters of the Most Precious Blood and they run the Upendo Orphanage in Moshi.’ I was in total shock. For two years I had had the Upendo Children’s Home in Moshi bookmarked on my computer. I asked them for contact information (as no one responded to the info. I had found). Father Teo did not have any, and so I gave him my e-mail. But three minutes later Fr. Teo walked up to me with another priest, Fr. Camilius who said to me, “I visited the Upendo Children’s Home with 10 Americans from Idaho a year and a half ago. Fr. Teo’s sister gave me this contact information for them, and for some reason for the last year and a half I’ve been carrying this paper with me in my pocket. It must be for you." So he gave me the information!

Now, out of all of the countries in the world, and all the cities in the country of Tanzania, and all the orphanages in Moshi –God planned for me to meet these priests and therefore two years ago put this exact orphanage in my heart and prayers. You just cannot make up a story like this or write it off to ‘chance.’

So, am I going to Tanzania? We will see. God has a funny way of working things out –but He also loves to stretch my heart, my trust, my fiat as wide as His Own on the Cross –so I must just do what I can and keep trying to surrender to Him in trust. What I’ve learned is that I truly know nothing before it happens. It sure seems to me that Jesus is pointing me in that direction for a month or so in September or October –but ultimately maybe He just wants my prayers for them, or maybe He just wants my exercise of trust. So, fiat.

I have already been given part of the money I would need for such a trip -but I have not received confirmation from the sisters over there. Truly, whether I physically go to Tanzania or not does not matter -it is obvious that God has tied my heart to this mission in a special way, and we are united in prayer regardless if we will ever meet on earth. I do ask for your prayers that God's will be done. I'm so incredibly weak these days, Jesus Himself would have to plan and care for all things for me. I have strength to fiat, and that's about it.

I hesitate to even write this -because people think like humans (and not like God) and so if I put this up there will be expectation that I will just go come fall. But the real point of this post instead, is to show how God is the Divine Seamstress, sewing our lives with others in ways we cannot see with our human eyes or understanding. He is guiding our lives in ways we could never fathom by ourselves. He is caring for the littlest details always. We don't have to 'understand' what His work in our lives means -such understanding comes from our need to 'control' instead of trust. Instead, God wants us to look at a story like this and just smile at Him saying, 'Yes, whatever you want Jesus.' And to thank Him that truly He always has all things under control. The 'important thing' is that when we surrender to Him, He makes His will be accomplished in our lives. The details of that will are far less important to Him than our simple childlike trust, thanksgiving, and love. He knows we are blind. He knows we are deaf and clueless -all He needs is our trust and He can use these weaknesses to do His beautiful work more perfectly than if we tried to do it alone.

Yes, it is nice to hold a hurting child to comfort him with an embrace -but sometimes what that child needs even more than our few moments of love is a lifetime of prayer which will bear fruit in his heart coming to know the eternal and endless Love of God. What I know for surely now is that Jesus is asking me (as well as you if you have read this far) to remember these hurting little ones all over the world -who don't even have a parent to look out for them. He said that anyone who gives a cup of cold water to one of His little ones in His Name will be rewarded greatly. Let's all give them a drink of His Love through our prayer for them today.