We have returned to the United States.
This was not part of our plan. Our plan was to give three years of our lives to mission work. Our plan was to educate our children in our home, in southern Tanzania, living among others who chose to give of their lives in a similar way. Our plan was to "tithe" roughly ten percent of our working years to serving God by serving His children on the African continent.
And while all of that was prayerfully and carefully discerned and considered and accepted and promised, and while our intentions were pure and well-intentioned, there were unpredictable challenges in mission that ultimately made our remaining there impossible.
After our wonderful month of language classes in north Tanzania, and our fun little respite at the beach, we were grateful to have finally made it to our mission site in late February. My previous post details some of the joys we experienced on our arrival, as well as some of the struggles, none of which were insurmountable. However, just a day or two after I published that post, we learned of an uptick in violence in Tanzania. Specifically, violence fueled by religious tensions and having resulted in the murders of a number of religious persons in the past three months. That news alone was scary. While there were no specific threats to the area where we were, I was alarmed to hear that violence perpetrated by radicals was increasing in that previously very peaceful country.
And being who I am (careful, information-seeking, detailed, and mother), I began to do my own research. I don't feel like I need to share all of what I learned, but the overwhelming spirit of the news articles that I read was that Tanzania was no longer the tranquil place it had once been. There were churches burned in Dar es Salaam. There were priests attacked and murdered in Zanzibar. There were riots (some only 30 minutes away from us, in the city that had our closest supermarket) that resulted in a number of deaths. There were threats for more violence against religious places at Easter time.
I must articulate again here that there were no threats to the mission site where we were located. We never felt that there was violence directly aimed at us. There was no imminent danger to our area or our family.
However, I did not want to wait for imminent danger. Although the leadership at the hospital and abbey in Ndanda felt that things in that area were safe, they all admitted that of course there were no guarantees. Each of the individuals who I spoke with there voiced understanding of my concerns and agreed that if I did not feel safe, then we should do what we felt was best for our family.
I felt very strongly, considering the rise in religious tensions, that staying in Tanzania was not the best plan of action for our family at this time. But the process has been hard. Especially hard because while I felt so insecure and frightened about the safety and well-being of our family, my husband continued to feel that we should stay in Ndanda. He felt very safe there and did not believe that there was a potential for danger in that location. My thoughts, however, were that extremists who had already attempted to stir up trouble in the town of Ndanda may return, and that we should not try and project our rational thinking on those whose very actions are irrational and unpredictable.
And––as I stated to our mission organization's board––as a mother, the safety of our four children remained foremost in my mind. I could not take the risk that they might be harmed through this experience, no matter how noble the cause.
And so, after a whole lot of hard conversations, prayer, and consideration of many factors, we decided to come back to the U.S., and we arrived to my parents' home about two weeks ago.
We are so very grateful to be back, to be safe, to be together. This experience has grown us, changed us, and challenged us. It has brought life into even greater perspective. But there is much work ahead. My kids will complete their homeschool year at my parents' home. My husband is starting a job search that he didn't expect to do for another two or three years. I will have to find a new home for us and schools for the kids once he finds a job. Our kids will have to move once again. We are mourning the loss of a long-held dream as well as working through our different responses to our experience there. We ask for your prayers as we start this new and unexpected chapter.
It's hard to understand the reasons why we would feel so strongly called--for so long--to be missionaries, only to have returned after such a short time. After so much planning and moving and giving and leaving, it is difficult to see what the greater plan is. Yet we know that there is one.
I will say that through this very challenging and humbling time, I have been able to experience God's incredible grace in amazing ways. I have received such extraordinary support from family and the few close friends with whom we shared the news of our return. Through encouraging phone calls and understanding emails, and now a few loving and consoling face-to-face encounters, I have been lucky enough to almost physically feel the unmerited favor of God all around me. There are blessings throughout all of this.
And so we move forward, one step at a time. And we continue to place our trust in the One who knows us, loves us, and promises to always to be with us...no matter what side of the planet we land on. And that is enough for us, today and always.
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect
in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses,
so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
2 Corinthians 12:9
And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces
perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope
does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts
by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Romans 5:3-5
