I opened the old file folder and out fell the yellowed newspaper clippings from either The Danville Register or The Bee (It was back before the two papers merged.) Staring back at me was this boyish, beardless guy I used to know. (Hmmm. I wonder whatever happened to him?)Looking again at the intriguing headline, it's hard to believe that it was exactly 20 years ago this month that I was on my very first mission trip...to Africa of all places! I was all of 30 years old, the Pastor of Melville Avenue Baptist Church here in Danville, and I had never been out of the country before. In fact, the biggest adventure I'd ever been on up to that point in my life was a road trip from Kentucky to Texas. Now, here I was on another continent, halfway around the world, thousands of miles from home, being questioned in Swahili by an agitated government official who suspected our mission team of possibly being foreign spies! (Sounds like an Alfred Hitchcock thriller, doesn't it?)
This whole story had its beginnings back in late 1986. Virginia Baptists had just launched into a new mission partnership with Baptists in the East African country of Tanzania. At a meeting of
the Pittsylvania Baptist Assocation, I heard a speaker from the Baptist General Association of Virginia sharing about the Tanzania partnership. Going overseas on a mission trip had never really interested me and it certainly was the last thing on my mind. But at that particular associational meeting, I suddenly felt convicted by God to go to Africa. I shared that conviction with my church family. They graciously granted me the time off to go, and I signed up for a 3-week evangelistic preaching mission scheduled for August 1987 in the Kyela District of Tanzania. Although I strongly felt led of God to pursue this, I honestly didn't have the money to go. The trip cost over $2000...and this was back in 1987! That was a whole lot a lot of money for a poor preacher only a couple of years out of seminary. But I believed that somehow, someway the Lord would provide. When it came time to pay for my trip, however, the money still had not materialized. So I went to Virginia Bank & Trust and talked to loan officer Kenneth Merricks. Ken, a fellow Christian--still at Virginia Bank and Trust, by the way--had taken a special liking to this young pastor from the moment I first came to town. And on that day, he went out on a limb and made me an unsecured loan so I could pay for my trip. I honestly didn't know how I would pay back the loan, but I trusted that God would work everything out in His time. Later on, before my actual departure to Tanzania, my little church rallied together to raise a good portion of the money for me. Then, Alden Hicks, the local Director of Missions at the time, presented me with a generous $1,000 stipend from the Association to assist me financially. So, thanks to God's faithful provision, I was able to pay off my loan before I ever left the country.
My trip to Tanzania turned out to be far different from what I had anticipated. A team of about ten preachers from the United States were supposed to spread out all across the Kyela region (Southeast Tanzania) in various venues, preaching multiple times per day, over a three week period. No sooner had we arrived in Kyela, however, than we were surprised by some newly-mandated government restrictions. All open-air meetings had suddenly been banned. Why? An internationally known German Pentecostal evangelist--yes, you read that right--had been holding large-scale open-air crusades all across Africa. Shortly before our arrival, he had been in Tanzania and said some derogatory things about Islam, angering the country's growing Muslim population, and inciting public protests in the capital city of Dar es Salaam. As a result of the government's reactionary decision, our preaching opportunities would now be severely restricted, limited only to indoor venues, such as church and school buildings.
My trip to Tanzania turned out to be far different from what I had anticipated. A team of about ten preachers from the United States were supposed to spread out all across the Kyela region (Southeast Tanzania) in various venues, preaching multiple times per day, over a three week period. No sooner had we arrived in Kyela, however, than we were surprised by some newly-mandated government restrictions. All open-air meetings had suddenly been banned. Why? An internationally known German Pentecostal evangelist--yes, you read that right--had been holding large-scale open-air crusades all across Africa. Shortly before our arrival, he had been in Tanzania and said some derogatory things about Islam, angering the country's growing Muslim population, and inciting public protests in the capital city of Dar es Salaam. As a result of the government's reactionary decision, our preaching opportunities would now be severely restricted, limited only to indoor venues, such as church and school buildings.
In addition to this problem, there at the time was also an air of suspicion in Tanzania regarding the country's perceived political enemies. There was quite a bit of paranoia regarding South Africa in particular. Tanzania, it seems, had been quite outspoken against South African apartheid and were fearful that South Africa might attempt to retalitate by attacking them or seeking to overthrow their government.This was the political climate when we entered the country. When we arrived at the farm in Kyela where our Southern Baptist missionaries lived, we soon were paid a visit by the District Commissioner. He demanded to see our passports, questioned us, and subsequently told us that we had failed to properly report to the district office in Mbeya upon our arrival. He was quite perturbed, and placed us under house arrest, telling us that we could not set foot off the farm where we were staying. Later, we learned that because many of us had new American passports he suspected that we were really South African spies trying to infiltrate the country under false identities! Adding to the air of suspicion, just a couple of weeks before our arrival in Tanzania, some real South African spies had actually been arrested in the region!
The next day was Sunday, the big kickoff of our crusade. Because we were restricted from leaving the farm, we were unable to preach. Thus, those nationals that would have been our interpreters had to press on without us and preach in our place. For the next couple of days, we sat at the farm, praying and hoping for the best, all the while wondering what our fate would be. I have to tell you that there were some tense moments.
Then, all of a sudden, we received a directive from the District Commissioner, ordering us out of the area immediately. We had to abruptly leave and travel two days by land rover, back across the country's rugged terrain--we had flown in by small plane--to Dar es Salaam, our point of entry into Tanzania. All along the way, we got a little nervous whenever we had to pass through military checkpoints with armed guards, but fortunately we did so without incident, ultimately arriving safely in the capital city. For the remainder of our time in Tanzania, we were stuck in Dar, a place where we hadn't planned to be, and where nothing had been prepared for us.
So what happened after we left Kyela? The crusades went on as originally scheduled without the American preachers. The translators preached instead, which was a first. In the previous years of the fertile spiritual harvest in Kyela, the missionaries had always brought in preachers from the USA to draw a crowd. But now, out of necessity, the nationals had to do it themselves, with "only" God's help. As a result, thousands came to Christ! And our Tanzanian friends realized they didn't really need outside help. They could depend on the Lord and He could work through them just as well.What happened with us in Dar? To bide our time, and to assist the local missionaries, we did all kinds of menial, servant-oriented tasks--anything we could do to be of assistance. For example, I spent days inventorying automotive parts for all the Baptist mission vehicles (even though I don't know a thing about working on cars!)
But, another interesting thing occurred. While were in Dar, we each took turns preaching in daily chapel services at the Baptist Centre, which was along the lines of a high school. During that week, a revival broke out in the chapel services, and by week's end approximately 100 students had accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior--all because we were somewhere that we hadn't planned to be, but were faithful to what God had put before us.
Meanwhile, the news media and wire services back in the States had a field day with the story about our arrest and ouster from Kyela. Stories about us appeared in The Religious Herald, the Baptist Press, and several secular newspapers around the country. The same Danville paper that put my picture on the front page when the story broke, did a subsequent interview with me when I returned home. For about 15 minutes, I was a mini-celebrity of sorts. I spoke at churches throughout the Association--Moffett Memorial, North Main, and many others. (I never made it to Mount Hermon, however.) At Melville Avenue's annual church picnic--which was held within days of my return--I wore a zebra-like, striped prisoner's uniform that Arvis Carswell had lovingly made for me. She compared me to the Apostle Paul, another jailbird preacher.The truth be known, we were never in any real danger in Tanzania (although admittedly we didn't know that at the time.) The news reports actually made it all sound much worse than it was. (I learned a lot about the news media as a result of that whole episode). Interestingly, when I finally got out of Kyela and called Sandy from Dar, she was convinced that I was being forced to tell her that I was alright and that somebody really had a gun to my head! My dad was already trying to figure out how they were going to get the State Department to help recover my body!!!
All of this was my first up-close-and-personal introduction to international missions. (Can you believe I ever wanted to leave the good old USA after that?) By the way, I didn't want to tell anybody at Mount Hermon about my "overseas criminal record" until after we got our 46 youth & adults back from Greece.
As far as I know, no other teams from the States ever had any problems in Tanzania. The very next year, I surprised a lot of people when I returned to Tanzania, at the invitation of Virginia Baptists. You know the old saying, "You fall off a horse, you immediately get back up on it again." Such was the beginning of a passion that God gave me for world missions, a passion that has continued to grow stronger over these past 20 years.
"Prisoner" Danny
All of this was my first up-close-and-personal introduction to international missions. (Can you believe I ever wanted to leave the good old USA after that?) By the way, I didn't want to tell anybody at Mount Hermon about my "overseas criminal record" until after we got our 46 youth & adults back from Greece.
As far as I know, no other teams from the States ever had any problems in Tanzania. The very next year, I surprised a lot of people when I returned to Tanzania, at the invitation of Virginia Baptists. You know the old saying, "You fall off a horse, you immediately get back up on it again." Such was the beginning of a passion that God gave me for world missions, a passion that has continued to grow stronger over these past 20 years.
"Prisoner" Danny
