Riches. Success. Power. Sexual conquest. Tibenderana believed he could achieve these by committing murder. He chose to slay a child with albinism. His superstitious beliefs required the boy’s body parts in witchcraft rituals to achieve his goals.
What he did achieve? Five years of imprisonment. After his release from prison, “Tibe” apologized to his community, but it didn’t fix anything. “I was released from prison, yes…but, really, in my mind I was still in prison.”
Tibe’s wife bore the brunt of his guilt and unhappiness. He mistreated her, drank heavily, and used up the family’s food money.
“I was so afraid of them,” he says of the people whose child he killed. He avoided them, and they avoided him. The community around him also avoided him. To receive forgiveness and restoration seemed a mountain of shame and brokenness too high to climb. It required an unfathomable amount of grace.
When people from the local church invited him to a meeting, he decided to give it a try. As though the message was written for him, the pastor shared Luke 4:18:
The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free…
“Freedom for the prisoners!” That message, Tibe says, rings true in his heart and mind. “It was when I heard the declaration of Jesus that I was…really free.”
In the unconditional, undeserved love of Jesus, Tibe found courage to approach the people from whom he needed forgiveness. As he came to the child’s family humbly, that same love gave them grace to forgive him.
“Now we are living peacefully. We are together in the word of God…We are one. I am living in harmony with the people whose family member I killed.”
The change in Tibe brought reconciliation in his community as well as in his home. He now treats his wife well. He now excitedly shares the good news of freedom in Christ to others. He also leads prayer ministry in his church. He used to be an enemy in the community, but now he is a friend. Healing is happening not only in him, but all around him.
In January 2021, our ministry in Tanzania
- Presented the gospel to 186 people.
- Led 94 of those people to Christ.
- Baptized fourteen new believers.
Twelve21 Global continues to bring hope to those lost in a world of demonic activity and witchcraft.
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