Thank you Daniel for a life well lived

My friend and MEF Associate Evangelist Daniel Mahimbo died in a Dar es Salam, Tanzania hospital June 9 after a massive stroke the last week in May. Daniel was caretaker of at least 10 members of his family, and I’m sure they are wondering how they are going to survive as very poor Africans in a very impoverished country.

Daniel was special. Some people are impossible to replace; you just do without them—people like your mother, father, brother, sister and others like Harlan Harris, Ray Stedman, Jack Buckner, Ron Dunn and Daniel Mahimbo. Daniel could talk to anyone. He had personality, joyfulness and a desire to present Jesus to anyone he met. Daniel had a ministry to a prison in Lushoto close to where he lived. Many of those prisoners came to know Christ and are now preaching Christ in the bush and in cities all over Tanzania. It seems like every picture he sent since he came on MEF’s staff was a picture of him baptizing an adult or young person.

Music Evangelism had the privilege of building Daniel’s second home, which was next to the mud and straw house he and his family lived in for years. After visiting him last July with retired missionaries Will J. and Marie Roberts, I wished we had done more. And we should have done more. With the help of a few MEF friends, we were able to purchase an automobile for Daniel so he wouldn’t have to walk, ride buses or call on others to get from home to preaching points. A generator was purchased by Helen Spangler of Yukon, Okla. so Daniel could use a sound system.

Daniel was all an evangelist should and could be, and was faithful to the end. He would not have been happy lying in a hospital bed or a bed at home unable to speak, have fun and especially preach about Jesus.

As long as we are around, Music Evangelism will keep our commitment to the Mahimbo family financially. Without the amount we and the Roberts send, they would be hard pressed to have more than one meal a day. If we could generate more funds, we could help other poor African pastors and evangelists —$1,200 a year will support worthy African preachers like Daniel. Will you help?

Many of us are devastated at God’s timing for Daniel to leave this old world. We didn’t want the party to end—the phone calls, the laughs, baptism pictures and the pure happiness this poor African preacher shared with so many. I’ve fussed at God the last few days. “He’s in a better place” statements just don’t cut it with me, even though I know it is true.

The Bible says a thousand years on Earth is as a day in Heaven. Daniel will be just through the “pearly gates” and we’ll be yelling for him to wait us for us. He will look back and say, “My friends,” as he did to me many times.

Daniel was won to the Lord from his Islamic faith by James Hampton in Tanga in the early days of Baptist work in Tanzania. He graduated from seminary and moved back home to Lushoto to start work there. He played a major role in Baptist work in Tanzania since the very beginning of the convention. He served as the convention’s first and only co-director for stewardship and evangelism until they retired him about two years ago.

Thank you Lord Jesus for letting us have a part in Daniel’s life and ministry. Our loss is Heaven’s gain.

P.S. The puritan giant, Thomas Watson, made this comment about death: “The world is but a great inn, where we are to stay a night or two and be gone; what madness is it to set our heart upon our inn, as to forget our eternal home.”

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