On a Thursday morning in August, 340 young Tanzanians boarded buses from fourteen different regions and made their way toward Kilimanjaro. They came carrying backpacks, sleeping bags, Bibles, and — in many cases — questions they had not yet found the courage to ask out loud.
What happened over the three days that followed exceeded what any of us had planned for. That statement appears in every post-camp report we have ever written. This time, it is truer than usual.
Day One: Arrival and a question that set the tone
The opening session began with worship led by a team from Arusha. Thirty minutes in, before the first teaching, a student from Dodoma — a second-year engineering student named Emmanuel — raised his hand and asked: 'If God is sovereign, why do I feel so alone?' The room went very still.
Emmanuel's question became the thread that ran through every session. By the end of the camp, it had been answered — not with an argument, but with community.
The teaching team did not skip past the question. They sat with it. The first evening's session pivoted entirely around it — the Psalms of lament, the honesty of Scripture, the difference between the presence of pain and the absence of God. It was the most honest theological conversation many of those students had ever been part of.
Day Two: The watershed moment
On Friday evening, following a teaching from Mark 10 on what it means to follow Jesus at the cost of everything, participants were invited to respond in prayer. What followed was not orchestrated. It was not worked up. It was simply — a room full of young people deciding, quietly and seriously, that they were going to trust God with their lives.
Sixty-two students committed to faith for the first time. Forty-seven others came for prayer regarding specific decisions — studies, relationships, callings. The prayer team prayed until well past midnight.
What we take away
TAYOMI has been running youth camps since 1984. We know what a good camp looks like. This was not a good camp. It was something different — a moment of unusual grace in which the presence of God was evident in ways we cannot fully account for or reproduce. We are grateful. We are humbled. And we are already planning for 2026.
