Before we left Australia, my husband Arthur and I made a video to paint a picture for our supporting churches of what we hoped to do in Tanzania. In it, we talked about a generation of Tanzanian university students living for Jesus, bringing transformation at every level of society. It’s an inspiring vision, if I do say so myself, and one that fired up the imaginations of our supporting churches.

They and we knew it was long term vision. Tanzania is a big and complicated place. Whole systems do not change overnight. The pressures on university graduates are enormous; many of them feel powerless in the face of them. So even though we plan to spend 10 years in Tanzania, we recognize that this vision is unlikely to be fulfilled while we are here.

That makes it very difficult to measure the success of our ministry. Perhaps we will be able to assess it in 60 years’ time, but even then, there will certainly have been many more factors contributing to  change in Tanzania than just us. Nevertheless, we do have ideas of what a “successful” ministry over the next 9 years might look like. Here are two of them.

The first marker of ‘success’ would be that we have joined in with what Tanzanians are already doing. In the past, Australians have been pioneers in Tanzania, setting up ministries designed to bring change. This is still appropriate in some parts of the world where there is a very marginal Christian presence or none at all. In a place like Tanzania, though, to work from scratch in this way doesn’t make sense. The gospel is in Tanzania, and Tanzanians themselves are the missionaries. If we pioneered a ministry, we could well be replicating something that already exists. It is far better to participate in something that already exists, playing our part, contributing what we can for our 10 years here. After all, we expect the change to be bigger than us, so we want our practice to match that.

The second marker of ‘success’ would be that we do ourselves out of a job. There are very real needs in university ministry in Tanzania that we have been asked to meet, but to come and fulfill those obligations without raising up others would leave that same gap after we leave. We can’t achieve the vision from our video, but we can train others who can. I said to a Tanzanian colleague the other day that my great hope is that when we leave Tanzania, it will be because they no longer need us.

These two markers of success see missionaries as contributors to something bigger. Success is about playing our part with full dignity for all parties. These markers of success resist the idea that missionaries are the heroes, and that change is simple. Yet conceiving of success in this way might mean things don’t turn out as we expect. Missionaries may have great plans, but if the missionary gets their way in everything, it’s probably not real partnership, and it’s likely they’ve raised up a clone rather than a leader. In that sense, we expect that some of our goals won’t be met, because our Tanzanian colleagues will see things differently. That might be frustrating to us, but it’s not the same as failure.

God’s ways are mysterious to us. When missionaries experience setbacks, sometimes so significant the consequences continue for years, we are dismayed and ask, ‘What is God doing?’ Most of the time, I have no idea. I pray each day, “I trust that Jesus is the powerful and generous head of his church” because my heart struggles to grasp that truth. Yet it’s only a strong belief in the Kingship of the Lord Jesus that fights against despair when our plans don’t work out. Somehow, Jesus is ruling over hindrances and difficulties. God’s plan is more complex than I can see. Talking about success is messy because we are not the Mission Director. So we participate with others who have the same Director and trust that somehow through it, Jesus is bringing his Kingdom on earth.

Tamie and Arthur Davis are CMS Australia partners who live and work in Tanzania. They blog at meetjesusatuni.com