This week’s mission story is about how the first people joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church on Zanzibar island, which is part of Tanzania and located just off Africa’s eastern coast. This story started in 1986.

Ezekiel was perplexed. He didn’t know what to make of a book titled, Is the True Sabbath Friday, Saturday, or Sunday? 

Someone had given him the book written by W. Duncan Eva, a former vice president of the General Conference. 

He had read it at home on the island of Zanzibar. 

Unlike most people on the island, he was a Christian. He had moved to Zanzibar a year earlier, in 1985, to get away from family problems on Tanzania’s mainland.

Ezekiel was puzzled by the book. He was pretty sure that the true Sabbath wasn’t Friday, the day observed by many people on the island. He had kept Sunday all of his life, but he had read in the book that God’s holy Sabbath was actually Saturday.

He spoke with a friend, a fellow Christian named Moses who also had moved to Zanzibar from the mainland. They agreed that the book’s message must be false, but its argument for Saturday was compelling, and Ezekiel couldn’t get it out of his mind. 

He went to the man who had given him the book.

“Tell the person who gave you this book to come see me,” he said. “I want to ask him for the truth.”

Before long, a Seventh-day Adventist literature evangelist named Yohana visited Ezekiel and Moses. 

He tried to answer their questions about the Sabbath. When the men argued, he offered Voice of Prophecy Bible lessons. 

He added, “If you answer all the questions in the lessons, I’ll give you a gift.”

Ezekiel and Moses were intrigued. They took the first five lessons and completed them. 

Yohana corrected the lessons and gave them five more. 

When the men finished all 20 lessons, Yohana congratulated them on passing the course and presented them with a certificate. He also gave the promised gift: three pairs of gray pants and three red-and-blue, long-sleeved shirts for each man.

Ezekiel and Moses were pleased. The island’s economy was weak, and many people didn’t own more than one set of clothes. 

Ezekiel kept one set for himself and gave the other two sets to relatives.

The surprised relatives asked when he had gotten the clothes, and he replied, “Please come. I’ll show you.” 

Relatives and friends signed up for Bible lessons.

After completing the 20 lessons, Ezekiel began to keep the Sabbath. 

Then Yohana encouraged him and Moses to take a second course. 

When they finished those 20 lessons, they received another certificate and three more sets of pants and shirts each. 

Then Yohana offered a Bible study on health. After those 20 lessons, Ezekiel and Moses received another certificate and more pants and shirts. 

It took about a year to complete the three courses. 

As they studied, Moses had three dreams about a big, brown door. After the third dream, he and Ezekiel knocked on the big, brown door of the new Adventist clinic on the island. 

The clinic’s doctor led them to an Adventist house church and strengthened their faith with additional Bible studies.

After finishing the third course with Yohana, Ezekiel asked to be baptized.

So it was that Ezekiel and Moses were baptized in the Indian Ocean. Yohana and the clinic’s doctor joined the men in the ocean as they went under the water. They were the first Adventists to be baptized in Zanzibar in many years. 

In 1989, the first Adventist pastor arrived on the island, and six years later, in 1995, the first Adventist church opened. 

Today, church members meet in six churches and five branch Sabbath Schools. Ezekiel attends every Sabbath. 

Moses has returned to Tanzania’s mainland to live, but the two men keep in touch.

Ezekiel said he was grateful for the literature evangelist and the doctor. Through them, he learned about the Sabbath and the Lord of the Sabbath. “We thank God that we can depend on Him,” he said.

The Zanzibar Seventh-day Adventist Dispensary has offered critical services on Zanzibar for nearly 40 years. But now its two buildings are old and need to be replaced. You can be part of the clinic’s story by giving to this quarter’s Thirteenth Sabbath Offering, which is also known as the Quarterly Mission Project Offering. The funds will allow the clinic’s buildings to be demolished and replaced with modern structures. Thank you for giving generously to this important project.