My heartfelt thanks to the team working behind the scenes to ensure that we all serve God to the best of our abilities and for His glory.
Congratulations once again to everyone for being nominated in 2025.
As laid down in Matthew 28, the goal remains the same: to make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that God commanded you.
And if we can do so through the words we put on paper, may God continue to sustain us all.
On the surface, Tariro Dorcas Matibiri is an educator and IB extended essay coordinator with a legal background. She has been a Toastmaster since 2011 and loves coffee, reading, and the occasional adrenaline activity (shark cage diving and bungee jumping, to mention a few).
At the core of who she is is a young woman who is constantly thirsting for more of God. Tariro serves in the ushering ministry, the youth ministry, and the worship ministry in her local church, Wellspring, which is based here, Doha, Qatar. This is her story:
The Spark
Mine is not a story written in gold. I wasn’t born with a pen in my hand, nor did I grow up reading a book a day. No—it was nothing like that. My eureka moment came unexpectedly, the day I discovered a dusty box filled with books by my father’s favourite author, Wilbur Smith. I was in fourth grade when I picked one up, flipped through its yellowing pages, and caught that unmistakable scent of aged paper—a scent that, to this day, anchors my love for physical books over PDFs. Did I read them then? Not at all. But I was mesmerized. Even without diving into the stories, I could see how masterfully Wilbur Smith wove words together, painting vivid worlds with nothing but ink and imagination. As I grew older, that fascination deepened. I became drawn to the magic writers possess—the ability to transport readers into entirely new worlds by showing, not merely telling. It’s a craft I’ve admired ever since.
Early Steps Into Authorship
During my undergraduate studies in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, I joined a group of students to co-author a poetry collection—Expressions Within—which became my first published work. In the years that followed, I continued exploring my voice as a writer. In 2015, I co-authored 7in1: Destiny Sagacity and two years later, I stepped out on my own with my first solo publication, The Scars Beneath Our Bracelets. Three years after The Scars was released, I shifted focus to academic writing, publishing Intellectual Property Assets: The Real Measure of Wealth (Securing Funds from Financial Systems in Zimbabwe). Despite my continued output, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing.
A Faith Reignited
Suffice it to say, I was born a pastor’s kid. However, by the time I reached university, that identity had started to blur. I had a deep understanding of who God is—largely shaped by witnessing answered prayers in my parents’ lives. I saw His hand in moments like the life-and-death experience He saved them from when I was in Grade 2, and again in 2019, when He sustained our family through the painful loss of my mother’s sister to cancer. Though I was baptized in high school, what I struggled to grasp was that I, too, could develop a relationship with God—one that was both deeply personal and profoundly intimate. Basic theology teaches that baptism is a one-time act, as emphasized in Ephesians 4:5: “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” Yet, the reality is that both my undergraduate and postgraduate years were marked by a lukewarm walk with Christ. When I moved to the Middle East—where I am currently based—I made a conscious effort to seek God more intentionally amid the chaos. It was during this season, marked by a near-death experience from pregnancy-related pre-eclampsia and my father’s colon cancer diagnosis, that I sensed a storm approaching. In the eye of that storm, I felt a deep stirring in my spirit. From that place of raw vulnerability and renewed faith came That Audacious Hope: A Daily Devotional\ (released in February 2024), followed by _That Audacious Hope: The Journey, which launched this past Saturday.
The Storm That Changed Everything
Both books take the reader through one of the most difficult seasons of my life. It was a time when I was living in a foreign country, in the fifth year of my marriage, raising our two-year-old son. That season began the day I watched my husband leave for work—only for our lives to change completely when he was involved in a traumatic accident. In the blink of an eye, he went from being strong and healthy to fighting for his life. With his spinal cord C2 and C3 crushed, he went on to spend the next eight months of his life:
Unable to see.
Unable to speak.
Unable to walk.
And unable to move.
The only sense I held on to, was the hope that he could still hear.
That Audacious Hope: A Daily Devotional captures my thoughts and raw emotions during that time—my prayers, my pain, and the honest, sometimes tear-filled conversations I had with God. That Audacious Hope: The Journey followed soon after. It offers a deeper, more detailed look into how those eight months unfolded, eventually leading to my husband’s passing and the months of grief that followed. When I was recently asked what the second book means to me, this is the truth I shared: I am reminded of a light on a hill. If I were to describe the book in words, I’d liken it to a lighthouse—steadfast and gentle. A light for those who feel lost in the deep, dark waters of grief, especially after the loss of a spouse. I wrote it in the hope that, even in their stormiest nights, someone might see its light, feel a little less alone, a little less angry with God, and perhaps just a little more guided toward healing.
