You can double the pastors serving your church body in one day! Considering the current number of vacancies in the Wisconsin Synod, that claim sounds like an internet scam. But that’s what has happened to our mission partners in Nigeria.

Tried and True Teaching

Christ the King Lutheran Church of Nigeria is based in the town of Uruk Uso, and All Saints Lutheran Church of Nigeria is headquartered in Ogoja.  Until now, each of those synods has had nine men serving in the public ministry of the Gospel. After five years of study during some unique circumstances, our mission partners each received nine new pastors on 11^th June 2022.  We praise the Lord for doubling the number of pastors who will shepherd God’s people with the truth of his Word.

You may ask, “What were  the unique circumstances under which these men studied?”  For many years, the WELS has sent missionaries trained at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary to Nigeria four or five times per year.  Those missionaries reviewed what the students had learned with their previous teachers. They taught new material at the seminary in Uruk Uso. In addition, they provided direction and study materials for the coming months until the next teacher came.  In the meantime, Nigerian Pastor Aniedi Paul Udo directed their studies.

That’s how Lutheran pastors serving in Nigeria have received their training until now. But that’s not how we trained the current class of graduates.

Flexible and Faithful

WELS provided the students with food and materials to study. However, WELS was unable to send visiting missionaries due to concerns about their safety. Director Udo and I tried to communicate from time to time, but the internet was not always reliable. The two of us often felt that we were going in different directions.  It has been a crazy five years and we have all learned much.  I’d like to believe through this time of transition, our students learned about the need to be flexible and open to change. These are invaluable qualities for Gospel ministers.

Pastor Udo and I fulfilled our duties as well as we could under the circumstances. But at the end of the day, we are trusting the Holy Spirit to transform these Nigerian students into faithful servants of God.  And that isn’t unique. In all of our ministry partners’ worker training programs around the world, the success of building God’s kingdom depends on the Holy Spirit. We plant the seeds and wait for the crop – a hundred, sixty, or thirty times what was sown (Mt. 13:8). Or even double the pastors.

Missionary Dan Kroll lives in Malawi and serves as One Africa Team’s liaison to West Africa

Please pray for those working in fields that are ripe for harvest. Share their story, engage with future news and receive updates. Learn more about our mission fields in Africa and how the Holy Spirit is working faith in people’s hearts at https://wels.net/serving-others/missions/africa

“I love to tell the story…the old, old story of Jesus and his love” (CW 746)

Dr. Terry Schultz has twice the love to tell the story of Jesus and his love, and he’s done it on four continents. As the Artistic Development Missionary at WELS Multi-Language Productions, Terry puts pictures and poems into the service of the Gospel. He has helped create original music for worship and illustrated Bible instruction manuals for use in WELS World Mission fields. God has given him this tremendous talent, and we thank God for his gifts to our church body.

Experiencing Worship in Africa

Our mission partner in Zambia, the Lutheran Church of Central Africa (LCCA), requested Dr. Schultz’s assistance in facilitating the development of new music resources in 2018. Because of Terry’s busy schedule and COVID19 travel restrictions, he has been unable to meet their request until recently. In March of 2022, the One Africa Team helped arrange an initial visit by Terry to Lusaka. The purpose of his visit was to introduce himself to local church leaders and to sample the flavor of the worship in the LCCA.

Missionary Terry attended Sunday worship services at Lusaka area congregations. Linda Gethsemane is a rural congregation where the members worship in Chinyanja. St. Matthew’s is a city church where the members worship primarily in English. At the installation of Pastor Soko, choirs from several Lusaka congregations joyfully swayed to the beat of their praises and Terry danced up the central aisle to receive communion. He also attended a three-hour service at Kamanga Lutheran, which conducts services in both English and Chinyanja.  

Terry also attended – or I should say, “participated in” – choir practice at two Lusaka congregations. From drumming to directing to dynamic keyboarding, Terry’s musical zeal raised everyone’s spirits. Several local choir masters have composed original songs, which their choirs perform in public but have never been scored or recorded.

Planning for the Future

Members of the LCCA’s Education and Publication Committees met with Terry to talk about ways in which Terry’s talents could be of service to their ministry. They identified the need for improving their Sunday School program. The current printed materials contain basic black and white sketches, which were reproduced on mimeograph machines by missionaries in the 1970s. In Lusaka today there are many printing presses that can produce color posters at a reasonable cost. In addition to Bible History illustrations, Terry has also been working on an illustrated version of Martin Luther’s Small Catechism. He presented his visual concepts of the First Article with Luther’s explanation, which captivates youth and adults’ interest.

One Africa Team and the LCCA Zambia are currently evaluating a proposal from Terry on telling the old, old story of Jesus and his love in a new, contemporary medium. We ask for God’s blessings and anticipate Terry’s return to Africa in the near future. Stay tuned to hear how we love to tell the story of Jesus and his love in Zambia.

Missionary John Roebke lives in Malawi

Please pray for those working in fields that are ripe for harvest. Share their story, engage with future news and receive updates. Learn more about our mission fields in Africa and how the Holy Spirit is working faith in people’s hearts at https://wels.net/serving-others/missions/africa

23 years ago God blessed the Lutheran Church of Cameroon (LCC) with the gift of newly graduated pastors. WELS missionaries trained these men but have not participated in the training of any new pastors since 2018. May 27, 2022, was an amazing day for our brothers and sisters in Cameroon.  Amidst celebrations that reached across Africa and even spilled into the US, the Lutheran Church of Cameroon graduated seven men into the full-time work of the holy ministry.

A Rough Start

In 2016 the LCC identified fourteen men to begin ministerial training. They were men with a reasonable level of education, a Spirit-led love for the Lord, and some years of service as laymen in their congregations.

There were, of course, losses along the way. A few students left the program for valid reasons. A political crisis made it unsafe for the men to be together and caused the loss of an entire year of classroom studies.  The same crisis made it impossible for WELS missionary Dan Kroll to do any face-to-face teaching in the final three years of the five-year program.  Although the devil uses such things to try to discourage us, we endure with the knowledge that the Lord is refining us as he promised through Jeremiah (9:7): “I will refine and test them.” The Holy Spirit was refining well for the gain of the Lord’s church, so that seven men were able to complete the course to prepare them for full-time ministry.  The LCC’s teachers have grounded these men in God’s Word and prepared them to shepherd the Lord’s flocks in Cameroon. The Lord has strengthened each of them to face the challenges of his unique ministry.

Anim, Solomon

Dooh, Jean-Jacques

Epie, Nicole

Fomenyam, Ferdinand

Ngalame, Thomas

Ngalame, Vincent

Tembuc, David

Prayers Answered

Why has this taken 23 years?  Did we forget our brothers in the “Hinge of Africa?”  Not at all.    WELS has not maintained manpower stability for nearly 15 of those 23 years.  About the time we were ready to restart the Cameroon worker training program in 2008, the Lord called Missionary Dan Myers to glory. Missionary Dan Kroll arrived in the summer of 2014 and started classes in the fall of 2016.  By May of 2018, he left because of the political crisis.  WELS fully supports financial and curricular components of the Lutheran Church of Cameroon worker training program, but “feet on the ground” belong to our Cameroonian brothers and they have stepped up in a huge way!  Obviously, the Lord answered your prayers to send workers into the harvest field (Matthew 9:38)!

One of the LCC’s congregational pastors, Gervase Ngalame, is moving to the Seminary campus to assist in training the next group of men for the ministry. Currently, Pastors Mathias Abumbi, Joseph Njume, Daniel Muankume, Julius Njume, Barnabbas Ngalame, and Fon George are serving as full-time congregational shepherds. We give thanks to God for the addition of these seven men, more than doubling the LCC’s ministerium.  The Lord has reminded us that he is watching over his church in Cameroon!

Missionary Daniel Kroll lives in Malawi and coordinates OAT’s work in West Africa

Please pray for those working in fields that are ripe for harvest. Share their story, engage with future news and receive updates. Learn more about our mission fields in Africa and how the Holy Spirit is working faith in people’s hearts at https://wels.net/serving-others/missions/africa