Eleven years ago, Pastor Mesue Muankume Israel, age 32, had so much leg pain that he got surgery to replace his left hip. Thank you, Jesus.

Four years ago, though, Pastor Israel, the only professor at the seminary of the Lutheran Church of Cameroon in Kumba, Cameroon, again started having bad hip pain. Same hip.

Thank you, Jesus?

Yes, “thank you, Jesus.” It’s always both.

Both what?

Both praying, “Hasten, O God, to save me; come quickly, Lord, to help me” (Psalm 70:1), and praying, “thank you, Jesus.”

“In all circumstances,” Paul says. “All” means all.

“Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

So four years ago, when Pastor Israel was diagnosed with the need for a second hip replacement surgery, “Thank you, Jesus”? Yep.

Even though, according to a U.S. surgeon with whom Missionary Dan Kroll consulted, there was too high a risk of infection to have the surgery done in Cameroon?

Still, “Thank you, Jesus”?

Always, “Thank you, Jesus.”

Case in point: Fast forward to October 2021. Pastor Israel, now 43, is in Kumba teaching 7 students who will be pastors in the Lutheran Church of Cameroon. Sometimes he can’t stand in class. Surgery is still needed, though pain medications help.

Covid-19 concerns lessen in Africa. Plans get made for Pastor Israel and 21 other pastors from Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, and Zambia to meet for a Psalms course in Lusaka, Zambia in late March and early April 2022. “Thank you, Jesus.”

Could Pastor Israel stay in Lusaka for a month or so after that course, and get surgery at a local hospital? Our One Africa Team investigates. Things look promising, we are told, depending on Pastor Israel’s future X-rays and blood testing. “Thank you, Jesus.”

But the hospital is a Roman Catholic mission, formerly known as the Italian Orthopaedic Hospital, now renamed “Saint John Paul II Orthopaedic Hospital.”

A hospital renamed after a recent pope, declared a Roman Catholic saint? No problem, practically. When I go to inquire about preparations and possible costs for surgery, I wear my clerical collar, and everyone receives me warmly. “Thank you, Jesus.”

What about funding? This surgery and related matters will cost thousands of dollars. The Lutheran Church of Cameroon can’t pay for it. Pastor Israel can’t pay for it. He has no insurance to cover it.

Ah, but here you come in. “Thank you, Jesus.”

The One Africa Team of WELS World Missions and WELS Christian Aid and Relief can fund such needs due to thank offerings you and others like you have given in the past. “Thank you, Jesus.”

Really: Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for the perfect offering you gave in our place.

Our offerings can’t bribe your Father. They can’t wow him. Never could. Every forest animal is his; so are the cattle on a thousand hills (Psalm 50:10).

He told his people of old, “Sacrifice thank offerings to God, fulfill your vows to the Most High, and call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me” (Psalm 50:14–15).

It felt like a day of trouble right before Pastor Israel’s surgery when needed O+ blood donations were not coming in. Then concerned local members of the Lutheran Church of Central Africa jumped in to help. Thank you, Jesus.

So on Thursday, April 21, Pastor Israel had his second hip replacement surgery. Because I was traveling, I couldn’t be there, but my faithful pastor, Evans Makowani, and my friend Mr. Remise Zulu were right there with him when he got out of surgery. Thank you, Jesus.

Very soon after surgery, Mr. Zulu wrote my wife, “Hi, madame. We are still at hospital. Pastor Israel has come outside the operation room. We prayed together and we are chatting with him right now.”

That kind of thing is the biggest reason I look back at the surgery, now that Pastor Israel has flown back home to Cameroon, and I say, “Thank you, Jesus.”

So many people together helped in so many ways.

As you might expect, recovery is taking time. But it continues to go well. “Thank you, Jesus.”

Pastor Israel recently wrote me from Cameroon, “I and everyone in my family is fine. And the pains dying down gradually. I got so busy that I have not had time to actually write back. In fact as we speak am in the office. Hope all is well with you too and our brethren over there.

“The good memories can’t escape my mind.”

Thank you, Jesus.

Or in Akoose, Pastor Israel’s Cameroonian heart language: “Nsome, a-Yesu.”

Missionary Daniel Witte lives in Zambia

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

A seven-day Psalms study with African pastors in Lusaka, Zambia might seem like a story without sizzle. But this one: wow.

In a way, the story starts almost two years ago. In June 2020 the Confessional Lutheran Institute (CLI), the educational arm of WELS World Missions’ One Africa Team, formed a cohort of African Lutheran pastors. These men, all ordained, want to keep learning Bible, church history, doctrine, and shepherding God’s flock.

For most of the 19 pastors currently in the cohort, our March 31–April 7, 2022 Psalms course was the third in a series of nine courses and a final thesis, all of which will lead, God willing, to a Bachelor of Divinity (BDiv) degree from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary.

The main teacher for this Psalms course, in which students met mornings and afternoons and worked on learning Psalms like the back of their hand, was WLS Professor Bradley Wordell.

Dr. Ernst Wendland from Lusaka Lutheran Seminary, who has published extensively on Psalms, also taught two afternoons. He got help from several seminary students who had composed Psalm settings in Chewa, Nsenga, and Tumbuka. Missionary Daniel Witte taught the last day and a half.

Ho-hum? Hardly.

Pastors as Students

This was the first time the full CLI BDiv cohort was able to be together in person. Previous Covid-19 travel restrictions had forced the BDiv brothers into one previous course via WhatsApp — an online communication platform, and the most common way to communicate via cell phone in Africa — and one course held successively in separate countries.

From 2010 to 2014 and 2015 to 2019 the Greater African Theological Studies Institute (GRATSI) had organized similar classes for other African pastors in our fellowship, but only pastors from Malawi and Zambia.

Now GRATSI has become CLI, and pastors in the current BDiv cohort are from five countries: Cameroon (1), Kenya (3), Malawi (5), Nigeria (2), and Zambia (8).

This Psalms course also brought together three other Kenyan pastors who already have bachelors degrees in theology. They are starting on a Master of Theology (MTh) program, also through Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary.

I wish you could have been with all of us in Lusaka to see the new camaraderie between these twenty-two pastors: the laughs, the discussions, the prayers.

I wish you could have experienced the energy in the meeting room as pastors saw more clearly than before how all the psalms center in Christ and connect in a story that summarizes the whole Bible, ending in the most perfect praise to God.

I wish you could have been there near the end of the last day as the pastors composed and sang for each other a refrain for Psalm 118. The melody is in both the WELS’ 1993 and 2021 hymnals, from Tanzania.

The refrains your African brothers wrote for that melody (we drummed it with our hand on the tables, too!) were not in Hebrew nor in English (“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his covenant-love is eternal”), but in their heart languages, such as Akoose, Chewa, Kiswahili, Lenje, and Tonga.

A Long Overdue Visit

Another unforgettable part of the story: Professor Bradley Wordell brought his wife Andrea and her mother Clarice Fastenau along on the trip.

Clarice’s husband, Missionary Don Fastenau, served as principal of the Lusaka Lutheran Seminary (1969–1980). He went to be with the Lord in 2018. The Fastenaus had left Lusaka in 1980. Andrea and Clarice had not been back to Zambia in 42 years.

Andrea and Clarice loved seeing Zambia again. They marveled at how things had changed. And Clarice, now age 82, was spry! “Energetic” hardly fits. At Victoria Falls, Clarice climbed all the way down to The Boiling Pot and back up the rocky stairway.

So now Clarice has a story to tell friends and family for the rest of her life, of how many things had not changed in 42 years, and how different Lusaka looks today.

And I have a story to share of God’s grace uniting pastors across a continent and believers around the world.

And you have a story too. Tell someone else about how WELS work in Africa is becoming fewer missionaries doing things for others, and more and more a partnership in Christ.

For instance, here is Pastor Mesue Israel, principal of the Lutheran Seminary in Kumba, Cameroon, encouraging his classmates and Professor Wordell and me with a heartfelt message from Isaiah 53 about Christ crucified, risen, and reigning.

Pastor Israel and many other pastors continue to study the Psalms too, so they know them like the back of their hands. With joy, Pastor Israel told me a whole story about it again just this morning!

Pastor Daniel Witte lives in Lusaka, Zambia, partners with the Pastoral Studies Institute at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, and heads the Confessional Lutheran Institute of the WELS One Africa Team.

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

Greetings from Uganda!

One Africa Team (OAT) Representatives Missionary Howard Mohlke (OAT Leader) and Missionary John Holtz (OAT Liaison to Uganda) met with the leadership of the Obadiah Lutheran Synod (OLS) in March 2022. This was another meeting among many (in-person and online) that have taken place since 2018.  It was back then that they began working through the Four Stage process to declare doctrinal unity and fellowship.  It has been a long and adventurous road! 

This March meeting marked a memorable milestone occasion: OLS leadership wrote a draft (but official) request for doctrinal unity/fellowship with WELS!  Together with that request, they have also written a summary of doctrine and practice and a report describing the relationship between OLS and WELS/OAT.  After our in-person meeting, the OLS has again met on their own to finalize and formalize their draft documents.  These documents will be sent to the WELS/OAT for consideration.

In addition to the OLS leadership writing official documents, the visit was fruitful in other ways: 

We shared the Word of God

We visited OLS congregations

We visited South Sudanese refugees in two different settlement camps

The Lord has opened doors for mission work in Africa. What a joy to walk through them. Thank you all for your partnership in the gospel.  What a blessed relationship it is! We appreciate your prayer, encouragement, and financial support as we “work while it is day!” (John 9:4)

Missionaries John Holtz and Howard Mohlke live 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