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

“The LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore” Psalm 121:8

This story is both late and early.

It is late because it is partly about the retirement service for Pastor Mutebele Chijoka (pronounced “moo-tay-BAY-lay chi-JOE-ka”) of the Lutheran Church of Central Africa – Zambia Synod on Sunday 27 November 2021 at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Kabwata, a neighborhood in Lusaka, Zambia.

This story is early because the installation service for Pastor Chijoka’s replacement at Saint Matthew, Pastor Foster Soko, has just been announced for 27 March 2022.

Both men have been faithful servants of the Lord for many years. Pastor Chijoka was in church work for 47 years before his retirement. From 1995, when he was ordained, to 2021, his retirement, he shepherded the flock at St. Matthew.

Pastor Soko is younger. Born in 1975, he was ordained in 2006 and most recently was serving God’s flock in Nyimba, in Zambia’s Eastern Province. Now he and his family have moved to the Kabwata area of Lusaka.

So far details like these might fit many pastors in the States. What makes these Zambian pastors unique?

Both men are bilingual, for one. Pastor Chijoka is fluent in both his native Tonga and in English. Pastor Soko is fluent in both Chewa and English. (Both men are also somewhat familiar with other Bantu languages, such as Bemba. That’s how it works in Lusaka, Zambia.)

Both men are scholarly. For instance, in April 2002 Pastor Chijoka delivered an essay to the distinguished participants of the fourth triennial convention of the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference in Gothenburg, Sweden: “The Work of Christ as Prophet.” He helped translated many LCCA-Z Tonga publications.

In December 2020, Pastor Soko graduated from Chalimbana University in Chongwe, Zambia. He received a bachelor’s degree in both education and English language, including English in literature, along with religious studies.

Pastor Soko is aiming at another both: He also is pursuing a bachelor of divinity degree through the One Africa Team’s Confessional Lutheran Institute, in conjunction with the Pastoral Studies Institute of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary.

St. Matthew, the congregation both men now have in common, is unique too. Take its choirs.

PHOTO 6 https://www.facebook.com/LutheranChurchofCentralAfrica/photos/pcb.451139769774577/451133773108510

Here is a video in which St. Matthew’s youth choir joins with a choir from the LCCA-Z congregation in Kanyama.

But St. Matthew has more musical talents than just those, and their choirs can sing in both African and western ways:

Soon we hope to post joyful music and more from the celebration of Pastor Soko’s installation at St. Matthew.

In the meantime, it is fitting to conclude with words of appreciation both for Pastor Chijoka and for you.

So here is LCCA-Z chairman Pastor Davison Mutentami speaking at Pastor Chijoka’s retirement about the many ways Pastor Chijoka had served the Lord.

And truly, dear reader, thank you for your love, prayers, and financial support for pastors and congregations like these in the Lutheran Church of Central Africa – Zambia Synod.

I will say it both in Tonga and Chewa: Twalumba kapati. Zikomo kwambiri. (Thank you very much!)

Pastor Daniel Witte serves as a member of the One Africa Team in Lusaka, 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

This week’s post is written by Missionary Dan Kroll, the One Africa Team liaison to Nigeria and Cameroon. He recently went back to Cameroon for a regional meeting with pastors from the Lutheran Church of Cameroon, Christ the King Lutheran Church of Nigeria, and All Saints Lutheran Church of Nigeria.

We’ve been pretty busy in Cameroon the past few months.  We were there in October to discuss the Lutheran Church of Cameroon’s ministry plan and consider some of the changes they might want to make in the near future.  There’s a lot of ministry happening there!

Missionary John Holtz also led a workshop on the topic of Dialogue Education, as a part of ongoing professional development courses that One Africa Team offers our mission partners in Africa through the Confessional Lutheran Institute (CLI). The course on Dialogue Education was eye-opening for the local pastors, many of whom had only rarely experienced anything other than learning by rote. In the midst of this workshop, somebody commented, “this changes everything!” 

Last month we went back to Cameroon to walk our partners through a Seminary Consultation, another branch of the CLI. The last few years have changed our partners’ worker training programs drastically. Because of security concerns, WELS professors are currently unable to visit Nigeria and Western Cameroon. Our Nigerian and Cameroonian brothers are the only feet on the ground. They receive support from OAT remotely.

The lack of face-to-face meeting time makes it more urgent than ever that their worker training programs are suitable to meet the needs of their church bodies.  All six Seminary teachers – Edward Obi and Michael Egar from All Saints in Nigeria, Aniedi Udo and Idorenyin Udo from Christ the King in Nigeria as well as Israel Mesue and Gervase Ngalame from Cameroon – were trained in a WELS designed and operated worker training program.  Our mission partners’ worker training programs now reflect a West African designed curriculum, tailor-made to serve people who are uniquely Cameroonians and Nigerian.  We have been talking about handing things over to our brothers for over half a century. Now we are giving them some space to take responsibility.

Starting in September of 2022 our mission partners in Nigeria and Cameroon will be teaching classes they have chosen for themselves, based on their experience and their own needs.  They will be following their own schedule, and they themselves will have determined how to use the funds available to train their men well.  It’s an exciting time for us here.

As we say in West Africa, “God is good…all the time.”  We pray for God’s blessings on these men and those they will train. Until we come back to Cameroon, they will carry the gospel forward.

Missionary Dan Kroll 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