For over 80 years the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod
has supported mission work on the African continent, bringing both spiritual
and material relief to weary and burdened. Over that time, nearly one hundred
called workers and their families have given up the comforts of life in the
United States to offer their time and skills in service of God’s kingdom. There
have been missionaries who spent only a few years in Africa, and there are
those veterans who have spent the majority of their lives here yet the Lord has
used each and every of them to accomplish his own goals, in his own time.

From the very beginning of our mission outreach in Nigeria
back in the late 1930’s, American expatriate missionaries performed all the
Gospel ministry tasks such as teaching and baptizing, preaching and
administering the sacrament of communion and proclaiming the Good News of Jesus
Christ both in English and in foreign tongues. Who could begin to count the
cost of these missionaries’ sacrifices, the time devoted to learning foreign
cultures, the trials of life-threatening diseases, the threat of
post-independence civil unrest? These sacrifices are hard-won trophies known
only to the missionaries and their merciful God, who gave them their confidence
to keep on moving forward in spite of all obstacles.

Today we witness the fruits of their hard labor, and God’s
blessings on the preaching of his Gospel through the ever-increasing numbers of
Christ’s followers gathered in the Lutheran churches of Africa and the national
African pastors who serve them. There are over 125 ordained African pastors
serving over 50,000 members, forming seven independent Lutheran church bodies
located in six countries.  Our “children”
have grown up and are reaching out to their countrymen on their own. Although
WELS still supports 11 expatriate missionaries in Africa, none of them are
currently ministering directly to African congregations. None of them are
baptizing or teaching or confirming new Lutherans. None of them are preaching
in the local languages of the people.

Instead, the missionaries of One Africa Team have
transitioned into a new role as consultants to the leaders of our sister
churches in Africa. One Africa Team has stated its core focus thus: “Through
theological education and coordination of WELS resources, we assist our
partners in Africa to grow as independent, healthy church bodies.” WELS is
committed to securing theological training for African pastors both on the
undergraduate and graduate levels by supporting both expatriate and national
teachers in African worker training schools.

In some countries, expatriate missionaries teach side by
side with national teachers. In West Africa, where it is currently not safe for
Americans to live, our missionaries provide remote support to teachers via
assistance planning curriculum and encouragement over the phone and email. In
Ethiopia, the Pastoral Studies Institute (PSI) of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary
sends guest professors to Maor Theological College, which is headed by Dr.
Kebede Getachew. The LC-MC Kenya, WELS’ newest partner in Africa, and One
Africa Team are exploring options for training pastors.

One Africa Team, which consists of missionaries living on
the continent as well as stateside administrators, is the official face of WELS
in Africa. One Africa Team is in a prime position to help connect our sister
churches in Africa with the vast array of WELS resources available to assist
them in other ways. Recently, the OAT missionary of Publications helped
coordinate a pan-African Publications conference in Lusaka, Zambia which was
underwritten by WELS Multi-Language Publications. OAT has helped connect our
sister churches in Zambia and Malawi with WELS Christian Aid and Relief on
projects of a humanitarian nature, such as drilling boreholes. OAT is
partnering with the WELS Mission Journeys program, which will give WELS members
the opportunity to participate in short-term mission trips to Africa that will
benefit local partner congregations in their ministries. OAT missionaries are
willing to facilitate our African partners’ connections with a multitude of
other WELS groups such as the Global South Sudanese Committee, the Central
African Medical Mission, Kingdom Workers, the Vulnerable Children’s Fund, and
Grace in Action (to only name a few).

As our African partners are assuming an ever greater
responsibility for their ministry in their own countries, One Africa Team
missionaries have trained their sights on outreach to new groups of believers
in countries that are new to WELS missions. Africa’s huge landmass is the same
area as the USA, China, India, Japan and Europe combined, and its population
will be upwards of 2.5 billion by the middle of this century. These are
compelling reasons alone for WELS missions to continue to invest its time and
manpower in Africa, but let us remember that the blessings of African mission
work flow in two directions, both from the sending church to the daughter
church and vice versa. WELS’ involvement in African missions over the last 80
years has kept Gospel outreach at the beating heart of our ministry and
mission. We do not send missionaries only to build hospitals and schools, but
to preach the life transforming Gospel of Christ that sets people free from
fear and superstition. 

That is why One Africa Team is currently exploring new
opportunities to partner with Christ’s followers from Liberia, Mozambique,
Rwanda, South Sudan, Uganda, and Zimbabwe who share our passion: “Christ for
All, Great News for Africa.” We need to work closely with our partners, to
overcome cultural barriers and to lovingly work through the resulting
misunderstandings that often arise. OAT has set the goal of declaring
fellowship with 12 groups of Christians in a total of 12 countries by the year
2025, with another 6 prospective groups of Christians in 6 other countries in
the process.

And OAT has set a goal for empowering its African partners
to assume a greater role in the training of new pastors, as well as the continued
nurturing of their current corpus through peer mentoring and formal education
program by the middle of the next decade. 
One Africa Team’s prayer is that Christ continues to bless our journey
together with our partners that benefits all parties and advances His kingdom
goals around the globe.

Missionary John Roebke lives in Malawi and coordinates
Communications for 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. Go to this link to learn more
about our mission fields in Africa and how the Holy Spirit is working faith in
people’s hearts  https://wels.net/serving-others/missions/africa

The missionaries of One Africa Team do not preach, teach or
baptize in local congregations today – in fact, they haven’t done that kind of
direct ministry for years. Instead, we are focusing all of our efforts on
building up local church leaders and pastors, following the philosophy that
“strong pastors lead to healthy congregations.”

This is a significant change from the way that WELS missionaries in Africa have operated in past decades. How did we think we could speak the language and understand the culture well enough to build a foundation for a mission amongst a foreign culture? But we did.  As Christ’s apostles proclaimed the message of salvation in the tongues of people from all over the world on Pentecost, so during the last eight decades the Holy Spirit has enabled WELS missionaries to bring the Word of God to the remotest areas of Africa.

God has blessed our mission planting efforts with growth, not just in numbers but more importantly in faith and leadership skills.  As African men came to the worker training schools that WELS missionaries established, they gained an understanding of the greatness of our God and his work to save us from the depths of eternal punishment.

In 1937, Dr. William Schweppe and his wife Leola arrived in Nigeria. They were the first full-time missionaries supported by the WELS in Africa. At that time, the Nigeria mission was co-jointly supported by WELS and the LC-MS, working together within the Lutheran Synodical Conference.  Working through schools and clinics, the Schweppes helped people understand God’s love – a love deep enough to sacrifice his own Son to pay the price of our guilt and to raise him from the dead as proof that our debt was paid.

When the Lutheran Synodical Conference broke apart in 1961, Bill and Leola left the mission Nigeria and came to Zambia, where WELS had established a mission four years earlier in 1957. He is one of many “foundational fragments” who helped lay the foundation of WELS mission work in Central Africa. Rev. Schweppe expended countless hours baptizing babies and helping people to understand why we need the Holy Spirit and the forgiveness of sins he brings. After years faithfully serving the mission in Mwembezhi, Dr. Schweppe was called home via a car accident near Mazabuka in the Southern Province of Zambia on 15^th July 1968.

His gravestone had deteriorated so badly by 2003 that it was replaced by some of the Zambia missionaries with donations from US supporters.  Now in 2019 – we had the blessing of searching for (and finding!) that old burial plot.

The church is built on the foundation of the apostles and
prophets (Ephesians 2:20). Throughout the centuries, God has continued to build
up his church all over the world using dedicated missionaries like the
Schweppes. Missionaries are fragile, but those who build their faith on Christ
the cornerstone will never be shaken. We thank the Lord for the Schweppes and
other “foundational fragments” for bringing the gospel to Africa!

Dan 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. Go to this link to learn more
about our mission fields in Africa and how the Holy Spirit is working faith in
people’s hearts  https://wels.net/serving-others/missions/africa

Cameroon has had its ups and downs the past few years – which always give more opportunity for the gospel message to take priority. Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) Our partners in Cameroon have the message of hope in Jesus and they’re taking every opportunity to share it.

We need more people to do the work! Last March, we hoped that classes would be able to resume at our campus there at Barombi Kang. But those plans had to be scrapped when the only Cameroonian Seminary teacher, Rev Israel Mesue, was informed by armed thugs that “if you open that school, you yourself will be taken for ransom (kidnapped).”

But as the old saying goes, “If at first you don’t succeed try, try again.” Just a few months later Pastor Isreal proposed to continue teaching his students in Cameroon via “Satellite Seminary” in order to re-invigorate students about preparing for the full-time ministry. Pastor Isreal spends six weeks on the road, spending up to two weeks in each of the three districts of the Lutheran Church of Cameroon (LCC). He is currently teaching lessons on “The Three Ecumenical Creeds,” “Homiletics (Preaching)” and “The Large Catechism” (Pt 1 – Commandments), together with worksheets, discussion topics and even tests for those courses.

Rev. Isreal began his first tour in the Western Bakossi District (Nyadong Village) with students Thomas and Vincent. The teaching went well and the students were happy to be back into the books. One of the LCC’s members sat in on the classes at Nyandong and decided that he might be interested in pursuing studies for the ministry in the future. If the Satellite Seminary program runs smoothly, James will be able to start his studies in September of 2022! We see the Lord of the harvest answering our prayers to provide men who are eager to serve him.

It can be bumpy at times teaching seminary students on the road. On his trip to the Northwest District, Pastor Israel’s bus broke down close to where some of fighting has been taking place between pro-government and separatist forces. When the military showed up, Pastor Isreal found himself less ten feet away from a shoot-out! Thankfully nobody was injured. Pastor Isreal looks to the Lord for protection and praises him for the many things that went well on his first trip.

Two weeks ago Rev. Israel was at Northwestern District (Mbemi Village) with the Chairman of the Board for Worker Training Rev. Fon George, along with students Crispos and David. He was a bit delayed in starting his visit there because of another “project” in his home town of Kumba where he is teaching students Ferdinand and Solo (pictured here writing their final tests).

A French-speaking student, Jean-Jacque, did not join his fellow students in the English-speaking region of Cameroon because of the political climate. Nico, another student, was not able to join the program either because of his work. Both Jean-Jacque and Nico will have some catching up to do. While at Kumba there were a few interruptions, but Rev. Isreal adjusted the schedule as necessary to ensure that the students learned the material well.

It was a great blessing for both the students and their teacher to spend time together in God’s Word during this “Seminary road trip.” The next step will be to “try, try again” and bring all the students together on the campus of the LCC Seminary at Barombi Kang in Kumba. Please pray for the peace and safety of the people of Cameroon, and that God continues to bless the work of our partners in the LCC.

Dan 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. Go to this link to learn more about our mission fields in Africa and how the Holy Spirit is working faith in people’s hearts https://wels.net/serving-others/missions/africa