It’s Sunday morning. You wake up and get yourself dressed
and ready to go to church, just like you do every Sunday. You arrive at church
and quickly get caught up in a conversation about your favorite football team’s
chances of winning the Super Bowl this season. The bell starts ringing and you
quickly slip into the fourth pew from the front on the left side, where you
always sit next to Mr. & Mrs. Keaton, the delightful retired couple from
Michigan. The quiet rumble of friendly chit chat immediately ceases when the
organist introduces the first hymn…and then you notice that the pastor’s chair
is empty.

Have you ever been to a church service without a pastor? Maybe your pastor is on vacation and has left an elder in charge of conducting worship. Maybe your pastor has taken a call to another congregation and you’re in the process of calling a new one. Maybe your congregation shares your pastor with another congregation, and you listen to his sermons online.

It is possible to worship God at church without a pastor in
the pulpit. But what if there’s no sermon? What if the person leading worship
is unable to present an encouraging message from God’s Word to you? Even if
every hymn that day is one of your favorites, and the choir’s anthem echoes the
praises in heaven, and you hear the lessons and the Psalm read with dignity and
clarity, you’ll come away from church that Sunday still hungry, as if you’d
just finished a vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner. The sermon is the part of the
service you look forward to most.

On any Sunday in the LCCA Malawi, an ordained pastor serves at worship in only a quarter of the congregations, and laymen lead worship in all the rest. Although the LCCA is diligently training new church workers, there are only so many pastors that the church body can support. Many pastors serve parish unions of four or more congregations. These congregations pool their limited financial resources to pay the pastor’s salary. These parish unions would dissolve without lay leaders conducting worship on the Sundays when their pastors are serving elsewhere.

Lay worship leaders are spiritually mature men with a good
name in their local community, but most of them live in remote areas and are
not well educated. To ensure that church members are being spiritually fed with
the pure word of God, the LCCA has relied on books of sermons that the lay
leaders can read during worship. The sermons were written by American
missionaries, translated into the local languages and then edited by an
American missionary responsible for overseeing the publications program.

But the multitude of new opportunities for outreach are driving OAT missionaries to reexamine their mission strategy in Africa, and to engage their local partners in much different ways. There is no longer one missionary dedicated to publications work in Malawi. Instead, one missionary is responsible for facilitating publications work across the entire continent, working closely together with local pastors and publications committees to produce the materials they need the most.

In Malawi, a national pastor oversees the production of new
sermon books. This pastor sets up a schedule and assigns sermon texts to other
Malawian pastors, who are able to write sermons in their native tongue and to
include examples from everyday life. The Malawian pastors produce sermons that
flow much more naturally than anything an American outsider could ever write.  It is somewhat of a challenge to collect and
compile the sermons, since most LCCA pastors do not make regular use of email
or internet in their homes. Still, under this new system the LCCA has published
five volumes of sermon books so far, and the plan is to keep producing new
books once a quarter in two of the languages spoken in Malawi.

In the West, we are drowning in a daily deluge of downloads
and data. It’s hard for us to imagine the life of a Malawian villager, who
might listen to the radio every once in awhile but otherwise has little
connection to the outside world. For that Malawian villager, attending church
on a Sunday morning to sing hymns, to sway with the choir, and to hear a
Gospel-centered sermon on Sunday is the highlight of the week, the place where he
may “eat what is good, and delight in the richest of fare” (Isaiah 55:2).

Missionary John Roebke lives in Malawi and manages
Communications and Publications 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

Recently I’ve been digging through old photos,
looking over the 25 years I’ve lived in Malawi as a missionary
wife. There are an amazing amount of memories that come to mind looking over
those pictures. My husband, Paul, was assigned to Malawi when he graduated from
the Seminary in 1993. In remembering those early years, and comparing them to
our life here today, several things came to mind.

We didn’t know much about Malawi when we
arrived in 1993 with our one year old son. Paul was called to serve rural
congregations in the North of Malawi. We knew he was called to teach God’s
Word to the people there. We had something valuable to share and were willing
to do it.  What we didn’t
know at the time was that Malawi, and the millions of people who live here, had
something valuable to teach us. 
Reflecting back, I can clearly see how God provided for us in big and
small ways.

Our second child was born in 1995 while living in the small town
of Mzuzu.  When the doctor who delivered
my baby asked if I had packed a flashlight I realized that I wasn’t
as prepared as I thought I was. Power cuts and dim lights are common. I learned
to be ready for scenarios I hadn’t had to think about living in the
U.S.

After our daughter was born we had planned to travel throughout
Malawi. I learned that some items, like disposable diapers, were impossible to
find in Mzuzu. I was resigned to traveling for 10 days with a toddler and a
newborn with only cloth diapers. It was then that I learned that God is much
better at planning ahead than I am. 
Weeks before I even knew I would need them, a group of Christian women
in the U.S. had a baby shower for me and shipped an enormous box of disposable
diapers to Malawi. The diapers arrived two days before our trip. God’s
timing was the best.

As Paul and I met the people of Malawi, we saw that many
Malawians struggled with the effects of poverty. Shortages of food, water,
medical care and jobs impacted people’s daily lives. As the needs of
Malawians were made known to us and we sought ways to help,  Paul and I were learning a lesson about
giving and hospitality that Malawians had to teach us.

From our early days of language learning and visiting people in
their homes, to traveling to remote villages with Paul to greet people who had
never seen a “European” woman and her  baby before, we were welcomed with clapping,
singing, smiles.  Chairs appeared out of
no where for us to sit on while our 
Malawian hosts sat on the ground. If possible, a bottle of CocaCola or
Fanta was procured for us. We never left empty handed. Mangoes, green maize,
sweet potatoes, a live chicken – these people were happy to share with us. Not
because we needed theses things, but because they wanted to show their love to
us. Malawian’s have a phrase, “ Tikulandirani ndi manja awiri! We
welcome you with both hands! ” 
They welcomed us  not just with
their hands, but with their hearts as well.

Yes, I’ve learned a lot during my years in Malawi.  I’ve learned to drive on the left hand side of the road. I can navigate muddy, rutted roads that look impassable to the uninitiated. I’ve treated our neighbors’ dogs who had venom spat in their eyes from encountering a huge spitting cobra. I learned it’s not really a good idea to pick up a giant horned chameleon on the side of the road and try to to take it home in the car. These are all good things to know to live well in Malawi. But most of all, I’ve learned that God’s people love each other no matter where they are in the world.  God’s people in Malawi have shown their love to me and my family for 25 years, and by God’s grace we’ve been able to join with them in worship, Bible study, English classes, Sunday School, weddings, funerals, births and graduations.  While my own family is growing up and moving away, and I can’t physically be there for them in all the ways I wish I could, I am learning God provides for all our needs, big and small, in ways that I never even imagined He would.

Written by Susan Nitz, missionary wife in Malawi, Africa

How was this winter in Minnesota, where I have been a pastor since 2015? Long. Is that why some of us are moving to Africa, and the others hope to visit? No. Above is our family by the Gulf of Mexico. It was January 1. We were in Sarasota, Florida, where we used to live. From left to right: Dan; Donovan, 14; Drew, 12; Danae, 22; Deb; Deanna 25; Daria, 18; and David, 21. Three of us — Dan, Deb and Drew — are getting ready to head across an even bigger body of water than the Gulf. I’ve been called as theological educator for the One Africa Team.

We will be based in Lusaka, Zambia, but my main work will not be at the seminary there. I am to teach and coordinate others’ teaching of African undergraduates and graduates. Where? WELS walks hand in hand with confessional Lutheran church bodies in Cameroon, Nigeria, Malawi, Ethiopia, Kenya and Zambia. Opportunities are emerging in Liberia, Mozambique, Rwanda and Uganda.

Can you picture our ascended Lord putting his right hand on John on Patmos, after John fell before him, as though dead? John was surrounded by the Aegean Sea on that island, as he fainted. He was far from home, exiled due to his testimony about Jesus. Jesus touched him and told him, “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades” (Revelation 1:17–18).

Jesus’ nail-pierced right hand has been on my family and me for longer than I can remember. For instance, my mother’s father, Heinrich Vogel, used to teach at our seminary in Mequon, Wisconsin. Once he was asked to teach in Japan for a year. My grandmother did not want to go. Flying made her uneasy. Finally, she objected to my grandfather, “I want dirt beneath my feet.” He offered to bring along a bucket of dirt onto the plane, so she could keep her feet on dirt. She still refused.

That was that. He declined. Little did he know that some of his interest in teaching the gospel in a faraway place — even his interest in Hebrew — would get passed down to one of his grandsons. My wife’s mother, likewise, would tell you that when she was a young WELS teacher, she wondered about teaching in Africa. She was one of the first teachers at St. Philip’s Lutheran School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

I first got the chance to teach in Africa in 2012, when Pastor Joel Jaeger and I were asked to teach for three weeks at Christ the King Lutheran Seminary in Uruk Uso, Akwa Ibom, Nigeria. The next October Pastor Dan Voigt and I taught there again.

I remember when Solomon, our driver, first drove Joel and me to the mission house in Uruk Uso. Michael Egar, now a pastor in Cross River State, Nigeria, took one look at me and joked, with a big smile, “You must be Akpakpan’s son. You look just like Akpakpan!”

I admit, I share a similar face shape and eyes with Akpakpan, a veteran Nigerian pastor now in heaven. I am taller; his face was darker than mine. He was such a help to me, sitting in the back of the classroom, chiming in at just the right moment, here and there. I can still hear him saying to the students, “Yes. That is right. That is what God’s Word teaches.” Such experiences helped shape me. What a joy. What grace: Having a small part in training others for ministry in places so different from where I have been a pastor on this side of the ocean (Illinois, Florida and Minnesota).

Now our family looks back at ministry in cities, suburbs and a small town. We remember the ways we had to adjust when we all pitched in to start a new church in Florida, a spot with different weather and customs than where we had been, which after some years became home. We are surprised at how God has prepared us all in various ways — even when we left one son in Florida when the rest of us moved north in 2015, or how God led us to doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota who have been so helpful to two of our children with difficult diseases.

Since 2014 I have served with others on the Psalmody Committee for our synod’s new hymnal. Have the psalms given you comfort and direction, in Christ? I hope they will do so more and more. David sings to God in Psalm 139,

“Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast” (139:7–10).

Now our family sings that 3,000 year old song in a new light. As I write this, one of our
daughters is flying over the Arctic Ocean, on her way to a short-term mission trip in China. She will soon fly over the Pacific Ocean, too.

Join our family in song, won’t you?

Missionary Dan Witte will be moving to Lusaka, Zambia this summer