Who doesn’t love to be home? Well, especially when you have a wonderful family such as my parents and older sister. I was born in Malawi, Africa, though I spent the first 10 years of my life in the small town of Chipata in Zambia. My father, Pastor John Holtz, worked as a missionary pastor there until he received a call to move to Malawi in 2008. I spent the rest of my school years there all the way until I graduated secondary school at age 18. Since then, I have been attending Wisconsin Lutheran College as a nursing student, currently in my third year. I have been extremely blessed to have been able to go back home to Malawi during the longer breaks to see my family and old friends.  

As part of the nursing program, third year students go on an immersion trip to none other than Lusaka , Zambia (the capital) where they stay on the seminary grounds. I did not live in Lusaka, but my family traveled there often for work and missionary gatherings. So there I was, surrounded by my classmates in a place so foreign to them yet so familiar to me. It felt odd, simply put. At the same time, it was a huge blessing to be able to share my life in such a unique way with the people who have accepted me into their lives in the United States.

The purpose of our trip was to experience the medical field in a Third World Country. We visited the government-run hospital known as Chelstone, a private children’s clinic known as Beit Cure, an organization for disabled children known as Special Hope Network, and also some grade schools for teaching (see end of article for pictures). We also traveled to a rural clinic in the town of Mwembezhi where missionaries originally started their work. Personally, I thought that all of these organizations were impressive. With limited resources and endless patients, these facilities are doing a great job at providing cheap to no cost care while still providing respectable patient outcomes. So you may be wondering if it is my desire to work there. That answer is difficult, because in Zambia, only local residents are hired, which I think is reflective of the purpose of the WELS mission. The advanced health care systems in the States have a much different focus, some of it good, and some of it I do not particularly like. On top of it being hard to “adult,” it is even harder to know where to even start when you are pulled in different directions, as many missionary kids often experience. But here’s the good news: God is in control. There may come a time when our parents move, and we feel like we have lost our home. Though we desire to go back, what is there for us to do? We need to remember that God leads us and knows what is best for us. When we worry about our future and transition into adulthood, it clouds our vision to the joy that is in Christ Jesus. Proverbs 3:5-6 reminds us to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all you ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”

So what does it feel like to be back home as an adult missionary kid? Contrarily, going back to Malawi makes me feel like a kid again. Many of my childhood memories were experienced there and Zambia, my friends are there, my pets, my house, but most of all what makes it home is my family. I know its cliché, but how can I deny it? Whenever I am home, I feel myself again, though it is bittersweet.  I go back, knowing I’ll have to leave again in a few weeks. I always cherish my time there, though I remember that life on this earth is temporary. Any struggles here on earth are nothing in comparison to the glory that will be experienced in heaven. Something that I find both comforting and amazing is that those same people, that my dad and all the other missionaries impacted, are going to be with me in heaven someday. I thank God for my life in Africa, and I thank God for my life here too, but most of all, I thank God for saving me a place in his Kingdom…

Heaven is my Home.

Written by Heather Holtz, current student at Wisconsin Lutheran College and daughter of Africa Missionary John Holtz and wife Mindy

Do your
best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to
be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. 2 Tim. 2:15

In many places, the pastors of the LCCA are the most educated men in
their locales. People living in rural communities attend primary school but
most leave secondary school before receiving their diploma. Churches offer
Sunday School for children and Confirmation Instruction for Adults who want to
become members, but it is difficult for pastors to conduct advanced Bible
Classes because each pastor is responsible for 3-6 congregations.

How do we bridge the gap in Biblical knowledge of an LCCA
member who wants to enroll in our Worker Training program but barely
understands what it means to be a Lutheran? In Malawi and Zambia we do not have
Lutheran Elementary and Preparatory/Area Lutheran High Schools. Instead, the
Worker Training System of the LCCA Malawi and Zambia relies heavily on a
program called “Theological Education by Extension” or T.E.E. for short. 

The T.E.E. program was initially set up by Missionary Ernst
H. Wendland in 1963 in Zambia. He recognized that men coming from a rural
setting needed to receive additional preparation before they began their formal
studies for the ministry. Instead of sending these men far away from their
families and villages, the T.E.E. program is administered locally by the
pastors who are serving in the field. 

Under the guidance of their pastor, candidates for the
ministry work through four in-depth courses on Lutheran doctrine and Bible
history. The students study at their own pace, meeting occasionally with their
pastor who reviews the material with them. This system works well in remote
areas, where the pastor only makes visits 2-3 times a year.

Under our current Worker Training system, every three years
there is an intake of new students. Men who have completed the T.E.E.
coursework present themselves for a test and an interview with the faculties of
our Worker Training schools in Malawi or Zambia. Out of about 40 men who
applied during the last intake in 2017, only 12 were accepted. In spite of
this, there is some attrition of students during the six years of formal study
due to academic or personal reasons.

Overall, the T.E.E. program has served the needs of the LCCA
Worker Training Program well over the years.  Currently there are 8 students enrolled at the
Lutheran Seminary in Lusaka, and 16 students enrolled at the Lutheran Bible
Institute in Lilongwe. We ask God that every one of these men completes their
studies and receives a call into the ministry. 

Missionary John Roebke
serves in Malawi

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

God is our refuge and
strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though
the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its
waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. (Psalm 46:1-3)

There is a Chewa proverb, “Walira mvula, walira matope” (he
who cries for rain, cries for mud). In a place where no rain falls from May to
October, the beginning of the rainy season means new life and a fresh crop of
food. Malawian farmers view rain as one of God’s greatest blessings; however,
the rainy season presents a significant challenge for city planners trying to
manage the flow of water through heavily populated urban areas.

On 10 January 2019 heavy rains in Malawi’s capital city of
Lilongwe led to flash flooding that killed two people and damaged the homes of
984 people. Several bridges were severely damaged. The hardest hit areas of the
city included the campus of the Lutheran Bible Institute, where we are training
the future pastors of the Lutheran Church in Central Africa.

The LBI campus is located on the slope of a hill and is surrounded
by a brick security wall that is about 10 feet tall. Although the wall has
several drainage outlets, several of them were blocked with trash and debris.
After three hours of non-stop rain, a portion of the wall collapsed. This
released a tidal wave of water that gushed down the campus slope towards the
homes of the people who live adjacent to our campus, including the home of LCCA
pastor Kesten Chinyanga.

At the request of the community’s traditional headman, LBI
faculty members visited the affected people and delivered gifts of money and
maize (corn) to people who had suffered the greatest losses. Our visitors were somewhat
surprised to hear accusations that someone had intentionally broken to wall to
cause destruction to our neighbors’ homes.

Three days later, representatives from the LBI met a second
time with the headman and members of the community. At that time we learned
that some members of the community threatened to hold a vigil in protest
against the LBI. Our representatives assured the community leaders about our
solidarity with them during this difficult time, and took them on a walking
tour around the campus to show them what steps we have taken to control the
flow of water across our property.

Working together with our neighbors in love and humility,
the LBI faculty listened to the community leaders’ suggestions on further steps
we can take to mitigate flooding in the future. One proposal is to construct of
a large drainage ditch that will shunt water away from our neighbors’ homes. In
fact, a drainage system has already been designed by Gary Evans, one of the
current CAMM staff members in Malawi and a civil engineer by profession.

Even in the midst of suffering, God continues to hold his
protecting hand over us and our community. This recent natural calamity has
given us the opportunity to demonstrate Christian love and compassion for our
neighbors, and to witness to them about the “fountain filled with blood drawn
from Immanuel’s veins; and sinners plunged beneath that flood, lose all their
guilty stains” (CW 112, v1).

Missionary John Roebke
lives in Malawi and is the Communications Director 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