When I arrived in Malawi ten months ago, I didn’t know what I was looking at.

I saw men riding bicycles with short sticks of wood piled up on the back bumper. How did they stack them that high, and what was keeping the load from crashing down on their heads? How did they keep their balance, and what can you build with sticks? But these guys weren’t trying out for the circus – this is a matter of daily survival. These guys sell firewood for cooking in order to feed their families.

I saw a toilet that resembled a medieval instrument of torture. Why would anyone imprison a toilet with bands of iron and a padlock? What did the toilet do to deserve such a punishment? And why was a cup perched on top of the tank? I know water is a scarce commodity in Africa, but stealing water from a toilet? Malawi isn’t the Sahara. My mind could not process what my eyes were seeing.

Malawi is a lushly vegetated country, with flowers, fruits and trees that I cannot identify by name. I’m partial to palm trees, of which there are many different varieties, including man-made. But seriously, artificial palm trees in the tropics? I must say however that they do make stylish cell phone towers.

Driving on the left side of the road and using the turn signal on the right side of the steering column required rewiring my brain. I didn’t study for my Malawian driver’s license exam…and I failed it. What does a red triangle with a scorpion in the middle of it signify? Does a red line drawn through the letter “S” indicate that you are in a snake-free zone? And when both the red and the green lights are lit at the same time do you stop or go, or do both?

When you move to another country, one of the biggest challenges you face is decoding the foreign writing on the signs. But even when the signs are in English, you can’t believe what your eyes are seeing. Why is there a street named “Lutherane”? Why is there a church named “Wisconsin”? It makes me realize that I’m not the first WELS missionary to set foot in this land.

And that’s a very good thing, because there are so many things here that need explaining. I see suffering. I see poverty. I see barefoot children dressed in rags. I see the blind and the lame begging. I saw the casket of a 19-year-old girl. These things will never make sense to me or to anyone else. How can a good God allow such evil to exist?

That is the mystery of the cross, the beautiful ugliness of Christ’s death. It is evidence of God’s unexplainable love for unlovable wretches. God’s goodness is right there for the viewing in Scripture, but how can people understand what they are seeing unless they hear what it means? How can they hear what it means unless someone preaches to them? How can anyone preach unless they are sent? WELS sent its first missionaries to Central Africa six decades ago, and by God’s grace the Lutheran Church of Central Africa is still opening the minds of people to understand what God has shown the world in his Word.

When they see water splashed on their child’s head, or the head of an adult, they understand that Baptism saves souls by washing away sin’s stain and covering them with the pureness of Christ. When they see people swallowing wheat wafers and sips of wine, they understand that Communion is uniting them with the body and blood Christ used to pay for their freedom. When they see the pastor standing in front and hear him say, “I forgive you all your sins in name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” they understand that it is Christ who is speaking to them, the same Christ whose words give eternal life.

I have begun to understand a little better what my eyes are showing me in Malawi. I have also begun to have a greater appreciation for what God has been doing through his faithful servants here in Central Africa. I hope that through this blog, you also have begun to understand that God’s design is much bigger than what we can see. “‘What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived’—the things God has prepared for those who love him—these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.” (1 Cor. 2:9-10)

Missionary John Roebke serves as the Missionary of Publications in Malawi and as the Communications Manager for One Africa Team. In the Fall of 2018 he will be on a speaking tour in the United States. Sign up for a mission festival at your church or school at wels.net/speaker-request     

On September 24, 1977, my wife Beth and I, married only two months, stepped off a plane in Lusaka, Zambia for the first time. I was four months out of the seminary and was about to begin my ministry by serving as a missionary with the Lutheran Church of Central Africa (LCCA). It was a difficult time for the 13-year-old country. Store shelves were all but empty as the import routes were cut off by the violent war of independence taking place on our south in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). But the welcome of the mission staff and especially the warm and cheerful Christians of Zambia helped us quickly make Zambia our first home.

In the six years that followed we were blessed with two healthy children, and we became absorbed in helping the Lutheran Church of Central Africa grow in numbers and spiritual maturity. I oversaw congregations in urban Lusaka and in the rural Eastern Province (a 3-4 day, 1,000-mile round-trip visit each month). I also ran the Lutheran Press and taught at the Bible Institute and Seminary in Lusaka. Our ministry lasted until 1983, and those six years were formative to our lives and ministries ever since.

This month, we stepped off the plane in Lusaka again for the first time in 35 years. We knew things would be different, but our 17-day visit truly amazed us. While the country has slowly modernized and improved its economic and educational levels, the changes in the LCCA were even more clearly visible. The three preaching stations I used to visit in the Eastern Province had now multiplied into 35 congregations. The over 50 years of faithful worker training at the Lutheran Bible Institute and the Seminary has resulted in over 50 well-trained African pastors who faithfully preach the Gospel and minister to over 50,000 souls.

On Easter we worshiped at St. Matthew’s Church on Burma Rd. in the Kabwata section of Lusaka. I had served as the pastor there for almost my entire 6 years. We received a joyous reception, with numerous choir songs, and a special luncheon. Especially wonderful was reconnecting with one of the remaining members from those early days. The church we had worshiped in is now a parish hall, and the current worship structure is much larger. Everything indicates God’s blessings during the past years when they benefited from having a Zambian as their pastor.

We had similar Sundays in 2 other churches, and reconnected with other old friends. The greatest joy, however, took place in our classrooms. Beth ran a workshop for the wives of seven pastors, exploring ways to increase literacy in their churches and to use language teaching in congregational outreach. The Christian maturity and zeal for ministry of these women was inspiring. I taught an advanced church history course to 21 pastors from Zambia, Malawi, Kenya, and Cameroon as a part of the Greater Africa Theological Seminary Institute (GRATSI) program. Some were finishing a Bachelors program; others were in a Masters program; the rest came solely to improve their biblical and historical knowledge and to further their knowledge of confessional Lutheran teaching with other African brothers.

One of my students was the grandson of a pastor I had worked with years ago. Several others were already serving as instructors at the Bible Institute (now located in Malawi) and the Seminary. The educational level had increased substantially in 35 years; and the Christian maturity of these men made it a joy to teach them. Tough times still lay ahead for any church in Africa, but I left knowing that these men will be a strong bulwark for the Lutheran church there. Please keep them and our hard-working missionaries there in your prayers always!

It was good to return “home” to Hong Kong spiritually refreshed. No more quiet starlit nights here, but also no electricity or water outages!  Back to finishing out the courses for this semester, and making preparations for the next year. Back to the eager faces of my Chinese students rather than the cheerful faces of Africans. But back to the same work—training pastors who will faithfully preach Law and Gospel to their people, who will always keep Christ at the center of their message, and who will be ready to pass that message to the next generation.

One final highlight. We paused during class one day to allow my African students to meet and talk with our Chinese students via Skype.  The African pastors asked about the challenges of outreach in East Asia. The Chinese students asked about ministry in a culture and environment so different from theirs.  The few minutes we spent together showed clearly how their Christian faith could create instant bonds across continents and cultures.  May God continue to bless our mission seminaries and allow them to continue to be an important tool in expanding His kingdom.

Dr. Glen Thompson, Academic Dean of Asia Lutheran Seminary in Hong Kong

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

I felt it but I didn’t see it.

I was settling into my tent for the night.  Fumbling around with my backpack and belongings, something poked me in the finger. But what?  I didn’t know. An acacia thorn?  A bare wire?  A stray needle?

I was tired and ready for sleep but the thought of not knowing what had impaled my skin was bugging me. I turned on my solar light and I scoured the tent but found nothing that could have been the culprit.  So I got thinking…what if it was something else?  Something alive and hiding?  Something like…

A scorpion?

With that pleasant thought I continued looking.  Still nothing.  I finally gave up the search but my mind wouldn’t give up the thought: what if it is a scorpion?  Then it is still in this tent! Restless with the thought that it would get me again, I lay wide awake for hours. So I turned my attention to the events of the day.  It had been a long but remarkable.

It was Easter Sunday,  1 April 2018. I was in the northern region of Malawi at St. Michael’s in Mzuzu.  All the northern region congregations had gathered at that one location for a four day camp meeting, Maundy Thursday through Easter Sunday. The church building was packed, the choirs were many (20), the worship service long (4 ½ hours!).

What a day to join our Chitumbuka speaking  brothers and sisters to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ!  He is the reason why the people gathered, the pastor preached, the choirs sang and the confirmed communed.   Take away the Sunday Surprise and you may as well take away the sermons, songs and supper.  In fact, you may as well stay home and stay put.  If Jesus has not been raised then our faith is futile, our hope is lost and our preaching is in vain.

Somewhere in those thoughts I drifted off to sleep.  But not for long.  I sensed something crawling on me and I shot up to my knees. The moonlight penetrating the tent walls gave just enough light for me to see the devilish beast.  It had a segmented body, loads of legs and nasty looking.

It wasn’t a scorpion.  It was an African Centipede.

Deep brown with a tinge of blue.  It stood in stark contrast with the white sheet I had been lying on. Writhing and squirming, it was doing everything it could to find traction and crawl away to hide once again in the dark tent.

That’s the last thing I wanted to happen. If it did manage to hide I certainly would have had to kiss a good night’s sleep goodnight and goodbye. Without taking my eyes off this creepy crawler I reached for anything I could get my hands on and gave it a whack before it slipped over the camping mattress. I stunned it, slowed it down a bit but didn’t kill it.  The mattress was too soft and it cushioned the blow too much.

But I kept hammering away with my weapon: a travel size shampoo bottle! I finally managed to crush the body and sever the head.  As it flailed around in the throes of death, I had this thought: You got me once, but you’re not going to get me again! It finally lay still.

Then, in a contented way, so did I.  I breathed both a welcomed sigh of relief and a prayer of thankfulness!  Now with that battle behind me, the thought came to me: I wonder if Jesus said something similar when he rose from the dead and stepped out of the tomb:

You got me once, but you’re not going to get me again. 

Paul said it another way: “Where, oh, death, is your sting?”

The persecutor turned preacher posed that question long ago; ever since, it’s been a common question in Christian churches on Easter Sunday.  Even when the Resurrection celebration falls on the first day of the fourth month, it’s definitely no April’s fools and it’s certainly no joke!  Jesus truly did rise!  In doing so He really did destroy that devilish beast called death!

“It has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” (2 Timothy 1:10).

That’s good news to know, especially when the one fumbling around in the tent is you!  Or, when the time comes when the tent coming down is yours.

But wait a minute, you argue, I don’t camp and I don’t spend any nights in a tent and I certainly don’t live in a tent!

Oh, but you do!

I’m not talking about your beautiful house in the burbs or your cabin in the woods; but is not your body a temporary dwelling…a tent of sorts? According to God, yes.  He moved Paul to write about it in 2 Corinthians 5:1, “…the earthly tent we live in…” Peter mentions it in his second letter: “It (the tent of our body) will be destroyed and be put aside.” (2 Peter 1:13).

Not only do we live in a tent but sooner or later it is going to come down! No matter how many pushups we do, investments we make, medals we win, awards we receive or degrees we acquire, our tent is still as flimsy as it is temporary. Maybe the stakes aren’t being pulled up just yet, but is there anything bugging you in that tent of yours?

Impaled too many times with sharp comments from mean people?

A bit sore from the things life pokes at you?

Stuck with a relative or a spouse with whom you just can’t get along?

Feeling stung with unfairness?

Frustrated because you can’t seem to find the solution to the problem?

Ouch.

We all know how that feels.

Life is full of pain and sorrow.  Grief and mourning.  Tears.  Cries.  Sobs.  Looking for answers?  Searching for clues? It’s important to know wherein the real problem of it all lies.  In the dark corners of our tent: “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.” (1 Corinthians 15:56).

Doesn’t sound too helpful or look too hopeful helpful, does it?

Neither did Good Friday.

A dark day.
Fearful disciples.
Difficult questions.
Hard to come by answers.

But look again!  That dark day was part of the answer!  Three days later Jesus came out of the grave, the Easter SON did shine and death gave way to life. “Thanks be to God!  He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 15:57. No wonder on Easter Sunday St. Michael’s Lutheran Church was alive with song and dance, preaching and praise!  And I’m sure yours was, too!

There was a wonderful message to share with the people:  “He is risen!  He is risen indeed!”

The devil’s head crushed.
Sin defeated.
Death destroyed.

And we are forgiven.

And as we reflect on the true meaning of Easter, knowing full well the answer, we can ask the question:

“Where, oh, death is your sting?”    

In God’s grace,
Your Malawi mission partner,
Missionary John Holtz

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