In October representatives from the Lutheran Church of Central Africa – Zambia Synod, the Pastoral Studies Institute and One Africa Team visited the countries of Kenya & Ethiopia. Missionary John Hartman writes:

On 10 October, Pastor Simon Mweete and I flew from Lusaka, Zambia, to Nairobi, Kenya, to begin a two-week trip to visit three groups of African Lutherans from different nationalities at three different levels of development. The days were full of God’s grace and favor on display working among the people of eastern Africa!

The three groups are the Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ, in Kenya; the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Church, made up of members of the Nuer tribe from South Sudan, but presently living in refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia; and the Lutheran Church of Ethiopia, founded by Dr. Kabede in Bishoptu, Ethiopia, which is in fellowship with the WELS.

On the day we arrived in Kenya, we met with leaders of the Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ.  We were joined by Professor Allen Sorum from the Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in Wisconsin, and Pastor Mark Onunda, President of the LCMC and also our chauffeur and guide. We visited  with both LCMC members and pastors. At each place Pastor Mweete taught on Church Fellowship, Prof. Sorum taught the Doctrine of the Church and I taught on Pentecostal issues.

Our purpose was to teach the people what the Bible says on these topics so that the members of the LCMC may decide if they agree with us. I look forward to April 2018 when a delegation from the LCMC will be traveling to Lusaka and meeting with the LCCA-Z Doctrinal Committee for more formal discussions as the churches work toward fellowship.

You can read more about the LCMC Kenya visit at  https://welsfriendsofafrica.com/true-friends-of-the-bible/

On 16 October Pastor Mweete and I started the next leg of our journey.  We flew into Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and were joined by Missionary Terry Schultz from the USA and Pastor Peter Bur. Pastor Bur is a South Sudanese of the Nuer tribe who immigrated to the United States several years ago and graduated from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in 2015. Because of flight connections we had an overnight layover, which gave Terry Schultz time to go shopping for clothes because his luggage had not arrived from the USA. It also gave us time to visit the Orthodox Church where Emperor Haile Selassie is buried. The stained glass windows and stone statues made us think we had arrived in Europe!

On 18 October we flew out to Gambela, Ethiopia where four refugee camps are located. Because of a civil war within the country of South Sudan, over one million people have fled the violence into neighboring countries of Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan and Uganda.  Pastor Bur has been teaching Lutheran pastors and church leaders who have organized themselves into the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Church within the refugee camps.

A choir of singing and dancing men and women came out to greet us as we dismounted from our Bajaj taxi, a three-wheeled vehicle with room for three passengers. We were led inside the church yard and seated on a bench, where the women took off our shoes and socks and poured water over our feet. That was a welcome I have never experienced before!

The ten pastors and six evangelists who had gathered are from the Nuer tribe. The Nuer are easily recognized by the traditional practice of scarification. Men have scar lines across their foreheads and women have scars on their cheeks.

Over the next few days, Terry Schultz taught the leaders about the doctrine of Justification. Pastor Bur taught from Luther’s Catechism, which he had translated into the language of the Nuer. Pastor Mweete and I each taught a lesson and conducted a devotion. Pastor Bur was busy as he taught his own lessons and translated for the rest of us. Each day we rode the Bajaj taxi to our hotel, where monkeys watched us as we ate our meals. We never used the horse-drawn taxi-carts, one of which almost ran over us one day!

Plans are in the works for further training and encouragement of our Nuer brothers and sisters in the refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia. Please pray that the fighting stops soon, so that they can return to their homeland in South Sudan and be a blessing to the church there.

On 21 October Pastor Mweete and I flew back to Bishoptu, Ethiopia in time for the installation of a new pastor in the Lutheran Church of Ethiopia and the second graduation of the Maor Theological College and Seminary. Maor Theological College was founded and is run by Dr. Kebede Yizgezu. Dr. Kebede is the founder and President of the Lutheran Church of Ethiopia as well as the primary professor of the College and Seminary.  This year’s graduating class numbered 34 students in six different levels of theology. Dr. Kebede was the only pastor in the church until the ordination and graduation of a second pastor, Shambel Hordofa Robi. Prof. Allen Sorum from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary preached at the service and Pastor Mweete and I assisted with the presentation of diplomas.

Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary currently sends its professors on short-term teaching trips to Maor Theological College. We pray that this arrangement may continue, and that other avenues of training the leaders of God’s church in Africa may be explored as well.

These are our brothers and sisters in Christ from Kenya, Ethiopia, and South Sudan! All of them rejoice with us in the Scriptural truth of full and free salvation! All of them are thankful to celebrate the 500^th Anniversary of the Reformation! Let us give thanks to God for our fellow Lutheran Christians and pray for their growth in the truths of his grace!

Missionary John Hartmann lives in Lusaka, Zambia and coordinates outreach for One African 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

At Christmas time my family and I display some of our nativities in remembrance of our newborn King.  When setting them up and seeing them displayed, my mind immediately recalls the time I once bought a crèche in an open air market here in Lilongwe, Malawi. Picture this:  Mary and Joseph and Jesus, some shepherds, the Wise Men, a star, a cow, a couple of sheep, a donkey or two…and a hippo.

Ok, granted, it is Malawi. It is Africa.  And hippopotami are abundant here.  And to top it all off, it is a very different culture from the USA.

But a nativity scene hippo?  Hmmm…maybe this explains a few things.

For years I always pictured that Joseph was wide-eyed in amazement because of the birth of the Baby.  Now I’m wondering if his eyes were like saucers because he was a bit worried and astonished that the three-toed barrel-shaped beast with the beady eyes, big mouth, and bad breath was meandering just a bit too close to the manger.

We all love to sing Silent Night and we seem to think that all was indeed calm, but now I doubt if it was really all that quiet. I mean if the cattle were lowing, the sheep were baaing, the donkeys braying, and now the hippo gets a bit edgy and chimes in with its snorting, grunting, bellowing and blowing, then maybe the Baby was crying after all with the noise!  And yet we faithfully and confidently proclaim “No crying He makes” when we sing Away in a Manger.

The INCARNATION!

The “ten dollar” word that means God became Man.

The second Person of the Trinity, True God, became the “first-born among many brothers,” True Man! (Romans 8:29).  Born to die! Died to live! Descended to earth so that we might ascend to Heaven!

That means we can sing Joy to the World with gusto all year round if we want!   We have untold, incalculable, immeasurable, even indescribable joy!  Not just on the 25^th of the last month of the year.

That gives us reason to worship every day of the year!  All around the globe Lutherans are worshiping this Christmas season.   Which brings up something to ponder again at this time:  Lutherans worship in different cultures and different cultures worship in different ways.

Lutherans in fellowship worship in different ways.  Even at Christmas.

The instruments played in your church may not be the ones in ours.  Dancing choirs may be common place here, but not there.  Your congregation dresses one way, but they do so differently on the other side of the world…or maybe even on the other side of town.

There really wasn’t a hippo in the stable on that first Christmas in Bethlehem, but it didn’t seem to bother the marketer much that he included one in the nativity set he sold me.   I walked away with a good deal and a good deal to ponder each Christmas in Africa: there are many differences at Christmas time in Malawi compared to an American Christmas in Wisconsin.  Here are some:

No snow!  While you may be singing “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas,” we are opening up our umbrellas because it’s the front end of the rainy season.

Decorations?  There are a few but there are probably more in one Wisconsin Walmart than in the whole country of Malawi. 

I’ve never seen a Christmas tree set up in a Malawian house.

Strings of lights framing houses?  Are you kidding?  Most houses don’t have electricity hooked up and the ones that do don’t have power most of the time anyway.

The most common and most favorite Christmas meal in Malawi seems to be chicken and rice.

I have never seen or heard of a Living Nativity in Malawi enacting the Christmas story.  (Maybe it’s because it’s too difficult to get the hippo to cooperate). 

Plenty of differences, but there are also similarities. God’s people gather for worship.  Sins are confessed and songs are raised. The Word of God is preached. The Bethlehem Story is pondered. Gospel news is shared.  Fellowship is enjoyed. The Babe in the manger is honored with humble gifts and worshiped with happy voices.

I just have to smile….at the absurdity of it all.  There are many things more surprising than a hippo in a Nativity set!  Imagine… A God in love with us! A night sky of angels exploding in song! Shepherds who seek! A virgin birth! A believing husband-to-be! God becoming Man! A leading star! Wise men who followed and those who still do!

And there still are missionaries who live in far off lands who, at Christmas time, still set up trees, decorate their houses and string lights even though there’s little power. Some still display nativity sets…with or without a hippo.   On behalf of the Lutheran Mission in Malawi I wish you a most blessed Christ-filled Christmas!

Missionary John Holtz 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. 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

My name is Missionary Jeff Heitsch, and I just returned from my very first visit to Nigeria. I spend half of my time working with two independent Nigerian Lutheran church bodies. The rest of my time I serve the Lutheran Church of Cameroon, along with Missionary Dan Kroll who accompanied me on this first trip.

The initial date of our first visit to Nigeria had been set for the end of October, but as my wife and I just arrived in Cameroon we were not able to leave until the beginning of November. Due to political tension in Cameroon, and because the land border between Cameroon and Nigeria was closed we began our journey to Nigeria on Friday, November 24^th.  Our purpose was to meet with the leaders of Christ the King Lutheran Church and All Saints Lutheran Church, the two sister church bodies with which the WELS strives to collaborate efforts and to provide financial support.

The majority of the congregations Christ the King Lutheran Church are located in the southeastern part of Nigeria, about two hours north of the town of Calabar. There are also congregations in Calabar and in Port Harcourt.  The church body’s headquarters are located in the town of Uruk Uso.  All Saints Lutheran Church is located in the central part of Nigeria in the area known as the Cross River State, about a 6 to 7 hour drive north from Uruk Uso.

The two church bodies are independent of each other.  Each one teaches their own pre-seminary classes, but they jointly operate a seminary together.  At this time, Christ the King Lutheran Church of Nigeria has enrolled 9 pre-seminary students who will matriculate in March of 2018, and one other man who has already completed his pre-seminary training.  All Saints Lutheran Church of Nigeria currently has 12 students enrolled in their pre-seminary courses, so there is the potential enrollment of 22 seminary students. The seminary operates out of the headquarters of Christ the King Lutheran Church in Uruk Uso where there is a small classroom and limited dorm space.  A bigger classroom and more living quarters will need to be constructed before the new class of students arrive in 2019.

On this first visit we flew into Lagos, Nigeria but had to make a different connection than we originally planned. That added another two hours of travel time by vehicle, but we were eager to attend the worship services of each church body. Mr. Solomon George, who has been driving the WELS Missionaries and visiting teachers for years, agreed to meet us in Calabar. 

On this first visit I met personally with various leaders and national pastors of each church body, and I heard firsthand accounts about the blessings and challenges that each group is facing.  Nigeria is currently in the midst of a severe recession and this has caused severe financial struggles for members, pastors, and the church.  I was appreciative of the opportunity to share the truth of God’s Word and God’s promise to care for us and give us what we need, and to focus on the truth that we already possess a treasure that all the world’s money and riches could never buy – the treasure of salvation through the blood of Jesus our Savior.  I assured all the groups that we would keep them in our prayers, and that we would continue to serve them with God’s Word and encourage good administration and stewardship as we work together in our Gospel ministry.

After we booked our flight to Nigeria, the land border between Nigeria and Cameroon was opened up. We decided to return to Cameroon by car as a test case. We arrived at the border on a crowded and busy day, so we had to cross on foot rather than being dropped off with our luggage.  When we arrived in Nigeria there was an unexpected surprise waiting for us – our wives came to pick us up! We pray that this border crossing will continue to be open as it allows us to make much more efficient use of our time and money. I am looking forward to my next visit at the end of February, when I will have the opportunity to meet the seminary students.

Missionary Jeff Heitsch lives in Cameroon. His wife Stephanie has been blogging about their experiences at https://jsheitsch.wixsite.com/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