Cameroon Connection

I first met Missionary Daniel Kroll when my wife and I returned to Lake City, Minnesota following five years of service to the Lord as a planned giving counselor for the Arizona-California District of WELS. Dan and Karen had recently been recalled from Africa because of budget shortages. He was now serving as my Pastor at St. John’s Lutheran Church of Lake City. Just a short time later I was elected Chairman of that congregation, so he and I worked hand in glove. Little did I know we would repeat this experience years later in Cameroon.

Through my 40 years of teaching in WELS schools prior to Planned Giving work, I have always been interested in the missionary work WELS does in Africa. I have heard story after story about groups of people eager to hear the good news and the joy they have when they hear it. It did not take a lot of persuading to convince me when Missionary Kroll asked me if I would be interested in teaching at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Kumba, Cameroon. My only hesitation was I did not wish to go to Cameroon alone for seven weeks. When Dan told me he also had plans for my wife Johanna to teach, the deal was done!

In June of this year (’17) I had a heart attack. A few days later I had triple-by-pass surgery. We put the whole Cameroon trip on hold for a while, waiting for several doctors to give us the “thumbs up.” I was very dutiful with the physical therapy following surgery. God blessed those efforts with good reports and those “thumbs up.” So, on Sunday, October 22 we boarded an airplane in Minneapolis, Minnesota and just about exactly 24 hours later got off a different plane in Douala, Cameroon.

After 20 years of teaching experience, Johanna now teaches a basic Grammar course and Music. I teach World History and Human Biology. We both delight in instructing the ten young men God has placed at our Bible Institute. I am impressed with their diligence and their willingness to learn. Their love for their Savior and the desire to share His Word are both clearly evident. In just a short time (on December 15) our Cameroon Connection will come to an end as we journey home to Minnesota for Christmas. I will always carry the friendship of Dan and Karen Kroll in my repaired heart. It will also have room for ten young Pastors with big smiles. I would love to return to Cameroon in 2021 when they graduate. Soli Deo Gloria!

Harry and Johanna Mears are serving the Lord in Cameroon

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

Rwanda’s Open Door

The children of Karbore Lutheran Church, Rwanda

In November of 2016, Rev. Daniel Finn, an Evangelical Lutheran Synod pastor with a congregation in Brisbane Australia, was contacted by Rev. Jean Claude Maniragaba from the Reformed Lutheran Church of Rwanda (RLCR) through Pastor Finn’s church website. They began an email conversation that led to a recent mission exploration trip by WELS representatives.

The RLCR has been a legally registered church body since 2014. Six pastors and eleven evangelists serve 400 members. Although their church is very young, the RLCR wants to be a confessional Lutheran body.

Rwanda is located in East Central Africa, near Zambia and Malawi

Pastor Finn dovetailed a planned visit to the USA to attend the ELS yearly General Pastor Conference with a visit to Rwanda. His close relationship with Rev. Maniragaba was indispensable for this trip. He prepared two carefully put together presentations to the RLCR on the history of the Lutheran Church and on church fellowship.

Joining Pastor Finn on this trip was Rev. Forward Shamachona, a Zambian national pastor. In addition to serving four congregations in the Mwembezhi District, he is also the chairman of the Lutheran Church of Central Africa – Zambia (LCCA-Z) Mission Board. I also accompanied Pastor Finn as the WELS representative.

Rev. Shamachona and I arrived in Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda early in the morning on Friday, the 22^nd of September. As we exited the immigration/customs area of the airport we saw a man holding up a sign with the name “Philip” on it. We greeted each other, got into their waiting car and were taken to the Hillview Hotel. Rev. Shamachona and I went to our rooms, showered and then got some needed catch up sleep having taken the overnight flight from Lusaka to Rwanda. Around 10:30 a.m. we took a leisurely lunch at the hotel restaurant when suddenly my cell phone rang. The anxious voice on the other end was Rev. Maniragaba asking where I was. He had been to the airport and could not find us! An hour and a half later, we met up with Rev. Maniragaba at our hotel. It was then we learned from the hotel that there was another “Philip” who had not gotten his ride to the Hillview hotel. We, on the other hand, were not staying at this hotel. We were going on to Nyagatare some 80 km to the east and north of Kigali after we picked up Rev. Finn at the airport.

Inside the house church in the city of Nyagatare

Nyagatare was the base from which we visited 7 of the 11 RLCR churches. On Saturday morning, we were driven to a church located in the village of Kabarore, where 50 people are currently meeting in a rented house. Songs were sung by a children’s Sunday School choir and an adult choir. A drum at this gathering and every subsequent gathering we attended in Rwanda played a very important part of the singing. Dancing was also integral to every church event we attended in Rwanda. We were read a “prayer request” by this church asking for property and help to put a church on the property. We were impressed by this congregation, which has existed for only 4 months.

On Saturday afternoon we were driven to the village of Karoma. The drumming and dancing in this church was phenomenal with both adult and children’s choirs dancing and singing and then everyone in the church joining in. I was somewhat uncomfortable by the level of “enthusiasm.” Several of the woman who were dancing almost appeared to get into a “zone” where their eyes rolled back into their head as they danced away. The drumming then almost became hypnotic. It was not quite rolling in the aisles and there was no speaking in tongues but it was very close to a Pentecostal service. At the end we three visitors were all asked to speak. We used the chance to encourage the leaders to attend our Wednesday, Thursday teaching sessions.

Rice farm just 300 meters from main street in Nyagatare

On Sunday morning we went to church in Rukomo. Pastor Munyondomitza Bernard led the worship service. Pastor Bernard had donated the land to the congregation. This was no small gift as the parcel of land on which the church sat was worth USA $1,000. The church was really a larger house with its room divisions still intact. They hope to remodel it to serve as a church. They have been a congregation for less than a year. The service structure was very loose. From 9:30 until 11:45 the adult and children’s choirs sang and drummed. Rev. Maniragaba gave a short law and gospel sermon.

It was at Rukomo we learned of the RLCR’s charity program to orphans. The community has quite a few orphans. Most all these orphans have some extended family, but little or no opportunities for school. This is where the congregation was trying to help out. The congregation and the pastors try to fund school supplies for the children who cannot afford them. They encourage the orphans’ church attendance and act as an additional support group for them.

The church in Rukomo where Rwandan pastors attended presentations

In Rukomo we held teaching sessions with RLCR leaders for a day and a half. For each topic we were given two hours, but each topic had to be translated from English into Kinyarwanda by Rev. Maniragaba so in effect, there was only an hour to present our content. Rev. Finn started off with a brief Lutheran Church history. I talked about the importance of confessional statements to unite Christians who have the same beliefs.

Pastor Shamachona from Zambia shared an explanation of the structure of the LCCA-Z together with its worker training system. One of the great “AHA” moments of our teaching took place when Rev. Shamachona drew a simple triangle on the blackboard to illustrate how members of the congregations, at the base of the triangle, support their church, their pastors and leadership structure as we go up the triangle to its top. This simple fact was all the more impressed upon the group because it was a Zambian pastor saying this. His presence proved to be invaluable on this trip.

I also made a presentation on the topic of worship. Worship in the RLCR is a mostly one-way course of the people giving to God and very little of God giving His Word to the people. The fifth and last topic was church fellowship. Rev. Finn distilled a difficult subject to a level that his audience could understand. He talked about the importance of joining in fellowship with those who teach God’s word correctly as well as keeping away from those who teach falsely.

L-R: Rev. Bernard, Rev. Birner, Rev. Maniragaba, Rev. Shamachona, Rev. Finn and Rev. Felicien

We observed lots of interested visitors at the churches we visited. At every church, interested community leaders were in attendance. Rwanda’s door is wide open.

Missionary Philip Birner serves as the Acting Principal of the LCCA Seminary in Lusaka, Zambia

Reformation Rain

It doesn’t rain in October in Malawi. October is an oven preheated to broil. The sun is intense. The heat blisters. The ground hardens. Rivers dry and the lakes recede. It never rains in October in Malawi.

But to everyone’s surprise, showers fell on the 29^th of October. People are still talking about it. “Hey, did you hear…?” That was the very day that most churches in the Lutheran Church of Central Africa Malawi Synod (LCCA-MS) were celebrating the 500^th Anniversary of the Reformation.

A Mother Nature mistake? A global warming mix-up? Climate change chaos?Or…the gift of God?

I prefer the later. After all, if God controls ALL things, then doesn’t He also have command of the weather? Interestingly, as the rains pounded the roof and streaked the windows during the worship service at Our Good Shepherd in Mzimba, the liturgist Pastor Milton Nyirenda was reading the Scripture lesson:

“As the rain and snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread from the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth. It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:10,11)

Like lightning, it struck me: it was raining more on the inside of the church than on the outside! Not because there was a hole in the roof, but because the LORD was showering His people with His grace!

A raining of the life-giving gospel message. An unending downpour of good news in Jesus. A surprising cloudburst of love and forgiveness. This rain had already started to fall in the Garden of Eden and has continued to this day. 500 years ago Martin Luther got soaked. On the 29^th of October 2017, so did we. On that day in Mzimba, and throughout Malawi, God’s grace in Jesus was proclaimed, preached, taught, received, shown, sung and danced! Even drawn and colored!

The picture at the beginning of this post shows some of the northern region ladies coloring Luther’s Seal or Coat of Arms. We studied the meaning and Scripture truths behind each of the five components that make up the Seal:

The black cross
The red heart
The white rose
The blue sky
The gold ring

Luther’s “logo” proclaims his faith and theology and ours as well. Isn’t the cross, not only the central message of Scripture but central to our lives? Aren’t our hearts alive in Christ and beating with His love? Aren’t we, saints dressed in the white robes of salvation, place delicately in a joyous white rose of hope? With a firm resolution, hasn’t Jesus promised His second coming? And don’t we, with eager expectation and with our spiritual eyes to the skies, look forward to it? Isn’t God’s love more precious than gold and as unending as a circle?

A resounding YES to each one! With Jesus being the Answer to each question, every one of them falls upon us like rain: cool, refreshing, invigorating, motivating.

No wonder the Lord included verse 10 in Ephesians chapter 2: “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

Apparently God must have been quite busy prior to the 29^th of October because on that day His people were actively doing the good works He prepared for them:

Structures were erected.
Tarps were hung.
Food was prepared.
Guests served.
Dishes washed.
Hospitality was extended.
Offerings were given.
Shut-ins were visited.
Songs were sung.
Gifts were shared.
Children were taken care of.
Cups of cold water were given to thirsty people.

But there was not a greater work done that day than what God was doing for us by raining down His Grace in Word and Sacrament. Vicar Frank Mukhweya preached his sermon using the theme that was previously chosen and used by all the other LCCA-MS called workers who stood in the pulpit that day. It was the same text that is imprinted on the special Reformation chitenje (skirts) that the LCCA-MS had designed and made for this significant occasion: Chipulumutso chichokera kuchisomo (We are saved by grace).

The text was preached, the Lord’s Supper was received and God tipped the water jars. His people were doused. And if you ever wonder what the weather will be like the next time you go to your church, just open up your Bible to Ephesians 2:1-10. No matter the day or the month, there you can count on Reformation rain.

Missionary John Holtz serves in Malawi