Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts (Acts 2:46)

Our Lutheran brothers in West Africa often ask out loud, “Are we together?” It’s partly because poor internet connections make it difficult to understand one another. But the question also serves the purpose of verifying group unity during the discussion of vitally important issues.

Together with Missionaries

“Are we together?” is a question that WELS missionaries in Africa can respond to with a resounding, “Yes!” Through weekly online meetings, daily email exchanges, and instant messages the missionaries living in Malawi and in Zambia strive to work closely together.

Last month, the members of the One Africa Team gathered together in Lusaka, Zambia. It was their first face-to-face meeting since 2019. This was an opportunity to renew personal relationships. We also officially welcomed new missionaries Ben Foxen and Keegan Dowling to our team. We face the exciting challenge of knitting together a new team. After 54 years of service, Missionary Ernst Wendland has retired. Several other missionaries will be returning to the States over the next several years,

Our missionaries are also working together to develop new strategies to pursue new mission opportunities across the African continent. We are not abandoning our old friends in Central Africa! Our partners’ stability permits us to consider the redeployment of some of our staff to other regions. It is a humbling privilege to be on the ground floor of these initial conversations. We are developing these plans together and trust the Lord of the harvest to direct us.

Working with Partners

One Africa Team is the face of the WELS in Africa. As such, we act on behalf of our Synod as a “granting agency.” We manage the resources that donors have entrusted to us for kingdom work. One Africa Team works with ministries that 1) share the full Word of God 2) gather and shepherd flocks with Word and Sacrament, and 3) promote local responsibility and ownership. The ministries that meet these criteria are what WELS World Missions considers “healthy” and worthy of support.

Changes to the status quo are both exhilarating and frightening. Missionaries must trust one another unreservedly. New mission families desire to be integrated into the team. Mission partners want to see that their counterparts pay attention to their concerns. We all need encouragement to stand firm against Satan’s assaults on the Gospel. Meeting together in person meets all of these needs and many more. “Are we together?” “By the grace of God, we are together!”

Missionary John Roebke 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. Learn more about our mission fields in Africa and how the Holy Spirit is working faith in people’s hearts at https://wels.net/serving-others/missions/africa

All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it. I Corinthians 12:27

Maksimu Musa and Johnson Balihikya are pastors in the Obadiah Lutheran Synod of Uganda. Last month they visited refugees from South Sudan at the Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement. The purpose of this visit was to help a group in the camp organize a congregation. We pray that our Ugandan mission partners will shepherd more and more people with the Word of God.

The above is noteworthy, but how this visit came to be is worth remembering.

Two Bodies

In 2018, members of the One Africa Team (OAT) visited Uganda for the first time. They met with Christians organized as the Obadiah Lutheran Synod (OLS). Since that time and despite the delays caused by COVID fears, regular communication, joint Bible Studies, and additional visits continued.

Simultaneously, South Sudanese pastors in North America began to explore opportunities for outreach throughout the continent of Africa. One of these contacts was with a group in the Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement in Uganda.

In early 2022, the OAT scheduled a visit to OLS with two goals in mind. One was to help prepare a request for formal fellowship with Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS.) The second was to meet with the South Sudanese refugees in Kiryandongo who desired to organize a Lutheran congregation. Visiting the refugee group along with the OAT members was Pastor Musa, the leader of the OLS.

We mutually decided that the Pastors of the OLS would conduct Bible studies with the group at Kiryandongo. In that this work was beyond the means of the OLS, the OAT covered the cost of the workshop. Now they have completed the first of two workshops.

Parts Working Together

The Lord used many different people and groups to make this all happen. The Lord used the online presence of the WELS to make contact with the OLS. He used WELS World Mission’s OAT to pursue that contact. The Joint Mission Council (JMO) coordinates the work of World and Home Missions. The JMO made communication between South Sudanese Christians in North America and those working in Africa possible.

Then the Lord moved the hearts of OLS leaders to share the good news with those in the refugee camp. Then he equipped them to carry out the workshop. The visiting pastors of the OLS used Nuer language materials, prepared by Multi-Language Productions of the WELS World Missions. In addition, thousands of Christians have supported our work with their prayers and offerings.

Truly the church is a body with many parts and one Head, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Missionary Howard Mohlke lives in Zambia and is the leader of the 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. Learn more about our mission fields in Africa and how the Holy Spirit is working faith in people’s hearts at https://wels.net/serving-others/missions/africa

23 years ago God blessed the Lutheran Church of Cameroon (LCC) with the gift of newly graduated pastors. WELS missionaries trained these men but have not participated in the training of any new pastors since 2018. May 27, 2022, was an amazing day for our brothers and sisters in Cameroon.  Amidst celebrations that reached across Africa and even spilled into the US, the Lutheran Church of Cameroon graduated seven men into the full-time work of the holy ministry.

A Rough Start

In 2016 the LCC identified fourteen men to begin ministerial training. They were men with a reasonable level of education, a Spirit-led love for the Lord, and some years of service as laymen in their congregations.

There were, of course, losses along the way. A few students left the program for valid reasons. A political crisis made it unsafe for the men to be together and caused the loss of an entire year of classroom studies.  The same crisis made it impossible for WELS missionary Dan Kroll to do any face-to-face teaching in the final three years of the five-year program.  Although the devil uses such things to try to discourage us, we endure with the knowledge that the Lord is refining us as he promised through Jeremiah (9:7): “I will refine and test them.” The Holy Spirit was refining well for the gain of the Lord’s church, so that seven men were able to complete the course to prepare them for full-time ministry.  The LCC’s teachers have grounded these men in God’s Word and prepared them to shepherd the Lord’s flocks in Cameroon. The Lord has strengthened each of them to face the challenges of his unique ministry.

Anim, Solomon

Dooh, Jean-Jacques

Epie, Nicole

Fomenyam, Ferdinand

Ngalame, Thomas

Ngalame, Vincent

Tembuc, David

Prayers Answered

Why has this taken 23 years?  Did we forget our brothers in the “Hinge of Africa?”  Not at all.    WELS has not maintained manpower stability for nearly 15 of those 23 years.  About the time we were ready to restart the Cameroon worker training program in 2008, the Lord called Missionary Dan Myers to glory. Missionary Dan Kroll arrived in the summer of 2014 and started classes in the fall of 2016.  By May of 2018, he left because of the political crisis.  WELS fully supports financial and curricular components of the Lutheran Church of Cameroon worker training program, but “feet on the ground” belong to our Cameroonian brothers and they have stepped up in a huge way!  Obviously, the Lord answered your prayers to send workers into the harvest field (Matthew 9:38)!

One of the LCC’s congregational pastors, Gervase Ngalame, is moving to the Seminary campus to assist in training the next group of men for the ministry. Currently, Pastors Mathias Abumbi, Joseph Njume, Daniel Muankume, Julius Njume, Barnabbas Ngalame, and Fon George are serving as full-time congregational shepherds. We give thanks to God for the addition of these seven men, more than doubling the LCC’s ministerium.  The Lord has reminded us that he is watching over his church in Cameroon!

Missionary Daniel Kroll lives in Malawi and coordinates OAT’s work in West Africa

Please pray for those working in fields that are ripe for harvest. Share their story, engage with future news and receive updates. Learn more about our mission fields in Africa and how the Holy Spirit is working faith in people’s hearts at https://wels.net/serving-others/missions/africa