Eleven years ago, Pastor Mesue Muankume Israel, age 32, had so much leg pain that he got surgery to replace his left hip. Thank you, Jesus.

Four years ago, though, Pastor Israel, the only professor at the seminary of the Lutheran Church of Cameroon in Kumba, Cameroon, again started having bad hip pain. Same hip.

Thank you, Jesus?

Yes, “thank you, Jesus.” It’s always both.

Both what?

Both praying, “Hasten, O God, to save me; come quickly, Lord, to help me” (Psalm 70:1), and praying, “thank you, Jesus.”

“In all circumstances,” Paul says. “All” means all.

“Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

So four years ago, when Pastor Israel was diagnosed with the need for a second hip replacement surgery, “Thank you, Jesus”? Yep.

Even though, according to a U.S. surgeon with whom Missionary Dan Kroll consulted, there was too high a risk of infection to have the surgery done in Cameroon?

Still, “Thank you, Jesus”?

Always, “Thank you, Jesus.”

Case in point: Fast forward to October 2021. Pastor Israel, now 43, is in Kumba teaching 7 students who will be pastors in the Lutheran Church of Cameroon. Sometimes he can’t stand in class. Surgery is still needed, though pain medications help.

Covid-19 concerns lessen in Africa. Plans get made for Pastor Israel and 21 other pastors from Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, and Zambia to meet for a Psalms course in Lusaka, Zambia in late March and early April 2022. “Thank you, Jesus.”

Could Pastor Israel stay in Lusaka for a month or so after that course, and get surgery at a local hospital? Our One Africa Team investigates. Things look promising, we are told, depending on Pastor Israel’s future X-rays and blood testing. “Thank you, Jesus.”

But the hospital is a Roman Catholic mission, formerly known as the Italian Orthopaedic Hospital, now renamed “Saint John Paul II Orthopaedic Hospital.”

A hospital renamed after a recent pope, declared a Roman Catholic saint? No problem, practically. When I go to inquire about preparations and possible costs for surgery, I wear my clerical collar, and everyone receives me warmly. “Thank you, Jesus.”

What about funding? This surgery and related matters will cost thousands of dollars. The Lutheran Church of Cameroon can’t pay for it. Pastor Israel can’t pay for it. He has no insurance to cover it.

Ah, but here you come in. “Thank you, Jesus.”

The One Africa Team of WELS World Missions and WELS Christian Aid and Relief can fund such needs due to thank offerings you and others like you have given in the past. “Thank you, Jesus.”

Really: Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for the perfect offering you gave in our place.

Our offerings can’t bribe your Father. They can’t wow him. Never could. Every forest animal is his; so are the cattle on a thousand hills (Psalm 50:10).

He told his people of old, “Sacrifice thank offerings to God, fulfill your vows to the Most High, and call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me” (Psalm 50:14–15).

It felt like a day of trouble right before Pastor Israel’s surgery when needed O+ blood donations were not coming in. Then concerned local members of the Lutheran Church of Central Africa jumped in to help. Thank you, Jesus.

So on Thursday, April 21, Pastor Israel had his second hip replacement surgery. Because I was traveling, I couldn’t be there, but my faithful pastor, Evans Makowani, and my friend Mr. Remise Zulu were right there with him when he got out of surgery. Thank you, Jesus.

Very soon after surgery, Mr. Zulu wrote my wife, “Hi, madame. We are still at hospital. Pastor Israel has come outside the operation room. We prayed together and we are chatting with him right now.”

That kind of thing is the biggest reason I look back at the surgery, now that Pastor Israel has flown back home to Cameroon, and I say, “Thank you, Jesus.”

So many people together helped in so many ways.

As you might expect, recovery is taking time. But it continues to go well. “Thank you, Jesus.”

Pastor Israel recently wrote me from Cameroon, “I and everyone in my family is fine. And the pains dying down gradually. I got so busy that I have not had time to actually write back. In fact as we speak am in the office. Hope all is well with you too and our brethren over there.

“The good memories can’t escape my mind.”

Thank you, Jesus.

Or in Akoose, Pastor Israel’s Cameroonian heart language: “Nsome, a-Yesu.”

Missionary Daniel Witte lives in Zambia

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

Greetings from Uganda!

One Africa Team (OAT) Representatives Missionary Howard Mohlke (OAT Leader) and Missionary John Holtz (OAT Liaison to Uganda) met with the leadership of the Obadiah Lutheran Synod (OLS) in March 2022. This was another meeting among many (in-person and online) that have taken place since 2018.  It was back then that they began working through the Four Stage process to declare doctrinal unity and fellowship.  It has been a long and adventurous road! 

This March meeting marked a memorable milestone occasion: OLS leadership wrote a draft (but official) request for doctrinal unity/fellowship with WELS!  Together with that request, they have also written a summary of doctrine and practice and a report describing the relationship between OLS and WELS/OAT.  After our in-person meeting, the OLS has again met on their own to finalize and formalize their draft documents.  These documents will be sent to the WELS/OAT for consideration.

In addition to the OLS leadership writing official documents, the visit was fruitful in other ways: 

We shared the Word of God

We visited OLS congregations

We visited South Sudanese refugees in two different settlement camps

The Lord has opened doors for mission work in Africa. What a joy to walk through them. Thank you all for your partnership in the gospel.  What a blessed relationship it is! We appreciate your prayer, encouragement, and financial support as we “work while it is day!” (John 9:4)

Missionaries John Holtz and Howard Mohlke live 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

Do you like looking at old photographs? Probably you do. And probably you don’t. On the one hand, how heartwarming it can be to see those happy photos of your children when they were five years old.  And imagine… now those kids of yours have children of their own! But on the other hand, oh my! That hairstyle! That cheesy mustache! Those silly bell-bottom jeans! Did I really look like that? Is it possible that the ‘me’ of yesterday was not as groovy as I thought I was?

A few days ago, I stumbled upon some old photographs.  I thought they were fascinating.  The year of the photos was 1981, and the place was Lilongwe, Malawi.  One picture showed workers laying the foundation for the classroom of the Lutheran Bible Institute (LBI).  Another picture showed the construction of LBI student houses. The plan was to build a brand-new boarding school for the training of national pastors.  All those buildings are still here, but things look very different today. 

It got me thinking about our mission work in Africa.  More specifically, it made me think about how times have changed.  Years ago, the measure of a missionary in Africa was how quickly he could change a tire. In the early days, almost all Africa missionaries drove out to the isolated village churches.  They preached the gospel to the people, sometimes in a grass-roofed church, sometimes underneath the mango tree.  You would get a lot of flat tires driving those dirt roads, but an experienced missionary could pull off the old tire and pop on a new one faster than a pit crew at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  In 1981, the very idea of building a fancy brick and mortar classroom for the training of national pastors – wow, that was groundbreaking stuff!

I still teach young Zambian and Malawian pre-seminary students in the very same classroom that you see in the picture.  And if you want my honest opinion, I still think it’s pretty ‘groovy.’  But things look different today.  More and more, the missionaries of today are teaching in a Google Classroom, not a brick-and-mortar classroom.  More and more, the measure of a missionary is not how quickly he can change a tire, but how quickly he can reboot his laptop to get the Zoom meeting up and running. Boarding schools? Today it’s ‘keyboarding’ schools. Today, missionaries are not just driving cars to the isolated villages of Zambia and Malawi.  They’re flying on commercial airlines to train pastoral students in places like Cameroon and Uganda, Ethiopia, and Kenya. 

So what should we say? Are old ways bad? Certainly not. You carefully groomed that cheesy mustache because that was the best thing for the time and place. That mustache and that hairstyle and the bell-bottom jeans are the things that got you noticed.  Maybe they even caught the eye of that pretty, young lady who later became your wife. Certainly, it’s true that styles of ministry in Africa are constantly evolving, but our sister churches in Africa number more than 60,000 baptized souls. God has blessed our efforts.

The old pictures remind us how quickly this world changes.  But one thing never changes: Whoever believes in the Lord Jesus will be saved.  As we enter into the year 2022, let’s double our efforts to preach the unchanging word of God, by whatever methods possible, because time is marching on, and “our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed” (Romans 13:11).

Missionary Mark Panning 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