I serve as the One Africa Team liaison to the LCMC Kenya, one of WELS’ partners in Africa. COVID has kept me from visiting the churches in Kenya for the last 18 months. Nevertheless, God has been giving me many opportunities to assist and support our Gospel partners in East Africa.

Online Teaching in Kenya

16 national pastors and 17 national evangelists serve 46 LCMC churches in Kenya. In 2019, eight of those evangelists began taking courses towards earning a diploma to serve their church body as ordained pastors. The Pastoral Studies Institute of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary committed funding a 3-year course of instruction that included in-person visits by WELS teachers before COVID, and online instruction since the start of the pandemic.

In December 2020 I began teaching Koiné Greek online to these students. When I studied Greek many years ago, my teachers taught me a lot of grammar in a very short time. This is a method of teaching “dead languages” that has served generations of WELS pastors well. However, it presupposes that the student has a good understanding of how grammar works.

My Kenyan students are gifted language learners and are able to speak 3-5 different languages, including English, Swahili, and local tribal dialects. However, due to their limited educational background, we decided to use a conversational approach to teaching Greek. Incidentally, teachers are using the same method at the Lutheran Bible Institute in Malawi.

Biblical Language Center is an online school for teaching Greek and Hebrew as spoken languages. The website hosts videos and quizzes that encourage students to learn the same way that children learn – by listening and repeating what they hear. Each student has an account they can access at any time during the week. I host a live session with the students once a week on Google Meet. I use the time to set the stage for a section of the video content.

For example, to teach vocabulary about farming I filled a tub with dirt and used puppets and spoons to pantomime the actions of carrying shovels, digging and planting vines. I ask the students in Greek what the puppets are doing, and they must respond with the appropriate forms of the verbs and nouns. Compared to the way I learned Greek many years ago, we are making very slow progress. On the other hand, my students are able to speak simple Greek sentences using the correct grammar – something that I never was able to do until now. They have made truly amazing progress.

Building Projects in Kenya

WELS and LCMC are also partnering to provide houses of worship for several congregations. Some congregations have been able to raise funds locally to purchase property and to begin building the walls of their churches. With funds provided by WELS donors, LCMC congregations are able to complete the construction of simple worship facilities.

St. Paul’s Lutheran Church is located in the village of Ponge, near the shores of Lake Victoria in Western Kenya. The congregation of 85 members had been worshipping in rented school property and also under shade trees. After an elderly female member of the church donated the land for a permanent structure, the group quickly began raising the walls of their new church.

Samson Mambo, one of the students currently enrolled in the diploma program, serves as the congregation’s Evangelist. He visits sick church members and prays for them. Evangelist Mambo also teaches Sunday School, leads Bible class, and preaches sermons. The congregation is made up of teachers, builders, drivers, electricians, and small-scale farmers. With the funds from WELS, the congregation completed the construction of their church walls, poured cement pillars to support the roof, cut down trees to build trusses, and purchased iron sheets and nails for the roof.

On May 23, 2021, President Mark Onunda of the LCMC Kenya presided over the dedication of the new worship facility. A large group of people from the community joined the members of St. Paul in thanking God for this new house of prayer in Ponge. You can watch a video of the celebration on One Africa Team’s YouTube channel.

There are another five churches in Kenya waiting to receive assistance in constructing new worship facilities. I thank God for the opportunity to facilitate these projects and to “hold up the prophets’ hands” (Ex. 17:12) as OAT liaison to the churches in Kenya.

Missionary John Roebke lives in Malawi

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From the first moment that Apollos walked into the synagogue in Ephesus, everyone could see his talent.  He was highly intelligent.  He was comfortable and confident in front of people.  His words were powerful and clear.  Best of all, he quickly proved himself to be a very committed and dedicated Christian.  Everyone could see that he had the talent and ability to be an ideal leader in the church.  All he really needed was a little extra training. 

Fortunately, there were teachers there in Ephesus who were ready and willing to give Apollos the training that he needed.  We read about it in the 18^th chapter of the Book of Acts:  “A Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man and well versed in the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. He spoke with burning zeal and taught the facts about Jesus accurately, although he knew only the baptism of John.  He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him home and explained to him the way of God more accurately” (Acts 18:24-26 EHV).

Identify and train.  Right from the beginning, the New Testament Christian church has worked to identify those who have the God-given talent and ability to serve as leaders in the church.  Then they train those men and women to do the work that God is calling them to do.

In the Lutheran Church of Ethiopia (LCE), our brothers and sisters in Christ have identified four people who appear to have the talent and the Christian dedication to serve as leaders in the church.  They have identified two young men, Ephrem Kebede Getachew and Cherinet Demeke Lemma, as possible future pastors.  They envision a young woman, Blen Berhanu Merka, as a future teacher and a program administrator for the new nursery school that the LCE is planning to open.  In addition to these three, there is Stephen Lam, a Nuer man from the Gambella region in western Ethiopia.  Stephen has been identified as a possible future pastor and teacher to the thousands of Sudanese Christians who are living in the Gambella refugee camps.

Clearly, all four of these have been blessed with spiritual gifts from God the Holy Spirit.  Their pastor, Rev. Kebede, often refers to them as “our brilliant scholars” or as “promising young men and women.”  All four of have demonstrated their Christian character and their commitment to Christ.  All they really need is a little extra training.

So where does that training come from?

Most of it will come from the LCE’s one and only ordained pastor, Rev. Kebede Getachew Yigezu.  Pastor Kebede teaches the vast majority of the courses at the LCE’s worker training school, Maor Lutheran Theological Seminary.  But that’s a huge job!  It’s much too big for just one person to do well, especially when we remember that Pastor Kebede must also be the spiritual shepherd to the LCE’s five congregations.

The Lutheran Church of Ethiopia and the WELS One Africa Team have agreed to collaborate and work together in the training of these students.  Pastor Kebede will still teach the majority of the courses, but missionaries from the WELS One Africa Team and teachers from the WELS Pastoral Studies Institute will also teach selected courses.  These classes will be taught online via Zoom.  Missionary John Roebke has begun teaching the first of these online courses beginning in May 2021. He is breaking new ground with many firsts – the first time he is teaching the Lutheran Confessions, the first time he is using Google Classroom to organize the assignments, and the first time that Maor students are using Zoom.

In Acts 18, Aquila and Priscilla identified Apollos as a potential spiritual leader for the church.  And after they had trained him, that’s exactly what Apollos would become.  “He provided much help to those who had become believers by grace” (Acts 18:27). 

Today we thank God that he has provided many qualified men and women to study for the public ministry.  May God make every one of them a blessing for his church.

Missionary Mark Panning lives in Malawi and is the OAT Liaison to the LCE

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

Today’s post is written by Missionary Howard Mohlke, the leader of One Africa Team. He has been waiting for over a year in the USA for his work papers, which he recently received.

On Saturday, April 17, 2021, Leslie and I landed in Lilongwe, Malawi. As we landed and looked forward to our new life living and working in Africa, we also looked back to 1991 when we first landed in Zambia to serve as part of the mission team. Back then we arrived with two daughters ages 4 and 2, and one son who was 6 months old. Now, it’s just the two of us and those three and two more are all grown up. Back then we left behind our parents and “took their grandchildren away” as they would remind us at times. Now, we are leaving behind our grandchildren.

Back then we were a young family and I had just been assigned from the Seminary to serve in Zambia. Now, Leslie and I have been together for over three decades and have been blessed in many ways as we lived in Zambia, Nebraska, Idaho, and Arizona. Now we look forward to being blessed as we live again in Africa and wonder a bit what the Lord has in store for us. That said, we know for certain that just as the Lord saw us through in the past, he will be with us and bless us this time too.

Many Changes

It is said that you can never go home, meaning that our memories of home remain the same but time changes everything and things are never as we remember As Leslie and I returned to Africa, we kept reminding ourselves that this would be true and indeed it was.

Back in 1991 we arrived in a country that had suffered from years of socialism and one-party rule. The consequences were a ruined economy and infrastructure. It was a challenge to procure the most basic of needs. Now, even though there are differences in name brands and price, almost anything can be purchased at a local store. Back then it was big news when certain items were available at the store; now one can compare prices and the quality of items that you want to buy.

Back in 1991, the only forms of communication with family in the states were airmail and long-distance calls that cost $1.00 per minute – that is if the phone was working at all. Now with cellular data, there are multiple means of voice and video communication – if the electricity is on. I guess some things do stay the same.

Nothing New

As with water and electricity outages, other things remain the same. The biggest constant is the need to share the good news of Jesus. People continue to struggle with sin and guilt and need the comfort of Jesus. The work of sharing this comfort is still carried out through Christian congregations who gather to be blessed through Word and Sacrament and are willing to share the truth with their neighbors. Nowadays, the congregations are served by locally trained Pastors and Elders, but the work remains the same.

Something New

Back in 1991, my work was to serve a dozen churches, visiting them every four to six weeks. In between my visits, the work of shepherding the congregations was in the hands of faithful men and women who read sermons on Sunday, taught basic instruction, and Sunday school. They visited the sick and managed the affairs of their congregations. When I would visit, I conducted worship and offered encouragement and training to those who were serving so faithfully.

Today, WELS Missionaries in Africa are not serving as Pastors of congregations or overseeing congregations but are working with the Pastors and leaders of church bodies throughout Africa. Back in 1991, there were missionaries doing what I was doing in Malawi and Zambia. Now, the mission team works with partner church bodies in Nigeria, Cameroon, Liberia, Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, as well as Malawi and Zambia. We also are working with Multi-Language Productions offering basic Biblical and shepherding training to individuals anywhere in the continent. Our prayer is that all these relationships and partnerships would be blessed by the LORD so more people may hear the Good News of Jesus in Africa and beyond.

Always

As Leslie and I begin this new stage of mission life, we know that it is the LORD who has called us here and will bless us. For this we are thankful.

The Lord be with you all,

Howie
aka Rev. Howard Mohlke. One Africa Team Leader

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