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

Please join us for Taste of Missions, an online missions experience, from July 11-17, 2021. Get to know more about WELS home and world missionaries like you never have before, and experience mission work firsthand through short video updates, live Q&A sessions, activities and recipes for the entire family, daily devotions, and a live worship service where we commission new missionaries on July 17. You may register at no cost at https://tasteofmissions.com/

“Life is full of challenges,” notes Pastor Ochichi Nyangau. “Each day comes with its own.”

Meet Richard Ochichi Nyangau, a pastor in Kenya who has served three parishes. He is one of my brothers in the Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (LC-MC).

Pastor Ochichi and I got acquainted recently online. From October 2020 through January 2021 he was in a theological research and writing class which I taught. Pastor Ochichi participated studiously—five days a week for ten weeks—while also keeping up all his other duties. More on those below.

Sixteen pastors from Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, and Zambia overcame obstacles, studied Genesis 37–50 together, and completed or nearly completed the class. As it started in October 2020 three other pastors faced a big challenge—no WhatsApp device. We have found those for them, so four of us are restarting the class as this is being published.

Besides being taught and almost immediately re-taught, our 10-week class has at least three firsts:

First #1) In the past, visiting professors from Asia Lutheran Seminary, Martin Luther College, and Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary taught classes to experienced pastors who wanted to progress toward a Bachelors degree in divinity from the Pastoral Studies Institute of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary.

This time, though, due to pandemic travel restrictions, a missionary living in Africa teaches. On your One Africa Team (OAT), I head up formal continuing education for the Confessional Lutheran Institute (CLI).

First #2) In 2010–2014 and 2015–2019 in Bachelor of Divinity (BDiv) classes WELS professors taught men pastors from two countries, Malawi and Zambia. Thank God with us: In this class and a series of eight future classes we can also partner with pastors in our fellowship in Kenya and Nigeria.

First #3) In the past WELS professors taught one-and-a-half- or two-week BDiv classes face to face. We hope to do so again soon. For this class, though, because of COVID-19, we used WhatsApp, a mobile device messaging platform.

Why WhatsApp? It is free on mobile devices except for the cellular data to use it, it allows  attachments of .pdf, voice, .mp3, and video files, and it is the most common means of electronic communication in Africa.

“Life is full of challenges,” so in our class we did not interact live over WhatsApp on a set schedule. Some pastors in the class live in villages where getting a signal from a cellular tower can be hard. Downloading even small .pdf files is difficult there.

“Life is full of challenges,” so all of us in the class experience power outages too. Early one day when I complimented one Zambian pastor on often being the first to respond with a learning task, he said needed to do so, because if he did not finish first thing in the morning, power would be out later.

For ten weeks, five days a week, though, whenever each of us could find time, we worked hard and asked God to become More Like Moses.

More Like Moses was not just the name of our research and academic writing class. It was our fervent prayer: “God, all of us lead your people, like Moses.

“None of us, like Moses, are inspired by your Holy Spirit to write your holy Word. But we all live in Africa, just like Moses long ago. We all work in more than one language, just like Moses long ago.

“As we sift through sources, like Moses might have when he wrote Joseph’s story, to write and encourage your people on our way to your promised land, would you please make us more skilled in theological writing?

“Above all, keep us true to you and your gospel. Make us more like Moses.”

So we prayed. Each week, one of the pastors posted a prayer for the rest of us on WhatsApp.

For example, Pastor Ochichi typed this prayer to begin our second week: “In the name of the Father, the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“Our dear heavenly Father we come unto you tonight. We beg you to forgive us where we have gone wrong as per your will. We thank you for your protection all through. This is the second week; we need your guidance all through.

“I pray for all who are involved both from abroad and within Africa in any way to reach out many with your word bless them. Do not leave anybody empty-handed but send your blessings.

“All challenges we are facing give us a way through. I commit the entire workload to your hands let all go as per your will. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.”

When Pastor Ochichi wrote that prayer I did not know about his own daily challenge just to support his family. I did not know that he was submitting his work either first thing in the morning or after dark because to keep food on the table he and his family raise chickens. Five days a week, starting around 9 a.m., he hawks —his word—boiled eggs on the street.

“This is what I do to feed my family. Here I’m serving the shopkeeper with boiled egg. You can see also a bucket of melon and tomato fruit. On Saturday morning hours I have counseling for any member of the congregation and any in need. In afternoon hour I am teaching baptism class and doing home visitation for sick and those with special needs.”

Pastor Ochichi and his wife have three children. Is he bitter about his busy schedule and what he calls his “side hustle,” to pay for his family’s food, clothes and rent?

No, he is thankful and realistic. He is not angling for anyone’s pity.

He writes, “This has given me an opportunity to meet many as we share the word but to grow the congregation has become a challenge. That is why my class (More like Moses tasks) I can do in early morning or late in the evening. I’m grateful for a chance to learn more from you and the entire Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary.”

Missionary Dan Witte lives in Zambia and is the Director of Formal Continuing Education of the Confessional Lutheran Institute. For more information visit https://cliafrica.net/

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