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

Liberia’s coat of arms contains the slogan, “The love of liberty brought us here.” It reminds me of an oft-repeated (and misused) verse from John 8: “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free ( v32).”  The truth of which Jesus speaks is the truth of the Gospel, the truth that his death on the cross redeemed all mankind. The Gospel truth sets us free from the slavery to sin and the guilt that plagues every one of us. The love of Gospel liberty has brought One Africa Team to Liberia.

Political Liberty

Liberia’s history as a nation is rooted in the soil of liberty. In the early 19^th Century, thousands of people of African American ancestry emigrated from the United States to Liberia. The American Colonization Society established Liberia as a refuge for former slaves. In 1847 the local leaders declared Liberia an independent nation. Soon afterward the American settlers elected Joseph Jenkins Roberts as the country’s first president. European governments never colonized Liberia during the “scramble for Africa” in the late 1800s.

Sitting at Roberts International Airport just outside of Monrovia, I reflect on what just happened. I was here for 11 days of teaching with our One Africa Team Outreach leader, John Hartmann.  Missionary Hartmann had been here a little over two years ago in December of 2019. He came to lead doctrinal discussions with leaders of the Confessional Lutheran Church of Liberia (CLCL). Four months later, COVID canceled our trip just days before take-off.

Two years later we were making preparations to return to Liberia. Changed requirements for COVID vaccines and visas delayed our return to Monrovia by a couple of months.

Love of Liberty in Christ

One Sunday I was privileged to listen to lay preacher Cyrus Shagbeh. Loudly and vehemently he begged the Lord to free him and all his members at Jehovah Fire Ministries. He asked for freedom from slavery to fornication, envy, gossiping, jealousy, anger, and selfish interests. The devil uses all manner of sins to enslave us to frustration and fear in this world. But the love of liberty brought Christ to our world. He came “to proclaim freedom for the prisoners…and to set the oppressed free” (Luke 4:18).

One Africa Team supports ministries that promote local responsibility and ownership.  We are working hard to strike a balance. On the one hand, we respect that the CLCL is conducting its ministry autonomously without outside oversight or support. On the other hand, the love of liberty requires us to stand firm in the freedom of the Gospel. We must not let anyone be burdened by the yoke of slavery (Gal. 5:1).

We desire to strengthen the unity in teaching and practice between our Liberian friends and other Gospel partners in Africa. Please keep the men and women of the CLCL in your prayers. Ask the Lord to bless our efforts to share the Gospel freedom with our brothers and sisters in Liberia. May he strengthen their love of liberty through the mighty name of Jesus.

Missionary Dan Kroll lives in Malawi and serves as One Africa Team’s liaison to 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