Twenty-nine years ago, my wife Leslie and I were preparing to go to Africa to serve as a newly assigned missionary. We had three children ages four, two and four months. The other two children would be born a few years later while living in Zambia. We were young, and excited. I was eager to start working as an African Missionary and my wife was wondering how best to care for our young family, knowing that her skills as a RN would come in very handy.

Now, all the kids are grown, four of the five children are married, and five grandchildren have been added to the family; and Leslie and I are getting ready to move again to Africa. This time I am going to serve as the Leader of WELS World Mission’s One Africa Team (OAT). The OAT consists of all the missionaries serving in Africa who work with various sister synods in Africa to share the good news of Jesus throughout the continent. Now days this work usually takes the form of offering training and encouragement to those who serve as ministers of the gospel in our sister synods.

This is quite different from what I was called to do 29 years ago. Back then my main job was to preach, teach, baptize and offer the Lord’s supper to village congregations which did not have their own pastors. This meant driving out to the village areas at least four days per week and visiting at least two congregations each day for worship and or bible study. Between my visits the congregations were faithfully served by lay men who preached from a sermon book, taught Sunday school and confirmation classes, using books prepared for them. Through these men congregations were started, grew and became strong.

As I return to Africa, many of those men are fully trained pastors and leaders in the Seminary and their Synod. Now WELS missionaries are not needed to serve as Pastors in local congregations but are used to train and encourage ministers of the gospel in church bodies throughout the continent.

I am eager and feel blessed to take on the work of leading this group. I thank God for the years I served in Zambia and I thank God for the past 20 years I have served while living in the States. I am thankful for the things I learned as I served St. Paul’s Lutheran Church and School in Norfolk, NE. I am thankful for the experiences I had serving Messiah Lutheran Church in Nampa ID; especially what I learned about well-planned and organized outreach. Also, as I served 10 years on the Board for World Missions, 4 of those years as Chairman. It was so enlightening to understand WELS World Missions not only as a missionary on the field but also at the administrative levels. I also feel that I will put to good use what I experienced serving as the Director of the Apache Christian Training School (ACTS). That experience reminded me of how important it is that missionaries aren’t sent to be pastors for people; but rather they are sent to work with people to develop strong forms of ministry that best serve the needs of that community.

I am thankful to the LORD for giving me this opportunity to serve as the OAT Leader. I am thankful that the LORD has given me a wife that is so supportive and willing to return to Africa. Without her support, understanding, and willingness to serve none of this would be possible.

Howard Mohlke is the new leader of One Africa Team and is currently living in Nebraska while his paperwork is being processed. He and his wife Leslie will reside in Malawi on the campus of the Lutheran Bible Institute in Lilongwe

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

“Cross the river in a crowd,” an African proverb says, “and the crocodile won’t eat you.”

That is, teamwork tends to work better than individual effort.

Recently Mr. Banda and Mr. Zulu, two veteran workmen for our mission, and I teamed up. From Lusaka, Zambia, we headed east together. We crossed the Luangwa River and drove all day to Chipata in Eastern Province.

From Chipata the next two days we headed north to villages in the areas of Lundazi and Mfuwe. There we installed solar panel systems at the homes of Pastor Lewis Mbewe and Pastor Edward Nyirenda.

The workmen nailed together a simple shelf for the battery and inverter.

Here is what the system inside looked like, once hooked up.

Mr. Banda and Mr. Zulu connected that system with wiring to a 120 watt solar panel on the roof.

The system also connects to a wall-mounted controller and to a small set of LED lights which we attached by clips to the exposed trusses inside the home. One light went outside.

We brought along a ladder for interior use, but outside our main ladder was our Land Cruiser.

The week before we had done the same in two villages closer to Lusaka. For instance, here is a photo of Pastor Godfrey Matina (the tallest man) and members of his congregation.

During two of our four installations, many people gathered to see what we were doing.

Meals were cooked and shared, always centering on nshima, a Zambian staple made from maize.

You might wonder who paid for the diesel fuel to get us to the villages—our Land Cruiser has two tanks—and for the solar panels and systems.

You did.

That is, you and others did, through the WELS Africa Special Projects Fund, one of many projects you can learn about in the Home and World Mission Projects Fund booklet. Lutheran Women’s Missionary Society (LWMS) and the WELS Mission Office prepares the booklet.

If you look up the Africa Special Projects Fund, you read, “There are many other project requests across Africa that enhance our gospel ministry efforts. One particular need is to identify and fund volunteers who can work temporarily in our mission fields. Project requests include improving communication, publications, materials, and ministry tools.”

Now you know one example of such materials and ministry tools. It is hard for a pastor to communicate with other pastors, for example, when he cannot easily charge his cell phone.

Likewise, when he was at seminary, an LCCA pastor got a laptop with many biblical resources. But unless you can charge your laptop, how can you use it? How can you study for post-seminary classes in our new African Confessional Lutheran Institute (CLI)?

The Projects Fund booklet has dozens of worthy projects. Perhaps you are part of a WELS school group, men’s group, or women’s group. Over time, you could pool your funds and give to a project of your choosing: giving teamwork!

Such projects also involve teamwork on the receiving end. If you give to the Africa Special Projects Fund, for example, you don’t get to direct exactly where offerings go. Maybe they will go to solar panels. Maybe they will go to CLI, or somewhere else more needed.

You might not know until the last day how you helped—until you cross “the Jordan River,” as some hymns picture it.

Imagine the scene, in the final Promised Land. You hear the most royal, beautiful voice say (Matthew 25:40), “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

But even now, here is a voice for teamwork you can overhear. Rev. Davison Mutentami wrote this to our Operations Director, Stefan Felgenhauer. Pastor Mutentami, chairman of the Lutheran Church of Central Africa — Zambia Synod, emailed about this solar project:

“Empowering pastors is and will remain my dream.

“Please go ahead and implement the project. Don’t hesitate sir. God bless you for considering the vulnerable servants of God.”

Rev. Dan Witte lives in Zambia and coordinates Formal Continuing Education programs for the CLI

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

What a story— and you are in it. One part of the story starts when Bright Pembeleka was young.

A bright student, Pembeleka lived up to his name. As he finished high school, he considered studying to be a medical doctor. He could help so many people in his country, Malawi.

Medical maladies often multiply in modern Malawian stories. Think HIV, TB, malnutrition, diabetes, mental illness.

In the U.S., UNICEF says, the under-five mortality rate is 6.5 per 1,000 live births. In Malawi, though, Partners in Health estimates 55 child deaths per 1,000 live births. Every statistic is a story, too.

So wouldn’t it have been good if Bright Pembeleka had served others medically? Sure.

“I was at high school, and just before writing final exams, I met my pastor, Pastor Boloweza. He was about to go as a Lutheran Church of Central Africa missionary to Mozambique.

“I was not interested at first in being a pastor. Pastor Boloweza thought too that I should be a doctor.

“At first our church council was willing. Then the council changed their mind: ‘Our mission is to spread the word of God,’ they said. They encouraged me to study at the Lutheran Bible Institute (LBI) in Lilongwe, Malawi. They sent a letter too: ‘We need him.’”

By God’s grace, Pembeleka did well in pre-LBI studies and test. He studied hard at LBI. Then he served  Kilamon mission station. For three years, 2002–2005, he learned faithfully at the Lutheran Seminary in Zambia. Then he went back to Malawi. After vicaring at Lilongwe South congregation, he was called to serve Kamoto, a rural congregation, just south of Blantyre. So many ministry stories, he can tell.

After 2.5 years, he was called to Beautiful Saviour Lutheran Church in Blantyre, Malawi’s second largest city. Much of the last 12 years he has also been vice chairman of the LCCA – Malawi synod.

He has helped the LCCA start new churches, work together for unity, make property decisions, and improve in gospel-centered stewardship. After four more years/nine more classes of post-seminary study, he has earned a Bachelor of Divinity (BDiv) degree through Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary. He has taken four classes in his Master of Theology (MTh) program too.

That is where I come into the story. Pastor Pembeleka was slated to join other Malawian and Zambian pastors for an MTh class in July 2020, taught by a visiting professor from the States, but we canceled the class with the closing of international borders due to COVID-19.

Instead, WLS asked me, the One Africa Team (OAT) missionary coordinating BDiv and MTh studies in Africa in our Confessional Lutheran Institute (CLI), to teach three pastors one-on-one.

I checked with each. One wanted to ancient study church history, to help with his seminary teaching. Another wanted to study counseling, because of his seminary duties.

When I asked what area Pastor Pembeleka might like to specialize in, partly to prepare for a final MTh project, he wrote me, “It has been my plan to study Old Testament theology ever since I joined GRATSI, now CLI. The reason has been that when I have full knowledge of Old Testament, then I will be able to preach and teach New Testament well. Therefore, majoring in Old Testament will help my ministry a lot.”

Which is where you come into story. Do you see?

One way: Without your prayers and support, how could I have met Pastor Pembeleka, if only online? (We have not yet met in person.)

Without God’s mercy in action, how would he have been so well trained by so many other missionaries, pastors, and professors?

Without gifts from others, how would there have been money for each of us to have an e-book to study, let alone computers to study it on?

You may take internet availability for granted, too, but our Malawian pastors don’t. It’s costly. It comes in small bundles.

How could we have a weekly class over WhatsApp, an internet-based messaging service on our phones, without your generosity?

Best of all, the joy we have had in reading a book together, then discussing it for an hour each week, and praying about it.

Pastor Pembeleka told me, “This is the best book I have ever read.”

The book retells the Bible’s story from the garden of Eden in Genesis to the New Jerusalem in Revelation, unfolding God’s plan to share his royal love by creating royal priests who would care for the garden of Eden with him and for him.

As their family grew, they would need more space. They would lovingly expand the Garden of Eden to the ends of the earth; there God would be lovingly present always with his perfect people.

Satan had other plans. He figured he could crush God’s kingdom from the start by luring King Adam and Queen Eve away from God into sin and death.

God had a better, secret plan. After the fall we see it. Bit by bit, the whole Bible unfolds it: God would bless all nations through the Seed of the woman, the Descendant of Abraham, the King from David’s royal line.

You know the story. Pastor Pembeleka and I thought we knew it well too, but we have so enjoyed restudying the story, and seeing all the ways the Old Testament and New Testament fit together, all the ways the Garden of Eden, the tabernacle, the temple, Jesus’ physical body, the New Testament church, and the new heavens and new earth all fit together.

Recently in our final class, we discussed the new Jerusalem, which will have the most marvelous mankhwala (medicine). It will be the Garden of Eden all over again. The leaves of the tree of life there will be for the healing of the nations.

John continues (Revelation 22:3–5), “No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light.

“And __ will reign for ever and ever.”

How does the story end? What goes in the blank?

We might think the missing word would be “he.” “He will reign for ever and ever.” He will!

But the Bible’s story is better: “They will reign forever and ever.” All believers in the Lamb, all the royal priests of our Priest-King will reign with Christ, our brother, more and more closely and wondrously, we can only imagine, forever and ever.

Saints of all nations, all tribes, all tongues, all together, for all eternity: The never-ending story. The world-wide spread of the kingdom of God.

I love to tell that story of Jesus and his glory. So does Pastor Pembeleka.

Thank you for connecting us. Thank you for every way you have helped us.

Our mission is to spread the Word of God.

Missionary Dan Witte lives in Zambia and coordinates the BDiv and MTh programs of the Confessional Lutheran Institute

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