Do you know about Lumvwi (“chameleon”) and Njoka (“snake”)? Let’s re-tell their story in several sections since I have a second African saga to share.

That tale is true. From October 24 through November 21 Dr. Al Sorum of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary and I led others on a learning journey. We met with brothers and sisters in Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia. We focused on stories from God’s Word.

A Conversation Over Food

First, though, imagine God wants to talk with Lumvwi, the chameleon. Why? God made all things very good. He created Adam and Eve in his image, in his likeness.

But they ruined everything. You know the story. Death fills this world, like smoke pervading a room, for we all have sinned. Even wounds that heal leave scars. All human skin wears out. Bodies wear out. Everyone perishes.

“They need new skin,” the Creator announces. So God summons Lumvwi.

“Listen, Lumvwi,” God says. “I have something for you to take to humankind. Hurry! Tell people I sent you. Give them this.”

He holds out a tiny present. “I trust you, Lumvwi. You are fast. Go now!”

Lumvwi takes off for Earth quick as lightning. He holds the package under his arm.

When he gets to a river he pauses. He is so thirsty.

Njoka (snake) is drinking there too. “Sssay, Lumvwi (Chameleon),” he hisses. “Essspecially ssspeedy today! What are you up to?”

“God sent me,” Lumvwi says between gulps of water. “He has something for people.”

Njoka hates people. They walk so tall. They fear snakes. Some kill snakes. And God attends to them more than all the rest of his creation. Jealousy fills Njoka: “Why would God give them another gift?”

Then he has another thought: “What could I do to keep them from getting this gift, whatever it is?”

“Sssay, Lumvwi,” Snake hisses. He comes closer to Lumvwi and the gift. “Ssso ssspecial to sssee you again!”

“My family hasss missssed you. Sssometimesss other relativesss ssstop by for mealsss. But not you. Perhapsss you sssussspect you sssurpassss the ressst of usss.”

Even the suggestion bothers Lumvwi. “Oh no, cousin,” Lumvwi replies. “I would be so honored to eat with you sometime.”

“Sssay,” Njoka suggests, “why not now? My wife hasss lunch ready. She would be so pleasssed to sssee you dine with usss!”

“Oh, dear,” Lumvwi thinks.

“God told me to hurry,” he tells Njoka. “Perhaps some other time?”

“Yesss, yessss,” hisses Njoka. “Jussst as I thought. Too good for the likesss of usss! Ssspeed along with your busssinessss.”

Lumvwi looks at the sun, high in the sky. “Maybe I can have a quick lunch with Njoka and his wife,” he thinks, “and still have time to deliver the gift.”

“Wait, Cousin,” Lumvwi blurts out. “I’m sorry. I would love to eat with you. Why don’t we do so now? I’ll get back to business right afterward.”

“Oh, Lumvwi,” Njoka replies.“Thank you.” He tries to sound humble. “What an honor for usss.” He leads Lumvwi off.

Why a made-up story of Lumvwi and Njoka (Chameleon and Snake) talking, then eating? For one, Al Sorum and I had so many good conversations and meals with God’s people in Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia over four weeks.

Telling THE STORY

Each of us exchanged our own stories. We discussed God’s mission to save the world through his Son.

In all three locations, Al especially taught gospel outreach—personal and congregational. In Kenya, I led learning about the Augsburg Confession. Both Al and I stressed stories.

Al led off with the story of Jesus and Zacchaeus from Luke 19. “What is evangelism?” he asked. “It’s going to people. It’s telling God’s good news to people who are between God’s light and Satan’s darkness.”

We discussed more stories. Three of my favorites: 1) John 4— the woman at the well, 2)  Luke 15—the waiting father, and 3) John 12— the Greek men who wanted to see Jesus.

Participants rehearsed one of those, or another favorite good news story about Jesus. Then we all hit the streets to share the gospel with others.

In all three settings (Kenya, Malawi & Zambia), we loved hearing each other’s witnessing stories after we regrouped. Pastor Frank asked a vendor at a market in Sondu, Kenya, “Why are your bananas so small?” That led to a great gospel conversation. There were too many others to tell.

Brand New Skins

Back to our fable:

Njoka’s wife was so hospitable to Lumvwi. “Have more,” she kept saying.

Lumvwi ate so much he could hardly move. “This is such good beer, too,” he told his hosts. Lumvwi forgot all about his mission from God.

Njoka smiled slyly. Lumvwi’s head nodded. His eyelids drooped. Soon Lumvwi slept.

“What isss ssso funny, my husssband?” asked Njoka’s wife. She took Lumvwi’s sleep as a compliment.

“Sssee thisss?” Njoka hissed. He slid God’s gift out from under Lumvwi’s arm.

“What isss that?” she asked.

“Sssomething from God,” Njoka laughed.

Njoka tore open the tiny package. Its contents expanded.

“Ssay!” he exclaimed, lifting something from the box. “New skins. God ssseemsss to have has sssent us new ssskinsss. Whenever our old onesss wear out let usss change into new onesss.”

Njoka laughed again, louder. He woke Lumvwi. The sleepy guest took one look at what he had brought along, now open. He realized how foolish he had been.

“No, Njoka.” Lumvwi begged. “Those are not for you. They are for people. God sent me on a mission to humankind. Give them back.”

When Njoka said nothing, Lumvwi stretched out his hands. “Please, Njoka! I need to fulfill my mission. Give the skins back.”

But Njoka refused. He kept up his evil laugh. He held the skins too far away for Lumvwi to reach them. Then he slithered off with them. “Hah, cousssin. Now thesssessskinsss are oursss.”

When you think about God’s mission to save the world, does it crush you? Scare you?

On the evening of the first Easter Jesus told his disciples, “As the Father has sent me, I also am sending you” (John 20:21).

Go and save the world? Me?

“Why would God still want me to go tell his story to others?” we think. “I have gotten so distracted. I have failed so many times.”

The real snake … is still such a liar. First, the devil distracts us from God’s mission. Then he accuses us day and night. “You are such failures,” he hisses.

We start thinking the same. “I’m so worthless.”

The snake, the devil says, “It’s hopeless. God could never forgive anyone like you.”

But God not only forgives you, he sees you as holy. He invites you to be part of his worldwide mission. And he prizes all you do in his name.

Jesus said to Zacchaeus up in a tree, “You come down. I have to go to your house today.” He did that in your place. God sees you as if you were Jesus.

Because Jesus was fearless, and because Jesus came to seek and to save what was lost, not only did Jesus redeem you by his blood. His holy life counts for you too. God sees you as someone who has perfectly fulfilled his mission for us all: “Go and save the world.”

Yes, the world is ruined. Jesus is going to come on the last day and judge the whole world. And he will give new skin, like his skin, to everyone who trusted in him.

We don’t know what we are going to be like with our new skin, but we know we are going to be like him. We will see him as he is.

So our African fable ends quite differently from that story—the best, truest story.

As the sun sank Lumvwi felt sick. Njoka had betrayed him. And he had disobeyed God. He had failed.

Some say this is why still today snakes shed their old skins and have new skins. And it is also why, some say, chameleons no longer move fast. They hide a lot. They hide in the crooks of trees. They cling to branches. They fear facing God and man.

How about you?

As surely as Jesus lives, you have nothing to fear. You have nothing to fear from the God who equips you with his Spirit to tell others the story of his Son. You have nothing to fear from anyone you tell that story to either.

Please beg the Lord of the harvest to keep sending out workers into his harvest field—you too.

Pastor Dan Witte heads the Confessional Lutheran Institute for the One Africa Team of WELS World Missions. He and his wife Debbie live in Lusaka, 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

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

Lightning? From a cloudless sky?

It is Zambia’s dry season. But like a bolt out of the blue, Esther gets sick. “It’s meningitis,” a hospital doctor tells her husband of 16 years.

“Dear God,” he prays.

She dies almost lightning-fast. It is Monday, 13 September 2021.

Justina, her 13-year-old daughter, their only child, grieves. Pastor Frank Shonga, her 49-year-old husband, aches. Serving Sinda Parish in the Lutheran Church of Central Africa Zambia Synod, Pastor Shonga has conducted many funerals. “This is so different,” he tells himself.

It feels different too for fellow LCCA-Z pastors and One Africa Team missionaries in Zambia. “When was the last time an LCCA-Z pastor’s wife died while her husband was actively serving a congregation?”

“We can’t remember,” people keep answering.

A flurry of arrangements follows. Three LCCA-Z pastors, a missionary, and the OAT operations director hastily pack, then drive to the funeral for Amai Abusa (Mrs. Pastor) Shonga. The trip takes twelve hours over two days.

Some 400 mourners have gathered by the time the five arrive in the village, near Lundazi. Men have dug a grave by hand 1.5 km away. “That is one of the deepest graves I have ever seen,” a veteran missionary later notes. (“Why deep?” you may ask. The more honored the person, the deeper the grave.)

“Please, may we use your Land Cruiser later? Could you transport the pallbearers and coffin to the burial site? It is too far to carry. The path is too narrow for the truck.”

“Of course.” Katundu (luggage) is rearranged.

Guests of honor sit in the shade on mats. Women, sing, wail, and carry the coffin outside onto another mat. The funeral begins. A young man explains in Chewa who will speak, in what order.

Choirs sing. Grief erupts. Hope swells.

Pastor Banda speaks. No, the Spirit speaks through him.

Is this sudden death nothing but the lightning and thunder of God’s judgment?

Not in our risen Lord. “I heard a voice from heaven saying, ‘Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ‘Yes,’ says the Spirit, ‘so they will rest from their labors since their works follow them.'” (Revelation 14:13)

Pastor Mumba speaks God’s Word last. “God took his sinful people into exile,” he says. Their exile seemed death. Every death is an exile.

Yet God told his people of old, “You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. I will be found by you”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and places where I banished you”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “I will restore you to the place from which I deported you” (Jeremiah 29:13–14).

From all the nations?

From all the nations, in “Christ, the life of all the living, Christ the death of death our foe.”

Choirs sing again, two Chewa songs at the same time, as the funeral becomes a procession. Both choirs sing of ulendo, “the journey.” Mourners journey on foot to the grave through the bush.

It is the dry season. Eyes get wet, though. Young men scoop dirt over the lowered coffin.

In the dry season parched hearts moisten with hope. Believers pray, “ufumu, mphamvu, ndi ulemelero nzanu kwamuyaya” (“the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, forever and ever”).

“I saw Satan fall like lightning from the sky,” Jesus said after his 72 disciples came back from preaching the good news of his kingdom (Luke 10:18).

They had told him, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name” (10:17).

“I saw Satan fall like lightning from the sky,” Jesus could have also said in 2000 when Frank Shonga, a Muslim, a man who had memorized 17 of the 30 suras in the Qur’an, was baptized.

“I saw Satan fall like lightning from the sky,” Jesus could have said too when Frank confirmed his wife in biblical Christian faith in 2007. He had helped her learn God’s Word.

“What was it like for you before?” the missionary had asked him in April.

“In Islam,” Pastor Shonga wrote back, “we learned that we should keep all the commands of the Qur’an in order to enter heaven. But […] I learned that God offered his Son Jesus Christ as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

“I saw Satan fall like lightning from the sky.” The missionary even sees that invisible truth on the long return to Lusaka. The Land Cruiser which had carried 5 now holds 14.

What do eleven hot, cramped people on the vehicle’s backbenches do for hours while the OAT operations director drives, negotiating pothole after pothole? A mother nurses her baby. The other ten belt out holy hope. Pastors and their wives sing hymn after joyful hymn. The missionary sings along as best he can.

His heart still sings.

The hymn the group in the Land Cruiser sings is “Kwathu Sipadziko,” “My Home Is Not Here.” In English, its refrain goes like this:

Lord, you are my friend, for sure.
What if heaven were not ours?
An angel motions in welcome to heaven’s door.
And this world I do not think of as mine.

Missionary Dan 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