Disciple Making Training in West Africa

Twenty-six church leaders and evangelists from five nations of west Africa made their way to Dakar, Senegal mostly by taxi or bus arriving Saturday, February 2.  We worshipped together on Sunday and rested from our travels.  Our workshop facilitating team and some of the participants were hosted by some of the employees of Douglas Boateng's company here in Dakar.  They have been great hosts and servants, cooking our meals, doing laundry and cleaning our rooms.

The workshop was five days long but not long enough to do what would have like to cover because of our linguistic handicaps.  About 1/3 were most comfortable using English, the other 2/3 needed French translation, so what with questions and 


clarifications, the conversations were slower.  But the CPM models and principles are such a fit especially for churches of Christ people that by the end of the week, we experienced a strong sense of inspiration and encouragement in the participants.  The group consisted of about 50-50 CofC/non CofC.  There was such a spirit of humility among presenters and participants that by the end of the week we experienced a significant bond of brotherly fellowship.

One main deficiency in the program was the lack of women in the workshop.  Mustapha says that is generally true in a lot of church programs in west Africa, something that we need to seek to overcome.

Yesterday, Arnold Dzah, the Ghanaian missionary here, director of the Bible School and our host for the workshop, took us out to a rural church 120 kms from Dakar.   Peter Ofori, missionary from Mali preached and the rest of us shared parts of the worship program.  There are seven churches of Christ that have been planted over the past 20+ years; the one we visited is the only one with a building besides the church in Dakar.  The assembly yesterday consisted of maybe ten adults and 90-95 children and teenagers.  But since most churches do not have their own buildings maybe they will be better set for a movement of house churches ...

We arrived in Cotonou, Benin on February 11.  George Akpabli met us and took us to the Livingstone Restaurant that is popular with Western residents and visitors.  Then we stopped a local grocery to pick up some breakfast supplies before heading out to the Bible Training Center just north of the city of Cotonou.  The school has a very nice well-fitted out guesthouse where we stayed.  George and Joyce hosted us for the lunch and evening meals all week.  

By Tuesday morning, most of the preachers who were able to come had arrived from churches across Benin as well as at least one from Chad, Ivory Coast and Guinea.  It was clear that the disciple making movements approach to evangelism was a strange and somewhat difficult paradigm to accept.  We felt significant 'push-back from participants in the first two days of the training.  Questions often focused on how we would deal with various doctrinal issues.  To stay focused on the topic, we had to limit questions.

On the morning of the third day, my co-facilitators and I felt a spiritual burden and resistance to our message, calling for some deep, fervent time in prayer.  During that day, we felt a significant spiritual breakthrough with open minds and hearts. 

By our closing time on Friday, I was pleased to hear from the George, the Bible School director that he would like to adapt and incorporate the content of the training into the curriculum of the Bible School and to encourage its practice in the churches in Benin.  In his report, he stated that 'every participant in the workshop is going home a different person.'  Our prayer is that this kind of impact will be reflected in the people, churches and communities of Benin and all of West Africa.

Christian School for Nimule

Lauren Zumbrun has just taken on a role with East African Ministries as director to develop a Christian school in the town of Nimule near the border of South Sudan with Uganda.  The school itself is presently under construction and is expected to open in February, 2014.  In the interim, Lauren will be recruiting committed Christians in East Africa to be teachers and administrators in the school.  If you know of someone who would be interested to apply to work in this school, pass the word.

It is amazing how God works.  Nancy and I met with Lauren on Thursday.  As we talked and prayed, we remembered a 10-year-old prayer on Gordon's Hill near Nimule in July, 2003.  In our prayer we promised nothing, but we pledged to be advocates for Sudan and the town of Nimule.  In 2004, God provided a token of His answer to our prayers: Harding University students raised $17,000 to ship a 40 ft. container of medical and school supplies to Nimule.  Since then several missionaries have moved there.

... And now a Christian school!  I remember in one of the refugee camps we visited in 2003, an internally displaced leader who had never had an opportunity for much education, stood up in a meeting of SPLA generals and made a deeply moving statement of hope and desperation.  He said, "If you can find a woman who will come and teach me English, I will wash her dishes and clean her floors."  Wow!  Maybe that request will be fulfilled for his grand-children.  Praise God!

Multi-Ethnic Disciple Making Workshop

Last week Missions Resource Network hosted a disciple making training workshop.  About 30 people from Arizona to Tennessee participated and at least six different ethnic groups/nationalities living in the United States were represented at the workshop.

It is exciting when African disciplemakers begin training North Americans to be disciples who make disciples. Thank you, Mustapha Sandi for your disciple making training in various parts of Africa, Haiti and, last week, in the Dallas/Fort Worth, TX area of the United States. 

We are getting so many participants responding in gratitude and inspiration for the insights and passion you shared. Let's work together again soon.

Readers, let us know if you want to learn how to reach the lost in your community with the good news of Jesus.   Spread the word!!

August Trip to South Africa and Zambia

We had a fast trip to Africa this month that has been very positive in many ways.

1) The first two days we led a church leadership workshop at the Meadowlands church in Soweto.  Jay took the lead in teaching the content and I supplemented that by facilitating DBS's of relevant passages.  Attendance was relatively small as we were there Wednesday and Thursday and many that wanted to attend could not take two days off work.  Some of the young leaders were deeply impacted by the training and the way we presented it.  We met Napoleon Webster from Lesotho.  He loved the interactive nature of the DBS processes and principles and lobbied hard for us to do a training in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho.  Nancy and I stayed in the home of one of the elders, while Jay stayed with Dalton and Moreen Mushiinya, one of the deacons.  I will let Jay fill you in on his very positive conversations with Dalton.  There seems to be growing interest in MRN's 4-lab Church visioning process among some churches in the Johannesburg/Pretoria region of South Africa.  We had to hold back from too many commitments and raising expectations too high for what we could do in the short-term.

2)  On the Friday of the first week, we held a two-hour workshop with Nations University students and alumni at the Downtown church in Pretoria.

3) Saturday we led a 6-hour workshop for church leaders in Gauteng province and from Swaziland.  Jay did most of the training and again I facilitated a DBS at the beginning and at the end of the day.  We had very positive response from these leaders and requests for us to return for more training with them in Swaziland and Gauteng province.  Nancy facilitated some Bible lessons for a few women from Seeiso Street church and Mamalodi Church of Christ.

4) On Sunday, August 5th we flew to Livingstone, Zambia, my hometown.  We toured the Victoria Falls that afternoon and the next morning we had the opportunity to visit with Jacob Sianungu, visit his orphans' home and the site where he is preparing to construct a church building for a new church plant.  That afternoon we took a bus to Namwianga Mission at Kalomo where I grew up.  One of the missionaries put us up overnight and organized the Harding U.  HIZ (Harding in Zambia) bus to take us and a number of Zambia church leaders to Lusaka, the following day, where we checked in at the Gospel Outreach Center, venue of the 6th Africans Claiming Africa for Christ conference.  The theme was Extending the Frontiers of African Missions.  20 African nations were represented in addition to the U. S. and St. Vincent island in the Caribbean.  An exact count of participants was not announced, but we estimate close to 200 including about 12 Ghanaians, 35 Nigerians and 15 South Africans.  We were disappointed that so few Zambians participated other than those hosting us. 

5) I was very excited by conversations with a couple of brethren from Cape Town, South Africa who are eagerly getting involved in DMM and house churches.  I had good chats with representatives of Mu slim majority nations on the frontiers of Islamic Africa.  They all bought the Miraculous Movements book and requested training in disciple making.  Hopefully we can arrange this for early next year.  I also had good discussions with the 6-person delegation from Mozambique who are seeking help to develop a mission training school so they can send missionaries to all provinces of their nation.  I was able to video testimonies of three men whose stories I hope to publish in Volume Two of A Great Light Dawning: Profiles of Faith in Africa.   I had numerous individual conversations that reflect a growing spirit and vision for missions not just Africa-wide but globally.

6) I presented a keynote speech on New Frontiers of God's Mission in Africa on Saturday, August 11.  Jay has encouraged me to frame the main points as MRN blog posts.

7).  At my request, Dr. Evertt Huffard has offered to do special cut-rate tours of the Holy Land in the summers of 2013 and 2014 for African church leaders.  We advertised the tours at the ACAC conference.  Approximately 70 people signed up as interested in taking the tours.

8).  The ACAC continuation committee members present met and heard a request from Henry Huffard of World Christian Broadcasting to sign a letter WCB would compose requesting the Minister of Communications in Madagascar to approve the licensing of WCB to operate from Madagascar.  The committee agreed to sign the letter.  The committee also entertained offers from several African Nations to host the ACAC Conference in 2016.  It was decided that Senegal will host the conference in 2016, symbolically on the Frontiers of the gospel in Africa.  The Ghanaian leaders volunteered to assist in the hosting of the 2016 conference.  Senegal will be the first French-speaking country and the first Mu slim majority country to host an ACAC conference.

Powerful Redemptive Stories from Rwanda

It was great to have our Kinyarwanda language teacher, Felix Hagenimana, with us during the Christmas holidays in December. Among other functions, we invited him over to our offices at Missions Resource Network. While there he was willing for us to video tape his story of living through the genocide of 1994 in Rwanda. It is a very powerful story as is that of so many of our friends in Rwanda. No one who lived in the country at the time was unaffected by that national tragedy.

It is an important goal of mine to record for history some of these stories that show God's redemptive power in the aftermath of that dark season of Rwanda's history. God never abandoned the people of Rwanda though Satan wreaked terrible horror. These stories need to be told, heard and remembered. I have begun recording the stories. It will take at least two years for me to complete the project. If you are interested in what will be a book, please push me and hold me accountable to get it done.

A Time to be Sick and a Time for Healing

As of last Saturday evening, we are now back in Kigali, Rwanda. Most of you have been following the details about my health, so I won't bore you by repeating all that.

Suffice it to say that I went to several clinics and saw 5 doctors here in Kigali, had quite a bit of testing at each one, with no clear diagnosis. Honestly, we began to wonder if we would be able to find the needed answers here and we made a pretty quick decision to get to what we thought would be better, more sophisticated health care, after realizing that I had dropped more than 20 lbs in about three weeks time. It turned out that the two hospitals we went to in South Africa were not able to find anything either. What they did do in their testing was to rule out some bad stuff like hepatitis, tuberculosis, cancer, bacterial infections and parasites.

I think it was one of the examples of God's unexpected will and timing that Duane Jenks and Don Box were able to change their flight schedule to stopover with us in Pretoria on their way to Durban to visit and comfort Brother Johnson Ngoyo who lost his wife and his oldest son on the same day. D and D were able to meet with some of the leaders of the Seeiso Street church and Duane did a class one evening on spiritual warfare. This really struck a chord and they want him back for a full seminar.


One of the great joys I experienced during my illness was the beauty of Christian fellowship. Numerous people came by to visit, to pray and to sing. One woman was baptized in the bathroom next to our bedroom. Afterward she came in to introduce herself to us and bid me good health.

On July 15, our 45th wedding anniversary, I felt a little better and we think that was the turning point. Each day thereafter, I felt a little stronger and was able to walk farther, gradually my appetite started returning. On Tuesday, July 19, I was finally able to see a specialist who declared me clear of anything they could identify, and closed my file. In the end, the specialist concluded that the culprit was some unidentifiable virus that had run its course.

On the following days we took time to see more of the kingdom works in the area. Brother Machona took us to see ministries in the Pretoria area, the Downtown church which also houses the Gospel Chariot Mission, which we had become acquainted with years ago. They now have two big specially designed trucks with trailers that they do teaching and preaching campaigns and distribute Christian literature in 11 southern African countries. This church also hosts students preparing for online courses with Nations University. On another day Machona and Tebego took us to one of the youth detention centers where some of the leaders of the Seeiso street do New Life Behavior and other training courses. One of the sisters who helps organize their short-term medical missions obvious has considerable means. The last afternoon we were there, she took us around to her congregation and showed the properties she is personally investing in for kingdom projects, one for the church, one for a women's center another for a Christian kindergarten and elementary school.


Tebogo is the main organizer for many of their mission activities and he is getting a lot of demand to speak at different churches who are interested in becoming involved in missions. I really feel like the Lord used our time in Pretoria to add to what Phil Jackson and I were able to do in March; to continue building relationships between MRN and the churches in the area for the future of missions.

Before I got sick I had been planning to go to SA to do a full DMM workshop in August. While there I offered to do a workshop with them and they are eager for more training, but August happens to be a very busy month for them and they were not sure how they could work it in. They were glad I suggested that Cephas Kwaambiliwa could go with me to co-facilitate the workshop. Cephas is a Congolese brother who lives in Kigali and has growing DMM movements in Rwanda and in Congo.

Overall, aside from illness, I don't think I could a have planned a better way to get to know these brethren on a broader and deeper level. Since I was given no treatment other than rehydration medicines and vitamins, I can only praise God for His healing of my body. I am eating better and gaining some weight, though hopefully not too much. I do have a ways to go to get my strength back and still need to rest some during the day. Thanks so much for your prayers throughout the past month.

Sowing Seeds in South Sudan

For more than a year some of my Rwandan colleagues have been urging me to organize a mission trip to South Sudan. In June, we made the trip by bus from Rwanda to Juba, South Sudan, with a one-day stopover in Uganda where we were hosted by the Kampala Church of Christ. Besides the three of us from Rwanda, we were joined by a brother from DR Congo, one from Kenya, and a brother and sister from South Africa.

One of our purposes on this trip was scouting, to evaluate our impressions of what the needs are, how receptive the people are to the gospel, how open and cooperative the government would be to outsiders coming to serve there, etc. Our evaluation was at a high level in all these areas. We went to sow some seeds in various ways, but maybe the most significant were the seeds sown in our own hearts: a greater passion to serve the people and share the good news.

We were graciously hosted by a Ghanaian missionary couple, Isaac and Janet Adotey, as well as Peter Ladu, a Sudanese brother, who provided opportunities for us to bless the two young churches they are working with. We did small construction projects to improve their church facilities as well as a local community health clinic. Several home Bible studies led to at least 5 people accepting Christ as their savior and being baptized. Our overall impression of the openness of the country to outsider assistance might be summed up in the expression at least two officials said to us, ‘We want friends!”

Hymn and Literary Tour of England and Scotland

Nancy:
On our way back to Africa in May, we were so happy to be able to join Dr. Jerry Rushford and his group of 35 or so, in a Literary and Hymn Tour of England, Wales and Scotland. This was an inspiring 12 days of singing (225 hymns!) and experiencing the very places where the literary greats of times past and our hymn writers lived and left their mark upon our culture. We felt renewed and gained a deeper appreciation of our heritage, while enjoying fellowship with new and old friends. What a blessing! So grateful to friends and family (Sam’s sister and brother in law) who made it possible for us to enjoy this very special once in a life-time holiday. Can you imagine singing ‘Amazing Grace’ in the church where the composer, John Newton, former slaver turned Christian, wrote it and served as curate of Olney church?

Sam: I was greatly blessed to have been a part of this tour. At times was overwhelmed by the art and architecture, the sheer immensity of scale of the old churches of England and Scotland, not to speak of the equally towering faith exemplified in the lives of the adherents of the Christian religion in this history. But this tour left its mark on me in another, more troubling way.

I can't help but consider the massive amounts human creativity, physical labor and time (250 years to build York Minster) that were invested in the construction and maintenance of these huge churches, not to mention the monetary costs invested in places where so many thousands have come to meet God, when the Apostle Paul said that God does not dwell in temples made with hands of men. Many of these great churches have become monuments to a waning faith in England and Scotland. Worse yet, many are being turned into tourist spots, restaurants and other businesses.

But what bothers me more than anything about all this is what was NOT DONE because the church historically from about the 5th century A. D. onward became inward-focused and building-focused, at the expense of being outward-focused; going to the church instead of obeying Christ's command to go to the world. Except for a few, a very few who 'swam against the tide' and made a small impact here or there, more than 1000 years was wasted in withdrawing from the world rather than taking the gospel to the lost. Where would we be If we had focused on Christ's commands? Would we have completed the task of making disciples of all nations? Would Christ have returned to take us home? It's hard to say. But we can say, it is time to mobilize the church on a grand scale to make up for lost time and to get the job done!

Relationship-building with Seeiso Street Church

On March 23, I flew out on my way to Johannesburg, South Africa to make some connections with the Seeiso Street church near Pretoria. From Kigali, Rwanda, on Ethiopia Airlines, that means flying Northeast to travel South. I flew to Addis Ababa and spent the evening with Alemayehu, a former student of mine at the Nairobi Great Commission School in Nairobi, Kenya, and Moges, a roving evangelist among the approximately 1000 churches of Christ throughout Ethiopia. These two brothers met my flight and took me out to dinner at a touristy type restaurant. I enjoyed the food and fellowship, but the music and floor show was rather loud and we couldn't really carry on a conversation.

After dinner they took me back to the Church of Christ mission station in the Makanisa suburb of the city. They helped me settle into a room in the guesthouse and stayed for a few minutes. It seemed like the old days except that we didn't have time to really discuss how the church was doing, growing and maturing. I was listening for a need that I might be able to meet or find someone else who could, but I didn't hear of one. Alemayehu said the mission driver would come early and take me back to the airport. It was a quick stop and I was sorry that I would not get to meet the families of the brothers this time. Hope to see these brothers at the Africans Claiming Africa for Christ conference in August, next year.

I arrived in Johannesburg in the early afternoon and who was there to meet me but my friend, Machona Monyamane, the pulpit minister of the Seeiso Street church in Atteridgeville, just west of Pretoria. Machona showed me some of the city and then took me to a mall where we took some refreshment, then later dropped me at the home of one of the widows of the church. That evening several of the brothers came by and we had a nice visit over a delicious meal. I heard from these brothers what an impact the Pepperdine Bible lectures had made on the outlook and ministry of both Tebogo and Machona. It was obvious they had a much bigger agenda for the trip to the U. S. last year than just presenting a class at the Pepperdine lectures. They went to every class they could, networked with as many people as they could and attended the all the evening events they could. Machona told me that he even interviewed the shuttle bus drivers as they drove him up the Malibu hills. The result was that they claimed there time at Pepperdine gave them a global view of the church. They said their Bible study, their preaching, their approach to evangelism and their view of the church as a whole had been all impacted by their experience that week in May. They were excited about the possibility of working with Missions Resource Network to build partnerships that could improve and expand their mission outreach. I went to bed that evening excited by what the next few days might bring.

Machona picked me up early and we drove back to the airport to pick up Phil Jackson, MRN's facilitator for European church planting, who was coming in to work with me in a short introductory workshop on disciple making. Phil had never been to Africa and I had lived here most of my life. What Phil experienced that week was not your typical African experience. We found that this church had a membership of 700 plus and 50+ year history. It was a church that had a significant influence in the area and had planted several other congregations. They were involved in international missions in Asia and Africa, making numerous short-term mission trips to various locations every year. For it's size, this in itself went way beyond anything that I knew of in any congregation in Africa or the world for that matter.

The Saturday morning of our visit coincided with a monthly prayer breakfast when the leaders of area congregations came together for fellowship and prayer. The breakfast this month was hosted by Seeiso Street where 40-50 people met. Tebogo Ramatsui, the missions minister of the church and grandson of the man who planted the church in 1958, took about 30 minutes to share some of the ministries and missions the church was involved in and some of their vision and plans for local and foreign missions.

Our main goal in meeting with this church on this trip was not so much to impart something to them; we hoped the time would come for that. Rather it was to get to know them, learn from them and begin building a relationship with them that we hoped would blossom into investment in the kingdom of God in Africa. And learn we did. We met the leaders of several sister congregations, were taken to a cultural park to learn about the various indigenous cultures of South Africa. We were even treated to an international football (soccer) match between Eygpt and South Africa, which South Africa won 1-0 for the first time ever against Egypt. Phil and I were hosted in the country home of a gracious couple, Kenny and Jemina Mookeng and their family. Their little detached guesthouse with two bedrooms was a great fit for us. Then on Sunday evening, our last night there, the Mookengs hosted a farewell dinner for Phil and me, inviting many of the leaders and their wives to be with us. It was such a sweet experience.

Privately, Phil and I were blown away by our time with the Seeiso Street church. Phil was already begging to come back with me in the future. Frankly, in all my years in Africa, I had never been hosted like this before. But it was the passion and the vision that seeped out all over us at this church that impacted us the most. It was, in our MRN parlance of the day, a ready-made, God-prepared Global Launch Site for missions in Africa and globally. I couldn't wait until I could return and bring Nancy with me. Little did I know how and when that would happen ...

Pilgrimage through the Backroads 6

... Continued from Pilgrimage through the Backroads 5

I passed through security first. Somehow they didn’t notice that Mustapha had a Sierra Leonian passport and did not have a visa or a letter of invitation to visit Rwanda. They just let him through, no questions asked!

All through this situation, Mustapha had this big joyful smile on his face. He kept saying, Daddy, don’t waary, don’t waary! But it just did no good for me ... I kept on waarying!

We flew to Bujumbura and sat on the ground there for 40 minutes. When I got a chance I moved up the aisle to chat with Mustapha again. I said, 'I think what we should do is, let me enter the terminal at Kigali first and I will forward this invitation letter to you on email so that it will be on your computer in case the immigration officials demand to see the letter in order to approve a visa.' Mustapha said, ‘I think it will be okay, don’t waary.’

As we took off from Bujumbura for the 25 minute flight to Kigali, I rattled on to Nancy about contingencies if Mustapha was refused entry: Who should I call in Nairobi? Where could I find the phone numbers? What should we encourage him to do there? How much would we need to give him for expenses? My mind was racing ... I was still trying to do God’s work, keep God’s promises and I was running down ... I just couldn’t keep this up much longer ... just a few more minutes and we would have the answers.

Nancy and I walked inside the terminal at the Kigali airport and stood in the residents line. Mustapha stood in the visa application line. We went through and waited for Mustapha trying to look inconspicuous. Just then the agent at the counter referred Mustapha to an officer emerging from an office: he was the supervisor, Oh, No! He scribbled something on the application form and Mustapha gave us a smile and a thumbs up, so we moved on to the baggage area. I couldn’t believe it! That wasn’t supposed to happen that easily!

We waited a while for our bags, but only three of our six checked bags came through. Don’t tell me, we are going to have come back to the airport again tomorrow! I stood in line to file a lost luggage claim, but I couldn’t find the luggage tags so I had no proof of lost luggage. I couldn’t believe it. Apparently the check-in lady had omitted to give us luggage tags in Nairobi. Nancy was nowhere in sight, so I couldn’t ask her. And I was exhausted. There was no point in standing in this line for another 40 minutes, then finding I could not file a claim with no tags. I just turned and walked out of the office.

I found Nancy and asked her about the luggage tags and she didn’t know where they were. I was so frustrated, I started rummaging through papers in my satchel, when ... yes ... the satchel slipped off the luggage cart and fell to the floor, hitting on the corner. And, yes, it had Nancy’s computer in it!! We’d have to assess the damage later.

Now it was time to make our way through customs and see if anyone was out front to meet us. Yes, there was Chris’s smiling face. He was in his pickup, not ours as we expected. So what’s up? 'Well, some small car problems. It just quit today and it wouldn’t start again.' Hmmm. Well, that’s something to deal with tomorrow. For now it was dinner at the Shelbys. Wow, good fellowship, good food, good to be home again! After dinner Chris delivered us to our house. As we drove up to the gate the house lights went out. Yes, this must be Rwanda, good to be home. We are Africans, we know how to function in the dark. Our first order of business was prayers of gratitude, that God had brought all of us home safely. Forgive me, Lord, for all my waarying! It didn't solve anything.' And the problems can wait until tomorrow...

pilgrimage on the Backroads ... continued 5

Continued from pilgrimage on the Backroads ... continued 4
Race for Rwanda The Rongo workshop ended on Thursday afternoon, but we were still a long way from home. Our goal was to wrap up all the last activities, photos opps, handing out notes and certificates, closing speeches by 4:30 so that we could grab a matatu and make it to Nairobi by around mid-night. After saying our last goodbyes, we dropped by to see some old friends, Dennis and Mary Okoth, who had so kindly loaned us their car for the week. They gave us a quick tour of their retirement home before giving us a lift to Kisii town where we met up with others heading home to Nairobi from the workshop. Ten of us arranged for a matatu and left for the city by about 7:30. The group dropped us at the Mennonite Guest House about 12:30 a.m. and went on to their drops in different parts of town.

Nancy and I were settling into our room when I discovered that my wallet was missing. Oh, No! Surely we had had enough drama for one trip! I quickly looked up a name and cell phone number on the workshop participants list. Marube had been on the matatu with us, but he and a friend had already dropped and taken a taxi for home. He said, “Hold on, I will call you back.” He immediately directed his taxi driver to follow our matatu. They caught up with it at the next traffic circle in time to see Julianne alighting from the matatu with my wallet in her hand wondering what to do with it. Marube took it from her and ordered the taxi driver back to our guest house, then gave us a call that he was on the way. At 1:00 a. m. he delivered it to us. Thank you, brother and praise the Lord! What a relief! Imagine losing your drivers license, credit cards, $300 dollars and 17,000 Kenya Shillings on public transportation in a big city ... not a nice thought!!
The Mennonite is a quiet old guest house in the middle of a busy city where we have stayed dozens of time over the past 30 years or more. Friday morning was a leisurely break as we re-packed bags we had stored while we traveled out west.

At noon we headed out to the airport a little early to check in to our flight to Rwanda. The check in lady at the Kenya Airways counter said that our bags were over the weight allowance and we would have to pay extra. We made to rearrange and redistribute the weight among our bag and she finally forgave us for being overweight.

But she said our co-worker, Mustapha Sandi, a citizen of Sierra Leone, would have to show proof that he had applied and been approved for a visa for Rwanda. She said even if she checked him in, they would check him at the gate and would not allow him to board. Don’t tell me! I realized that I had forgotten to remind Mustapha to make his visa application online. Now it was too late to do so for this flight. We had him lined up for trainings beginning two days from now. I got on the phone to Rwanda and asked Charles, our administrative assistant, to call immigration and see what he could do. He said he would need a letter of invitation and that he would need 72 hours for a response from immigration. What to do now ...? Finally the agent checked Mustapha in when I said I would get on the internet and make the visa application. I was on the phone so Nancy picked up our passports, boarding passes and luggage tags.

As we looked for an internet cafe in the ground-level concourse a person of peace ‘happened’ by. She was also a staff person with RwandAir and seeing our anxious faces asked if there was anything she could do to help us. Mustapha explained his situation and she immediately called a contact in the Rwanda Embassy in Nairobi, who told her that if Mustapha had visited Rwanda before and possessed a letter of invitation, that he would likely be granted a Rwanda visa at the Kigali airport. Our person of peace encouraged us not to worry. But ... I was still worried because I had not done something I should have done and thus could jeopardize the mission.

I looked around the airport and couldn’t find a way to get online. We checked through immigration and went upstairs to a coffee house where I sat down and quickly typed out an invitation letter addressed to Mustapha as I intermittently talked with Charles, answering questions and trying to come up with a solution. Charles advised letting Mustapha stay in Nairobi for a few days until we could work on obtaining a visa but on such short notice I couldn’t think of a way to do that. With the invitation letter on a thumb drive I went into an internet cafe to see if I could get it printed, but they wouldn’t accept my thumb drive for fear of infecting their computers with viruses. Give me a break! I use Apple computers and we don’t have such things as viruses! I was forced to give up on printing out that letter.

Well, I had done all I could. It was time to start settling back and watch the Lord at work. But my flesh, my mind, was still whirring with contingencies, names, contacts, possibilities and ‘what if’s.

It was time to check through security one last time and move through to the boarding area. This would be the test: would they let Mustapha board the flight? To be continued ....

Pilgrimage on the Backroads ... continued 4

Barnyard Guest House - We arrived at Rongo in the mid-afternoon and were met by Charles Ngoje, a former student of ours from our days with the Nairobi Great Commission school back in the 1990’s. Charles had worked for two tours as a missionary in Moshi, Tanzania and in the interim period as director of the NGCS extension programs. Charles had developed into a respected leader and was now again working both with NGCS extension program and the Winyo Missions Centre.

Charles took us to the local Catholic guest house where we checked in. He recommended that we get settled in, rest and in the evening join others out at the village of Winyo where the workshop and meals would be served.

On finding our room, we discovered that the establishment would have been better named the Squeeze Inn. There was little room to turn around, hang clothes or towels. However, it did have clean sheets, running water and mosquito nets for which we were very grateful.

The place had a number of cows tethered on the grounds and thus had a strong barnyard odor that wafted into our room. One cow was within reach of our bedroom window. She seemed to have a strong urge to join in fellowship with us in our room. Bossy, as Nancy nicknamed her, insisted on trying to enter through the window on several occasions, the ring in her nose rattling on the glass.


God blessed our four days at Rongo. It was hot the first day of the workshop, but as is so often true in Africa, the heat was bringing on the rain. The second night a heavy lightening storm moved in and it rained most of the next day, a great blessing for the area farmers who had experienced a long dry spell. The downside of the storm was that the power was knocked out for most of second day, forcing the staff to use wood to cook our meals.

Thirty-two people came in for the workshop from as far away as Kisumu and Nairobi. Some of these were people were former students of ours at the Nairobi Great Commission School back in the 1990s. Others were were leaders in other churches and ministries who were dissatisfied with the status quo and ready for new perspectives and principles that move them on to a new level in missions. Some had been missionaries in other countries and were still infected with God’s compelling call to reach the lost. Of the groups we have trained or recruited for training over the past three years, none had represented more diversity in terms of ethnicity, gender and religious background and none had been more obviously prepared by God for this training at this time. It was a tremendous encouragement to work with such people.



Going back to the Bible for the principles of disciple making is a challenging process. It forces us to reexamine views and practices that we have accepted and taken for granted and been vested in for a long time. Accepting the new perspectives that come from this process requires a willingness to count the cost and pay the price of change and to sacrifice vested interest, control and to focus on our God-given role while trusting the Holy Spirit to do His work. To be continued ...

Pilgrimage on the Backroads ... continued 3

No, Not More Bad News! - During the week at Siriat, we had worked out a way to configure a borrowed modem that would work with our computer so that we could at least download email and check on our family on Facebook, hungering for news about Marcus’ condition. Shona had written a long detailed email of the what happened, apparently dictated by Marcus, recounting the story of the accident and the events that followed and God’s obvious protective and provisional hand in it all. How sweet it was to get that message! What an answer to so many prayers! Nearly all of our children wrote something in the thread of messages that followed and all of this was so precious to us. Now all of that was locked in the dead computer.

But we managed to get Nancy’s computer online long enough to download some messages that evening. One message, titled ‘little issue’, caught my eye immediately. It was almost as if I was expecting some more bad news. Our teammate, Caleb Beck wrote in part, ‘It looks like someone may have broken into your house [in Rwanda] and stole at least one computer...’ My mind raced over the possible implications of this ... investigations, police reports, assessing what had been taken. We had not been home in over two months ... we knew so little. Immediately, we and our friends were in prayer about all that we did not know and could not do anything about.



Later that evening we heard from another teammate, Chris, who had spent hours that day working with Vicent, our guard, changing a door-lock and assessing what had happened. As it turned out, Vicent, a student who was working on his major senior project, had been working on a borrowed laptop until late at night, then went to bed in his separate quarters. The burglar/s had come in and apparently only taken the equipment Vicent had been working on. Nothing else in the house had been disturbed. It was a very mysterious incident and the first time this has happened at our house in Rwanda. While we knew Vicent would greatly disappointed at the loss of his research project, we were relieved that it was not a greater loss than it was.

It had been a stressful, tiring week; one in which we felt the Lord has tested us and the devil had tried to discourage and/or to distract us from the mission at hand. I began to think we must be threatening Satan a little for him to be lining such an array of worrying and distracting events in an attempt to keep us off balance. Mustapha and our Kenyan friends were such an encouragement to us and we were able to sweep the worries away and resolved to remain focused on the mission.

On to Lake Victoria Our hosts at the Siriat Bible School, Joseph and Christine Bett, were so gracious and generous to us. They provided ample meals for us and while the prevailing diet and lack of indoor plumbing was something we had not experienced for a while, the hospitality and warmth of their home was so much appreciated. On Friday morning we said our goodbyes and Joseph accompanied us to Kericho where he helped us find a connecting minibus on to Kisumu 70 miles further on the east shore of Lake Victoria. Dino met us at the central bus station and took us on to the Dew Church Drive Hotel that our host, Jared Odhiambo, had reserved for us. The hotel room was small and dark, but it was clean and air-conditioned. Overall it was a restful weekend that included a tour the Ringroad Church and orphan day school and clinic, a visit to the shore of Lake Victoria and a couple of nice meals out on the town of Kisumu. On Sunday we worshipped with the Ringroad church before packing onto another matatu shuttle for the two-hour ride to Rongo in South Nyanza Province.

Pilgrimage on the Backroads ... continued 2

Leading the Blind - On the first morning of the workshop, I dropped a contact lens from my left eye. (This happens about once a year on average). Nancy helped me search for it and it took about 30 minutes before we turned it up. But the next morning during our prayer time I lost the lens from my right eye. My lens often slips off my eye because I can’t pray very long with shedding tears. The right eye is the most critical to my vision and we looked for it for over an hour. Then I had to go on to the workshop, but Nancy kept searching for it for several hours, completely cleaning our room. But it was gone. Wow, that was discouraging. I wasn’t sure how I could continue and Mustapha carried a big load of the training for the next two days until I adjusted to using one eye.

Is God Calling me to missions? - The participants began to open up interact with us more by the third day. It seemed they were ‘getting it’ and eager to learn more. However, the basis of the training is not just to learn more but to obey what you know now.

For me the highlight of the five days in Siriat was the determination of our 20 participants to implement what they know in the home of the communities they come from. Two or three of the men said they felt the desire to go elsewhere on mission for God. I was blessed in particular by a 62-year-old retired teacher who said he thought God wanted him to move to another country to share the gospel. I asked him if his family was aware of his sense of calling to missions. He said he needed to talk it over with his family. I suggested that he pray about the matter for some time and see if God confirmed the urging he was sensing.

Computer Crash Crisis - On the Thursday after the final sessions of the workshop, we rushed around producing and printing copies of the workshop notes, participant lists and certificates. In our closing ceremonies Nancy passed the certificates and congratulated the participants on their faithful attendance and study. We took the official photos of the groups and were saying our farewells to all when I went back into the classroom to wrap up my materials and pack my computer. Then what every laptop computer user fears happened ... I bumped my laptop off the far side of my narrow table. It fell flat on the concrete floor ... aaaagh!!

I picked up the computer like it was my brain. All my files and communications for over two and a half years were on that hard-drive. There didn’t appear to be a scratch on the outer case. I opened the lid. That Apple Macbook was still running with no apparent damage. I couldn’t believe it. But it was low on power so I shut it down. As soon as I could I returned to my room to charge and restart the computer. No way. Now the computer would not read the hard-drive even enough to boot up.

Fortunately, back in Kigali, three months ago, I had backed-up all my files. But those were not accessible now here in Kenya. What were we to do? Well, we had completed the first workshop, that was good. And we had a three-weekend before the next workshop in another location. But I had only hard-copies of the materials and some files of notes from earlier workshops on my thumb-drive. Also we had Nancy’s computer, so we could still function. It just meant a lot of work to prepare for the next week. To be continued ...

Pilgrimage on the Backroads ... continued 1

Matatu Sardine Can - A taxi deposited us at a bus loading area in downtown Nairobi where we squeezed into a 14-passenger van designed for 10, along with most of our hand luggage under our feet or between our seats. Our one suitcase was strapped on the top of the van as we waited 20 minutes for recruiters to flag down more potential passengers to fill the van. In Kenya, a matatu is never quite full it seems; ‘there is always room for one more.’

Soon our over-filled matatu was climbing to edge of the Great Rift Valley, then down to the valley floor and across the plains to Narok along the north side of the Maasai Mara. By shortly after noon we arrived at Kaplong, one kilometer from the Siriat Bible School. David Tonui met us at the gas station and took us to the home of Joseph and Christine Bett. Actually, it in the process of becoming their home the afternoon we arrived. David had lived there for 13 years as the director of the school and was loading a pickup of personal things to move to his little farm in the area.

You Should have Brought This Training Sooner - The next morning leaders and evangelists from the churches among the Kalenjin sub-tribes and the Kisii people began filtering in from as far as over 100 miles away. The group seems very formal and quiet, a persona we were not used to. Joseph was under a lot of pressure with the transition of his family to Siriat, so the first day of the workshop was a little disorganized, but it soon came up to speed.

Joseph was excited about the content and processes Mustapha and I were introducing. He said, ‘we needed this training 25 years ago. You should have brought it before the other evangelism methods.’ But I encouraged them, ‘we are also learning; we did not know all this before. But also, you were not ready to hear these things long ago. God has worked in you and prepared you for this time. Remember, we are not here to condemn or destroy the past; rather we are building on what you already know. Now you are hungry for more because your churches need revival and a new challenge for this time.’ To be continued ...

Pilgrimage on the Backroads of Kenya

Let the reader beware, this is going to be a rather long and detailed post in several sections. It will also be rather reflective about where I am in the struggles of the kingdom.

Shangri-la on the Kenya Coast - Nancy and I arrived back on the Bright Continent on November 22, 2010, after several weeks in the U. S. After one night in Nairobi we flew down to be with our old friends, Jim and Laura Reppart for Thanksgiving in Malindi on the coast. It was a relaxed time to catch up on each other’s lives, experience some of the Caris Foundation’s programs there and get over jetlag before moving on to western Kenya.

Thanksgiving with Jim, Laura and Jane

That Friday afternoon, we flew back to Nairobi in time to meet our friend and co-worker, Mustapha Sandi of Sierra Leone who has been working in Zambia for the last couple of years. We stayed two nights at the Mennonite Guesthouse in Westlands as we have so many times over the past 30 years or more, so we could do some repacking as we prepared to head west on Sunday morning for a four–day workshop on disciple making and church planting.

Then late that night, we got a one-line email from our older son Dan in Arizona. The subject line was ‘Marcus Accident’. The message said, ‘Marcus [our younger son] has broken his femur – prayer please. He is in good spirits. In surgery now. More details to follow soon.’ Details were slow in coming and because of the time difference, it was hard to find a time we could talk. We didn’t have a phone that could work internationally. We did manage to get Dan on Skype the next morning but he knew little about Marcus’ condition. All we could do was pray. We knew as we left the guesthouse there would be little opportunity to email or even find an internet connection for most of the next ten days. So our anxiety level was high. To be continued ...

African Leaders I have Learned from Lately

Arise my brothers! The task is not complete. This is Africa's time. It is time to take up our responsibility to further God's kingdom business in our continent! - Thomas Simubali






To workers in Rwanda: I am praying for you ... I believe God is doing something great and will let your dreams come through before the expected time. You are indeed consumed by a great passion which is commendable before God; but you can only accomplish what God has purposed through you. - Mustapha Sandi







White man, be careful when and where you go! Now is the time for us (Africans) to lead the mission on the ground. Otherwise wrong expectations will arise and the mission may be spoiled. - Cephas Kwambiliwa






We are tired of being controlled by outsiders. Africa has been called the dark continent. Yes, Africa is dark physically and economically. But Africa is the bright continent in spiritual things. - Lawrence Oduro






I had my doubts about Augustine. He had agreed to teach a workshop with me, but every time I called him he sounded sleepy on the phone. Later I talked with him about that. He said, "Well, yes, I go to sleep early in the evening; then I get up at 3 a.m. every morning to worship and pray for three to four hours." - Augustine Kawah-Jones





We have established a mission in Equatorial Guinea. Soon we will begin a branch of our company there. Recently we visited China. When we returned I felt a burden for the people. I believe that God wants us to do something in China. - Douglas Boateng

Allow the Little Children ...

On Saturday, I was privileged to be part of a mission to the village of Rutare in the south eastern corner of Rwanda. It was literally a few minutes walk from both Burundi and Tanzania. The purpose of the mission was partly to follow up and evaluate the progress from a previous mission to Rutare, but it was also part of an effort of our mission to initiate a Global Prayer Movement for Rwanda. The Bible studies for the day were to emphasize that God wants us to prayer for our neighbors and others that do not know Christ. While the classes were going on, two groups did some 'prayer-walking' through the village, praying for the community and for those meeting at the local church. The Result: the leaders of the church poured out their voices and their hearts in confession to God that they had been neglectful in not praying for their community and sharing their faith with their neighbors as they should have. We may look back in years to come and say that the Global prayer movement for Rwanda began last Saturday in the village of Rutare!!!



I have never been the greatest worker with little children, but there was no way to avoid it at Rutare. Jesus said, 'Allow the little children to come to me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.' Pray no only for the children of this village, but also that the adults will have the child-like hearts needed to receive the kingdom.

Me and Contact Lenses ... it has been a long walk

About an hour ago I was taking my wife to the airport as she is flying to Kenya for a retreat with other missionary women. On the way my right contact lens popped out of my eye. It was gone! We looked in my eye, no trace. We looked on my sunshades, all over the seat, the floor of the car. Nothing!

Usually about once or twice a week one of my lenses will slip off my cornea and into my upper or lower eyelid. Not this time. Gone! Well it was time to get on to the airport. In the parking lot, I slowly got out of the car, examined the folds of my clothes, the folds of my paunch, shook out the floor mat, examined the area on the car floor around the seat. No contact. I kissed Nancy goodbye and headed home.

I started wearing contacts lenses forty-five years ago. Back then the only kind were hard lenses. They were uncomfortable in my eyes, but they were much better than nothing. They often popped out of my eye, fell on the floor or the ground. Most people don't believe these stories, but it was amazing the way I lost and found my lenses over the years. When I got to Africa the roads were bumpy and dusty or muddy. I used to ride my motorcycle to town or to teach in the school. Once on my motorcycle, the wind blew out one of my lenses. Now get this. I stopped quickly, got off my bike and walked back along the dirt road and found my lens lying there in the road. On another occasion I was riding a bicycle to school on a rainy muddy day. I dropped my lens on the muddy road, stopped my bike, got off and went back and found the lens right next to a mud puddle. Many times I have lost and found lenses in my bed, on the floor on the ground, in many strange places. Nancy is always patient and kind to help me devise ways of finding lost lenses. In 45 years, I have only totally lost 2 lenses.

On our first furlough, my eyesight was really getting bad. In 1971, I walked in the office of a young optometrist in Abilene, TX. He was shocked at what he saw when he examined my eyes. He said, "I have never seen eyes like yours, my machine will not even measure them. You are going to be blind in 6 months." It was my turn to be shocked. The doctor offered to refer me to an ophthalmologist who saw me later that day. He said, "Yes, you have a condition called Keratoconus and you will need corneal transplants in both of your eyes. There is a nine-month waiting list for corneas."

When I heard this news I was devastated. I had nowhere to turn except to the Lord and to prayer for answers. Fortunately I was at a meeting to form a mission team for Africa, so was among friends who prayed for me. I had a wife (Nancy) and three very young children. I had no job, I had borrowed money to come to this meeting and then was told that I would be blind in six months. I couldn't get an operation for at least nine months. Even if I could have, I would not have been able to afford the surgery. But God hears and answers prayers. A doctor friend arranged to have an eye surgeon perform the surgery. A friend from college wrote all of our classmates and raised the money for the surgery.

I had a cornea transplant on my right eye in 1971 and another on my left eye in 1981. The left one failed and had to be replaced in 1998. Because of the nature of the cornea grafts, I have never been able to wear the soft lenses of today. My lenses are hard plastic; they are very small so that they fit inside the scar of the graft. They often slide off the cornea or pop out of my eye. But what can I say? Thirty-nine years ago, I had only six months until I would be blind. Today I have almost 20-20 vision. I am truly blessed.

... Well, I prayed on the way home from the airport this morning, that God would guide me to find that lost lens. I carefully got out of the car, searched my clothes and the seat and floor of the car again. Nothing. Then I went to my bedroom to search in my eye with a mirror, because that is where I usually find my lens. Nothing. I carefully retraced my steps to the car with a flashlight. After some moments of careful examination, there...between the handbrake and the driver's seat... there it was!! Praise God! I feel like the woman in Jesus' story of the woman who lost a coin. She swept her house until she found it. Then she called her friends and said, Rejoice with me; what was lost is found!

Resting in a Quiet Place

Sometimes it is just good to get away to a quiet place and rest for a while. That's true even if it takes while to get there. Last week was just such a time. Five men of our team in Rwanda, joined by a couple of visiting friends, traveled from Kigali all the way across Uganda 450 miles to western Kenya for three days of rest, renewal and recharging our spiritual batteries. We met at Rondo, a Christian retreat center in the Kakamega National Forest. It was a quiet time to spend in the word, in prayer and reconnecting with God's creation.



We joined other 20 other missionary men from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda for a time of fellowship, sports, table games, discussions of our ministries, worship and spiritual nurturing from the gospel of Matthew. Dr. Mark Love of Rochester College led our times in the word.