Doing Something about Darfur

A few weeks ago I woke up in the morning with Darfur on my mind. I had recently read a news story that George Clooney had said that the United States ought to do something to ‘Save Darfur.’ Well, I agree, but think about it. Does the United States have any interest in Sudan? Not really. Maybe to prevent some terrorism or to get some oil. But Christians ought to care enough about the genocide going on there to care and to do something.
Let me go back a few years... to 1994. I was teaching at the Nairobi Great Commission School and hell was happening in Rwanda. I went to interdenominational meetings to discuss how we should respond to the horror in Rwanda. Ken Bolden and I talked with our faculty about what we ought to do. Should we shut down the school and take our students to Rwanda or Tanzania and help in the refugee camps? Well, in the end we did nothing. I have regretted that decision for a long time.
And now there is genocide in Darfur. There are Arab Muslims killing, raping and burning the villages of Muslims who are black. Can Christians stand by and do nothing about this? How am I going to feel 12 years from now if we do nothing? Of course, it's not about me or how I feel. It is about the NAME ... the Name we wear. What would Jesus do?
I proposed going into the area with multiple small teams prepared and accompanied by experienced spiritual mentors late this summer. The purpose would be two-fold: 1) to serve the suffering by demonstrating Jesus' compassion, and 2) to learn and teach what it means for African and western Christians to work together in a context of suffering, servanthood, submission and simplicity with Spirit-led lives. These teams would arrive at different times overlapping with others, would devote a minimum of 10 days in the area, be prepared for unpredictable circumstances and rough conditions, and would work under the supervision and planning of local leaders. More to come ...

I Choose to Suffer

On January 16th, the Jinja, Uganda mission team experienced a tragic loss when Adam Langford and Moses Kimeze, died as a result of a vehicle accident. They and their driver were hauling coffee beans from Mt. Elgon for the redemptive business at the Source Café, when the vehicle lost
control and rolled 50 meters down a steep slope before hitting a tree. Witnesses arrived at the truck moments later and found Adam's body near the vehicle-he most likely died instantly in the crash. Moses, a young church leader and director of the Source Café, died a few hours later in a nearby hospital. We covet and seek your prayers in this overwhelming loss. Pray that God’s presence will be among Adam’s family, friends, and team in their grief and as they travel to be together. Pray that God’s presence and provision will be with Moses’ family and the many people his life touched, but especially his wife Irene and three children – Rachel, Tyler, and Zach.

"... we need more people who are willing to enter into the suffering of others whether they can help or not. I ... choose to suffer for the sake of others." - from Adam Langford’s last blog entry.

Adam’s body was returned to the United States accompanied by the whole Jinja mission team. Meanwhile, former Jinja missionaries, John Barton and Mark Moore flew to Uganda to comfort Moses’ family and to attend his funeral with the Christians there.
I was among those blessed to attend Adam’s funeral in Oklahoma, to meet the family and to celebrate a life well-lived. It was obvious that Adam had made a difference in people’s lives wherever he lived. My thought now is, “Where are the young men like Adam and Moses, men of integrity and passion, who will step up and take their places? Who will live lives of service with a readiness to suffer for others, so that our friends may not have died in vain?” Moses and Adam made their choice. What will you choose?

We Can Do it Too!

One of the most vision-expanding experiences for those traveling with us this summer was to see Kenyan missionaries at work in Tanzania. They were active in ministries that include both urban and rural church planting, World Bible School follow-up, a weekly radio broadcast and a vision for a Christian school, to name a few. It dawned on our team, “Hey, we can do this too!”
When the team returned to Zambia they reported the highlights of our trip to the national annual lectureship. The enthusiastic response was, “Okay, how can we get involved?’

Significant Quote “On this trip you have come with the Shewmakers. Next time I want you to come with your fellow-Zambian missionaries.” – Tim Talley, missionary to Tanga, Tanzania.

God has Wowed us Again!

Whenever Nancy and I make such a trip it is full of many imponderables and questions all along the way. We always have to pray for people of peace who will receive us or treat us kindly, give us advice, introduce us where necessary and show us around their area. We asked you to join us in praying for these blessings and it has been a joy to see God at work making provision for us in marvelous and unpredictable ways with many surprises. He has wowed us again!

In the last two weeks we have traveled with our Zambian friends to the north of Zambia by bus. There we boarded the Marine Vessel Liemba, a ship on Lake Tanganyika for the 4-day, five hundred mile journey to Bujumbura in Burundi. On board we learned that our ship would not travel all the way and we would have to stop off in Kigoma, in Tanzania overnight and look for another ship. In the harbor, we ran into the first engineer of the Bwiza. He offered us passage on his small cargo vessel, a sixteen hour run to Bujumbura.

In each of the new countries we traveled, we had to deal with new and unfamiliar languages, customs and currencies. Finding accommodation, changing money, negotiating transportation arrangements around the towns all had to be worked out through tedious attempts at (and breakdowns of) communication.

As one of many examples of God's provision of unlikely and unknowing angels, we found a young man named Cyprien checking his email in an internet cafe the day after we arrived in Buja. He had lived and studied in Canada for 14 years and had his own software company. When he noticed that we spoke English he immediately introduced himself, began translating for us and assisting us toward our goals in other ways. He borrowed his sister's car and became our driver for the next two days, introducing us to religious leaders and officials that helped us learn about missions needs and opportunities in the Burundi, even advising us on evangelistic strategy for planting churches though he did not claim to be a Christian himself. By the end of our three days in Burundi we had people calling us and coming to where we were staying to visit with us, including someone from the university and another from the ministry of finance, encouraging us to send people to serve in that nation. The timing of our visit there came just after the signingof a peace agreement that many are very hopeful will signal the end of a 12-year ethnic conflict.

Your partnership in prayer is vital to the success of what we are doing this month. The development of our mission here in Rwanda is unique in my experience in Africa. In less than one year, God has provided a legal registration and local governments around the capital of Kigali are offering us land for churches and other ministry development. The government estimates the cost of this land at under $1000 an acre even in strategic locations in the city. All this has occurred before even one church has been planted by our people. Praise God for his provision and grace!

Leaving from Lusaka

Nancy and I are in Lusaka, Zambia gathering our team for an overland mission journey into the heart of Africa. Praise the Lord that on Friday he provided the passports for the Zambian brother and sister that were lacking them.

Our plan is to take a bus to Zambia's port town on Lake Tanganyika (the longest and second deepest lake in the world). We should board ship this on Friday afternoon and reach Kigoma, Tanzania on Sunday morning. There we will survey the town and district for mission possibilities and then find land transportation if possible to Bujumbura in Burundi. We have no missionaries in Burundi, so we will survey the prospects for one or two teams to enter that country. From there we will take a bus to Kigali, Rwanda.

Please pray for 'men of peace' (Luke 10) along the way to be advocates and guides for us in places where none of us know the languages or the laws and conditions in the countries we are going for the first time.

Pray that God will give us 'spiritual eyes' to see the realities and needs that call for the mission of God in those places and in the hearts of the people we meet.

Some of you have been aware that we have to been planning and praying that we would be able to accompany three prospective missionaries, Nathan Holland and Danny and Katie Reese on a survey trip in Angola this summer. God's answer to all these prayers for the Shewmakers is: Not Now! We have run out of time waiting on the necessary documents from Angola.

However, we would request that you keep praying that the door will open for the others to get their visas. They have a plan B that will allow them to leave two weeks later and we are praying that God will open that door of opportunity.

Rwanda's President Kagame visits Oklahoma Christian

Christian Chronicle

BY ERIK TRYGGESTAD Tall, slender and unassuming, Rwandan President Paul Kagame spoke softly about rebuilding his country and investing in its key assets — the Rwandan people — during a recent visit to Oklahoma Christian University.

It was hard to envision Kagame, 48, as a military commander who served in a revolutionary army in Uganda and later led the Rwandan Patriotic Front to end the 1994 genocide in his home country.

But Oklahoma Christian President Mike O’Neal compared Kagame to liberators such as George Washington and pledged his school’s support of Rwanda’s education goals.

“This is a family of faith,” O’Neal told Kagame after a question-and-answer session with the school’s students, faculty and visitors from other states and the United Kingdom. “We want to be your friends and brothers, as we are all God’s children.”

This fall the Oklahoma Christian will provide five full scholarships for Rwandan students, on the condition that they return home after graduation to help their country. The university plans to add two scholarships each year until the total reaches 11 students and will offer additional half-tuition scholarships for Rwandans.

Kagame thanked the school for its decision to “actively support our drive toward our vision.”

“Oklahoma Christian is an institution known for academic excellence, anchored in Christian faith ... and service to its students,” he said.

Kagame, who won a landslide victory in 2003 to become Rwanda’s first democratically elected president since the genocide, visited the 2,000-student school after attending an education conference in Montreal, Quebec. Kagame accompanied his wife, Jeannette, Rwandan ambassador to the U.S. Dr. Zac Nsenga and a number of cabinet members from the African nation.

The president answered questions from students about how Rwanda is promoting unity after the devastating, ethnically charged genocide that claimed an estimated 800,000 lives 12 years ago. Kagame’s government has attempted to redraw lines of political districts and downplay the distinction between ethnic Hutus and Tutsis that sparked the conflict.

One student asked what steps the president has taken to avoid the corruption that plagues other African nations. Kagame said that Rwandan law now requires everyone — including the president — to disclose their income and its sources.

"Corruption has been a very serious problem in countries on my continent," he said. "It has hindered economic development in other countries and we recognize that."

After speaking at a luncheon and receiving an honorary degree from the school, Kagame addressed a joint session of the Oklahoma Legislature and met with the state’s governor. Gary Bishop, president of church-supported World Bible Translation Center in Fort Worth, Texas, and his wife Donna presented Kagame and the First Lady with embossed Bibles.

Kagame said he chose the school as a stop during his visit to North America at the invitation of O'Neal, who visited Rwanda in November 2004.

Richard Lawson, an Oklahoma Christian graduate and founder of St. Paul, Minn.-based Lawson Software Inc., and his wife, Pat, made initial contact with the Rwandan government and invited O’Neal and his wife, Nancy. Dave Jenkins, then a visiting missionary at the school, joined the group.

Jenkins now serves as the first full-time missionary from Churches of Christ to Rwanda. From his home in the capital, Kigali, he read reports of the visit in Rwandan newspapers. “The Lord is doing something far beyond what any of us could anticipate,” he said in an e-mail message from the African country.

In the summer of 2005, 12 students worked as a mission team to Rwanda. Six more students will travel there this summer, accompanied by Oklahoma Christian faculty members Bryan and Holly Hixson. David Johnson, a faculty member at Faulkner University, Montgomery, Ala., and his wife, Marlea, will teach in Kigali this summer. Kyle and Luz Beard plan to move to Rwanda as missionaries later this year.

Sam Shewmaker, longtime missionary to Africa and facilitator for African church planting for Missions Resource Network in Bedford, Texas, offered Kagame “a belated — though deeply felt — apology that the government of the United States did not come to the aid of the people of Rwanda in their darkest hour.”
“This fact is a stain on our national honor for which we are deeply sorry,” said Shewmaker, who has visited Rwanda and plans to assist church members in future mission work there.

“We look forward to a harmonious working relationship with Rwanda that expresses Christ’s spirit of compassion and service,” he said.

The Rwandan president said that he hopes the scholarship program will be the first step in ongoing cultural exchanges between the Christian school and his country.

“We in Rwanda value these continuing contributions,” he said. “We trust that this is only the beginning of the road that we are to travel together.”

Prayer and fasting for work in Mozambique

Christian Chronicle, March 2005
Church members pray, fast for work in Mozambique
By Erik Tryggestad

On March 15 church members in Africa and the United States participated in a Day of Prayer and Fasting for missionaries in Mozambique who were instructed to leave their homes by government officials in mid-2004.
“We want to make this a special day ... where we all focus on the Makua team and their push for official permission to move back to their home in Montepuez,” said Sam Shewmaker, a missions professor at Harding University, Searcy, Ark., who has served as the team's mentor.
March 15 marked the second anniversary of the Mozambique Mission Team's departure for Portugal, where team members spent nine months in language training before moving to the southern African country.
The group chose the city of Montepuez, in northern Mozambique, as its mission point. No missionaries for churches of Christ work in the area, and the majority of the Makua-Metto people who live in the area practice a mix of traditional religions and Islam, team members said.
The missionaries moved to Montepuez in March 2004, but in June - due to political tensions in the area - the provincial government of Cabo Delgado asked them to leave and wait in a neighboring province until granted approval to return.
Two of the team's families - Kyle and Ginger Holton and Rusty and Ann Caldwell - moved to the Niassa Province to work among the Yao people. The remaining four families have been working in Nampula and Maputo while negotiating with government officials to return to Montepuez.
“We still feel a strong call to work among the Makua-Metto people and desire to return as soon as possible,” team member Alan Howell said, “but we don't want to keep pushing for a return if it looks like it will be a dead end, though all of our interactions lately with the government have been encouraging.”
The Donelson church, Nashville, Tenn., sponsors Howell and his wife, Rachel. Other Makua team members are: Aaron and Mika Roland, sponsored by the Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, church; Jeremy and Martha Smith, sponsored by the Pleasant Valley church, Little Rock, Ark.; and Chad and Amy Westerholm, sponsored by the Cordova Community church, Cordova, Tenn.
“We are very expectant of an answer from the Lord ... that will open the way for the missionaries to return to their homes in Montepuez among the Makua people,” Shewmaker said.

We Will Not Forget

Christian Chronicle, May 2004 » Missionaries move toward open doors in Sudan, Angola
By Erik Tryggestad

After seeing the overflowing refugee camps and under-stocked hospital in Nimule, Sudan, a group of visiting church members and their Sudanese hosts climbed a nearby hill and raised a stone altar — a pledge that they would not forget.
“We prayed that God would bring us or some of our people back to that land to serve and advance the kingdom of God,” said Sam Shewmaker, missionary in residence at Harding University, Searcy, Ark., who led the survey trip in summer 2003.
One year later, missionaries and medical supplies are on their way to the east African country, which is recovering from 17 years of civil war between the Muslim north and the predominantly Christian south.
Church members also plan to enter Angola, in southwest Africa, after a 27-year internal conflict ravaged the country.
In early 2004 Michael Campbell, president of Harding’s student government, rallied missions-minded students to help raise $17,000 for a 40-foot container of medical supplies for the Nimule hospital, just north of Sudan’s border with Uganda.
The students partnered with relief ministry Healing Hands International and the Mbale, Uganda, mission team to make the delivery. “Our hope is that this gesture of goodwill and compassion will serve to build rapport with local officials and open the door to a new mission in Sudan,” Shewmaker told the Chronicle.

Earlier this year, the Mbale team selected Kenyan church members Kennedy Obura and David Bikokwa as missionaries to Sudan. The two men and their families plan to move to Sudan this summer, where they will “preach and evangelize ... establish a mission compound and Bible school ... mobilize interested Christians, and start English classes for government officials,” said Mbale team member Shawn Tyler.
The church in Kapkoi, Kenya, where Bikokwa has preached for two years, had a send-off for the missionary and his wife, Anne, in mid-March. Mbale team member Phillip Shero said it reminded him of the send-off he received before he left for Uganda. Shero spoke about the challenges the pioneering couple will face — including different languages and customs.
“It felt strange to warn their bright faces of the hardships that will come. But it was also exhilarating,” Shero said.

The Summer of 2003

As think over one a part of the Summer of 2003, I remember arriving in Nimule, Sudan in a little MAF single engine plane. We had a prayer on the landing strip and I got a photo of Kevin Shelby in the prayer huddle with one eye closed and the other on the guys holding the AK47s in their hands. It was a particularly scary time for some of us. The first two nights we spent a lot of time in prayer and then about 10 p.m. on the second night, Chad said, "It's over. My fear is gone. I'm okay."

In a couple of days, Chad was saying that he was interested in making the trip to West Africa with us. I said, "Chad, you have at least five barriers to pass through. You don't have the airfare and you don't have visas for the four countries we are going to. Can you trust God for them?"

Rwanda Saga 2003

It was Friday, the 13th of June, 2003. This was my second trip to Rwanda. I had been there just three months before the genocide rampage broke out in 1994. Driving in from the airport, we had seen the barricades blocking off parts of the city as the U. N. peacekeepers escorted the rebel leaders into the capital city in an attempt to form a government of national unity.

Now, nine years later...

we were back with a group of 22 missionaries, Rwandans and mission interns on a survey trip of Rwanda, a small nation in the ‘great lakes’ region of central Africa. That first night, my roommate, Bryan Harrison, and I invited two Rwandan brethren who were with our group to join us in our room for prayer. Hearing their prayers and cries to the Lord for their countrymen really touched me deeply. They poured out their hearts in grief for loved ones lost in the genocide. One brother said, “O Lord, you know how much I love anyone who loves my country and my people.” He went on to pray that God would send evangelists with the good news for his people.

The next morning, before we had really seen any of the horror of Rwanda, I awoke very early with tears and weeping for the nation. Specifically on my heart were the different young interns who were with us. Who among them would God call to this place in the dark heart of Africa? I prayed for all of them individually.

We began that day with a trip to one of the genocide memorial sites. It is a small country church where it is said that 5000 people were slaughtered. Much of the carnage and personal belongings are still lying on the floor between the low concrete pews as it has lain for nine years. It is a silent, stunning, horrific experience to observe a comb here, a shoe there, a pillow here, among the piles of bones. A man and a woman are there as caretakers of the memorial and to tell their stories. One had lost 12 family members and the other 18 family members in the holocaust of 1994. They told their stories and answered our questions. Tears … groans … sobs … prayers … each of us alone in silent contemplation.

That afternoon, Justin took us to the home of his wife’s relatives in Kigali. They had recently returned from exile abroad. They served us tea and engaged us in conversation about the tentative hope for the future of Rwanda.

Several of us then went up on to a mountain overlooking the city of Kigali. There we prayed for the city, that God would raise up a team of his choosing to come and do kingdom ministry in this city. I had met Justin Rudaswinga at an Africans Claiming Africa conference in Zimbabwe in 1997. One of the goals that had come out of that conference was the targeting and planting of churches in six major capital cities of Africa. Kigali was one of those cities. In the intervening time Justin had corresponded with me and urged me to help raise up a team of missionaries for that nation. On this afternoon, we were here with this man who had been interceding for his people for these six years. In our prayer time on that mountain, we laid hands on Justin, we anointed him with oil and commissioned him as ‘Chief Intercessor’ for the city of Kigali (pronounced Chigali) until God should raise up a mission team from among our people to join the spiritual battle for Kigali and the nation.

The following morning, I awoke weeping again. It seemed the Spirit was downloading a long list of ministries needed in this land. My mind and heart reeled with thoughts and feelings, connecting the needs I had seen with people, spiritual gifts and ministries I knew or knew of, that could be brought to bear in mission on the people of Rwanda. Among these was a national team of church planters who believe in and build a holistic approach to mission that would include counseling healing, educational and other forms of benevolent ministry that take seriously the whole person and whole communities. The vision that developed in my mind as I lay there in my bed was of a Great Tower of Light shining like a great beacon or lighthouse, reaching way beyond that dark land to the other nations of the 'Great lakes’ region of Africa.

That day was Sunday and we met with the mother church of an indigenous church movement begun since the genocide, known as the Evangelical Restoration Church. The movement consists of about 12,000 members in 35 congregations throughout Rwanda. The pastors of this church of several thousand members graciously granted us an interview. To me the clearest point and spirit of the hour we spent with them was the importance of Christian unity. They said, “If God calls you to this country, we will work with you.”

After that interview, we were hosted in the home of a relative of one of the Rwandan brethren in our group. This young man and his family prepared a meal for a group of about 14 of us who sat around his front yard sharing his hospitality. The young man spoke English, but had written out a prepared statement of welcome apparently because he couldn’t trust himself to speak the words without breaking down in front of us. In his statement, read by his cousin, he said, “… we used to meet like this and have fellowship among our friends and family, but we have not done it since [the genocide] because we do not know who we can trust.” My heart cried, “I know Someone you can trust!!”

That day God was working me over. That night I could no longer keep it in. I had to share with our group what was going on inside me. It was hard because the other half of me wasnÂ’t there to share what I was experiencing. Everything I felt and said had to be tempered with that fact. As I recall, I said to the group, “I cannot make a categorical commitment because Nancy is not here, but for myself, if God is calling me to this land to serve him here, I am willing to come.”

Early on Monday morning I awoke again in prayer and tears. Now God was presenting me with a personal challenge. In mind was a two-column blank sheet, the left side was headed, the ‘Pros’ of Sam Shewmaker serving in Rwanda; the right side was headed the ‘Cons.’ The ‘cons’ was a short list. One of the cons was ‘age.’ Could a person my age do this? Would it work for an older couple to team up with a young mission team? I had never seen a mission team diverse in age that worked well!!

But the Pros were many. Learn French? I had had French in high school and college. I could learn to speak it. Learn Kinyarwanda? Reputed to be one of the toughest Bantu languages for English speakers. I had learned one Bantu language; I believed I could learn another. Unrealistic or not, the spirit of Caleb was kicking in! (Josh. 14:10, 11). A committed, willing wife, check. Passion, check. A willing heart, check. Experience, well I had been there, I had seen it, I had smelled it. Who else would commit if those who had experienced it would not? But all of this was not really the point. It is God’s mission. If He was calling me to join Him in His mission in Rwanda, that was the point. Would I obey or not?

On Monday morning, eight of us walked in groups all over the uptown section of Kigali on a prayer-walk. We prayed for the streets and buildings that represented people for whom Christ died. We prayed for the marketplaces and the children. We could hear echoes of God’s concern for another ‘great city’ and of Jesus’ lament for Jerusalem. What happened on our Rwanda trip after Kigali was, for me, anticlimactic.