Sean Young is Director of Missions Operations for WELS.  He began working with WELS Missions in 2012.  Young writes about the privilege of serving in his position.

My name is Sean Young and I have been blessed with the opportunity to serve our church body as the new Director of Missions Operations in the Missions office. My background wasn’t in mission work beyond being the evangelism chair at my local church in Verona, Wisconsin. What I bring to the table is an unwavering willingness to serve the Lord through our church body in any way I can. I do this by utilizing my God given gifts of operational management to assist those missionaries we have in the field both within the United States and those whose calls have taken them around the world.

Granted, when I applied for this position I didn’t have anywhere near a full understanding of what it is we did as a synod in the area of mission work.  Sure, I knew we put out a DVD entitled Road to Emmaus. I also knew we had someone in Haiti somewhere, but that was the extent of my knowledge of what my church body  did. That, coupled with the fact that I had never left the United States before January 2012 should help establish that I am your “average” WELS member sitting in church on any given Sunday morning.

Now that I’ve had the opportunity to work with the majority of our missionaries both here in the U.S. and abroad, I have a much better understanding of how we carry out the Great Commission! Imagine my excitement when the Board for World Missions (the governing board for all of our mission work around the globe) asked me to visit one of our mission fields up close and personal by traveling to Cameroon, Africa. This is an exciting, once-in-a-lifetime chance for me to learn first-hand of both the blessings and challenges our called workers face while serving in a foreign land. While this won’t be my first venture into a mission field (I have been able to visit our missionaries in Mexico and on the Apache reservation), it will be my first visit overseas.

A friend of mine asked me what I was going to do to prepare for the trip, and I didn’t have an answer.  Should I start talking to past visitors and missionaries on how they handled their preparations? Find out what kind of shots and visas I’ll need to enter Africa? Look into how I was going to get there? What about food? As you can imagine, my mind was going in a hundred different directions as I started to realize that I would be in Africa soon.

Then I just stopped. I stopped and began to pray that the Lord guide and protect me and Pastor Mohlke during our travels. I also asked that He give me the strength to do something that I would have never, ever even contemplated doing less than 12 months ago.  Now I am letting the Word do the work, and all of my worries and concerns are melting away.

Patricia Boettcher is a member of St Lucas Evangelical Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI.  Boettcher writes about her congregation’s partnership with and support of a Zambian congregation.

St. Lucas Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, first came into contact with the Ndola congregation in 1982.  We were celebrating our 110th Anniversary that year and it was decided that as our Thank Offering we wanted to build a chapel in Africa.  That chapel turned out to be St. John’s.

This past October St. Lucas celebrated its 140th Anniversary and it was decided we would do something for St. John’s.  Missionary Dan Sargent helped us learn more about the needs of St. John’s.  He knew that they were renovating their parsonage for a cost of around $5,000.  Our committee and council approved this as our Thank Offering and also added that anything above that amount would be sent to the Lutheran Church of Central Africa.  In February the goal of $5,000 was reached and was sent to them through the synod’s missions office.  Funds will continue to be collected for the LCCA.

A member of our Lutheran Women’s Missionary Society made a large banner which Missionary Sargent presented to St. John’s.  Several other ladies have made Bible Bags and Banners for the Bible Institute in Lilongwe and Pill Bags and Sun Hats for the Lutheran Mobile Clinic in Lilongwe.

Our school children collected funds for St. John’s Sunday School children as their fall mission project.

View these photos on flickr

Missionary Dan Sargent writes:  “I was in Ndola on the 21st of April for service at Mt. Sinai and St. John’s Kabushi.  I was able to present the banner to the members at St. John.  The choir sang a number of songs in praise of God for the generous gift the congregation is about to receive.

The congregation is working with the LCCA Board of Trustees and the Ndola City Council to follow all the regulations concerning the renovations of the parsonage.  According to LCCA policy,  the congregation will continue to contribute 20% toward the project.  This gift will be accounted for though the LCCA Church Development Fund and embarked for St. John’s Kabushi.”

Michael Hartman serves as a missionary in Mexico.  Hartman recently attended a workshop whose focus was on improving skills in Biblical Greek.

In February 2013, 10 WELS world missionaries met to improve their language skills. During the time spent together, these men didn’t focus on languages spoken in the countries they serve, such as Spanish, Russian, or Chichewa. Rather, they attended a workshop held in Israel, where ancient tongues abound, to learn a new way to teach Greek.

Why do missionaries want to improve their Greek skills? The idea goes back hundreds of years. As Martin Luther penned, if a church body does not have the ability to work in the original languages, it will lose the Gospel. Since then, Lutheran churches have focused on enabling leaders to use Greek and Hebrew to remain true to God’s teaching. Today, WELS continues to emphasize original languages.

The same focus holds true in world missions. Training leaders to use the Bible’s original languages is a key ingredient for building new church bodies, notes Missionary Michael Hartman.

“As Luther’s ability to use Greek and Hebrew matured, so did his understanding of Scripture,” Hartman explains. “We have the same goal for leaders in churches around the world where WELS is doing mission work.”

Here, you’ll see a short recap of what missionaries learned at the Greek workshop and how they are applying it back on their fields.

Brad Wordell serves as the Coordinator for Asian publications for Multi Language Publications and as a part-time missionary in Japan. Wordell writes about the recent installation of a national pastor.

Pastor Daisuke Nakamoto was installed as the new pastor at Aganai (Redemption) Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tokyo, Japan, in April. Nakamoto graduated from the Pastoral Studies Institute in the United States in 2006 and served for two years as a pastor/evangelist at Bloomington, Bloomington, Minn., before returning to Japan with his family. He then served a vicar year in Mito, Japan. The Lutheran Evangelical Christian Church in Japan now has four national pastors serving 380 souls.

This is the first time in Aganai’s history that it has a resident Japanese pastor. Until now the congregation has been served by expatriate missionaries, most recently Missionary Brad Wordell. Wordell continues to serve in Japan but will be devoting most of his time to his new position of coordinator of Asian publications for Multi-Language Publications. Pastor Nakamoto, because he is a native speaker of Japanese, is well equipped to do counseling, family ministry, and ministry to children/young people.

Chris Pluger is a volunteer with Lutheran Bible Translators with WELS’  mission in Zambia.  He is helping to translate the Bible into the Nsenga language.  Chris writes about one of the hazards of mission work in Africa: malaria.

I’ve had a bout of malaria for the past few days. I don’t want to over-romanticize it. I wasn’t lying in a feverish haze on a straw mat under a palm tree, slipping in and out of consciousness and hovering near death. I didn’t need to be hospitalized. I didn’t even see a doctor.

But I will tell you that malaria sucks. And it’s an odd feeling, knowing you have a disease which, if you allow it to spread unchecked, has a good chance of killing you.

For me, the symptoms started with aching muscles. But I had been riding in the truck over bumpy roads for three days, and I figured aching muscles were nothing unusual.

I was also extremely cold. But here in Zambia, the rainy season is over, and it’s turning to fall-like weather, and I’ve always gotten cold easily. I figured I had just been hot for so long that a reasonable temperature felt cold.

Then the aching got worse, and started to spread to muscles that had nothing to do with riding in the truck. Like the muscles that move my eyeballs. The cold spread, too, so that by the time we got home Sunday night I was shivering.

So I pulled on my flannel jammies and dove in bed, even though it was only 7pm.

By midnight, the chills had turned to fever. I was stiff and sore all over. I slept fitfully, and at 7am I got up, took some ibuprofen, drank a cup of tea, took a steaming hot bath (the chills were back by then) and climbed back in bed.

Meanwhile, Janine gave me a malaria blood test, which was inconclusive. She checked the internet, and the local pharmacy, for the right amount of the right medicine for my symptoms, and made sure I drank plenty of water.

After a five hour nap, I got up, drank some more tea, took some more ibuprofen, and sat around painfully, trying not to spoil Sean’s 11^th birthday. I watched him assemble his totally awesome LEGO Helm’s Deep set, and then we watched Two Towers. Then I slept for another 12 hours.

Tuesday was basically a repeat of Monday – wake up, tea, bath, nap, tea, sleep. That’s one thing about malaria: you just want to sleep all the time. At least the ibuprofen kept the body-ache and the fever-delirium to a minimum. I even managed enough concentration to read a book.

Today, Wednesday, is a public holiday in Zambia. So I’ve bought myself one more day to recover. The malaria treatment regimen is three days, so hopefully by tomorrow I’ll be back to my old self.

But, lest we forget, we are all infected with a disease which is spreading unchecked through our bodies, and which will eventually end in our death. Short the glorious return of Jesus, the death toll for the human race will ultimately rise to 100%. We can try to make decisions that will help us prolong and improve that life, but the time and manner of our passing are not ours to choose. As Gandalf tells Frodo, “…that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

Thanks to all who heard about my illness and prayed for my recovery. It seems those prayers are being answered. Please continue to keep our family and our work in your prayers, until we all reach the finish line. May God’s blessing and mercy be with you all.