He was more than a little excited. His dream had been to serve as missionary in Africa. The Lord seemed to point him that way three times before in the last 20 years. Each time, the Lord led him to the answer “not yet.”

Meanwhile, a brother pastor was spearheading WELS assistance to Christ the King Lutheran Seminary in Nigeria. The team of volunteer WELS pastors was lacking a man to teach in the last WELS session at the Nigerian seminary. The WELS Liaison then remembered a brother pastor. “Paul Lemke, will you go to Nigeria to teach a session at the seminary?” “Let me check with my church and family. But for me the answer is absolutely, yes.” On 4 January 2008 Pastor Paul Lemke landed in Africa at last. He worked hard, teaching his course plus a make-up course.[slideshow=42]

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Vashti is a new Christian.  Hebrew-speaking Israelis came to her part of mainland China to be agricultural advisors.  Their language intrigued her.  Vashti heard there would be an intensive ten-day, four-hour-a-day beginning Hebrew class taught by Professor John C. Lawrenz of the WELS seminary in Hong Kong.  She enrolled.  At the end of ten days Vashti and others were reading simplified Scripture in the Hebrew language using materials prepared by Professor Thomas Nass of Martin Luther College.

After class one day Vashti ran up and said, “I woke up this morning so sad about many things.  Hearing the First Gospel in class changed everything!”  We had together read Genesis 3:15 where God points the first sinners to a woman’s Child whom God would send to crush the head Satan, the instigator of sin and death.  Vashti has gone on to read about Abraham and Jacob and Moses.  When I close my eyes and listen, her voice brings me back to the streets of Old Jerusalem.  Her Hebrew pronunciation is that good!   Vashti is one of two who tell me they hope to return to mainland China and share what God says not just in Chinese, but in Hebrew, the language God originally used to proclaim grace and truth in the Old Testament.

Some of you may wonder what I do for fun.  Living in the ever-growing and happening city of Lusaka has its advantages over other places in Zambia.  In the past 10 years or so, there has been a lot of money put into buildings, namely office complexes and shopping centers in Lusaka.  This is mostly due to the influx of expatriates (people from other countries) who are doing a great deal of aid work in Zambia.  About 5 years ago, the fun factor went up a couple of notches with the building of a shopping complex called Arcades that has a movie theater with 5 screens and there is also bowling alley!  Jason and I used to have friends in Malawi who came to Lusaka to catch a movie or two on the big screen, and I suppose they came to see us too, but the main attraction was the movie theater.  The movies that come are mostly movies from the states.  Every once in awhile we get a Bollywood film because there are many people from India here, and we do a get a couple from Europe.  The movies come out a couple months after they come out in the states.  Another great thing is that movies Monday through Friday are only about 3 dollars and then 6 dollars on the weekends, which is much less than the states ever-increasing movie prices!

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My family and I are located in Blantyre, Malawi, Africa. We have been serving here for about 5 years. My husband, Rob, is a bush missionary in southern Malawi, spreading God’s Word to over 13 congregations and to thousands of Malawians each month.

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I wanted to share a few pictures from Easter Sunday. As mentioned in the previous post, three congregations joined together for a joint celebration of the Resurrection of our Lord. Cordero de Dios (Lamb of God) congregation from Moca had the longest distance to travel.

A friend of the congregation owns a van. The women and children (and anyone else who fit) rode in the van:
The men came on their motorcycles. It was an impressive caravan:

The Lord bless you with his peace,
NW