Pastor Martin's Myopia: "GO TO AFRICA!"

My freshman year of Bible college, five of us shared a house about a mile or so from the campus of Christian Life College in Mount Prospect, Illinois. Four of us lived upstairs and another lived in the basement in a make-shift room. Underneath the steps leading down to the basement, we constructed something of a prayer-closet that had a light, a chair, and a piece of carpet to kneel on. I may have used it once or twice but Bob used it on a regular basis. Up near the ceiling directly above where Bob would pray was an air vent that came from one of the upstairs bedrooms. The temptation was just too much to resist and so frequently, when I could hear Bob praying in the prayer closet, I would cup my hands, and in the most God-like sounding voice I could muster I would speak into the upstairs register, “Bob,...go to Africa...” It was good for a laugh or two at Bob's expense but all these years later my sins have found me out for a little over a month from now I'll be getting on an airplane and going there myself. Yes, I'm going to Africa and staying in the Republic of Uganda for 10 days.

Lillie (with a couple of her former "boys" in 1999) filled me with many tales from her life in Africa

How did this come about? Well, this is a story about a year or more in the making. For the last two years our fellowship has hosted a spring missions event that we call For the Glory of the Name. The first year we held it we focused on strengthening and encouraging the individuals we presently support monthly in mission. But last year about this time when the steering group began to pray and plan the event they felt led to focus on Africa. When I first arrived in Chetek back in 1991, we had two senior citizens in our congregation then who in their youth had served in Liberia, West Africa. One was living in a nursing home and due to complications from a stroke could no longer speak and another was a wonderfully eccentric, old woman who regaled me with story after story of her life in Africa. But since her passing, the only contact we have had with that continent has been primarily through The Well International, the local ministry we helped establish in neighboring Barron that reaches out to Somali refugees. We presently support no one serving in Africa but the group felt led to direct their efforts there.

The menu from our ethnic dinner

One of the logical ideas that arose out of brainstorming for this event was the hope that we could find someone from Africa to share about his work and, ultimately, invite us to go there. We ran to ground every contact we had and save for our mutual friend, Akram, who hails from Egypt and at the time was serving at the local YWAM campus outside of Chetek, we came up empty. Two weeks before the event was set to begin in mid-April, we had our Friday night ethnic dinner planned, our Saturday evening worship and intercession set ready to go and Akram willing to share on Friday night and Sunday morning (if needed). But then on the Monday before For the Glory of the Name was set to begin on that Friday I got a phone call. “Hello, Pastor Jeff. This is Pastor John Lutayaa from Uganda. Do you remember me?” In 2008, following our National Convention that had been held in Minneapolis that year, John had stayed at our home for a long weekend and had shared at Refuge. At that time he was involved, among other things, with aiding orphans and a couple families from our fellowship began to support his work there. Last year Chicago was the host sight for the convention and John had flown in about a month ahead of time in hopes of connecting with several people he knows here. “I am looking for accommodations and I'm wondering if you know anyone in Chicago where I might find lodging?” While I know a few guys there I simply asked him what he had planned for the coming weekend. When he mentioned he had nothing set yet I suggested I put him on a Greyhound Bus so that he could share at our missions event. This sounded like a plan to him and this is how a man from Africa ended up at our missions event a few days later just as we had hoped all along. On Sunday morning he shared the message and said to us in his wonderful Lugandan accent, “I want to invite all of you to come to Africa and work for the Lord!” I wanted an Acts 16 “Come over and help us”-kinda moment and in my estimation this came pretty close.

Pastor John from Uganda inviting us to GO to Africa

Bishop Success ministering at Focus

A few weeks later, Warren Heckman, my former pastor who at that time was residing in the Twin Cities, called me checking to see if I had an opening on a Wednesday night in early May for a bishop from Nigeria to share at our fellowship. I didn't even pray about it but immediately extended the invitation. And that's how Bishop Success, another man from Africa, ended up sharing at Focus as well as inviting us to come to Africa. He was adamant, in fact, that I come and see him (but I think he is that way with all American pastors he meets.)

Pastor Josiah of Liberia

A few weeks later I received a phone call from Pastor Josiah who serves in Liberia, West Africa. Like John, he, too, has ministered at Refuge before and on account of the national convention was in the States looking for preaching opportunities. We scheduled him for mid-June and so for the third month in a row we had yet another man from Africa stand before us and extend to us an invitation to go to Africa and serve the Lord there. Perhaps God was saying something to us?

Last summer and into fall those from our fellowship who were feeling the tug or the interest in such a journey met regularly to pray and talk about going. At one gathering we heard from Stephanie, a girl from our fellowship who in early 2011, as part of her DTS outreach had made ministry stops in South Africa, Uganda and Kenya. At another I read some things a friend of mine who serves in Kenya at a graduate school of theology had sent me about coming and ministering in Africa. Randy, one of the key planners of the missions event, had sent an email to a Ugandan pastor that someone we knew had recommended we contact and had received a positive reply welcoming us to come and see them. But as fall crept on we met less consistently and the original group of about a dozen individuals who had expressed some kind of interest in going following the missions event had been paired down to just a handful. By late December, it looked like our invitation had grown cold and our African missions journey had been delivered still-born.

But right before our friends the Pedersons, who serve in the Philippines (see The essence of discipleship), returned to their work in Baguio, they had dinner with Randy and Renee that rekindled their fire and set things in motion again. Heeding Duane's counsel, Randy contacted a YWAM campus outside of Kampala and inquired about the possibilities of a small team from the U.S. staying at their facility and serving as our hosts. They readily agreed. Renee was approached by one of her co-workers who expressed interest in going and Randy once again gently button-holed me. And then just this past Sunday morning Sheryl, a fellow-member of Refuge, approached Renee and wondered if she might come along, too. Two nights ago it became official: a ticket with my name on it awaits me at O'Hare International when we leave in early March.

So, now I'm going to Africa. Just what are we going to do there? That remains to be seen. Obviously, we hope to connect with some of the ministries we have already had some contact with. We are already awaiting replies from several emails we have sent out notifying them of our soon coming. Clearly, this trip is a work in progress. But it doesn't feel forced or driven by a sense of obligation to any pronouncement we made at the missions event last year. Rather it feels like its the natural development of a sense of leading that caused our planning group to focus its efforts on what was once called “the Dark Continent.” And if he is leading us there then in time it will be clear just what it is he has in mind for us to do.