March 2004

Closing Ministry in Africa

Dear Friends,

I had wanted a graceful departure, but the last minute cargo transactions at Pemba International Airport were tense. Cargo rate allowed a substantial savings over the cost for excess personal baggage on the Mozambican airline. But it had taken three and a half long days of my precious last weeks in Africa to turn personal goods into flight cargo.

Many Mozambican customs officials are accustomed to play a game of bribery. Unwilling to play, I consequently endured little day-to-day progress. I prayed about how to deal with accumulating frustration. I hated to break down and pay bribes to get the goods out, or to suffer some sort of arbitrarily set exorbitant cost. Worn down more and more, words of Luther’s hymn did come to mind, “Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also.”

Now, at the airport for my flight out of Mozambique, the head customs official spoke to my agent with a veiled threat to open and minutely examine all nine pieces of cargo. The official knew the cargo had already passed inspection, and the delay surely would cause me to miss my flight. Even though I refused to offer a bribe he decided not to follow through. Yet even as I walked toward the plane across the hot landing strip I wondered if the cargo was secure. I turned around to walk back to the head official, now taking tickets at the exit door. He assured me—for what it was worth—that all cargo was aboard. Upon arrival in Johannesburg, South Africa two bags of 55 kilos could not be found. I am still hoping the airport agent in South Africa will email me news that they are found.

Once aboard and up in the air and away, I breathed a sigh of relief. I began to feel the hand of grace, the wonder of God having worked mightily in my weakness. On February 23, 2004 I flew out of Africa. It was 30 days after I had taken Diane and the children to the airport, three years and six months to the day since first arriving on the continent.

We agreed I should stay behind and “tie up loose ends” while Diane and the children go ahead to the United States. On top of it all, a few days before they left, the Land Rover suddenly quit on me, the engine ruined by overheating. A bracket holding a coolant hose had broken, the hose was cut by a fan belt, the coolant escaped, and the engine had blown. I was plagued by feelings of guilt that I had not seen a high temperature register on the gauge. With some repair and advice from the manager of the local Land Rover dealership, I was able to sell the vehicle. It took another day and a half to accomplish the bureaucratic process to transfer Rover. The couple who bought it were sympathetic to my situation, providing transportation of goods to the port of customs and then to the airport and helping in other ways.

In early December Diane and I had planned a leadership seminar with Rev. Vilanculos, pastor of the Presbyterian church in Nampula and president of the Northern Presbytery. The seminar was planned the weekend preceding my scheduled departure. It seemed an overwhelming task, considering everything else that needed to be done. Without the Land Rover, travel to the seminar would involve day-long bus rides to and from Nampula. But at the suggestion of cancelling, Rev. Vilanculos seemed disappointed. He anticipated 30 church leaders would attend. I assured him I would pray about it and let him know a final decision next day.

Next day I notified Rev. Vilanculos that I would hold the seminar after all. I went to the airline ticket office to investigate flying to and from Nampula, but found that scheduled flights are only on Wednesday. The standard price for a one-way ticket was such a high figure that I rose from my chair to leave. The ticket agent asked me to sit back down and then offered a one-way ticket for $57, less than a quarter of the regular price. I gladly purchased it, so that I only had to return by bus from Nampula.

I landed in Nampula late that hot Wednesday afternoon, then spent too much time and money on taxis before finding suitable lodging. The first two places were too expensive, another place was cheap but far from the church and lacking air conditioning. The business of selling Rover had taken more time and energy than anticipated, and I found myself more unprepared for a seminar than ever.

Rev. Vilanculos picked me up next morning to drive me to the church structure, built by the same U.S. Presbyterian team that built Pemba’s church. About 30 men and five women attended the seminar. I was disappointed after that first day of teaching. I felt I had “bit off more than we could chew.” So I stayed up late editing another teaching, dividing it into two parts, putting it into simpler Portuguese. This time the teaching, replete with lively drama, was well received. I acted out faith as the aggressive invasion of the gospel into the realm of fear and fatalism, with the assurance that when we step into the new place of faith God comes to meet us. Rev. Vilanculos was surprised by the improvement in Portuguese, but had no idea of the midnight oil burned to attain it.

Sunday morning I preached on the rather obscure judge of Israel, Shangar, in Judges, to: do what we can do, use what we have, and begin where we are. It spoke to the concern of Rev. Vilanculos, and he said it gave him the impetus to make another turn in ministry. He even encouraged me to send the message to all churches of the Igreja Presbiteriana de Mozambique, to distribute at this year’s Synod. (If you would like the version, in English or Portuguese, let me know.) I also was fed by prayers led by congregational leaders for special help during this last week in Mozambique.

I had another commitment lined up for that final week. It happened as a missionary friend was taking me to the airport for the Nampula flight. He diverted from the route to follow a trash-strewn, sandy street, explaining that he wanted to introduce me to a friend who was an evangelist, Pastor Jose. I was surprised when I saw him coming out of his tiny thatched hut. I recognized this smiling thin man, well-dressed, as the man who had recently knocked twice at my door. I was in the midst of selling items, and could not follow his rapid Portuguese. Now I had the opportunity to listen and understand him—he had felt directed by the Holy Spirit to invite me to preach in the prison where he has an outreach ministry.

During Mozambique’s years of turmoil under communist rule and civil war, this man was summoned to fight for the communist cause. Refusing military service, he was imprisoned to await execution. He began to bring the gospel to fellow prisoners. Miracle after miracle occurred, and miraculously he received a stay of execution. Released after the war, Pastor Jose lives simply to spread the gospel. With a thriving prison ministry, his strategy is prayer and preaching a message of conversion. Once the Lord raises up a “pastoral candidate” in a prison, he then trains him to pastor among the prisoners. After another prisoner is found reliable to continue his work, the first pastor seeks transfer to another prison in Mozambique to begin another “church.” Converted prisoners are taught skills in order to reach other fellow prisoners. Once again this man of God invited me to preach at the prison in Pemba (this time I got the message!) on the Wednesday following my weekend in Nampula.

I got up at 4:00 a.m. that last Wednesday to prepare a message for the prison. I discovered that for once I could take a bath without bucketing water into the tub. The bathroom faucet was actually emitting a trickle of running water! I let it run to slowly fill the tub while I made coffee and settled into the living room to write. I began the sermon with questions that came to me the night before: “What does it mean to be born again? Are you born again?” The sun already was shining. Translating into Portuguese, I was caught up in the message. Suddenly I remembered the bathtub and found the flow rate transformed from trickle to full-force. Both bathroom and adjoining bedroom cement floors were flooded. I mopped for more than an hour, but managed to laugh at myself. Rivers of living water? My cup runneth over? I thought about how God is working things out for good much more than we are aware.

As a practical example of evangelism, Diane had begun a Saturday Bible club for children living around the new Pemba Presbyterian Church building. God answered the cry of her heart when on her last Saturday with the children a member of the congregation volunteered to replace her leadership. I had considered involving the church in prison ministry. But before that last week I had not even connected with the prison. Now I saw God moving to put things in place.

Earlier, in January, I had exhorted the congregation in Pemba to fervently pray for a pastor. Right before the Nampula seminar I discovered Rev. Andre and his family had arrived from Maputo to Pemba to accept the call. I wanted to involve him in the prison ministry as well, so in Nampula, on behalf of the Outreach Foundation, I purchased 10 Bibles for him to give to the prison ministry. I invited Pastor Andre to come with me to the prison and meet Pastor Jose, and asked him to read from John 3. I was direct in pressing him and the church to be a part of the ministry. I frankly pointed out that we had come to Pemba to engage the congregation to reach out with the gospel, and that the prison had vital needs of ministry from which the members must not shirk. I saw how the church could fail to reach out into the community and close itself off from Jesus’s commission, settling into a comfort zone if it missed this opportunity. Yes, even at this late hour God was finding a way to involve the church in prison ministry.

Probably 100 or more prisoners and guards attended the service, filled with loud, exuberant praise. Pastor Jose was so cheerful, and Pastor Andre was eager to read the Scripture. One third of the prisoners had nothing to wear but loincloths. Barechested and barefooted they yet danced and praised the Lord, reminiscent of David dancing in similar attire before the ark.

I preached in the open air, hatless, hearing echoes of hallelujahs and amens throughout the sermon. Swept up in the presence of the Spirit under the hot sun, later I experienced the worst sunburn of my stay in Africa. God had given me a gift to bring this message in the best Portuguese I’d spoken, hearts were being touched, and this final experience of preaching was the finest of all. I had to leave immediately after the sermon in order to keep an appointment with my cargo agent, and the other pastors concluded the service. But I felt very good about this closure of ministry in Mozambique.

Next day Pastor Manuel called from Milange and we had a good long talk and said goodbyes. I was unable to make final telephone or email contacts with denominational headquarters.

Flying out of Mozambique to South Africa, I was seated next to a Christian. In the course of our conversation he began to speak about Land Rovers, having owned two. He wanted to tell me about one big problem with Land Rovers: there is a three-way connection of small coolant hoses, and if any of those hoses breaks the coolant escapes, the engine consequently overheats; yet “hot” does not register on the temp gauge, so the engine can be ruined. I told him this very thing happened to my Rover; that although I kept an eye on gauges I thought maybe I failed to notice the gauge show hot when one of those hoses broke. Once again he assured me that due to the position of the hoses, the gauge would not show hot, and I should not feel at fault. I thought even here God is working, taking away a sense of false guilt. God is good.

Charles Wonnenberg

The 2004 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 63

One afternoon we heard a most exquisite birdsong, smacking chirps followed by a longer note. I named it “the kissing bird,” looking for it in a tree. I enthusiastically mentioned it to our Chechewa translator, who led to us a resourceful boy who had transformed a fragment of a popped balloon into a musical mouthpiece.

In the first service I preached on the rock of revelation of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God. In confirmation of the word I invited people to come forward for prayer and laying on of hands in the name of Jesus. A man approached, stiff as a mummy, his bloodshot eyes sunk into deep hollows in his face, his beef-jerky skin stretched taut over prominent cheekbones. The translator explained that the man had pain in his arms, legs, and feet. After a few seconds' hesitation I cast unbelief from my heart and boldly prayed against all sickness, disease, and ancestral curses. The next day the man gave testimony that he was walking without pain. On the third day his face was alight with joy and he danced in worship, his arms raised in praise to his God.

I felt led to prophesy to another man that he was a seer of the Lord, that God was going to speak to him in dreams and visions, even that night. He need not fear, for Jesus promised that His sheep know His voice and will not follow the voice of a stranger. The next day he testified that he had awakened trembling from a dream of a “cloud of communion” from which a voice invited him to enter and sit. Three times he dreamed the same dream, returning and trembling each time. He was deeply moved and encouraged in his faith that God could speak to his heart in this way.

We travelled from our camp about 10 kilometers to the hut of an elder who wanted prayer for his wife who suffered from a rapid, irregular heartbeat. Charles laid his hands on her and spoke forth healing in Jesus' name. The next day the elder testified that for the first time in a long while his wife slept peacefully through the night.

During a message on good news to the poor, I found myself challenging the people to give offerings to their pastor. Pastor Manuel works day and night for his 28 churches and many more “prayer houses” in an area with a diameter of 250 kilometers (160 miles). Giving is the act of faith that breaks the bondage to poverty, but even as I spoke I thought, “Who are you to ask these people to give? It’s easy for you to say, but look at them! They have nothing!” It was true, they live in mud and thatch huts, carry water from nearby streams, cook over open fires.

Nevertheless, the next day I was inspired to challenge them to act out their faith. I asked them to think of what they would like to give to their pastor if they could, whether 10,000 meticais (40 cents), 5 kilos of maize meal, or even a goat. Then I sent them outside to find something to symbolize that gift and then return. Once back inside they held up their gifts and prayed to the God who, “calls those things which do not exist as though they did” (Romans 4:17). I invited the people to come forward with their symbolic gifts. They came singing, one at a time placing a leaf, a rock, a silver candy wrapper, a stick of bamboo, at the feet of their pastor.

With great dignity Pastor Manuel received these symbolic offerings. He stood, gathered them into a plastic grocery sack, and placed them on the table before him. He thanked the people, lifting individual items and speaking a blessing over the faith they represented.

At the close of Sunday morning worship, amid celebratory singing and clapping, with pride and joy the people of Khande danced down the packed dirt aisle to present offerings to their pastor. Bowls of rice, maize, and beans, a bottle of cooking oil, a live rabbit in a sack, a tube of toothpaste, gifts nearly overflowed the wooden table. One little boy in a buttonless shirt with a belly as big as his head was lifted into the air to hand Pastor Manuel a single coin worth about one-fourth of a penny.

On the way back to Milange, Pastor Manuel confided that the day before he had just shared the last of his toothpaste with one of the orphaned young men who assists him. Today he was returning with a full tube.

Diane Wonnenberg
Pemba, Mozambique