SPEAKER OF THE PARLIAMENT
CRAIG, ROSS, ME & MARTY
NDOLA TEAM – LEWIS, HENRY,PAUL,
CLEMENT, ALLAN, CAPTAIN,
(KNEELING) PHYTRIC & SAMUEL
ALLAN WITH TRANSLATOR 
SAMUEL
Three adventurous partners, Craig Brooks, Ross Nelson and Marty Aubol, joined me for a three week jaunt to Zambia. Landing in Zambia July 4th, Craig and Ross, both pastors, taught in Lusaka while Marty took a five hour bus ride with fellow Zambian Pastor Captain, to Mongu, which is in the western province of Zambia. Marty, a veteran of two previous WILD trips, endured the ride which was cramped and lasted several hours longer. The week’s experience for all three was positively impacting.
Meanwhile Allan Kasungami and I flew to Namibia on the 5th, to teach at a church in the capital city, Windhoek. What a city. Windhoek is on the edge of the desert and very modern. I was reminded of cities in the SW part of the USA with the arid lands. It is the only African city I have been in where there a re overhead passes on the road system. Namibia has the notoriety of being the country with the widest gap between the rich and poor. The poorest area where squatters lived reminded me of the dump in Monterrey, Mexico, where people where given land to live. The new president’s Statehouse makes the White House look like a hunting shack. Also on the trip I had the opportunity to sit in the Speaker of the Parliament’s seat for a few moments. What great Namibian power I had for a short time!
Allan and I taught each night during the week. We averaged about 40 people per night. As we teach on spiritual leadership, there is always the tension between what truth is cultural and what is biblical. No difference in Namibia. It is culturally acceptable and found in the church for the husband to not only have a wife but a girlfriend. One woman asked if you can be a good spiritual leader in the church if you are not a good husband.
In the area of character, we spoke about the life of Joseph in Genesis, Samuel (1 Samuel 12) and then the qualifications Paul put down in
1 Timothy 3. Among the church group that night, we had a level of honesty which I have not seen in a long time as several male leaders shared of their struggles to stay sexually pure to their wives. God was piercing hearts that night. The leadership did meet with us later in the week to receive advice of where to go with developing leaders after we left. This church is strategic for leadership development not only in Windhoek but regionally.
Our accommodations were great and we were fed well (steak, lamb, liver), including a traditional meal of an actual sheep head that had been roasted. (It was looking at me, pleading to not be eaten.) I ate a little. It was okay. At the home I stayed, they had a satellite dish. Sports Center was on the day we left for Zambia and I noticed breaking news that Favre was asking the Packers for his unconditional release…I did pinch myself to make sure I was not dreaming that up. (Weird dreams can result from the precautionary malaria medication I am taking.)
During our second full week in Africa, we all traveled five hours north to Ndola, Zambia. Here eight pastors joined Marty and me for three very full days of strategic planning for WILD. From Tuesday morning until late Thursday night, we discussed, prayed and planned WILD’s future in southern Africa. Mixed in was training on team development and becoming emotionally healthy to be spiritually healthy. I was able to do the teaching and training those three days which the team responded well to. If we accomplish our strategic objectives by following through on our action steps, WILD will have made a quantum leap forward in development in Africa. That would have been worth the trip right there, but God did much more.
One of the objectives the pastors laid out was to establish a regional director for WILD in Zambia. This director will be the point person in southern Africa and work closely with me in preparation and the continuing development of WILD’s presence in that region. To me that was key to have laid the groundwork for this position before leaving Africa. That was accomplished and I am beginning to look for the person to fill this voluntary position.
Another unexpected blessing was meeting Samuel Yawila, possibly the denomination’s (Evangelical Church in Zambia’s -ECZ) only partially funded youth pastor in all of the over 800 churches. Samuel sat in on the strategic planning at the request of Allan. He gave some good insight during the sessions but Marty and I really got to know him the last several days we were in Zambia as Samuel ended up to be our hosts those days.
Samuel has a great heart for the Lord and a vision of reaching the 30 and younger people group for Christ. He gets no salary but the church he serves at, Northrise, pays for his housing where we held our strategic planning. He has had very little training so I am sending him the training material I use with youth leaders here in Wisconsin. His job is youth pastor and trust God to supply his needs as again, he gets no salary. There are several colleges in Ndola so he works with high school students through college age students. This guy is the real deal as far as wanting to serve the Lord by reaching the youth of Africa.
I got very excited about Samuel because he is an answer to the prayer of who will reach the youth of Africa (the 30’s and younger) because whomever does reach that generation (Muslims, Communists (China is flooding Africa with money and people resources) or Christians) will own the continent for generations to come. On the 20th I had the privilege to speak at Northrise, Samuel’s church and of the 100 or so in the audience that day, 80% were easily young people. That was like throwing raw meat to a hungry lion – I was pumped to preach to them. Here was the hope of Africa sitting in front of me.
This gives an overview of what occurred over the three weeks in Africa. Already for next year, there are at least three churches that have asked WILD to train them and the leadership of the ECZ has asked me to go to Angola to train refugees who lived in Zambia during Angola’s civil war and now have returned to their country.
Because of Him,
Mike
CHANCE ENCOUNTERS OF A GOD KIND
One other story I need to share that shows how God is working and using
WILD. Returning from Namibia, Allan and I flew through Johansasburg, South Africa. We had to go to the Transit Counter to acquire our ticket to Zambia. While in line, the guy in front of me noticed that I was wearing a Badger sweatshirt. He (Justin) inquired if I was from Wisconsin and told me he was from north of Detroit. So we exchanged our stories about why we were in that part of the world. I explained about WILD and that I had worked for a youth ministry for 27 years. Thus people consider me like a youth pastor.
There was a young couple ahead of Justin, Allan and I who had a year old son named Isaiah (Could they be Christians? Why else would you name your child that name.) The husband, Ken had stepped out of line to play with Isaiah. When the wife heard that I was a youth pastor, she whipped around and said her husband was a youth pastor and they were headed to Malawi to be a youth pastorate at a church. So she called Ken over to join in on the conversation and talk to this youth pastor.
Ken asked why we were in Africa, so I told them and explained WILD. I mentioned I was wearing my Badger sweatshirt and had gotten my missions understanding through the Navigators on campus at Madison, thus the philosophy WILD had with giving out training materials for free. They got excited and said they were Navigators too. His eyes lit up and wanted to know more about WILD.
How did we make contacts for WILD? Well we told them that this is the way God was establishing most contacts, by “chance” encounters. Ken asked for a business card and Allan had a WILD card so Ken took it and said he would email me as it was their turn to go up to the ticket counter. (I have not heard from him yet – please pray that he does make contact.)
Through all this Justin was listening. I thanked him for asking where I was from and that God had used him to bring Ken and his wife to connect with us. I do not know where Justin is spiritually, but he got a huge dose of God and Jesus in those 5 minutes. There are no “chance” encounters in God’s sovereignty as we shared with Justin. He is another prayer request, for his salvation.
