Upcoming General Conference of Elders

This week we are welcoming our ministry as they arrive for the meeting of the General Conference of Elders here in Cincinnati. We meet at this time of year to conduct our annual meeting, elect new members to the Council of Elders, hold educational seminars and spend time with one another. It gives us at the home office the opportunity to interact personally with ministers from around the world.

On Friday, May 3, we will hold international meetings through much of the day. Our focus will be on ministerial training, which we have already implemented in Africa. We are seeking how to expand training to other parts of the world.

Beverly and I have just returned from visiting in South Central Africa and spending time personally with most of our ministry and speaking 11 times through this period that included the Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread. More than 900 people meet regularly in South Africa, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Eleven ministers serve this area. In January 2010, there were none. We are thankful that the church has remained solid and faithful through tumultuous times. I thank all who serve for the unity of the faith.

I want to thank all of our other ministers who traveled abroad this Holy Day season and for their service—whether it was in West Africa, East Africa, the Philippines, India, the Caribbean, Brazil or Angola. They all have great stories to tell about how the Spirit of God is working in the lives of our brethren in these places.

Africa Trip Highlights

Our elders in South Africa are caring well for a country which has increasing political and economic challenges. Actually, those two factors are extant in all the areas we serve. With pastor Roy Demont and elder Vivien Botha, we produced a podcast in which they describe life in South Africa and the conditions under which they do the Work of God with both the Beyond Today television program and our magazine by the same name. You can hear it at https://www.ucg.org/members/united-news/inside-united/inside-united-podcast-117-roy-demont-and-vivien-botha-update-from-south-africa.

We continued on to Zambia from Durban, where we visited first with pastor Major Talama and the Lusaka congregation on two separate days. I find our brethren to be astute and knowledgeable about the Bible and the Church's teachings. They carry their United News and Beyond Today magazines with their Bibles and read every word. At the first meeting held at our own 13-acre Feast site in Verino (outside Lusaka), the brethren asked questions about the nature of God and asked me to discuss this further in the Bible study the next day. They were full of questions about the Church and the ministry in the United States.

From Lusaka, we flew up to the Copperbelt on the border of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and spent most of the week with pastor Derrick Pringle and his wife, Cherry. We drove out to all four congregations that Derrick Pringle pastors. The last one in the Northwest Province, close to the border with Angola, is the newest building and we held a special dedication ceremony for it. In Zambia, we own six properties, including our Feast site.

We talked a great deal about training new servants and spoke to a number of potential leaders. Again, I'm pleased with how people study our Church's material along with their Bibles and how carefully they want to be able to teach what we believe. Darris McNeely and his wife, Debbie, were here several months ago and conducted an intensive seminar that included speaker training. Many of those who took part in these educational meetings commented not only on how much they learned from the classes, but also from the personal contact with Darris McNeely. Coming to these remote areas is not easy and I thank Darris for taking time from his other duties in editorial and teaching at ABC to visit here.

From the Copperbelt we flew to Lilongwe, Malawi, where Nicholas and Megan Lamoureux have settled now for the past two months. We spent nearly a week with them and the church in the capital city as well as a new church started in Nkwaze, back towards the border with Zambia. Nick and Megan are performing an invaluable service for the Church. He incessantly conducts Bible studies, visits the brethren, and for all practical purposes performs pastoral functions. The brethren are relating well to the Lamoureuxs, as they are very people-oriented. In Malawi, we own two church buildings and a series of shops called the LifeNets Business Center that provides jobs for our brethren. The shops feature an Internet cafe as well as a grocery store.

While with the Lamoureuxs, we traveled back to Zambia to the border city of Chipata, where Filius Jere is pastor. We visited the church building that had been vandalized, with many valuable items stolen or damaged. Since the major break-in on January 29, they have almost completed the security wall around the church property with financial support from Good Works and LifeNets. We held a dedication ceremony for the newly-constructed wall. We also turned keys over to an elderly couple for whom Good Works had built a modest home.

The next day, along with Nick and Megan, we drove out to our new Festival site that was started by our previous ministerial trainees, Brennan and Michala Hilgen. As a result of building the Feast site, nearby villagers took an interest in the activity and came to worship with us. About 20 new people have come and have formed a new congregation serviced by deacon Cephas Chapamba and Nick Lamoureux. These people also traveled to Lilongwe (about an hour away) for the Night to Be Much Observed and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

From Lilongwe, Bev and I traveled to Blantyre by bus (a distance of 250 miles) to be with the congregation and pastor Gracious Mpilangwe and his wife, Loney, for the Last Day of Unleavened Bread, for the weekly Sabbath, as well as for a wedding for Dan Ringo and his bride, Carolyn, this past Sunday. Dan has been active with church activities since his teenage years and had regularly contributed to Vertical Thought. It was a beautiful, typical Malawian wedding in our fine church hall.

Again, I was impressed at the brethren's regard for the Work of the United Church of God. Just before the start of Church services they watch an episode of Beyond Today. Both on the Holy Day and Sabbath they viewed programs featuring Steve Myers. The hall was filled with people intently watching. Steve Myers had also been here at this building in Malawi conducting training sessions some time back. The people asked us many questions about our church and brethren back in the United States. It was so humbling, heartening and encouraging to see so many people express deep appreciation for the content produced by our editorial staff.

A common desire in all the churches was assurance of the doctrinal stability of the Church. They take very seriously the words of Jesus Christ's final prayer for unity of the Church in John 17.

Also, our brethren greatly appreciate visitors coming to see them. They do not want to feel alone or abandoned. This was made very clear when visiting pastor Mabasa Chichaya, about whom I wrote last week. It will be a long, dry spell between now and the Feast, as no visitors are scheduled to go to these countries. And even for the Feast, only Lewis and Lena VanAusdle are currently planning to come and speak at a few of the Feast sites in Malawi.

I am humbled when we visit these areas because we are so attached to the people. We have been visiting here regularly over the past 23 years and have seen a generation of children grow up—many of whom are becoming pillars in these congregations. It is so good to see this progress and it behooves us to make sure that we help to provide the stability and tools for them to thrive in a difficult environment. While in Malawi, the national newspaper's headline one day was "Malawi Rated Fourth Poorest" and is in the league of war-torn countries. A "good" wage is about $85 per month, if you even have a job. If you don't have a job, you live on subsistence from your plot of maize and vegetables.

I have written far more about our visit to South Central Africa in my TravelArk blog at http://v2.travelark.org/travel-blog/victorkubik/25.

Our love and deep appreciation, as well as prayers go out to you. Please pray for us as well.