As We Fast Together Today... and Africa Trip Report

Today we are fasting as a church around the world. Just coming back from Africa yesterday, people are all preparing for the fast there. In fact, some have already written to me, said that their day is coming to an end, this earlier today, and that they completed that day.

I'd like to talk to you first about this fast, this purpose, and its desired outcome. But then, I'd like to also talk to you about some of the elements of our trip to Africa, and some significant aspects about what we're doing as a church, and the challenges that we have in Africa. So this sermon will be composed of part A and part B, although they are linked together. We are humbling ourselves today as a people with a common bond of love towards our Father in heaven and also towards Jesus Christ. So what are we fasting for, and what should we be fasting for, and what outcomes are we seeking? We have not had a church-wide fast, except for the Day of Atonement, for some time. In fact, I can't remember exactly when we had the last one called. Perhaps it was in 2011, but I don't even know for sure if that's when it was.

And so when we called for April 22nd to be a special day of fasting and prayer for the church, some people have contacted us saying, what's going on? Is something wrong? What's happening?

Well, you know, we're fasting because so many things are right. We're in a time of peace in the church. Prayer is our lifeblood with God, and fasting is a catalyst. It's a catalyst that we have been given as a tool from God to draw us closer to Him. So nothing is really wrong.

There's no crisis. There's nothing real or imagined. In fact, we're probably in a time of greater peace than we have ever been. And we're looking forward, and we look for God to be with us and direct us in the things that we need to be doing. We used to fast every year in the early years of the United Church of God before a major conference. It usually came about two, three weeks before a conference, and we asked the church to fast to ask God to guide the leadership in making the decisions that needed to be made. The reason for the April 22nd is because that's the time. People said, how come we're asked to examine ourselves after the Days of the 11 Bread? You know, people always have the craziest reasoning. Well, we are examining ourselves. It's always good to examine ourselves, and that's one of the purposes of fasting.

The theme for the conference this year, in a couple of weeks, is judgment, mercy, and faith.

And our sermons, seminars, and discussions will keep this theme very much in mind. In fact, I have one of the sermons on the Sabbath during the conference, and I'm working already these elements into the message that I'll be presenting. But today, through this fast, and our prayers, and fasting and prayer as working together is mentioned more than 40 times in the Bible.

It's mentioned for various purposes. But we are seeking to understand more fully what God would ask us, his servants, and what he desires for us to achieve in the manner that he would want us to achieve it in a manner that would be pleasing to him. We're asking through a fast to knock louder and to seek more intensely his will. In fact, as we fast, we need to be reminded of Isaiah 55 in verse 8. I'd like you to turn to Isaiah 55 in verse 8 because this is a very important principle of understanding our workings with God. God gave us the ability to reason. God gave us the ability to think and plan because that's a part of what God does. And one of his greatest attributes is he's a conscious God, and he's made us very conscious. But how do the way we think correspond with the way that he thinks? In Isaiah chapter 55 in verse 8, we read, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are my ways your ways, says the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. And you know what we're trying to do here on this day of fasting is to discover more fully what God's thoughts are. What is he thinking? What are his ways? Are the ways that we live is the way that we think the way God thinks? If it isn't, then we're seeking to find a way for us to be more like God. Lucky you're also turned to Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 17, and I'd like to read this in the New Living Translation.

Paul wrote about seeking God's will to seek what God is thinking and what God is doing.

We need to consider what Paul wrote when he said in Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 17, don't act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do.

Don't act thoughtlessly. Make sure that our thoughts are God's thoughts and understand what God wants us to do. And that's the long and short of why we are fasting today. Understanding more what God wants us to do. We have chosen the theme of judgment, mercy, and faith. We have so many wonderful things that are already occurring in the church of God. We have wonderful personnel. We've got wonderful brethren. We have peace in our churches. We have a wonderful television program. We're building a studio out here to produce even higher quality media productions of various sorts, from television to other video products. We have a wonderful magazine, The Beyond Today magazine. It was so wonderful for us to go to different places in the world and to see The Beyond Today magazine being distributed in services as it was last Sabbath when the last issue arrived. To see the united effort, to see people commenting about the united news and the articles there. We actually appreciate more of what the church does when we go far away and to see the products that we're always busy in the middle of producing here. To see them appreciate it as they are around the world. But we do have a wonderful church. We have wonderful ministers. We have wonderful workers at the home office. And I can say that I've never enjoyed and have experienced the love and camaraderie in the church that I have in the last years. However, we need to seek what is God thinking and what does he want us to do and not either be complacent or go in a direction that is contrary to the one he's sending us to. When I suddenly became president in 2013, it happened four years ago. I can't believe that four years has gone by. After the unexpected death of Denny Luker, the first thing I asked my wife, when I saw her after I was selected, I said, now what? I said, what are we supposed to be doing? Now what? I have never sought to be something that I'm not. And I look upwards to be an agent of someone greater, someone bigger, and something that's far bigger and infinitely bigger than myself. I try to find that out through humble prayer, and fasting does bring us on our knees to that humble prayer. I have asked God to direct me in the fulfillment of a great commission that has been given to the church in proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom of God and proclaiming the qualities of Jesus Christ that he embodied when he was here on the earth. Jesus Christ, we are to have his life live in us, and we've been taught that now through the days of Unleavened Bread. I have looked to the model in 1 Kings chapter 3, 1 Kings chapter 3 of Solomon's powerful narrative of asking God for direction.

Here he was, I'm nowhere near being King Solomon, obviously, and neither do I have innumerable multitude to be one that manages. But I have sought to follow the attitude that King Solomon displayed in 1 Kings chapter 3 when he became king, and God had a discussion with him about what he wanted to have. Solomon said in verse 3, You have shown great mercy to your servant David, my father, because he walked before you in truth, in righteousness and uprightness of heart with you.

And you have continued this great kindness for him. You have given him a son to sit on a throne as it is this day. Now, O Lord, my God, you have made your servant king instead of my father David, but I am a little child. This is the part that I want us to note. This is the part that I note.

I am a little child. I do not know how to go out or come in. Notice this statement of asking for direction. When do I act? How do I act? With whom do I act?

And your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people too numerous to be numbered or counted. Therefore, give to your servant an understanding heart to judge your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to judge this great people of yours? And very personally, I want to say that I've asked God to give me that understanding for the church in the United States and its only places in the world. Nearly 400 ministers, three-quarters of them in the United States, to give direction, guidance, along with a great team of workers that I have surrounded myself with. I love everyone that I work with. I really honestly can say that. I have besieged our father not to act thoughtlessly, not to just go to work every day and say, well, now what do we do today? But ask God, how do you want these things to play themselves out? We have challenges. We have things that are impasses at times. We are looking up a cliff at other times from the standpoint of money, personnel, circumstances, and so forth. I say, God, help us to choose the best solution. Please guide us. And I truly believe in looking back, and always when I look back, I see the providence of God directing this church. We're asking God through a fast to providentially lead us into the future to do things according to his ways, to his thoughts, and not to act thoughtlessly.

To be two agents of God, we must be placed in the right position at the right time to do the right job. I truly believe that a church which has the size that we do, that's the only way it's going to be done. It won't be done through brute force in our part, believe me. We are tiny. We are small, even after we have the studio built and have the program produced. I don't envision, of course, God can do anything he wants to, as something spectacular happening. Although, I do believe that God will choose the right people to do the right job at the right time. And so we're asking God in this very special way to surgically help us to understand what that is, to help us understand what we need to be doing as a church. We're not going to be a church. I don't envision to be speaking with a big booming voice to the world, where all of a sudden, as I said, I said, I don't want to be something I'm not. And I don't think that Steve Myers, Darris McNeely, Gary Petty, or any other voices in public people are those that are going to stand up and be the big booming voice that will have the command that we may have had at one time. There are times when the voice has been a booming voice. There are other times when it's been a softer, more reasoned voice. But it'll be God who will determine how it's done, in what way, at what time. I truly believe that.

bravado, fake boldness, strutting around to figuratively poke people in the eye, does not have much impact in our media. All you got to do is turn on television, hear these talk shows. People are arguing, and they're disagreeing loudly with one another. They're name calling. They're saying all kinds of untoward things about the public. Adding one more voice to that is not going to make much difference. Could have at one time when we didn't have that type of media, but not now. We have religious media that is saturated with fiery preachers, effective preachers who speak the wrong thing, but they're there and they're convincing.

We might have had impact, we did have an impact in mass media half century ago, or three quarters of a century ago, but that's lost now with, if you go to, what is it, you know, Roku, you know, and look at all the religious channels.

Several hundred religious channels. You can hardly find Beyond Today in it. It does, but if you bring up Beyond, there's another Beyond something or other that's religious as well.

So we are a small voice in the middle of many, many people who are hollering.

I'd like to go through the story of Elijah, the 18th chapter of 1 Kings. 1 Kings chapter 18, because I relate to this chapter as far as doing our work, special way on this day.

Chapter 19, I should say, of 1 Kings. Chapter 18 is the famous prayer contest, you might say, between the prophets of Baal and Elijah. In the prayer contest, you might say it was won by Elijah, and 450 of the priests of Baal were slain. It was a great day for progressing and showing God's power in Israel, of who was the true God. 450 religious leaders of Israel were slaughtered on that day after they failed in their prayer contest. It's a great victory, great progress for Elijah. But then, the story continues in chapter 19. Ahab was the evil king who supported this system of religion in ancient Israel. He got home and he told Jezebel everything Elijah had done, the slaughter of the 450, including the way he had killed all the prophets of Baal.

So Jezebel sent this message to Elijah. Believe me, Jezebel was no ordinary woman.

One of the most evil women in the Bible. Nobody has yet named their daughter Jezebel.

She said to Elijah, may the gods strike me and even kill me if by this time tomorrow I've not killed you just as you killed them. Really a type A type of answer to this lady, to Elijah.

Elijah, right on the heels of the great victory just before, was afraid and fled for his life.

Now, the place where the prophets of Baal were killed was Mount Carmel. Just if you've been to Haifa, there's a mountain before it. It's up in sort of central northern Israel on the coast.

And so he went to Beersheba, which is way in the south. I mean, he really high-tailed it. He was frightened. He went to Beersheba, town in Judah, and he left a servant there. Verse 4, then he went alone into the wilderness, traveling all day. He sat down under solitary broom tree and prayed that he might die. I've had enough, Lord, he said. Take my life, for I'm no better than my ancestors who have already died. Then he lay down and slept under the broom tree. But when he was sleeping, an angel touched him and said, Get up and eat. I'm bringing this with a New Living Translation, which has a more smoother narrative. He looked, verse 6, around, and there beside his head was some bread baked on hot stones in a jar of water.

So he ate and drank and lay down again. Then the angel of the Lord came again and touched him and said, Get up and eat some more, for the journey ahead will be too much for you. So there was a job for him given after he had fled, after he had kind of forgotten what God had used him to do in a great way. He was now frightened. So, verse 8, he got up and drank, and the food gave him enough strength to travel 40 days and 40 nights to Mount Sinai. Some say he actually fasted during this 40 days and 40 nights, but whatever it is that he ate gave him strength for this big trip of 40 days and 40 nights to Mount Sinai, Mount Horeb. There he came to a cave where he spent the night.

But the Lord said to him, What are you doing here, Elijah? God starts a communication with him, verse 10. Elijah said, I have zealously served the Lord God Almighty, but the people of Israel have broken their covenant with you, torn down your altars, killed every one of your prophets. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too. Sometimes I wonder if we feel so defeated when we take a look at what we may have been or what we should be doing or some of the goals that we have and the perceptible lack of progress. We're not really crying aloud to the nation.

We're not a blip of anything anywhere. Sometimes I have felt this. Who are we? What message do we have? We have a great message. Oh, believe me, I think that we're spot on with what we say in the public appearance campaigns, what we say in the magazine. We go through the content very carefully, making sure that we have the mix of doctrine, prophecy, Christian living. What else is there? We feel that we have the best people out there on the line who are proclaiming a message that's really wonderful as it appears on television. But sometimes I feel that what are we doing? Are you going to kill us too?

Verse 11. Here's what God told Elijah, go out and stand before me on the mountain. And the Lord told him, and as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain.

It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind.

God says, here's what I can do. I can do this. I can have a windstorm come through, dramatic, and make an impact. After the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. He's just showing him the different things that he could do. And after the earthquake, there was a fire. I mean, three dramatic physical manifestations of God doing his work at that time.

But the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, there was a sound of a gentle whisper, or as the old King James has it, a still, small voice. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.

But the voice said, what are you doing here, Elijah? In a way, I feel God is playing with Elijah, because he's just blessed him in so many ways. Elijah just can't see from moment to moment, or incident to incident, the presence of God in what he was doing. At one time, God was instrumental in helping destroy, really, the religious hierarchy of Israel. Now he's on the run and says, I'm the only one. You've killed everybody. What good is it doing? He replied again, Elijah's words, verse 14, I have zealously served the Lord God Almighty. And we too can say, look, we've done what we can. I say, we've, God, I have done what all I can. What more do you want us to do? We speak, we write, we visit, we do all the things that we do. But the people of Israel have broken their covenant with you, torn down their altars, and killed every one of your prophets. I'm the only one left, and now they're trying to kill me too. He says this again. Then the Lord said to him, in verse 15, go back to the same way you came in, and travel to the wilderness of Damascus. He says, I've got a list of things I still want you to do. Some big, big things for you to do. Give them kind of a wonder list of things that here's now what you are going to be doing. When you arrive there, anoint King Hazel to be the king of Aram. Okay, that's a big job. High government, political act, anoint Hazel to be king of Aram. Then anoint Jehu, son of Nimshih, to be king of Israel. I've got some big, big things for you to do, Elijah. And anoint Elisha, son of Shapeth, from the town of Abel Mihloh, to replace you as prophet. I've got a replacement for you. That's coming up, and that was the next chapter when Elisha became an understudy, and Elijah was to mentor Elisha to be the next prophet. Anyone who escapes from Hazel will be killed by Jehu, and those who escape from Jehu will be killed by Elisha. Yet I will preserve 7,000 others in Israel who have never bowed down to Baal or kissed him. Wow, God had a big job for Elijah and Elisha and the work of the prophets.

Oh yes, at times he thought he was the only one doing the work. He was the only one that really mattered, and then it really was coming to nothing. I feel in the same way, in the same spirit, that God has something very, very big in mind for the church of God. We have a work that we've been proclaiming, that we have maybe even taken for granted as to what the mission of the church is.

And perhaps from a time mark of...

mark time benchmark to benchmark, we have not seen progress. I do know that God sees what we do.

He sees how consistent we are. He sees how we treat one another, and God is going to do something very, very interestingly great, perhaps through a still small voice. Well, it'll be done by the right people at the right time for the right purpose. And who knows? We may have things that we will be doing. We'll be known by government. There'll be things that we'll be doing, as it said. Elijah, get out there. I want you to anoint this king. I want you to anoint the next king of Israel. And I want you to choose. I want you to treat Elijah to be your replacement. And also, he told him, you're not the only one I'm working with. There's 7,000 others. Don't feel sorry for yourself. I have no idea how that we can be applied... apply that to ourselves. But nonetheless, God was doing something in his way, his thoughts, his ways, that are much greater than the thoughts we have. So the chapter concludes with Elijah finding Elijah, and he joins him in the story, goes on with the work that's done. Today I am fasting that I pray and I pray that I not get my way. Some people think that fasting is for us to have some great purpose in mind. We want to have this. And if we read Isaiah 58, it's never to get something for yourself. Fasting is never to say that I'm fasting for this purpose, except for the one that God has. It's never to get something.

In fact, I'll be praying to God, show us his way. Not to get my way, but that God direct and show us his way. We have this time before the Council of Elders meetings, before the GCE, the General Conference of Elders, and so forth. I'm asking God to work through all of us to be able to be shown the way of how to proceed. Isaiah 58, this is a chapter that probably defines fasting more in one chapter than anywhere else in the Bible, where God says in verse 6, Is this not the fast that I have chosen to lose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke? You can take that personally. We can take that as something that we need to examine ourselves in a very, very personal way. Then I break those things that tie me down, overcoming.

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out, certain negligence that we may have had in our personal lives? That when you see the naked that you cover him and not hide yourself from your own flesh, perhaps some relationships that we've left dangling that should be tidied up? If you do that, then your light shall break forth like the morning, and your healing shall spring forth speedily, and your righteousness shall go before you.

Fasting is a catalyst. It helps draw our attention to things that we need to be taking care of right now. And we're doing not as an individual fast, a fast whatever day you want to, but as a church, show us what we need to be doing. And the glory of the Lord shall be your rear God. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer, and you shall cry, and he will say, Here I am. The purpose is to draw closer to God as the song that we had sung during special music. The purpose of fasting is to change a mindset. And are we doing that individually and as a church? I'll be praying for our humble prayers to be heard by God at this time. There's various reasons, as I said, 40 different references to fasting and prayer together. It's for the purposes of seeking God and making important decisions, one that is commonly done. And we tell our elders whenever they bring forth a person to be ordained as an elder, that I believe even on the application form that the pastors are to when they sign off on it, say, I have fasted and prayed that this decision for this particular decision. When Paul and Barnabas anointed elders in every city in Acts 13, I'll just make reference to it, they did that with fasting and prayer and committed them to the Lord in whom they had trust. Acts 13 verses 2 and 3. Fasting is also something which is a function in seeking repentance, seeking repentance and asking God to help us to speed up that process, to be a catalyst in helping us overcome our selfishness, our greed, our lust.

David had a number of Psalms in which he praised for repentance, and one very well-known one in Psalm 69. He speaks about fasting as something which would help him be brought to repentance.

All of Psalm 69 is very similar to Psalm 51, the one that we sing sometimes at the Passover, creating me a clean heart. But here in Psalm 69, which he starts out by sounding like Psalm 51, Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. He really sounds desperate here. And then now what? I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing I have come into deep waters, where the floods are flowy, flow me. Verse 3, I am weary in my crying. My throat is dry, my eyes fail, while I wait for my God. Verse 5, Lord, you know my foolishness and my sins are not hidden from you. Let those who wait for you, O Lord, God of hosts, be ashamed because of me.

Let not those who seek you be confounded because of me, O Lord.

Verse 10, When I wept and chastened my soul with fasting, that may be my reproach. I also made sackcloth my garment. I became a byword to them. So he wept and he chastened his soul with fasting, in order to be relieved of this situation. Psalm 35 verse 13. Psalm 35 and verse 13, a similar thought. But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth. I humbled myself with fasting, and my prayer would return to my heart. Joel chapter 2 and verse 12 can't possibly cover all 40 references. Even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning. Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate. Slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. Prayer is also done for safety, praying for safety. Also, fasting is done as a sign of mourning. God will do the heavy lifting for his work. When we say it's God's work, that's exactly what we mean. It's not our work. It's not our imagination. You know, I like to think and write and put my thoughts down. Believe me, that's nothing compared to what God has in mind, what he's doing. I'm just trying to find out and understand and be more thoughtful about what his ways, what his thoughts are. God will do the heavy lifting. He's the one who makes things happen. We can't. Our aim is to seek his righteousness in having Christ live in us, and not be thoughtless in understanding his will. So I hope that this fast is personal for all of us, and that we can become, with all of our hearts, profitable servants in fulfilling his will and mission. Again, we have a great God. We have a great message, and we have great leaders, great workers, great brethren, and nothing will restrain God from saving by many or by a few.

So that's part A of my sermon. I'd like to have make some observations from our current trip to Africa. I feel like I should say these things because they really have to do with a very exciting feeling that Bev and I have about the work in different places in the world.

And we just came back from Africa yesterday. It's like coming from Andromeda to the Milky Way. I mean, it's two different galaxies, two different mindsets and worlds and so forth. But the thing that's the same is the values and the things that we teach, and the brethren that we see who take in these things. Some of them make 100 times less those who have jobs than we do, literally 100 times less or more. Some of our people in Malawi make $40 a month. We have night guard. He makes $40 a month. Has a family of 12. He and his wife and 10 children. If you make $100 a month, you're doing well. We have a mechanic we sent to school, got a scholarship. He's thankful that he's got a job.

Makes $72 a month as a mechanic. This is the kind of economic level that we work with. Malawi, for example, has been rated now twice. I've heard two ratings here of late is the poorest country in the world. Now, in different rating scales, depends about what criteria you use. It's rated usually third, fourth poorest to eleventh poorest. But it's the most densely populated country in Africa.

They don't even know how many people live there. If you take a look at the population of Malawi in Atlas, it's somewhere between 11 and 15 million. They don't even know how many people live in that country. We have churches. We have brethren. We have feasts and tabernacles. All the same values, the same things that you enjoy spiritually are things that our brethren participate in. But let me start in South Africa first. Some of you have been to South Africa. We were there exactly a year ago, and we were happy to see 50 people meet in the church in Johannesburg. We have since ordained Arthur Fischer as elder, and he and his wife have really taken to the job. We had to do some persuasion on our part to get him to agree to be an elder. Oh, I'm too old. I'm this. I'm that. You know, people won't respect me. Whatever. He has been absolutely phenomenal and has taken a special love for a new church that started up in Blomfontein, which he travels to on a regular basis. He's been very good in bringing up other leadership new in the church, and the church has really blossomed under having a pastor, which we had no elders in Johannesburg, but he's done that particular role. Big change from last year. Then we went, Bev and I, for a week and a half to Malawi, the country that I had just made reference to. Malawi is far away from here. Those of you who have gone there, Aaron and Michelle, they are real heroes for going there and actually wanting to go there. It's far away, expensive, and conditions are harsh, both on mind and body and comfort and machinery. Washboard roads, you're always replacing tires shocks. For that matter, almost the whole vehicle a lot. It's interesting to see the church parking a lot. You know, two vehicles, and they're both owned by the church. They said people make very little. These are some of the poorest people on the face of the earth. Infrastructure is almost non-functioning this past year. They have most of the power that comes to Malawi. It comes from a dam on the Zambezi River called the Kariba Dam. Well, this year they had a drought, so the water level was way down. So the dam didn't produce as much electricity. So they have these blackouts that are just rolling blackouts around. And our people who live there, and even our church office, and even Lena and Lewis, then also who live there, just continue living a big part of their life in blackouts.

To me, the big success story in Malawi right now is sending Lewis and Lena Van Austel, Lewis, to be the pastor of the Luangwe Church. There's a couple things about it. One is that just a short time ago, we hired him as a ministerial trainee, young person, a trainee, and then finally we realized that we've got to have some leadership. We've got to have some leadership. And then finally we realized that we've got to have some leadership. We have brethren. We have the pastor of the area living 250 miles away. But people are not cared for. There is nobody who's really watching over the area of the Luangwe. And so we talked about sending somebody there from America. Why not Lewis and Lena? They have no children. They have been and traveled to these areas before. They're world travelers. Let's see what they can do. I called his mentor, Pastor Dave Dobson, and he said, oh, they're great. They'll do great. This is before Lewis knew about that.

Then on the 4th of July, I called him last year and said, Lewis, would you consider, with you and your wife, going to Malawi to be a pastor of the church? Of course, the Thab we couldn't say pastor. He wasn't ordained yet. But I said, we can't send him there not being ordained. He's got to be ordained. At least that's what the case that I made for the Council of Elders. And so he did agree. It was not too long in coming, but he said, yes, we'll go. They knew what they were getting into. It wasn't like, well, la la land, you know, it's gonna be wonderful, and so forth, cruises, and that type of thing. No, no, no, no. You're gonna go to Malawi. You know what it's like. You know what the roads are like. You know what the conditions are like. You know how undependable everything is. We want you to go there. And they have. We ordained him just before he went in the month of December, and they've been serving there since summer camp, which was in over the Christmas, New Year's holiday period in South Africa. And then from there, they moved to kind of a, almost like a townhouse inside of a compound, which we are very happy to see them have.

He's the pastor of the long way. The church now has risen in attendance from like about 16 or 18, because some people didn't bother coming. There was just nothing to really come for.

There really was just a meltdown of leadership. Now Lewis has that church up to 45, 50 people. He's teaching the fundamentals of belief. It's just so important for us to be able to have live pastors who can teach people in coming along. There's nothing that substitutes that. You can't just send tapes or you can't just send MP3s. You've got to have humans teaching humans. And this has been a success story. Not only that, but he's been able to visit Mizuzu, which is 250 miles north.

But Long Hui is a real skinny country that's about 800 miles long and about 100 miles wide along Lake Malawi. And so he goes up to Mizuzu, where there's a group of 15 to 20 people or so.

And also, he's gone up there now. They just were up there this weekend. This is the second time that they've gone up there. It's not been visited in five years. Not visited in five full years. And also, they've been going over to Chipata Zambia, which is, as I said, Malawi's a skinny country. Zambia comes right up to it. It's the city of Chipata on the border. And he's been going over there to help a deacon who kind of manages a church there in Chipata.

They have settled in well. They do have a church van to use. And I was just so pleased. Bev and I were so pleased to keep the Passover with the Long Way Church to see Lewis doing the job that he's doing. He and Lina are just absolutely special. The construction project going on there, we're adding on to the church hall and making it a hall little seat. About 120 people. It's bogged down. I call it Nehemiah's project, you know, something that just got stagnant and so forth. Well, they put new life into it. And when Bev and I were there, we rearranged a few things and are going to have the church finish it in another month. It's going to be finished.

We hope that Aaron and Michelle will be able to get there this summer. It's important that they do and continue the direction and progress of the church in Malawi. One of my mentors, one of the first mentors that I had was a minister by the name of Bob Jones.

He's now been retired for 10 years, and I visited him just a few months ago when we were in Florida for the public appearance campaigns. I really appreciated the mentorship that I got from him, but he basically said there are two things for a pastor to be successful, to make him successful. Two things. Number one, stay close to God. Know who you are, know who God is, and stay close to him.

And number two, love and respect the brethren. Love and respect the brethren. If you have those two things down and doing well, you're going to be a success. Well, Lewis and Lena have done that in spades. They have visited almost everyone in the Longwood Church area. The people were telling us, oh, they're so wonderful. They have just done a tremendous job. They came to our home, and believe me, some of those homes aren't really very, very much where people you'd want to go to. They are very, very primitive. But Lewis and Lena have been with the brethren. They have visited with them. They're doing the things that pastors should do. But one of the strongest things about the United Church of God is our pastors and our leaders who really care for people. You know, how can you pastor five churches? You really can't. It's just a name only. You've got to be with a church or two that you can be there, touch people, visit with them regularly, and see them on a regular basis over the Sabbath. And this, I feel, is one of the things that I'm seeking God's guidance in, is for us to provide the proper number of pastors to care for people around the world. We still, in the United Church of God, above all the other groups, are strongest in that area. And I want to strengthen it. I want it to become something which is extremely important, is part of our mission.

What good is it to bring people in and not have them cared for? They'll all fall apart, as has been the case. When you have a pastor, you have discipline, but it's more love, caring, teaching, and feeding. And I'm just so thankful to see Lewis stand up to that. But there's also another part of the story that's very, very refreshing, too. We had an ABC couple here from last year or the year before, Brennan Hilgen and Mikola Aukwood. They wrote to me just after the Feast of Tabernacles, and they saw the little video there about India at the Feast. Could you please send us to some place like India? We can do it on our own dime. Just send us there. Tell us where to go. India wouldn't be bad. Well, I wasn't going to send to India. We don't have anything organized there that I felt would really be good. But I thought, why not Malawi? A nice starter church. So how about them being with Lewis and Lena? Well, they got married January 8th, and their honeymoon is Malawi.

They decided to dedicate a year of their life in going to Malawi, which they did. They were married January 8th, and middle of February, they went to Malawi. And they're living with the Vanosdels. But the Vanosdels have been well trained in that. They've lived in the whole house of people so they know very well. So, you know, we hear where we are. It's kind of just a very interesting dynamic there. Bev and I are visiting with them and talking to them. We're doing everything together, everything together. Eating together, visiting, you know, we have the church band, and the six of us are traveling for the entire week, getting ready for Passover and the activities of that week.

But Brennan, once again, is not going there to just kind of sweep up and do simple things. He's already giving sermonettes, and he's providing important leadership to the church. He and Mikala have, I would say, grown up real fast and are doing a tremendous job. My greatest fear right now is what happens after the year is over with. What are we going to do beyond that? We need to have people who work in these areas. While we were with them, we also went to the church in Chipata, Zambia, because that was the closest entry point for us. It's only an hour and a half to that city, but it's a different country, and that makes a big difference, especially for people who are white. And we had to get a double entry visa because we had to leave Malawi, then come back to Malawi. Also, to Zambia, we had to have a multiple entry visa to go into Zambia one time, back out, and then also for the rest of the trip. And that costs a lot of money. It's not easy to work in those countries. It's not enjoyable to work with border guards, immigration that don't care. They don't care anything about you. Nobody greets you with, welcome to our country. How's that the self fill out this survey? How well did we do? No, nobody cares about you at all. You just got to work yourself through these countries and, you know, working with people that just don't care.

They look upon religious organizations and they look upon NGOs, non-government organizations, not as wonderful people who have come from America or Great Britain to help us. No, they look upon them as, oh, they've got money. Because half the health care in Malawi is done by NGOs, by people who come who are foolish enough, like the rest of us, to do the work they do. Yet we do it because we love these people and we try to do good for them. But you have to get used to a very hardened, desperate mindset in these countries and we have people who are working well.

We met with the Chipada Church, which is overseen by Deacon Philius Jerry, that used to be a radio announcer and had his own radio program in Chipada. He's now retired but obviously has journalistic skills and I communicate with him quite often. We did a podcast in a cornfield there with him that's on our website. I believe it's the last podcast that we head on. But we held a meeting on a Wednesday. 30 of the people from the church came and I spoke about the church. Bev spoke about the work of LifeNets. They took us around and showed us the borehole or they showed the well that they had dug at the location of the new borehole, the maize fields. They've had very, very good crops. We got very well acquainted with those people. We have, I consider, the Van Ostles and the Hildjens to be heroes. And this church does have its heroes. It really does. And I feel one thing I'm praying for is more heroes to step up to do things of this nature. We traveled then to, by the way, also, Brendan is an electrician. He's an apprentice electrician and he's helping right now with the completion of the church hall. I'm hoping that there'll be some people that'll want to go to Malawi for the Feast of Tabernacles because we will have two feasts of tabernacles, one in Lilongwe at the church hall. And believe me, I recommend it with all my heart. There'll be feasts like you've never been to before. You will love the people because that's where the feast is. The church is the people. Then we travel to Blantyre by bus. It's a four-hour bus ride.

And you look at Malawi and somehow this time it really got to me more than any other time how beautiful the country is. Beautiful mountains. The skies were just absolutely gorgeous. You see, how can this be here and it be so poor when it's probably no more beautiful spot, very few more beautiful spots for countryside as Malawi. We came down in time for the night to be remembered with the Blantyre church and we feel like we've known those people now from many, many visits. We've been visiting actually Malawians since 1996, 21 years in the United Church of God. I've made probably a dozen trips now to that area. Had the night to be remembered.

Then the next morning, next day, we had the first day of Northern Bread services. We visited with our scholarship students. It's really wonderful to see our students now after years of being scholarship, you know, years after they finished school, some with good occupations. But even those that don't have fully the work that they really want to do, they've been educated and they're sort of in the queue for doing better in a country where 70 to 80 percent of the congregation is unemployed.

And in the Blantyre church, I'm not sure what they said, they have one or two tithe payers. That's how desperate it is. That's how desperate it is in that area. We're also building a church building for them that will become the feast site, the meeting hall, and place for youth camp. But the people are very excited about it and we met with them. One case of where we helped the family in an individual way I want to tell you about. It's the Hussein family.

We were there last year and we visited with them. A family of 12 lived in one room. One room. To me, it's almost inhumane. Inhumane. One room. They paid five dollars a month. He worked as a guard, night watchman, or day watchman, whatever, for 40-some dollars a month.

They had no access to a garden and how they made it is still beyond me. Still beyond me. We were paying five dollars a gallon for gas in Balaoui. Twice as much as you would pay here. Of course, they don't have a car anywhere near that. We decided with LifeNets and actually the Luker Foundation that we would build them a home.

Very modest cost, believe me, not much at all. But we did do it, built them a home where it has a master bedroom and maybe two, three other rooms. And they were so proud of it. They took us out to their home and they said, here's mom and dad's master bedroom. We walk into it and there's nothing there except the mattress on the concrete.

But they were so thrilled now that mom and dad could have a master bedroom. And then the kids, the girls were in one room, the guys in another room, you know. It was just beautifully laid out. But I'm just glad that we can do something like that. We can't save everybody in this world. That's the argument that's used for not doing anything. But when we can, this is the kind of thing that we should do. As I read in Isaiah chapter 58, we should not hide ourselves from our own flesh and to be ready to meet out our bread to those who are hungry.

Then there we met with the construction committee. Those of you who've seen the picture of our hall in Blantyre, it's quite a hall. I mean, I'd like to have one like that here in Cincinnati East. But anyway, they're just have a really tremendous effort that they're putting forth and are well on the way to completing it. But it's being done very, very carefully by people that we trust. Then from Blantyre, we went on to Zambia, where we spent time with Major Talama, Nawa Talama and his wife Felicia. He was here for the Pastoral Development Program.

It was wonderful to see them again. And we were there and had, went out, first of all, to the church property. You might recall that there was a dispute over who owned the 13-acre feast festival site that we had. And finally, it's come into our hands for the past year. And I walked over the whole terrain of it. I've been there for the feast twice in times past.

And it was wonderful to see everything there. It's been in some neglect. Some things need to be spruced up. But the people are very, very happy to have it again. They're holding a women's enrichment weekend there this coming week. And the Feast of Tabernacles will be held there again. And also, they will have youth camps there, which is held in the dead of winter, which is August this year, in the dusty time of year. But they're all excited about that. So we did that. And then we visited with a deacon who's very, very ill.

We're very saddened by it. We just hope that he'll be fully recovered. Those people, you know, they're all thin, you know, but they sure have problems with hearts, heart problems, strokes, TB, and other diseases where we feel like we've got them licked, you know, in this country for the most part, or have waste around them. And our deacon there, Jonathan Lataba, visited at his home, had a very wonderful visit. We've known him from many visits from before. Then we had the Sabbath service in Lusaka, Zambia. It's happened to be Easter Saturday. This is Easter weekend, but this Easter Saturday, and in the classroom next to us, a Pentecostal church had a full-bore service.

It was the most disconcerting service I could even think. I mean, we had a translator. No, I didn't have a translator for that service. I had a hard time just, what in the world did I say? We had this loud preacher, you know, who was shouting. It didn't be broken up by music. And we even had our people go there to try to ask us to tone it down because we're holding our services. And then we had a Bible study afterwards, Q&A, and finally after about 20 minutes or half an hour, I said, that's it. We can't compete with a Pentecostal church. So, but we did ordain a deacon, Morris Piri, there, and it was a wonderful event again, once again, to visit the church there. About 50 people met in the capital of Lusaka. They've got to do something about a better place, to meet. Then on Sunday, last Sunday, we flew up to Andola in the Northwest provinces, up there on the Congo border, and picked up by Derek and Cherry Pringle, some of the dearest friends that we have on this planet, and spent five days with them. We immediately went from Andola to the city of Sulwesi, about a four-hour drive to the west. And the last time we were there, which was three years ago, there was no church. Now there was a church building in place, and a group of 50 people who met in that church building. We had a ribbon-cutting ceremony, which went extremely beautifully. The people were grateful for that. We gave two sewing machines to two of the ladies there, as a gesture of helping in a humanitarian way, and just had a wonderful service. Now where did this church come from? There are several groups there. This was a Seventh-day Baptist church that had really come to understand the Holy Days. And through our deacon there, his name is Changa Changa. He's French from the Congo. They came into contact with him, and they said, our church no longer pays attention to us because we are interested in the Holy Days.

And could we be part of you? And this is a very interesting transformation because it isn't something done through leadership or through a lot of things. They're just the whole... all of us came over. We just came over. We want what you teach. We see the Beyond Today magazine. We've read your literature, both in French and in English, and we want to be part of you. And that includes our little group in the Congo as well. That's part of the same group here that have been Seventh-day Baptists, but now have adopted the Holy Days and want all the things that we teach. So I had a chance to spend not only the Sabbath... this was the last day I've read with them, but we had an all-afternoon meeting to discuss other matters of business. It was like a Deacons and Elders meeting and Bible study kind of mixed all together where we talked about a lot of different things and got to know some of their needs, some of what they want to do, and they were just very, very grateful to have their own building. We also talked about two other church buildings further to the west. One is in Mufumbuy, where Bev and I were three years ago, where the orphanages that we help out. Then yet another one right there on the Angola border, sort of Georgia's territory, Georgia, the campus of the territory. It was interesting to see literature that's in services to be passed out to different people in Portuguese, in French, and in English. That's where all these countries come together. The road out to Sulwezi was absolutely deplorable. You'd be going on washboard roads through craters that had just rained, and sometimes you'd just be going, like, driving through a little lake, you know. And then other times it'd be very nice, but it takes a skilled driver not to get too overconfident, because you could just fall off the pavement and roll down into a ravine very easily. Derek Pringle was absolutely marvelous as a driver. He's another hero. Derek and Cherry Pringle are heroes. There would be none of that happening if it wasn't for them, and their resources that they have put in to that congregation. Just to let you know, this is a secret. That church is so poor that 90% of the tithe is from Derek and Cherry. They basically are able, through their livelihood, be able to maintain that area. We've done a lot of things as well. We purchased them a bus to haul people back and forth to church, but nonetheless, they are heroes. They don't have to do this. Actually, what they can do is to move to South Africa, where they have another home. And believe me, live just outside of Durban in Peter Meritsburg and live a life of leisure, or move to Australia, where one of their sons has moved to. But they are committed to working with the people of Mufalira and the Northwest provinces. That's the kind of people that we have in this church. It always brings tears to my eyes to see people who are so devoted and so dedicated. I love to be with them. The church right now has room for more heroes, more people to give of themselves, to sacrifice, and to say, God, what do you want me to do? Believe me, God may just give you some job to do. You know, pray that and see us. We can talk about some places. It's not that easy. I will say that a year ago at this time, I had no idea that we could have Lewis and Lena move to the Northwest at to Malawi. We did not have two of the church buildings constructed. We had one that was just a wall, the one in Blantyre. And to see all this progress this past year really brought warmth to our hearts. There is a God, a great God, who is doing this work.

Also, Derek and Sherry maintain a church office and send out the good news at their cost. They just have it shipped in bulk. The person that they seem to know most at the home office is Tim Sipes, who, you know, they get the various materials from and they have the good news come from Cape Town, where it's printed, and they hand address all the envelopes. And it's arranged the circulation there from 100 to 400 copies of Beyond Today magazine. And we hope to have Derek and Sherry come for the pastoral development program, not because he's going to be the pastor for the next 20 years there, but because he is involved with training the people there to continue on the work.

Now, God will always find a way. We have some very big challenges in these parts of the world. We're wondering, how in the world are we going to do this? I mean, I face this continually, and every time I say that, and every time I pray for relief, God finds a way through the right people showing me the right time to do the right work. And I feel in a greater way God is going to have the right people do the right job at the right time in our overall work of God. That's the kind of faith that we need to have in God and in the work of the church. Then after being in Sulwezi, we drove back on bad roads again, all the way back to Kitway, where they live, and then had a Sabbath's—well, we had another Wednesday service, but this was on this past Wednesday. We had like a regular Sabbath service. In fact, it felt so much like Saturday Sabbath.

It was very strange, but we had a service with a sermonette and songs and special music and everything, and met with those people. One exciting thing about the Mufalira Church is that when I first visited the church in January of 2011, it was the most ragtag group of people I had ever seen. I said, is this a church? You know, who are these people? Dressed badly, kind of, you know, I said, what do they know? What do they understand?

Yes, this last Sabbath, we had a service of 65 people with—dressed well, or better, I should say—the church bus, which we have, the 28-seater that takes about 45 at a time, though, and it takes a group of people to services, goes beyond the way, and then brings other people, and they bring to services, and then after services does that in reverse. So we're able to get everybody there on this 28-seater Rosa bus that we bought in Japan. But we were so pleased to see the appearance, the spirit, the conversation, to really be upgraded in the Mufalira Church.

Now here, also, from Mufalira, we have a deacon—no, not a deacon, a member, and the other deacon and solvézé, Changa Changa, who are both French-speaking, they go up to the churches in Kasumbalesa, which is right on the border of the Congo and of Zambia. In fact, part of the town is—on the Zambian side, and part of the town is on the Congo side. And our Congo leader there has a cell phone, but that town actually uses a self-service from Zambia because Congo doesn't have any. But anyway, or at least that's the way I was represented to me. But Sam Katsongo takes care of that church.

He's also a teacher, and he takes care of 80 orphans, which some of you have helped out with helping out in the Congo. They also want to upgrade and to build a structure for a meeting where they're at because they're in a very difficult spot. But he told me about the conditions there in the Congo. They bring orphans down from the war zones, which are in northern Congo, up near Gome, where there's still atrocities and terrorism that's taking place that we don't even hear about. I say, who are these people? Who's fighting whom and for what? And he said, well, these are people coming from the border surround from Rwanda and other countries that come into the Congo to steal the resources. Gold, diamonds, and the attack government forces, and the government has always got this war going on between them and the rebels, as they call them. But that has brought about the deaths of thousands of people that we didn't even hear about. And so these 80 kids that they have down there are kids that have been transported from these dangerous areas down to safer areas, and we have a part in helping them. And that's a function of the church there in the Kasalumbesa. So I had a chance to just feast myself in talking with Sam and Koutsongo, talking to Steve Kunde to meet with Changa Changa. And these people go up there once a month, and to me, just really do a heroic work in caring for these people. Some of the most difficult areas, first of all, to get to and to care for. But it can be done, and God is giving us the help to do what we need to do. Just two days ago we left. It was really hard to go. Believe me, this trip to me was quite emotional from the standpoint of just being thankful to God to see all that's happening, to see what's possible, to see heroes, as I've said over and over again, of our young people serving there, to have Derek and Cherry Pringle do the work that they do, seeing Nawa Talama, pastor of Lusaka and other congregations around, and to see so many things happen. I do not want to become discouraged like Elijah did when a great work was performed before him. Just like for us, a great work was performed where we had seven million copies of our magazine go out to the public, and now we have a small tiny percentage of that, and say, are we the only one? And look, God, what's it all for? God says, I got a list for you of things that need to be done yet. He's going to do the same thing to the church now as he did to Elijah. And maybe, as we said, this is Elijah work. Maybe that was more than just what we've meant for that time now. God can perform great deeds like the drama at Mount Carmel, but he also can speak in a different voice, in a still small voice, and to do the work that he has to do now. We have a lot going on with the work and a lot more that will be done. The age of heroes and the age of miracles is not over. So this is a time for us to reflect on sacrifice, on service, on care, on education, on Matthew 25 principles of feeding the hungry, caring for the poor, and clothing the naked. I'm so very grateful to be a part of this work. Thank you all for your conversion. And one thing that I always pray for when I think of all the people that are in the world, I try to follow the example of Paul. He prayed constantly, thanking God for their conversion. I thank God for all of you for the work that you have done and for your support and your conversion. May God bless you. May God's grace and peace be with you.