Jehosephat

I felt that Sunday afternoon, June 30, 2013, was a bit of an historic day here for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Kenya (ELCK). Unfortunately, it went by unnoticed, unadvertised and unattended by most people… but it was at Kibera Springs of Life Lutheran Church, between 4:00 and 7:00 p.m., that Jehosephat Suweh was sent out as a missionary under CMU to Nigeria to begin his two years of intensive missions schooling/on-the-job training there.

Calvary Ministries (CAPRO) is a non-denominational global Christian missionary movement of African origin whose passion is to make Christ known where he is yet to be known. They have established a work in East Africa (known in Kenya as Christ’s Mission to the Unreached – CMU) and have a growing team of missionaries in Kenya reaching out to unreached peoples and engaging in mobilization activities.

It has been the vision of WMPL to see the ELCK transition from a missionary receiving church to a missionary sending church. Maybe this is the beginning of that transition. Earlier in the day, at the regular morning service, there were prayers for Jehosephat and an offering taken to help with his schooling and personal expenses and needs. People came forward to the front of the church to publicly say goodbye and give him their financial gifts.

The afternoon event felt very much like a WMPL moment. About 50 people attended, half being from the congregation and the others family members and friends, especially from CMU. The head of CMU in Kenya led the event. The choir sang songs of encouragement and goodbye; people shared words of testimony about Jehosephat and his impact on their lives, or words of encouragement from Scripture – and a few tears were shed.

Jehosephat shared his testimony, and especially about his call to be a missionary. He grew up at Springs of Life Lutheran Church along with his sister and single mother. Since he never knew his human father, he grew up calling God his father. Sometime in his youth he came into a more personal relationship with Christ and began helping in the church in Sunday school, choir, youth group, and even the elders council. In his family, who originated from Tanzania, Jehosephat has been known since his youth by the nickname “Mzee,” which means “elder” in Swahili language, since he was the only male figure in his immediate family. His mother died several years ago, so a lady from church “adopted” him as her son. He eventually went to college in Nairobi, majoring in International Studies, and where he was also active in the Christian Union.

Jehosephat’s goal in life was to become successful in some business and later, when he was retired, to serve the Lord more full time in some way. He got a job and started down the road toward his life goals. Somehow he was introduced to CMU and God began to call him toward mission work.

At this point, Jehosephat mentioned several Bible passages that spoke to him, including Isaiah 6:7-9, through which he heard God speaking to him three times, calling him to preach the Gospel. Although skeptical at first, he felt he must obey, so he quit his job and began a series of three short-term mission trips under CMU to various places in Kenya. He was not feeling a call to be a pastor as such, but rather a lay missionary.

When I had an opportunity to speak, I shared that part of WMPL’s prayer and vision for our ministry in Kenya has been for the ELCK to become a missionary sending church, and I felt this was the beginning of God’s answer to that prayer and vision. I told them I believed that Jehosephat was maybe the first fruits but not the last fruits in this vision, and that I was especially excited to see someone from this particular congregation being sent out, because many previous WMPL missionaries had served here. I also noted that two current ELCK bishops have served or are serving as pastor for this congregation, and other missionaries, both foreign and national, have faithfully served through the years as well.

We were served a snack during the event (most likely paid for by Jehosephat himself) of a bottle of soda and two slices of plain white bread. At the end Jehosephat knelt on a cushion in the middle of the center aisle and we all stretched out our hands toward him as we stood in a circle around him for about 15 minutes of prayer. At the end I nearly burst into singing (as we do at WMPL send-offs), “How Good Is the God We Adore!”

I personally got to know Jehosephat at the end of last year when he preached at Kibera after returning from his short-term mission trip to Tana River area. He preached with passion about wanting to share the good news of salvation through Jesus and challenging others to do the same. After church that day, I shared with him a bit about WMPL being a faith mission which started mainly as a prayer movement for missions and became a mission sending agency mainly for lay missionaries. I felt we had many things in common, and eventually told him that if I had been blessed with a husband and children, I would have prayed to have a son like him. Since then he has “adopted” me and calls me “Mom!” On Sunday he introduced me to his family, who are from a different area of Nairobi and Tanzania, and asked me to share about what missionary life was like for me in Kenya, as they were having some anxiety about his quitting his job and moving off to Nigeria for a couple of years. I told them that Jehosephat has more than one “Mom” in the congregation, and that God was well able to care for him as he has cared for many other missionaries in service throughout the world and across the years.

Please pray with me for this young man as God teaches him and uses his life for His witness and purposes. I know Jehosephat would like to have a wife and family some day; however, the Kibera congregants urged him to not come back with a Nigerian wife but instead wait until he got back to Kenya to marry a Kenyan! After his training I do not know where Jehosephat will serve, or with whom, but pray that God will show him the way he should go for his future missionary service (Isaiah 58:11).