Partnerships

 I am writing today from Johannesburg, South Africa, where Ann and I will be attending training with our Into-Africa church planting OMS colleagues.  We attended training here a few years ago but this year it is at the OMS South Africa headquarters, our first time to visit there.  We were invited by our regional director, who lives in Johannesburg and we were intrigued by the subjects which covered literacy training, mentoring, adult learning, along with the normal church planting strategy training.  So, here we are.  At the time we agreed to come, our shipment was supposedly "in the port" and delivery was to have completed by now, but oops, wrong data and the shipment should have arrived yesterday or today.  With unloading of the ship, the container, and the customs inspections, we may or may not receive our goods this week and our team has graciously agreed to receive them in our absence.

We have always loved OMS for the consistent strategy applied throughout the 100 year history: establish an indigenous evangelical denomination in a country and over a period of years, mentor and grow that denomination into a self-sufficient and growing denomination with a passion to follow the job Jesus gave to the church in Matthew 28: Go and make disciples, locally and in all the world.  About 50 years ago, an OMS work was started in Brazil that is now as the CONIM denomination in Brazil.  God has put the desire into the leaders of CONIM to engage into overseas missions and Mozambique is a logical connection because of the common language (Portuguese - although I struggle to understand Brazilians who make their 'd's' into 'g's', make their 'r's' silent and speak faster than Einstein can think!)   We have details to work out in how we meld OMS with CONIM with OMS-Mozambique but we serve a God of details - from the DNA strands that become a child or the plants who give us oxygen through photosynthesis - no detail is forgotten.

For several years now we have been writing back and forth with the OMS church in Brazil and this last week we were privileged to have two Brazilian pastors and one of our OMS missionaries from Brazil visit for about a week to explore first-hand the work in Mozambique.  Our regional director joined us and it was clear that to make this work, we must think a bit out-side-of-the-box and that always excites me.  There is that old saying that 'if you keep doing what you've been doing, you'll keep getting what you've been getting'.  We must continue to shift and change, staying relevant in the shifting culture around us.  It is not our nature as humans but we must be willing to embrace change.  While our message doesn't change, how we relate to different cultures truly does and should change.  It has taken me a few years living in another culture to really wrap my mind around that.  (PS - Can you tell who is going to be preaching in our T-3 church in this picture?  In Mozambique, if you wear a tie to church, you're preaching!)

And, as the church sadly diminishes in influence in the northern hemisphere, God is doing great things to raise his church in the southern hemisphere - His work will not be stopped.  Perhaps the craziness in the world right now is that 'one more chance' for people to turn their hearts back to the One who is above all others.  We place our faith in governments and leaders, only to be disappointed?  How easily mankind loses his way in this transient and short thing we call life.

Anyway, we had a great series of meetings with our Brazilian friends and we have laid some ideas on the table on how they can engage in missions in Mozambique, from sending seminary professors, to portuguese training materials, to work teams, to financial assistance from their church to our church, to on-field full-time missionaries.  Really, how cool is this; the circle coming around?  I get really excited because it is my hearts desire that eventually our dear Mozambican church will be able to do the same thing some day!  What an encouragement and vision casting for our Mozambican church leaders here - what a glimpse into the future of their denomination.  The passion and energy of our Brazilian friends was inspiring.

The assignment from our Brazilian friends at this point is for the Mozambique National Church to assign their own priority to the common list of potential partnership areas and we will see what God does with this.  There will be much to work out, as it is one thing to cast vision but an entirely different thing to get the details worked out  -  but pray with us that we will seek ways to break any barriers down and find out ways we can make it work; thus the 'thinking outside the box'.

Jesus film showing in North Mozambique.
Computer/generator/projector hauled in on Motorcycles.

One idea that we kicked around (thank you Bruce) is establishing a ministry partners board in Mozambique where the National Church, OMS, and other stakeholders (such as CONIM if they have people on the field) meet together with equal voice to deal with joint issues that move the overall ministry forward.  To date, we have been too divided - OMS on one side, the National Church on the other, and we walk separately sometimes.  For example, we didn't even engage our National Church about CONIM until late in the process - that isn't right and you could even use the word 'disrespectful' and we have asked forgiveness.  We aren't in a parental-child relationship; we are equal partners seeking to fulfill the assignment of our same High King.  One is not over the other, or we are nothing more than a different kind of colonialist.  We must never be....or as Pastor Jacó so eloquently said, 'we all serve and listen to the same God.  He will direct us together to achieve His ultimate will."  Amen.

But we must do this in humility, for God shows no partiality.

Church in Naritete, Mozambique

Exciting stuff.

Thanks for standing with us.

Dave & Ann


"So Peter opened his mouth and said: "Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him." Acts 10:34


"For God shows no partiality."  Romans 2:11