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Prayer requests and praises
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We praise God for:
Those of all ages God is calling into service and who are obedient to the call.
We request prayer for:
The family of Paul Collins who passed away on 14 July 2013. He is the father of Penney Sidle, a missionary serving in Zambia with her husband, Gary, and their three children.
The family Eloise Shalley, 89, who passed away, 18 July 2013. She is the mother of Mike Shalley, who serves as a missionary in Namibia with his wife Julie.
Russ Lovett, who is battling against cancer, for God's healing touch. Russ and his wife Donna served as missionaries in Kenya.
The Africa Region NYI Council and Coordinator, Ronald Miller.
For the results of the elections last week in Zimbabwe to be peaceful and fair.
For the government and peace in South Sudan.
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Explore the Africa Region
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Extraordinary Prayer Request - Every Nazarene leader building leaders who build leaders who change the world
by Friday Ganda
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 | Leaders who built leaders, who...
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Our goal is to look for people who would humble themselves and learn from God and others ways that would equip them to be ready for a responsibility of liberating the world from bondage.
The world is miserable and is suffering. Just as Exodus3:7 records, "The Lord said, 'I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering'", so today He is still concerned about the world in which we live.
 | build future leaders
- Mathare, Kenya |
The most inspiring fact in the leadership of Moses is how he walked with Joshua, nurturing and training him. He had him at his side as he performed the duties that were assigned to him by God. He knew for sure that Joshua was his student and he was supposed to be trained; to be fully equipped for future leadership.
Editor's note: This article is an adaptation from Rev. Ganda's book, Practical Leadership.
Find the 10 Extraordinary prayer requests here.
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Africa NYI on the move! - by Ronald Miller
| The 23rd NYI Global Convention was an event to be remembered for various reasons. A new resolution was passed by the close to 900 delegates from all over the world-a good sign of unity amongst the NYI. With this new resolution, we move our attention away from the procedures and ballots to a necessary focus on evangelism, leadership and discipleship. In the future, more time will be spent on these three important points and answering the crucial questions such as, How can we bring our young people to Christ? How can we disciple them? How can we develop more young leaders to take our church into the future? This is NYI at her best: being an agent of change, and this is what the delegates from around the globe voted for. Praise be to God!
In the spirit of decentralization, the new resolution also gives more freedom for the regions, the fields and the districts to develop their own ministry plans. Ministry in context, in short, is what it is all about, and through this new direction, we are confident that many young people's lives will be impacted dramatically.
As a region, we took full advantage of this new resolution by voting into existence an Africa Region NYI Council. This was a very important change for the NYI of Africa, and there is great anticipation to see what God is going to do through this new council. The members of the council are: Milly Ibanda, (Middle Field), Gloria Chebet (East Field), Rozzaria Mumba (Central Field), Neriaco Machaule (Lusophone Field), Lloyd Solomons (South Field) and Caleb Mamabolu (South Field). Rev Ronald Miller was voted in as the Africa NYI Coordinator.
What made this even more special was that for the first time, we had 75 NYI Africa delegates as part of the NYI Global Convention. Our African delegates were in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, in Nairobi, Kenya, and in Johannesburg, South Africa. It was amazing to have delegates in so many different places, but still be united. This was a great moment for the Africa NYI, and we are looking forward to greater delegate participation in the future.
As we look towards the future, the 99,000 youth, through their delegates, spoke loud and clear that we need to bring the youth of our regions to Christ, we need to disciple and we need to train our youth to lead. In the future, we will emphasize youth to be involved in Evangelism (Youth Mission Teams, Jesus Film, etc.), in Discipleship (Resource Development), and in Leadership Development.
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Lifting the Ceiling Higher! -- by Mashangu Maluleka
| Nonhlahla Ndlovu was one of many young professionals who attended the Kwazulu Natal District Easter Camp who was no longer a member of the Church of the Nazarene. The Lord spoke to her about that issue. After praying with her, we spoke at length about what she was going through. I asked her why she had left the Church of the Nazarene, and her answer started a journey that I will never finish until the Father calls me home.
Nonhlanhla represents more than 90% of Nazarene young people who go to tertiary institutions in South Africa. We dedicate them and educate them in Sunday School and NYI only to lose them to independent ministries when they finish their tertiary education. Our church remains a kindergarten and an orphanage home. We helped Nonhlanhla back to the church, and she and I partnered to stop the trend.
Nonhlanhla coordinated a Saturday get together of the former Nazarene young professionals at  | | Rev. Mashangu Malulek |
Emanzimtoti. I introduced myself as a concerned Nazarene pastor. I confessed that I was not a son of a Nazarene, but had become a Nazarene by choice and had fallen in love with the church and its ministry. Yet, I was troubled by the exodus of the young professionals. We had a group of close to fifty that morning; medical doctors, technicians, IT specialists, educators, politicians, etc. They were divided into small groups and were to state reasons that made them decide to leave the church.
All expressed gratitude for and love of the church for grooming and making them who they are today. Their main reason for leaving the church was that the ceiling of the Nazarene pastor was too low. A medical doctor, married to a medical doctor, said after graduation they returned to their home church but were discouraged when they realised that the preaching behind the pulpit was too shallow. It was the same thing that they grew up hearing Sunday after Sunday. He said they starved spiritually. The groups called for challenging scholastic, spiritual exposition of the Biblical truth, and they found their local churches' pulpits lacking in that. They also felt like the Church of the Nazarene treated them like babies, because they had very little say in denominational decision making as local South Africans. Hence, they felt like the church was not accommodating them as African leaders.
Three years later, I started a church in one of the universities of Pretoria, with the target group being tertiary students and young professionals. Divine Hope Church of the Nazarene is intended as a model to challenge others to go to the cities and universities to establish the church. The response is amazing, but the work is hard.
I dream of Nazarene Theological College in South Africa offering academic qualifications up to the doctoral level. I thank God for the investment we are making in helping to lift up the standards of our faculty. Our partnership with NTC Manchester, England, and NNU, USA, in assisting our faculty members obtain their Masters level could not have come at a better time.
Lifting the ministerial academic lid through "making holiness theological education accessible and available to all" is our vision statement. Let there be no other Nonhlanhla who leaves the church because the ceiling is too low!
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God Calls -- by Don Gardner
| Sweat burned my eyes and stung the sunburn on my face. Equatorial heat and humidity made it difficult to breathe. My blue jeans stuck to my legs, mud clung to my boots, and made it difficult to climb the scaffolding. From up on the scaffold, Emmanuel asked me to toss him a roll of wire and a sack of nails.
"Emmanuel," I asked in floundering Spanish, "What do you do for a living?"
"I am a building contractor. And you? What do you do?" He started another nail.
"I am a contractor, but I am praying, asking God what He wants me to be."
"What are you doing right now?" he asked. "Aren't you serving Him by doing what you are doing right now?"
"You mean building buildings? No, that just pays the bills and feeds my family."
"No." He drove the nail home with three blows. "I mean right this minute. Aren't you serving Him by doing what you are doing right this minute? By being here, helping us build a church, and visiting my neighbors, and preaching? Isn't that serving Him?"
"Well yes, I guess it is!" I clipped a short piece of wire. "But this is just a ministry trip. I can't do this on a permanent basis."
"Why not? Maybe God is calling you, like Abraham, to go to a country that He will show you?" He took the wire from me, ran it through the holes in the wood planks, and tied them together.
"Look," he said. "See how these planks fit together? We fasten them with wire and nails? They will hold the planks in place when the concrete is poured inside. Together, they will give a proper shape to the concrete. When the concrete matures properly, we will take off the planks, and the column will stand on its own. We are the planks. God's Word is the wire and nails. He fastens us together, to help shape the pillars of the church He has given us to build. That is what a missionary does. He comes and helps form the pillars of the church until it matures sufficiently and then he pulls himself away and the church will stand on its own."
God spoke to me clearly, "This is what I have for you. I want you to be a missionary."
For as long as I could remember, I knew that God was calling me into full-time ministry. I had tried out several roles of ministry-preaching, youth pastor, Sunday School teacher, music ministry, and others-but never felt a confirmed call in any of these areas. I remember asking God to please clearly reveal His perfect will for my life. In my youth, I grew desperate to know what God had for me. It seemed I would never know. Then I had an opportunity to join a Work & Witness team from my church. That trip changed my life. I understood my ministry role. Missions has been my life ever since.
Don is the Field Strategy Coordinator for the Africa East Field.
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| Have you ever been on a Work & Witness team? Has God given you a vision for future ministry through the voice of another? Are you building leaders? I'd love to hear your story.
I am on vacation. I would like to thank Linda Braaten and LuVerne Ward for doing the final edit and sending this newsletter out. We have a great team.
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Amy Crofford,Out of Africa editor
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