Back to Congo

Last year around this time my husband spent ten days in Congo teaching hymns and liturgy to French-speaking African Lutherans. He was invited to go there by Pastor James May of Lutherans in Africa. Pastor May was my husband's co-teacher and traveling companion and is also now a good friend.

It was a trip my husband will never forget. You can read much more about it under the listing for Congo here on my blog. Next week he will be returning for another round of teaching. As he did last time, he will also be delivering several boxes of Liturgies et cantiques luthériens for distribution to our fellow Lutherans there.

Last year when he did this I was quite nervous about the distance he was going to be traveling (21 hours of air travel to get there) as well as about his safety. That is still in the back of my mind, but I find myself right now thinking less of those things and much more of what it is going to be like when he arrives once again among his friends in Brazzaville. For they are most assuredly friends, and I can only try to imagine the joyful reunion that will be experienced by both my husband and the people he came so quickly to love and who came to love him. When he said goodbye last year he was presented with several articles of African clothing. One of the things he is looking forward to doing is taking back a picture of our family wearing the clothing we were given. Here is a photo of me, Caitlin and Phillip doing just that at a recent presentation on his trip that Phillip gave at our church.

Phillip will be leaving next week on Thursday. I would appreciate your prayers for his safety and well-being as well as for his work, that it might be a blessing to the Congolese Lutherans. I thought I would leave you with this video from his last trip. It is a drive through the streets of Brazzaville a day or two after his arrival. The other two people in the video are Pastor May and Pastor Mavoungu of the EELC (Evangelical Lutheran Church of Congo). You can get an idea from the video of the living conditions in Brazzaville. But what I am most struck by is the joy of these three men as they do the Lord's work. Shortly into the video they start singing. After a stanza or two of the song, Phillip interjects a comment. The comment is acknowledged, but notice what happens next. Instead of returning to conversing, Pastor Mavoungu picks back up on the next stanza of the song. He will not be distracted from singing! Phillip told me that this is typical: once his Congolese friends started a song or a hymn, whether in a formal (church) or informal setting, they did not stop until they sang the whole thing. We in our hurry-up, cram-it-in, cross-it-off-the-task-list lives could learn from those priorities.

If you would like to support Lutherans in Africa and specifically their efforts in Congo-Brazzaville, let me know and I will put you in touch with the right people.

BJS Conference

The Brothers of John the Steadfast conference exceeded my expectations in more ways than one. I think much good came out of it, both in front of and behind the scenes, and I am proud to claim the head of the group as my pastor and the worship planner/musician for the conference as my husband! I met several people in person that I had previously only known online, two of whose efforts to teach the pure Gospel are an ongoing gift to the world: Rev. Jonathan Fisk of Worldview Everlasting, and Rev. James May of Lutherans in Africa. Wow. What excellent work they are both doing. I was also pleased to meet award-winning composer Terry Herald, who is a Lutheran church musician as well as the president of his BJS chapter and who is also the newest composer to be added to the Liturgy Solutions catalog!

My husband was called in as a last-minute substitute speaker for the conference. He presented on "Witness," the second of LCMS President Matt Harrison's threefold emphasis. As a member of the LCMS Board for International Mission and one who last fall went to Brazzaville, Congo to teach hymns and liturgy, he was well-suited to the topic. I bet it won't surprise you to hear that he made some connections between "Witness"--our confession to one another and to the world--and worship and liturgy. You can see a photo of him in action here. Continue checking the BJS site over the next week for more wrap-up and posting of podcasts. I also have a few photos that I hope to soon post here.

If you haven't attended a BJS conference, consider it for next year. They get better all the time!

Disturbing

At the 2010 convention of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, my husband was elected to the Board for International Mission, newly formed as a result of the synodical restructuring that was approved at the same convention. As part of his duties on the board, he has been giving the assignment of reading a book on missiology: Mission from the Cross: The Lutheran Theology of Mission (Klaus Detlev Schulz, Concordia Publishing House, 2009). This morning, he shared this passage from the book with me:

"Mission typically penetrates areas where the negative effects resulting from man's inability to be good stewards of God's creation are starkly apparent. Werner Elert once compared our failure to be good stewards to riders in a closed paddock where the horses are allowed to trample everything under the hoof. Therefore, not everything brought into this world through the progress of civilization should be seen in a positive light. The alarming increase of the world's population, the ongoing drain on the world's resources, the destruction of pristine rain forests, the pollution of land and water, and atomic radiation are all a result of human failure. The myriad of such failures prove that in order to be better stewards of God's world and creation, we must use our reason in a faithful and conscientious way. For God placed the obligation of taking care of His creation into the hands of humans . . . ."

I am speechless, utterly speechless to see this sentence-- "The alarming increase of the world's population . . . [is] a result of human failure"--coming out of our synodical publishing house. The increase of life is never alarming. It has nothing to do with human failure. It does not drain resources. God gives it and wherever he does so we are to receive it with joy as a blessing, not look upon it as a burden or lapse in stewardship. Whatever other good there is in this book, and I'm sure there is some for it to have been assigned for board study, this sentence for me would call it all into question. Did anyone even read it before it was assigned as a guidebook for one of our synod's governing boards? Both possible answers--the affirmative and the negative--are disturbing indeed.

Final Group of Congo Videos

More Congo Videos

Célébrons l'Eternel (Praise to the Lord, the Almighty LSB 790)




O Merveilleux Amour (What Wondrous Love Is This LSB 543)




Jésus-Christ est le même hier, aujourd'hui, et éternellement HEB 13:8 (This one is not in LSB. ☺But my husband loves it so much I have a feeling it's going to show up stateside one of these days. Maybe in a Chicago burb near you.)

Hymn Singing in Brazzaville

Pastor May recently made these available on YouTube. I think Phillip will be offering some reflections on them in due time, but I can't wait until then to share them with you. Aren't they wonderful? And isn't it incredible to think of our brothers and sisters in Christ on the other side of the world singing with such joy and enthusiasm the same hymns and liturgy that we do here in the USA? (Would that all of our churches always sang these songs with the energy and gusto you see here. And without an organ, no less. Imagine that.)

You will notice that Phillip is not leading the singing in these videos. That is because once his teaching was done it was important that others take over as songleaders. He was only there for 9 days, after all (of which there were only about 7 days of actual teaching). The goal was to help our fellow Lutherans in Brazzaville embrace these songs long after he and Pastor May left. I don't think that's going to be a problem, do you?

C'est un Rempart que Notre Dieu (A Mighty Fortress Is Our God)



Ecoute l'appel de Dieu (Listen, God Is Calling)



Je suis un enfant du Père (God's Own Child, I Gladly Say It)



And here's a short video of Phillip teaching some harmony parts on "Il est né"

New Friends

Greetings from Brazzaville from Cheryl on Vimeo.

In case you didn't hear . . .

He's home!

We're talking hours, now

I removed the "MY HUSBAND'S HOME!" countdown widget from the sidebar. Even though it showed hours, minutes and seconds, it was only actually counting down days because it only allowed the countdown event to be identified by date, not time. Today I went looking for a new widget, one that would let me count down to Thursday at 12:35 p.m., which is when the Cantor's plane is scheduled to land. But after spending the ten or so minutes I was willing to give to that venture, I still came up empty. I am surprised it turned out to be so difficult. But everything I found that was in the customizable, all-purpose countdown widget variety was only capable of showing date, not time. Fine. Widget or no widget. HE'S GETTING HOME IN LESS THAN THREE DAYS! For those of you that are math-challenged, that's less than 72 hours! I talked to him briefly on the phone today. He warned me in advance that the time on his calling card was low and we could be cut off at any moment. So we said our "I love you's" and exchanged a few pieces of news and wouldn't you know it, just as we were settling into a comfortable chat, I lost him to a busy signal. Ah, well. I'll get the real thing soon enough. Well, actually not soon enough, but soon. Word to the wise: don't go looking for me Thursday afternoon. I've got a date. :-)

Update on the Cantor

Il est arrivé!

Phillip arrived in Brazzaville Monday night at around 6:00 p.m. Congo time. We are six hours earlier here, so that amounted to almost 24 hours of travel from the time I dropped him at the airport. He was greeted by President Mavoungou, the head of the Congolese Lutheran Church. The day after his arrival Pastor James May of Lutherans in Africa joined him and from what I understand they are now off and running, working daily with the local pastors and musicians. I have received several emails from Phillip, but in order for him to use President Mavoungou's computer the generator must be turned on, so emails are short. He is also typing on a French keyboard, which makes it hard to type very quickly. The first time he emailed he took time to try to make it accurate, but the last few have looked kind of like this:

OK internet is sloz qnd iùve got to run: ils ,ùqttendent1

zill prqy for q good qnd sqfe move!

are you getting ,y phone ,essqges

LOVE YOU!

The "good and safe move" part is a reference to the fact that we are in a few days moving my mom to our home. As you can see, the z on the French keyboard is where our w is, and the q is where our a is and the comma is where our m is! After a few rounds of this I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. By the time he comes home I will no doubt be fluent in French keyboard!

I couldn't help noticing that he did make sure those last two words were spelled right.☺

In addition to several emails, we have received several voicemails as well. He cannot be reached on his cell phone but did purchase an international calling card and has found a phone there to use. Unfortunately we have missed both of his calls. But it was wonderful to hear his voice, and from the messages it sounds like he is staying healthy so far, which is great news. One of my biggest concerns was that he would experience gastrointestinal distress, but that hasn't happened. He was well instructed in all the things that he needed to avoid, and he also took along a Steripen for water sterilization. He is, however, experiencing some vocal distress, which is not good considering that he is spending his days leading people in song, so if you think about it please pray not only for his general well-being and his and Pastor May's work but also for Phillip's vocal condition. We don't need him getting laryngitis while he is there.

One of the challenges he faced immediately upon arriving was his cash situation. He took plenty of cash along to pay for things like his own room and board and the feeding of the pastors and musicians that are coming to learn, but when he went to exchange U.S. dollars for local currency he was told that they wouldn't exchange any pre-2001 bills, period. Not only that, but the bills marked 2001-2003 are exchanged at a lower rate. What's up with that? If anything, considering the U.S. economy these days, I would have expected the opposite!

One interesting thing is that he found out that the local musicians are in possession of an electric guitar and a piano. This is a surprise! We anticipated percussion only. He has not reported back yet on the condition of those instruments. My guess is that he will only utilize the piano if it is in decent condition. A bad piano is more of a hindrance than a help. Phillip does not play guitar (not much, anyway) so if they want guitar music one of them will have to provide it!

Thank you for your continued prayers. Seven days to go!

Parting Shot

The Countdown Begins

You may have noticed a new gadget in my sidebar. We're going to be doing a lot of counting down in our house over the next few days and weeks. Phillip leaves for Congo Sunday after a full morning directing musicians and choirs at church. Right now we are counting down the hours until I have to take him to the airport. There is still so much to be done. Today we'll be spraying all his clothes with insect repellent and weighing hymnals to figure out the best way to pack them so as to avoid as much transportation cost as possible.

He has never gone this far from us before. I'm not sure how I'm going to handle it when I drop him off at the airport on Sunday. Up to now I think my strategy has been to do or think about something else and block it out of my mind as much as possible. But the man is going to Congo. It will take him a good 24 hours or more to get there. He will likely have no phone or internet access during his trip, so I will have no clue about what he's doing, where he is, whether he's sick, or whether he's safe. I think I'm getting the very tiniest hint of what military families experience when their loved ones are deployed. For us it will only be ten days. But what a long ten days it will be.

I would appreciate your prayers for the well-being of my husband and his traveling partner, Pastor James May; for the success of their efforts to facilitate the singing of God's Word among our fellow Lutherans in Africa; and for the well-being of our family here at home while he is away.

He's Going

In September my husband will depart for a 10-day teaching and recording trip to Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo (not to be confused with Democratic Republic of the Congo), to promote the new French version of the Lutheran Service Book. This hymnal, Liturgies et cantiques lutheriens, will be the first thoroughly Lutheran worship book to be used by the churches there. It has already been introduced in parts of Togo (see Kantor Jonathan Mueller in action here) to a great reception. My husband will be traveling with Rev. James May of Lutherans in Africa and will be training local pastors in the liturgy and making recordings that can be used in local congregations for teaching purposes. He is especially suited to this work not only because of his musical skill but also because of his proficiency in the French language and his appreciation for African music.

Much financial support is needed for this project. Travel alone for Rev. May from Nairobi and for my husband from Chicago will cost thousands of dollars. They will also be purchasing and shipping/carrying hymnals to the churches in Congo, Togo, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, and Cote D'Ivoire. And of course, there will be expenses incurred on the ground for room, board, local transportation and daily needs.

My husband has already started the process of preparing for travel to Africa. There is still much to be done and I will be keeping you posted and asking for your prayers as the trip nears. In the meantime, if you would like to make a donation in support of this trip, you may send it to Bethany Lutheran Church, 1550 Modaff Rd., Naperville, IL 60565, and label it "Send the Cantor to Congo!"