Rather than trying to pack three weeks of amazing God sightings and experiences into one post, I’ll split the three week trip I just returned from into three postings based on the three locations where I served pastors. The first location was Maputo, Mozambique. I was joined by two retired pastors, Mark and Steve, who have recently joined our Pathways team and are serving with me in Africa. For the first two locations where we trained local pastors (Maputo Mozambique and Bungoma western Kenya) Mark and Steve were with me and my primary role was to coach them in our Pathways material and assist the networks in getting established well.

The group in Mozambique was unique in some ways. The culture has a decidedly Portuguese flavor to it, in the way people act, the way they dress, even the food and architecture feel a bit like Brazil landed in Africa. The facilities were the best of anywhere where we train in Africa. The pastors with whom we worked are more literate and educated than in most of our other African networks, so the byproduct was that they picked up the Pathways principles more quickly than most African networks. We had a good translator (into Portuguese), and there was good interaction as a group as they wrestled with new hermeneutical principles in this first Pathways workshop. Dr. Isaias and Pastor Jeremias were our coordinators, and they were very encouraged by the progress of the group. We had about 13 master trainers present who will pass the workshop on through their networks of other pastors. Many were Baptist pastors from Macia (a smaller city a few hours away) and Assembly of God pastors from Maputo (capital city of Mozambique). I will be eager to hear how the group practices the initial principles we gave them in their study and preaching, and how they do at passing the training on to others in their regions.

Here are some of the comments and take-aways from a few of the participants:

• Jeremias – The content was challenging but not beyond our grasp. Material is new but learnable. It is helpful that in Pathways we only use the Bible, not other resource books. One of my takeaways was to pray before every step on the Pathway process. Using observation to grasp the intention of the author is a new and important concept.
• Borge – My takeaway was that I must not divert from the passage, but must preach what is obvious and I observe in the passage.
• Sergio – I need to hold my Bible instead of my phone when I’m preaching.
• Ramos – Beware of quickly applying the message to us today.
• Arlindo – First we must determine the message for original readers, then apply for us, using this “message statement” in our sermons.

After concluding the training, we stayed an extra day to preach in various churches. The church I was in was in a rural area of Maputo, a very small and simple structure that was packed with people.