Becoming a One Africa Team missionary – WELS

N16W23377 Stone Ridge Drive
Waukesha, WI 53188-1108
Phone: 414-256-3200
Hours: 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Giving to the area of greatest need.
Coming out of Martin Luther College (MLC), I was initially planning on becoming a high school history teacher. In history teacher fashion, here’s a crash course of the last eight months of my life: I was informed that I was being considered for an international call; I accepted that international call; I graduated from Martin Luther College; I announced my call to my family, who were shocked (understatement of the year); I got married to Maddie Hockenbery on June 1, 2024; and we shipped off to Zambia in August. Ten days after arriving in Zambia, my wife and I left for France to begin our French-speaking journey. We stayed in a town called Strasbourg and went to French school every day, starting from scratch. Quickly came Thanksgiving when we left France to meet with another missionary family in Douala, Cameroon, for more French and learning about West African culture. We are now soon to return to Zambia and settle down in our own place.

The work that I have been able to do as a missionary with the One Africa Team is awesome, to say the least. I have been able to work with and teach multiple outreach groups that may be potential partners in the future. Four seminary teachers from West Africa came to Douala, Cameroon, and I was able to teach and help with educational strategies for the future. I have also gotten to teach online TELL classes with people all over Africa who may be studying the Bible in-depth for the first time.
There have been some challenges with being away from family, learning a new language, and learning a new culture. However, it has led me to grow in my faith as well as work in a team. Although we are far away from our families in the States, we were instantly met with new families coming into World Missions. There has not been a lack of support from anyone, and for that I am truly grateful.

The past five months away from home have been a whirlwind. Never in a million years did I ever think I would be a missionary. I was so certain, in fact, that I would joke with Maddie for years before Call Day about going abroad to annoy her. It was so far off my radar because I had never heard of a World Missions call from Martin Luther College. People always say that God hears plans and laughs. Well, that was absolutely true in my case. Within a year God has allowed me to graduate from MLC, receive and accept a World Missions call, get married, learn a new language, and live on three different continents.
God truly blesses ministry, and I pray that he blesses my and the One Africa Team’s work here in Africa.
Written by Missionary Jake Vilhauer, world missionary on the One Africa Team. 

Learn about the ministry work of WELS Missions.
Support the ministry work of WELS Missions.
Consider supporting the work of the synod by making an offering online or investing in ministry work.
Learn about the many aspects of WELS ministry work.


N16W23377
Stone Ridge Drive
Waukesha, WI 53188
Hours: Monday-Friday
8:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
Phone: 414-256-3200
By accepting this message, you consent to our cookies on this device in accordance with our cookie policy found in the WELS Privacy Policy, unless you have disabled them.
We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.
Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.
These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.
Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.
We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.
We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.
These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.
If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:
We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.
Google Webfont Settings:
Google Map Settings:
Google reCaptcha Settings:
Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:
The following cookies are also needed – You can choose if you want to allow them:
You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

source

About The Author

admin

See author's posts