how the companionship began

Some 25 years ago, Joyce Smith was reading The Lutheran magazine and got inspired. The article was about U.S. Lutheran congregations forming companionships with Lutheran parishes in Tanzania. And Joyce felt a call from the Holy Spirit, that Zion should do the same.

Maybe, like me, you assumed Zion's companionship with Kirangare Parish happened in a top-down way. The Evangelical Lutheran Churches in America and Tanzania decided to do something.  Then our Southeastern Iowa Synod and the Pare Diocese got paired. Then they invited congregations and parishes into companionships. But that is not the story.

Instead, Joyce and Zion led the way, from bottom up. After reading that article, Joyce started talking to people at Zion and people in the Southeastern Iowa Synod. Zion people were inspired. The Synod invited her to speak on companionship, and others around the synod got inspired too. God gave Joyce a vision of what God was going to do and honored her with the opportunity to do her part to make it happen.

Joyce is quick to say she didn't do it alone. She named other Zion people who were instrumental. And she would describe herself as someone who knows how to get what she wants. Praise God for that spiritual gift! I often say what the church needs is not more ideas, but more leaders. That is, people who act on their ideas, who rally others around the possibilities they see, to make them real. Joyce did that, confident that the Spirit too was at work.

As I listened to Joyce tell the story, I imagined a ship's crew raising a sail. Of course, this is not enough to move a ship. A ship at full sail will go nowhere without the wind. The wind also must blow. Wind and sail together create motion.

Zion people raised a sail, with Joyce's leadership. And the Spirit as on Pentecost blew where it wanted Zion to go. Zion led the synod, not the other way around. And the companionship covenant between Zion and Kirangare Parish was signed, with prayer and a physical piece of paper mailed between us. It was harder then to connect across the world, and yet it happened. A miracle in our midst, that we celebrate in these weeks as we host Pastor Fue.

The lesson, to me, is about leadership and power from the Holy Spirit. What happened 25 years ago, can happen and is happening today. Yes, the companionship has resurged and the miracle is remembered and renewed. And more, the Spirit is still showing Zion people what God wants, and teaching us to be people who know how to get what God wants.

In 25 years, what miracles will we be telling (new to us now but old to us then) about how God used you and Zion to do a new thing?

Thanks be to God.

Pastor Clark Olson-Smith