South, East, and Central Africa Teaching Tour 2026
April 22
Johannesburg
Liz & Walt arrived at the airport in Johannesburg last night at 6:30 local time and connected with Bishop Peter Simwa who had arrived from Kenya a few hours earlier.
Once we passed Immigration and Customs, we were picked up by our wonderful hosts. They had a dinner prepared with some amazing local cuisine including beef, chicken and fish options. After our repast, they took us to the guest house they have established for wayward pastors to rest as they are on mission.
As I type this update, we are back at the airport in Johannesburg awaiting our flight to Mthatha.
Please give prayers of thanks for such gracious hosts who have eased the beginning of our journey so well.
Also pray for our first teaching event tomorrow in Mthatha. This first engagement is with a group of evangelists who are part of Every Nation Church which is a worldwide group of non denominational churches (each connected with a church) who are in Mthatha for a week of training. Our full day of teaching tomorrow is the final session for them and the capstone of their training. Pray that God prepare the hearts of those in attendance for this new teaching.
This initial post is a bit lengthier than my posts usually are, so don’t worry, you won’t be bombarded with lengthy discourses.
Thank you for joining us on this teaching tour. If you haven’s already, fill out the form above if you would like to continue getting e-mail alerts when a new post goes up.
Blessings,
Pastor Walt.
April 23
Mthatha, South Africa
We arrived without incident in Mthatha around 2pm.
We met with Themba Malaba, our South African host pastor who leads a church in Johannesburg (also South Africa Director with Every Nation Church) as well as the South Africa Director for African Enterprise, a ministry rooted in evangelism and training evangelists.
They have actually been using Organic Outreach concepts to train pastors and evangelists for several years and have wanted to go deeper into the structure of OO within the church with their Evangelist Symposium. So, as I mentioned before, we are here to provide the capstone for their symposium this week. Tomorrow we will accomplish that. That’s all today. I apologize for the systems glitch that sent the wrong email yesterday and for any confusion it may have caused.
More tomorrow.
April 24
Mthatha
I love it when we get to teach with smaller groups as we get more opportunity for questions and discussions. We had 16 church based evangelists and 3 pastors today, and it was so good.
Every Nation Church (a worldwide “denomination”) has a model of church based evangelists who understand that their role is two-fold. First and foremost is to work with the pastor(s) to equip everyone in the church to make disciples. Second is to model discipleship making, taking groups out to help expose them to the front line. They were very excited to learn how to infuse Organic Outreach into their work as they had no really formalized tools/techniques. All was very well received and we had some great conversations around the whole idea of culture change which they have recognized needs to be done and were very keen to get into conversations about what’s working, what’s not, and how Organic Outreach will fill many of their gaps.
Tomorrow, we will be at the same venue for a full day with pastors from throughout the Mthatha area.
Thanks for following, and praying for our continued journey. We heavily count on your prayers to relieve us of worrying about what unexpected challenges may arise, leaving us to focus on what we are here to do, knowing God is in control of all circumstances.
Until tomorrow, blessings to you all.
Walt and the Africa Organic Outreach team.
April 25
Mthatha
The Evangelism symposium students were joined today by 35 pastors and leaders as we covered the Organic Outreach Intensive content.
the usual pattern of reception presented itself, beginning with staid faces, occasional raised eyebrows and whispers. By the time we were two hours into the content, they were absolutely rapt with attention. The day went smoothly and there was great appreciation at the end of the day and folks saying that they would stay for another day if we would.
Please be praying for those in attendance as they go back to their churches and begin implementing what they have learned.
April 26
Mthatha
We were welcomed at the church of the local Bishop today (Sunday). Peter, Liz and I all participated in the services. Liz opened with a devotional on prayer, I followed with a high overview of Organic Outreach for Ordinary People, and Peter closed with a great sermon highlighting some culture changing components to begin with in the church. But, what was really amazing was that two of the evangelism students spoke before us and taught on the Mind Shifts of Famine to Funding, and Us to Them. It was phenomenal – we could not have done any better. They even had props! What a glorious feeling to see how passionate they were about it.
Tomorrow, we rise early to fly to Johannesburg and catch a connection to Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. I will update again after our teaching on Tuesday.
Keep up the prayers, they are definitely being heard!
Walt, Liz, and Peter.
May 1
Travel
Not exactly smooth sailing today. We arrived at the airport in Tete as planned and on time. That’s where things took a turn. The immigration officials insisted that we were not cleared to enter the country, even though my research on the State Department (both ours and theirs) said American citizens did not require a visa. What they had in fine print in another area of the site was that visitors MAY be required to have an Electronic Travel Authorization, which we did not have. So……while all other passengers were being admitted to the country, they called me into a a back room and sat me down. The Immigration official then told me that I would have to pay for us to enter. I asked how much and she said $20. I promptly proffered the requested bill. She was not satisfied. She proceeded to make a hand signal as if someone tipping back a bottle and said “Drinkie drinkie for me”. Well, I don’t really know any languages other than English and a smattering of Swahili and Spanish, but I knew exactly what she was trying to communicate. I promptly offered up all the remaining cash I had ($8), and she accepted and directed me to go back out and wait. About this time, all other passengers were gone. No other flights were coming or going (very small airport), and they had noticed that there was a crowd of people outside waiting – including at least four pastors and a group of church members waiting with bright yellow Leas and a single rose for each of us (Peter, Liz, and I). They were singing Christian worship loudly in the parking lot and the officials finally realized that they were there for us!
Suddenly they seemed to move with a greater purpose. Within another 5 to 10 minutes we were cleared. And the reception we received was so joyous and humbling enough – to bring tears to your eyes. Never a dull moment. God is good!
Blessings, Walt.
May 2
Tete, Mozambique
59 pastors in attendance today. This teaching will continue tomorrow as well due to some issues that arose. Our first hurdle of the day was getting to the church. Our driver showed up about an hour later than expected. It turns out that he was stuck waiting in a line for petrol for almost two hours. Once we finally arrived, we encountered interpreter issues. Very few people speak anything other than Portuguese. While we had been clear up front that we would need help for this, they had tried to get interpreters, but had a hard time finding ones that could go at a reasonable pace with any confidence. As we struggled with this, Bishop Peter began asking if anyone knew someone who was strong in English. After working through some possibilities, it came down to one young man who was an elder at one of the churches represented and he happened to be at home. He lived nearby and was able to show up in about 15 minutes. What an amazing blessing from God. This young man had grown up in Malawi where English is much more prevalent. He also had a huge heart for Jesus. As we went through the content, he could barely contain his excitement at what we were teaching. He had been struggling with exactly the issues we were addressing in his church and others in the area. He couldn’t get enough – he asked earnestly if he could come again tomorrow to interpret the rest of the teaching. We wholeheartedly thanked him and said that we would be honored if he would join us. We will definitely be leaving him with more content to study through on a flash drive, including all of our teaching series videos.
Everyone is eager to get back to it tomorrow. We will meet at 1pm after church has finished up for all.
Be praying for these pastors, and particularly our interpreter. I would not be at all surprised if he followed a path into ministry as a pastor.
All in all, a very rewarding day, even though it was easily over 100 degrees inside the concrete wall, dirt floor church with the only ventilation being a small fan up front. You will tell from the pictures that it was a bit steamy.
Thank you for the prayers, and for following along with us. We truly feel as if you are right here with us.
Blessings, Walt.
May 3
Tete, Mozambique
Today, we traveled to a remote village in the morning to meet a small church of about 26. The “building” was a tin roof, supported by tree limbs with two walls of tin and the others of beautifully patterned cloths. As they began the service, I noticed a group of 4 young men at a neighboring “house” about 100 yards away. They were watching the dancing at the church and listening to the joyous singing. I gathered one of the members and asked them to accompany me as I walked over to the observers. One of them was doing laundry (pounding and kneading wet and sudsy balls of clothing on a large stone). Through my partner, I greeted them and asked if they would like to join us. They were a bit sheepish at having been caught watching, but even more caught off guard that someone had actually come over to them. Once they recovered, the man doing laundry broke into a large grin and spoke a few rapid words with his friends?/brothers? He turned back to us and gave a kind of sideways nod and continued with his work and we headed back over to the gathering. As the opening songs wound to a close, I was asked to share a message and proceeded to teach/preach about the 7 markers of spiritual maturity and the connection with making disciples. About half way through, as I was teaching on Consistent Community, the laundry man and one of his friends quietly attached themselves to the back of the people seated on the ground and listened intently. 
When things wrapped up, I lost our visitors in the crowd and prayed that God would continue building connections with this church and their community.
In the afternoon, we returned to the church where we had preached the day before and finished out our lessons there. There were about 7 or 8 new faces who had joined the group and we made sure they had all of the handout materials and were directly connected with someone who had b seen there the previous day so they could share the full teaching later.
As the day drew to a close, Bishop Peter and I went over last minute details of his remaining journey to five more teaching locations and made sure he had all the materials (flash drives full of videos and other OOI content) to share along the way. Liz and I began steeling ourselves for our return trip to the US as we packed everything up.
May 5
Mutarara, Mozambique and Houston, TX
Peter spent the day with a standing-room-only group In Mutarara. They will continue their session in the morning and form a cohort here to carry on after he leaves.
Liz and I arrived home after a 36 hour journey including four separate flights (one was just over 16 hours). As we make the cultural and time adjustment back to our usual Texas routines, I will continue to relay reports from Peter as he forges on through two more countries before returning to his home in Kenya to his wife, Caroline, and 30 kids (3 of their own – all others are orphans). Please be praying for them as they eagerly await his return.
Blessings from Montgomery, Texas!
May 9
Travel
It was a full day with 6 hours of teaching. There was a mix of pastors with many from different denominations as well as non-denominational churches. There is such a great need in Mozambique and Malawi for the teaching OOI brings. Most of the churches focus on prophecy and miracles with no discipleship or training of the saints for the harvest field. Peter could see the excitement on the faces of those attending as he shared the overview of what he would be teaching.
May 10
Lilongwe
Peter preached this morning and then continued the teaching from Saturday, capping it all with the creation and initial training of a cohort to meet monthly for the next 12 months (at least).
Peter than traveled back to Lilongwe for two days of teaching there.
Peter: “I want to ask for prayers as I begin another two days training in Lilongwe from Monday and Tuesday then will head to Congo in Goma on Wednesday.
Thank you so much OOI for the opportunity to serve and be part of this great move to see African churches and leaders reached.
Blessings.
Peter simwa
Africa OOI.”
On another note, when we were preaching in Tete, the pastor shared that he only had a new testament bible and no one else had any bibles at all. We promised that we would get a complete bible for the pastor in their native language of Chechewa. Today we received word that the promised had been fulfilled – Praise God!
