Mike and Cindy Rodewald
 Mike and Cindy Rodewald (Caleb, Jacob & Seth) |
Mike and Cindy Rodewald serve as LCMS missionaries in South Africa. Mike is the Regional Director for Africa for LCMS World Mission. Mike's ministry includes serving as a member of LCMS World Mission's international mission team, providing spiritual care and nurturing the Africa regional team, identifying, appointing, and supervising area facilitators in Africa, and maintaining relationships with mission societies and partner churches. Cindy serves as a Volunteer Coordinator. They remain associate missionaries with Lutheran Bible Translators (LBT).
Mike and Cindy began their missionary service with LBT in Liberia in West Africa. In Liberia they helped local people begin literacy programs in several of the indigenous languages in which a New Testament Bible translation had been completed or was in progress. Due to civil strife, Mike and Cindy, with newly born Caleb, were forced to evacuate from Liberia in 1992.
While waiting to return to Liberia, the Rodewalds received a call to work with the Lutheran Church of Southern Africa and the Bleckmar Lutheran Mission of Germany in support of the Kalanga Bible Translation Project located in Botswana in southern Africa. They accepted and in May of 1993 they made a new home in Francistown, Botswana.
In Botswana, Mike and Cindy were working to develop a literacy program for the Kalanga people, an ethnic group of over 200,000 located in both Botswana and Zimbabwe. The Kalanga New Testament has been completed and a local literacy and literature development association called Mukani is raising local money for the development and printing of materials, training new writers and distributing developed literature such as evangelizing tracts, Bible story books and indigenous books in the Kalanga communities. They have also developed literacy materials to start reading classes. Other ministry opportunities for the Rodewalds in Botswana included literacy and orthography work with the Humbukushu and Wayeyi people, developing Sunday School programs and church planting.
The Rodewalds have three sons, Caleb, Jacob and Seth.
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