Lyle & Sandy Mahon

Lyle Mahon was born on February 2, 1933. He died in his home, on his farm in Bethlehem, Free State, South Africa on February 23. He leaves behind his sister Margie, his loving wife Sandy, of 56 years and their children Burton, Jonathan and his wife Audrey and grandchild Daniel.
Lyle was truly the patriarch of what is now called ZEMA. He was literally born into the mission but he officially became a missionary in 1958. At that time ZEMA was called the Mahon Mission. Both Lyle’s grandfather, Edgar Mahon, and his father, Alfred Mahon, were leaders in the mission which bore their name. In 1991, Lyle took on the mantel of leadership for the mission but those were some trying times. Lyle wrote, “Those years were a most enriching time, during which we faced many trials and difficulties where the very foundation of the mission were shaken, but God in His mercy showed us that He still had a plan and purpose which he wanted the mission to fulfill.” Those in ZEMA who remember the difficult years speak of Lyle’s calm and godly leadership through troubled waters. It is difficult to say exactly how many lives have been influenced by and have come to faith in Jesus Christ through Lyle Mahon. It is likely that Lyle would not even want us talking about him in that way because all who knew him knew he was a humble man who always directed praise away from himself and to God. At his retirement from the mission Lyle wrote, “One thing is sure, and that is that everything we are and have is due only to the grace of God, and we cannot boast of anything which has originated from ourselves – ‘for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift God’”. Sandy said that Lyle had started, built or repaired more than 2000 churches in his lifetime. His skill as a carpenter, builder, mechanic and all around handyman is evidenced throughout Southern Africa. The church denomination which Lyle, his father and his grandfather started is now called the Mahon Evangelical Church of Southern Africa which has approximately 372 churches and preaching points with more than 7000 members. Under Lyle’s leadership these churches became autonomous in 1993 and the ministry of ZEMA re-focused attention on the millions of amaZioni in Southern Africa. Lyle guided the mission in purchasing our properties at Sunbury and Sondela and the beginning our Zion Evangelical Bible School program. He wrote, “It had been my desire and hope that before we retire we would see at least 10 missionary couples involved in ZEMA ministry”. The Lord granted his desire. Not only did he see at the 2002 Annual ZEMA Missionary Conference those 10 couples, he also recently attended the 2011 Annual ZEMA Missionary Conference which doubled that number. At that Conference, Lyle stood up and thanked the Lord that he had been able to see his legacy. But I’m afraid that is not true. Lyle was only able to see a small part of his legacy. His actually legacy spans Southern Africa and is planted in the thousands of people he has touched with the truth of the Gospel. His actual legacy is not yet complete because those he influenced live on. Lyle Mahon will be missed but there is no need for mourning. As always, Lyle is doing exactly what his Heavenly Father wants him to do.

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Winter has come to Zion! Do you remember what that was like or are you doing your best to forget the cold and snow? It is beautiful and peaceful to watch the lightly falling snow blanket the ground; it’s the aftermath that gives me the problems.
I’m looking forward to coming to the Phoenix area again (and warming up) this February for our Annual ZEMA Banquet. Our banquet will be held on Saturday February 12 at 12:00 noon at Palm West Community Church, 13845 West Stardust Blvd, Sun City West. I hope that we will get the chance to see each other then.
Our last Banquet (Nov. 2009) had the feel of a family reunion for many reasons. One is that many of us grew up in the Zion area or had lived in Northeastern Illinois or Southeastern Wisconsin. Another is the church connections that we had back in the Zion area. But I think the strongest connect and one which is not determined by where we are from, but rather where we are headed, is the common bond we have in Christ.
For some who came to the banquet it may have been the first time you heard about the unique historical connection that Zion has with millions of people in Southern Africa. Others have been tracking, praying and supporting what God is doing in Southern Africa through ZEMA for years.
I hope you’ll take the time this February to connect again with your Zion family and hear what God is currently doing among the amaZioni of Southern Africa.
I’m going to be sending a formal invitation soon, but if you already know you can come, please give us a call (847-872-7363) or send an e-mail (mike@zema.org) letting us know you are coming to the ZEMA Banquet on February 12, 2011.

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There is probably no aspect of missionary service more troubling than the “missionary call”. There is plenty of evidence in the Bible that God calls people into full-time Christian service (1Tim. 1:12; Rom. 1:1; 1Cor.1:1) but there is no really defined way how God calls a person today. When Jesus was physically present on the earth he “called” people into service with him simply by asking them to follow (Mt. 4:18-22). It would be a lot easier if we could just get a phone call from God and have him ask us to be a missionary.

Today there are two extreme views of a missionary call. The first view sees the call as a mystical process by which God speaks directly to us through a dream or vision or other supernatural means. While I don’t deny that God has in the past used this method and he is certainly capable of using it today, I likewise feel that this is not the only or primary way he communicates his will to us. If you are sitting around waiting for a mystical experience to help you decide God’s will and his call you maybe waiting a long time and end up missing out on being a missionary. The second extreme view says that there is no “call” to missionary service because God has already made it clear that all Christians are to be involved in making disciples. Well, of course this is true. We are all called in that sense to be witnesses for Christ. However, if you take that to mean you should catch the next airplane to South Africa without any training, preparation or confirmation from the church you might be presuming more than you should.

I think that these extreme views need to be merged together. In other words, there is an aspect of God’s call which is universal for all Christians and everyone has a role to play in world evangelization but some Christians have a more focused sense of what that role should be. The focusing is a somewhat undefined and mystical process.

Are you feeling a sense that God is focusing your attention on some particular aspect of his plan for reaching the nations. If so here are some steps you can take to help you know for sure if you have the “missionary call” (adapted from “A Missionary Call” www.snu.org)

1. Read everything you can about missions and missionaries. You can start with some of these:

“The Missionary Call”, M. David Sills

“What in the World is God Doing”, C. Gordon Olson

“Let the Nations be Glad”, John Piper

“In the Name of Jesus”, Henri J.M. Nouwen

“Operation World”, Patrick Johnstone

2. Get involved now. There are ways right now for you to play an active role in missions at home from regularly praying for and financially supporting missionaries to adopting a missionary family or candidate.

3. Go hear every missionary speaker that you can. God can sometimes use the experiences of others to help solidify your own call. After you have heard the missionary tell his or her story, why not invite them to dinner or for coffee so you can continue pick their brain about missions.

4. Talk to your pastor. Verbalizing your thinking and enlisting the prayer support of key leaders in the church may help you sort through various issues related to missions and your sense of calling.

5. Throw yourself into active ministry. Learning to minister effectively in your own culture is an important prerequisite for ministering cross-culturally. Get all the experience you can now.

6. Go on a short term mission trip. There are several trips planned by ZEMA and other mission agencies in the coming months. If you’re really serious about full-time mission work then talk to the short-term coordinator of ZEMA or another mission agency. Even if you can’t fit into a ZEMA sponsored trip there are a number of good short-tern trips planned by other mission agencies which you could be a part of.

7. Attend a workshop or take a class about missions. There are several to choose from. One of the most popular is a course called Perspectives on the World Christian Movement offered by the U.S. Center for World Missions. www.perspectives.org

8. Contact a missionary sending agency. Find out how mission agencies operate. Ask for some of their promotional material. Ask to receive their newsletters or other publications.

9. Consider giving a year of your time to missionary service. There are plenty of opportunities for you to serve up to a year on the mission field doing everything from plumbing to preaching. If your interested I’ll put you in touch with the right program for you.

10. Persevere. God is not in a hurry so you shouldn’t consider delays or possible roadblocks as an indication that God has not called you. It takes time for God to prepare you for ministry. It took five years after we were accepted by a mission agency for my wife and I to get to the place where we felt God had called us to minister.

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Worship can be compared to a child honoring his parents. A child honors his parents not just when he says good things about them but when he incorporates into his life his parents’ ideals, values, purposes and goals. When we come together in worship on Sunday we are honoring God with the praise of our lips. We say and sing good things about God and challenge each other to fulfill the desires of God in our lives. But this is not all that is involved in worshiping God. We worship him when we live for what he lives for, his glory – over all the earth. We worship God when we align ourselves with his desire to be worshiped – by all peoples. David, as a man after God’s own heart, expressed it this way, “Be exalted O God above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth…I will praise you O Lord among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples.” (Ps 57 5 & 9)

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Sunbeams bursting through the clouds. This is a typical scene from the “stock photo” collections on many Easter web sites. But this is not a “stock” photo nor is it an ordinary scene. At least not for me. I took this picture while standing on the Mount of Olives. I was on a tour of the Holy Land and our group paused to reflect on an event which is destined to take place on that very hill outside Jerusalem. Zechariah foretold that at the coming Day of the Lord, “His feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives will split in two from east to west” (Zech. 14:4). I couldn’t help but think that someday someone just like me will be standing there, pause and look up, but this time it won’t be the sun shining though the clouds –it will be the Son coming in the clouds.

There was another group, not a tour group, but a group of Jesus’ disciples who did exactly the same thing on the Mount of Olives. They stood there looking up into the sky. I wonder how long they stood there? I certainly felt tempted to stay a long time looking up when I visited that spot. “Maybe today…maybe right now”, kept going through my mind. Yes, indeed, I wanted to stay there a long time. But the tour schedule kept me moving. It took two angels to get the disciples moving again.

We tend to think more about the resurrection and return of Jesus at this time of year and reflect on the significance of those events. These events have moved us out of darkness into His marvelous light. They have moved us with the power of the Holy Spirit to be His witnesses. Men and women throughout history have been moved by the significance of the resurrection and hope of His return to leave their homes, their comfort zones and move out to where the Spirit of Christ sends them. We have a role to play in this historic world wide venture and it’s not staring at the clouds, as interesting and reflective as that might be. Each time a person comes to know Christ as a result of our direct witness, our prayers or our support of those called to serve we have been obedient to Christ’s command. Now that’s something to think about.

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A few years ago I was walking around an open air market in Jerusalem. It was a colorful place with vendors selling everything from fruit to clothing. There were entertainers in the street trying to make a few extra shekels by juggling and singing and one guy was even demonstrating his amazing ability to balance on the edge of a board. The most unusual thing I saw through was a group of Rabbis. Yes, Rabbis in their long black robes, large brimmed hats and curly sideburns. They were dancing in the street. I don’t mean slowly swaying back and forth I mean dancing and waving flags and jumping around like something amazing just happened. One of the flags had some writing in Hebrew on it so I asked my friend what it said. “Messiah is Coming” was written on the flag. My first thought was, “no way” these guys can’t believe in Jesus. And I was right. They were anticipating the coming of Messiah for the first time not the second. In so many ways these Rabbis were like the religious leaders of the first century. Jesus was in their midst and yet they didn’t recognize him. They were looking and actually anxiously waiting for Messiah and yet they missed him. How ironic when Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem riding on a donkey with the people shouting “hosanna” that these guys just didn’t see what was happening.

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We just had our ZEMA Annual Meeting…here is part of the report I gave that night. 

Elijah told King Ahab of Israel that, “There will be no rain or even dew in the land for several years.” This was in response to Ahab’s sin of leading Israel further into idolatry. It was a severe judgement in an arid land with an agricultural based economy. Would not Elijah also be effected in some way because of this drought? Actually, no: God had prepared a place (the Kerith Ravine) and a means,(ravens) for sustaining Elijah. Things were going well for Elijah near this bubbling brook; that is, until it dried up too. Elijah was then directed to go to Zarephath in Sidon where he was confronted with the full force of the economic downturn caused by the drought. There was no more bubbling brook and everyone was hurting. It was in this reality that Eljiah asked for some water and bread from a woman who had precious little of either. She told him that she was going home to make her last meal and then die. You probably know the rest of the story…God miraculously provided for Elijah and this widow again and again. Her jar of flour and jug of oil never ran out.

Somehow this makes me think of our own situation in ZEMA. Because of God’s grace we have done pretty good weathering the 2009 economic downturn. In reality, though, it’s not over and as we make the 2010 budget, we are aware that we will be asking our supporters to once again meet the needs of God’s work among the amaZioni. This means asking for funding from people who have been laid off, who have had their salaries cut, and who are having a hard time making ends meet. It means approaching churches who have had to make budget cuts and discontinue programs. Not a very pleasant picture. I’m tempted, and maybe Elijah was too, not to ask. But I don’t think we should do that. If Elijah hadn’t asked, that woman would have probably died just like she said. But because Elijah asked and she responded, both survived and God was glorified. There is a lesson here for us in this story of Elijah. Someone or some church’s survival is at stake.

God has not directed us to stop ministering to the amaZioni. In fact, we have more opportunities that ever before.

The bottom line is that ZEMA has grown in 2009 in spite of a difficult economy. We are keenly aware that God presented us with the opportunities to grow, we can’t take credit for it. But we can rejoice that we have added to our missionaries on the field again this year with Kevin and Christine Pinter and Thomas and Laura Hasenknopf arrival on the field. Jon and Lauren Emanuelson, Geff and Katy Lee, along with Amy Hucker are currently raising support for their departure to minister among the amaZioni. Our office staff has grown in 2009 with the additions of Sue Wiziarde as Mission Accountant and Amy Hucker as Short Term Coordinator. Our most significant growth can be seen in the number of ZEBS. Currently we have 42 ZEBS with more than 1500 students.

I keep asking myself how can we increase staff and add programs when so many are trying to cut back and conserve. My answer is that God is bringing people and resources to us much like he did in meeting the needs of the widow in Elijah’s story. I can’t explain it– I just see it happening.

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