In the first week of July Bishop Eberhard Koch accompanied Ap Volker Kühnle on his pastoral visit in Lagos (Nigeria) and Yaoundé (Cameroon).
Bishop Koch works on the side of Apostle Kühnle for more than 20 years in the spiritual education of the Church ministers as well as in the musical instruction in the countries Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Nigeria.
During this years a strong team of  African tutors could be established, who care for the education of our brothers and sisters in the various activities in our Church, e.g. as Church ministers, as teachers in Sunday School and Confirmation class or as choir masters.
According to the message of our chief Apostle Jean-Luc Schneider in the recent African Apostles meeting in Lusaka/Zambia on Pentecost 2015: “I ask you, my dear Apostles, to prioritize your tasks, and to deal with the most important first: Preparing the leaders which the Church needs for the future, and implementing Sunday school in the remote congregations” the main focus of our seminar work was and shall be even more in the forthcoming years, to implement Sunday school and Confirmation classes in each congregation.
As Bishop Koch celebrated this year his 65th birthday, he – commissioned by our District Apostle Michael Ehrich – handed over the the planning and organizing of the seminar work as well as the teaching of the senior tutors to District Elder Wolfgang Oehler, who is involved in seminar work in Sierra Leone, Guinee, Liberia and Ivory Coast for many years already.
During a preparation concert for the Divine service for the departed the next day, the combined Lagos choir gave also special expressions of thankfulness to Bishop Koch on Saturday, 4th July. The choristers, conducted by the chief choir master District Evangelist Leki Kabanga, presented in an overwhelming way various hymns of our new Hymnal, gospels and spirituals. A children choir showed an impressive performance of that what had been learned before. At the end Bishop Koch was asked to conduct the final hymn: “Lord, Lord we thank Thee now”. The concert was a wonderful attunement to the Divine service for the departed, which was conducted the next day in Ikeja-Central Church by Apostle Volker Kühnle in presence of all Apostles and Bishops from Nigeria.