The first step in taking the truth of the gospel to the vast Lingala speaking area to the west of us was to find Lingala speaking church members and train them in church planting. That is exactly what happened in June and July of 2009 as Pastor Mtenzi conducted vigorous training of 46 Lingala speaking evangelism students. They were excited to receive this training at no cost to themselves except travel, although most came from far away.

At the end of the session, practical training was provided as the team conducted an evangelistic effort together in the village of Six (This is the name of the village).  At the end of the effort, thirty nine new believers were baptized.

Finally, sixteen students were chosen to be church planters in unentered Lingala speaking areas. We will add four Swahili speakers from our previous training session to reach a total of twenty new church planters. Of the remaining thirty graduates, the majority were either hired by churches to be church planters, or became self supporting church planters near their home areas.

What a great day it was when we purchased twenty new bicycles for these new church planters! There were shouts of joy and singing. Then, they were sent out to prepare a place to live for their families in their new areas. Now, they have returned to receive funds to return home and collect their families and move to the new areas.

One man named Nabulangwe Tambala had an interesting story to tell. When he arrived in the village of Yaila, he was met with many questions. “Why are you going to move here?” they asked.

“I have come to bring the gospel here and to start a new Seventh-day Adventist Church.”

“We never heard of that church. Please teach us your beliefs,” they pled.

After three days of teaching, twenty five people said, “This is the truth from the Bible. We want to join your new church. Please add our names to the list of those who want to join. How long before you will return with your family?”

With joy in his heart,Nabulangwe showed us the list of 25 new believers as he passed through to collect his travel money.

Soon, light will go to many dark areas! When they return with their families, we will do a special three day training session for the wives of our new church planters. These new areas are full of disease, remote and have no medical care available. Satan will oppose them in every way he can to prevent light from coming to his domain. Please pray for these new church planters.