Construction of a new campus for staff and evangelism training school
Our Dream is to build a campus near Kisangani that includes an evangelism training school, a model farm to teach church planters to grow food, and a headquarters for medical missionary work. It would also serve as the hub for the overall work across DRC.
Blessings to date:
After conducting our first two training sessions in temporary facilities, our current goal is to acquire property and to construct a new evangelism training school. We are very close to acquiring 250 acres that are 4 miles outside of Kisangani, the gateway to the Congo River basin. Even our own members are in desperate need of education about our fundamental beliefs. Our church leaders have told us that education is the biggest challenge to this area.
We are working with Adventist-layman’s Services and Industries (ASI) and Maranatha Volunteers International (Maranatha) to use ONE DAY churches to construct our campus. They will provide the frames, rafters, and roofs for our campus! A 20 ft container is on the way from America with frames for 31 buildings. In addition, we have a 40 ft container on the way with a bobcat, loader, cement mixer, and building supplies and tools to help facilitate construction. PRAISE GOD! Our goal will be to build:
2 expatriate staff houses
2 local staff houses
1 men’s dormitory
1 women’s dormitory
1cafeteria/class room
1 shop/storage facility
2 greenhouses
1 well
Road into the property
Challenges remaining:
In spite of the assistance with frames and roofs, we are greatly challenged to pay for the remainder of the building costs. Cement in Kisangani is $40 per bag due to transportation costs. To install floors and walls will be expensive. Plumbing, electrical, wells and roads will need funding. We are moving ahead in faith that we will receive financial help to accomplish this task. We are currently paying $450 per month for rent in the city, plus renting our training facilities.
We also need experienced building help to get these buildings up. We plan to have the basic framework up before our June 2008 training session. Please consider helping us with donations toward the project or personal labor in construction. Your prayers will be greatly appreciated.
Lay Evangelism Training Program
Our Dream is to provide a lay evangelism training program that will supply church planters and Bible workers for the Congo River basin. This school would serve as an example for starting other satellite schools and mobile training courses to energize laymen across DRC to finish the work.
Blessings to Date
In March 2008 we had the privilege of training 74 laymen in our first evangelism training program. In fact, it was the first of three mobile evangelism training programs funded by ASI and Kibidula Farm. At the end of the session, we conducted evangelistic meetings and baptized 51 people in a new church plant. Once we have our own campus, we will be able to add agricultural training and simple medical missionary training to our courses. We are honored that the training curriculum that we presented to leaders has been approved as the official global pioneer training program for the East Central Africa Division (ECD) division.
In February of 2009 we will conduct the second of 3 mobile training schools in Kinshasa, the capital city. Again, division leaders will help to launch the training program. In another year, we plan to do a program in Goma or Lubumbashi.
In addition, we have been privileged to team up with ASI to train laymen in 4 of the largest cities in DRC to use DVD players, along with ‘New Beginnings’ sermons, to conduct evangelistic meetings in their homes. In Kisangani, a Pentecostal pastor was converted and through his witness a new church has been planted.
Challenges Remaining
Our biggest challenge will be building our permanent training facility. Laymen are discouraged since the war, and we hope this training will encourage them to witness about their faith to the fourteen million people living in spiritual darkness in the jungle.
Church Planters in Un-entered Areas
Our Dream is to place church planters throughout the Congo River basin. The 10 year war has left 5 million dead and many longing for a message of hope.
Blessings to Date
Placing the first 17 church planters in the area surrounding Kisangani was a learning process for us in May 2008. We wanted to understand the needs of the people and the church planters here before sending more church planters farther away. We have provided them with bicycles and Bibles as tools to establish the work.
Up to now our church planters have established 15 new congregations of various size in these areas and we have seen 140 baptisms. Hundreds more are studying the Bible with our church planters. We thank God for these good results. We have constructed bush chapels to worship in many of their areas.
Challenges Remaining
Many of our church planters have been refused land for farming in the village. Thus, they have not been able to grow their own food to sustain their families. We hope to buy land in each of their areas where they can grow model gardens as examples to the villagers.
We have had to increase the stipends of our church planters who have struggled because of the high cost of living due to the high cost of transporting goods to the remote Kisangani area. In addition, we have seen the difficulty of life in the village. Our church planters suffer a lot from malaria and other diseases and treatment consumes much of their wages. We hope to provide them with training in natural remedies to help improve their health and reduce the cost of medical treatment. We also need to provide our planters with reading material that will give them a deeper understanding of the Bible and our church teachings. We also plead for sponsors for our planters at just $70 per month.
Publishing Ministry
Our dream is to bring the hope of the gospel together with last day truths to the people of DRC through the printed page. We want them to be able to have access to tracts and books in their own language. Currently, the colporteur work is dead in the Northeast Congo Attached Territory (NECAT) Union and we want to resurrect it again. The surest way to stabilize the faith of our members and win new converts is through publications.
Blessings to date
By God’s grace, we have translated the 15 part Bible Studies, “Search the Scriptures”, into Lingala. Light Bearers is now setting them up to be printed. Soon, we will have a 20 foot container of literature in French and Lingala. Swahili literature is already available, but in the future, we hope to modify it to match the local version of Swahili. We will distribute these tracts through church members, church planters and colporteurs.
We have already made arrangements with Division and Union leaders to cooperate with us in restarting the colporteur ministry in NECAT. We will bring Swahili books from Tanzania to sell to colporteurs in the cities of Bukavu, Goma, Butembo and Kisangani. The Union will oversee the program in all areas except Kisangani, where we hope to have our own store. In addition, we plan to provide Bibles, Swahili hymnals, and soul winning books to church members who have not had access to them for many years. Currently we have $3,000 worth of books on the way. We have also found a local source of Bibles. Few of our members even own one and many are ignorant of our basic teachings.
West Congo Union has already translated Great Controversy, Desire of Ages, Steps to Christ, and Acts of the Apostles into Lingala. However, they have no funds to print them. We plan to cooperate with them on this project. We plan to sell these books through colporteurs throughout the Congo River basin as a means of bringing the truth to this vast un-entered area and providing some employment to struggling church members..
Challenges Remaining
Our biggest challenge at present is capital. We need funds for translation and printing, as well as provide each colporteur with an initial supply of books to begin the work. Also, each store will require an initial stock of books on the shelves.
Due to huge distances, colporteurs will need bicycles and canoes to assist them in accessing the un-reached millions. Please pray for the publishing work as it is surely a sleeping giant. Consider helping with funds to revive this work and put truth into the hands of people.
Medical Missionary Work
Our dream is to use medical missionary work to not only treat the suffering people, but also open their hearts to the gospel. We hope to establish simple medical canoes that will carry a doctor to treat people in the villages. This will be particularly important in areas where we have established church planters. After we establish our new campus, we will establish a small clinic in the area. Some day, if the Lord opens the way, we would consider an airplane to facilitate emergency service in the jungle.
It is hard to understate the urgent need for medical treatment in the jungle. Malaria, sleeping sickness, and typhoid are common. One out to five children will die before age 5-generally from malaria. Drinking boiled water is unheard of and worms and dysentery are just normal life. People hardly recover from one illness before another one strikes, leaving the average healthy life expectancy at only 35 years. There is simply NO treatment available out in the jungle. People just die. Each person that dies is another who will not be reached with the gospel.
Recently, our own church planters arrived for a meeting and many were desperately ill requiring treatment before we could proceed. One little baby has now taken 1 course of regular malaria medicine and 2 quinine treatments and still is not well. It is a very resistant form of malaria. Our own housekeeper lost 3 children and her husband to malaria. THE NEED IS URGENT!!
Blessings to date
We have acquired a forty foot canoe and an outboard motor to navigate the Congo River. We have investigated a similar medical missionary canoe operation from ADRA in Mbandaka (far down river from us) and understand what is needed to do the work. We have also established contacts in the capital city to acquire medicine for treatment.
Challenges Remaining
All that remains to start our medical work is staff and funding. Due to language issues, we will begin with a Congolese doctor. We pray that the Lord will send funding to help us start saving lives. Please consider this need in your prayers.
Evangelism Tools for Laymen, Churches and Schools
Our dream is to encourage our church members in DRC with evangelism tools like bicycles, picture rolls, tracts, and Bibles. Their enthusiasm for evangelism has fallen with so many years of discouragement. They need tools to lift up the work. As they see others accepting the truth, it will also encourage them. They will feel that they are not forgotten by their brothers and sisters in Christ in other parts of the world.
In addition, the Congo River basin has almost no permanent churches. We want to construct permanent churches and schools that will lift up the work of our church in this war torn area.
Blessings to date
We are thankful for the bicycles that were given two years ago by ASI. However, only half of the need was met. Tracts from Light Bearers are soon to be on the way.
We are grateful for the One Day Church program that will soon be sending steel for churches and primary schools. This will be a tremendous blessing to the work here. People will feel so good about the churches they worship in!
Challenges Remaining
Again, to put these tools in the hands of laymen, we need your support. A Bible in the local language is only $8. A bicycle here in the jungle is $150. Please consider this for a Sabbath School project. You can help to make someone a soul-winner in Africa.
Other Dreams to Help
Adventist World Radio (AWR) has asked us to submit a proposal for a radio station here in Kisangani. We believe this will spread the gospel rapidly. Almost everyone here listens to the radio every day. Please pray for this need.
Prison Ministries are non existent here even though many are incarcerated. Prison conditions are terrible and can be like an automatic death sentence. We want to get Bibles and Bible studies into the hands of prisoners. Toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, and clothes mean so much to people who have been forgotten by the world.
