Our Kids! (Ditekemena)

Greetings friends and family!  Life moves full speed ahead for us here in Congo.  We are blessed to have a few visitors from the US this week.  Rev. Debbie Braaksma, the Africa Office Director for Presbyterian (USA) World Mission, has come with Regional Liaison Jeff Boyd, along with Man Yu and JR of Korean Presbyterian Church of Fresno.  I just visited the Ditekemena street children ministry with them.  Debbie gave a warm message about how inner wounds of hurt and pain can fester if not dealt with.  She gave the example of Joseph in the Bible, and the long road of forgiveness and reconciliation with his brothers.  She highlighted that Joseph did not allow bitterness, anger and hurt to dominate his life.  He was elevated to a high position in Egypt and was able to help his family (brothers) who had betrayed him.  Please pray for these children to forgive the families who abandoned them and rejected them to life of destitution and thievery on the streets. 

The children are doing well.  They started school last month.  Five of the kids study at two separate schools which are nearby.   The other eighteen are in a “catch-up” school which will help them be placed in the grade that corresponds to their age next year.  Noella, who is about two years old, is beginning to walk – exciting!  We video-taped her steps earlier this week.  Please enjoy the collection of photos of the children that follows, and say a prayer for them.  Thank you!

Ditekemena Children studying at BICE Center (where they live)

Children playing, having fun, horsing around!

The famous Ditekemena Choir!

Meal time!

Other fun pics!

Lord God in Heaven, may you bless these special children whom you have made with a plan and a purpose.  Their families and communities may have rejected them and discarded them as refuse, but they are the apple of your eye, and their value is worth more than all the copper, gold, coltan, and other “riches” of Congo.  Bless these precious ones, Lord God.  May their dreams come to pass, according to your perfect and pleasing will. 

Fresh Eyes

You know how going to a new place, especially a new culture, makes you pay attention to everything and notice all the things that are “different”? Well, one of the reasons we were grateful for the two brave American pastors who came to participate in ministry with us in Kasai recently is because they gave us the opportunity to see with fresh eyes and also expose church members here to life and church that is very different from their own context.

I call them ‘brave’, because getting to Congo and surviving here is not a piece of cake! The 30+ hour journey to Kinshasa, dealing with the daily lack of electricity and running water in Kananga (think ‘indoor camping’), and a regular diet of food that you are not used to takes a lot of flexibility, grace, and perseverance. Perhaps one of the hardest tests was the arduous drive from Kananga to Mbuji-Mayi. We got stuck deep in the mud the first day, which meant we had to spend the night at Munkamba (half-way to Mbuji-Mayi). The lurching and rattling and leaning of the vehicle over those remarkable swaths of sand and mud called roads was truly an endurance test, but Ken and Dale survived, and we hope that their backs continue to be intact!

Trying to navigate the mud, with plenty of advise from villagers!

One of the significant things they did, though, was participate in the teaching of two different seminars and also some other meetings. Laity from a broad geographic region came together for two days of teachings to empower them in their faith and leadership in the church. Ken and Dale, who have each served more than twenty years in church ministry in different capacities, were able to share some of the challenges and lessons learned in ministry in the U.S. While the context is vastly different, it was enlightening and encouraging for our Congolese colleagues to be exposed to different perspectives and experiences.

Pastor Dale taught everyone several short worship choruses taken from verses in the Bible. He unpacked what it means to intentionally develop disciples of Christ and empower others to grow in faith and leadership. He also taught people the value and importance of studying the Bible together in a group – that each person’s voice should be heard and that we can learn from each other. In this hierarchical culture, people are used to being told the right answer by the authority and learning is almost always didactic, through lecture. While we don’t want to discount those values, it can be very helpful to be exposed to other forms of learning and recognize that each of us can learn directly from Scripture.

Dale teaches in Bibanga, with Kristi translating

A small group looks at a passage of Scripture together,
as a practical exercise during the seminar

Pastor Ken, who has spent his career in youth ministry, shared how youth ministry resembles ‘cross-cultural ministry’ and requires intentional observation and learning of their cultural values, language, and activities. Ken played a couple of songs popular among American youth, and shared how his youth group has listened and discussed the lyrics of those songs as a way to connect Scripture with words or topics that are already on the minds of youth. Seminar participants got a big hit out of dancing with him to these rap songs – a culture shift for them! People were really inspired and moved by his admonition to reach out to youth on their terms, to take an interest in them and build relationships with them, rather than simply expecting youth to conform to the structures and patterns of the older people in the church.

Participants join Ken in dancing to some rap music during the seminar

In a meeting with youth leaders, Ken talked about his philosophy of youth ministry and answered questions. At one point, he said “We are all created in the image of God, right?” “No!” was the response from a few participants. Surprised, Ken asked for them to explain. “Man was created in the image of God. Then woman was created in the image of man.” A little taken aback, Ken suggested a few scriptures to look at like Gen. 1: 27 and Galatians 3:26-29 (“There is neither Jew nor Greek,…, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”). It was good to see these youth expressing their opinions and feeling free to contradict the ‘teacher’; but it also affirmed to me the need for discipleship and resources in the church for learning the Bible well!

All of us together at the seminar in Bibanga

A big ‘thank you’ to Ken and Dale, and to their churches who supported them coming. Their presence was a great encouragement and help to our colleagues in Congo. Anyone else up for the challenge of joining us in Kasai?

Have faith in God

A fellow missionary in Kinshasa recently said, “Getting a new vehicle clear across two oceans to Congo is the easy part; getting the vehicle from the port city of Matadi to the capital of Kinshasa, that is the hard part.”  I would perhaps add, “Getting the vehicle from Kinshasa to Kananga is the even harder part.”  

Four weeks ago Mukulu (Elder) Shambuyi Ngoyi, a CPC driver, and I flew to Kinshasa to pick up our department’s new vehicle to be driven the 1,200 kilometers back to Kananga.  As one can only imagine, the process was anything but simple.  Let me name just a sampling of the challenges we faced:  our colleagues were forced to twice pay a duty due to “changes in the system,”  a computer glitch forced us to pay extra days of storage in Matadi, a colleague failed to buy a license plate in Matadi for unknown reasons, tensions arose between church leaders regarding insurance.  At times it felt like getting the vehicle to Kinshasa and then to Kananga was a herculean feat beyond possibility. 

Yet we serve the risen Lord, who tells us, "Have faith in God.  Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, 'Be taken up and thrown into the sea,' and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you” (Mark 11: 22b, 23).  Jesus was specifically talking about the destruction of the temple system and Jerusalem when he counseled his disciples as such.  He was sure that God’s will would come to pass (as it did in AD 70).  Likewise, despite the challenges we faced, Mukulu Shambuyi and I were sure that God’s will would come to pass.  In Kinshasa, each morning and each evening we would pray for God’s assistance and intervention.  Time and time again, we saw God’s faithfulness in action. The vehicle was finally released from Customs in Matadi. We finally saw the vehicle in Kinshasa.  We finally purchased a license plate.  We finally got insurance for the

    

proper amount.  Mukulu Shambuyi and Tatu Arsen finally started the long journey from Kinshasa to Kananga.  After six days on the road, four river crossings without bridges, paying a fee at multiple “barriers” and a 250 kilometer detour, the vehicle finally arrived in Kananga fully intact with all original parts a week ago Wednesday to much jubilation. 

CPC women gather early one morning this week to worship God and give thanks for the gift of the
new vehicle for our department of Evangelism; they decorated the vehicle with flowers

A few churches and individuals in the US gave generously to the purchase of this new vehicle.  To them and to others who have prayed, we express profound thanks.  Next week we will celebrate in proper fashion with colleagues and friends here who keep exhorting us to “kuela tshiayi” and “kutua tshianga” – expressions which carry the weight of throwing a party.  May God be glorified as this vehicle be used for His purposes.