A trader's loss plants seeds of Kilunda Sangi renewal

Léon Mavula is a Christian businessman who wears the shorts and baseball cap of a farmer, not a suit. Twenty years ago everything seemed to be going his way until hyperinflation wiped out his working capital. He lost his trucks, most of his store stocks, his wealth. Still hyperinflation couldn't rob him of two important things -- his faith in the Lord and his entrepreneurial spirit. He settled near his home village, Kilunda Sangi, to rebuild his livelihood and has ended up helping his neighbors transform their village.

Léon was not a farmer. But as he talked with other members of the local church he began to understand their struggle to produce enough food. Farmers were reluctant to run the risk of planting large fields. They preferred smaller subsistence plots. Fear of failure contributed to inadequate food supplies in many years. Kilunda Sangi often topped the statistics for malnutrition.


Problems with cassava mosaic disease in recent years only made the situation worse. Léon thought, "Surely God must have a solution for us."

And God did have a solution, in the form of 5 new high-yielding, disease-resistant varieties of cassava promoted by the Baptist extension program at Lusekele. To bring that solution to Kulunda Sangi, Léon formed the MAG group and invited all the church women and their neighbors to join.

Together they planted a large multiplication field and experimented with planting on raised beds, a technique used in Lower Congo that conserves organic matter and soil nutrients. They also worked together with the whole village to control cattle and goats that were constantly browsing in fields close to the village.

The first year's experiment was a huge success -- a cassava harvest much larger than people expected and seed cuttings enough to get most families started planting the new varieties. Each year a new success has fueled enthusiasm. Now in its fourth year, the MAG group has shared the new varieties with everyone in the village. The impact is beginning to show.

People have enough to eat and a bit of surplus to sell. Many of the MAG members are making investments in fish-farming . Others have planted over 7 acres of oil palm. They are multiplying high-yielding peanut seed to share with the village. The Kilunda Sangi congregation has set its sights on putting a permanent roof on the church building.

Léon himself is a committed tither. With part of his modest means he supports the regional Christian radio station, an important source of inspiration and Bible teaching. He continues to help his neighbors find ways to farm more productively.

It is a privilege to work with believers like Léon and the MAG group. God has built solutions into His creation and moves us (me, our Congolese colleagues, and supporting believers in the US) to share these blessings so that ordinary village farmers can feed their families and hope for a less precarious future. Maybe God is moving YOU to join us as you consider the Lord's call to mission in this coming year. May the Light of the World light your life, reveal your path and through you shine into the world around you.

When a roof means there's enough to eat

Lubidi is a Baptist church center on the other side of the Kwilu River from Lusekele. In the 1960s, evangelists planted churches among the Yanzi and Mbala people there and the gospel gained a foothold. Villagers and church members alike depend on farming for their livelihood. The vitality of the farming system depends on healthy cassava.

In 2003 the cassava was sick. Cassava mosaic virus has spread all across central Africa. Where there should have been robust plants with luxuriant, dark green leaves, the Lubidi farmers saw only weakened cassava with yellow blotched leaves and small tubers. Hunger started to gnaw at the village.

Unsure what to do, a couple of church members came to the ag center at Lusekele to find out about new cassava varieties. They returned to Lubidi with several bundles of seed cuttings to plant a test field.

In the next three months it was evident that a change was taking place. The new varieties grew fast and healthy, tall islands of green in seas of yellowed traditional varieties. When the harvest time came around, people were astonished to see 6 or 7 large tubers on a single plant.

From that first church multiplication field, members took cuttings and planted larger church field as well as trial plots in their own fields. The 2005 and 2006 harvests confirmed that the new cassava produced 2 or 3 times as much and the rush was on to replace the traditional varieties.

In 2006, Pasteur Kikumbula and his wife joined the congregation, bringing the next generation of disease-resistant cassava from the ag center. It took no coaxing for church members and their neighbors to plant the new varieties.

What difference has this made to the church and the village? In 2008 the congregation raised a permanent tin roof over the site of the new church building. (The roof goes up first to protect the adobe bricks from the rain.) Income from the church cassava fields paid for the first sheets of corrugated roofing. More importantly, each member household paid for another half sheet of roofing. For the first time in nealy 40 years the congregation gathered in worship under a permanent roof instead of palm fronds or grass thatch.

The new permanent roof is remarkable in itself. But perhaps more important is the fact that for the first time people have enough surplus to have a sense of security -- the security needed to purchase roofing. That means there is enough to eat, enough for school fees and enough for the occasional visit to the local health nurse. For the first time in years there is enough breathing space in the frantic struggle to survive that people can celebrate the abundance that God gives.

New cassava varieties are God's provision for Lubidi Christians, for their neighbors and eventually for hundreds of thousands of other subsistence farmers in Congo. But it takes pairs of willing hands and feet to bring the blessing to those in need. That's what ACDI Lusekele is all about because it's part of what following Jesus is all about.

Life recovered, life with a future

Nellie Piti Boko is a fine Christian woman, the salt of the earth, the kind of person who’s a faithful member of the church women’s group, the women’s choir, a participant in the Bible league, always ready to help those who need it, and a good sister to her siblings.

But Nellie’s led a hard life. Her husband disappeared into the diamond fields of Angola, leaving her pregnant with her 4th child. When the baby was born, her sister helped her for a week, then left her on her own. Village subsistence life is a never-ending round of work that starts with getting water and sweeping the yard and pounding manioc into flour at dawn. Exhausted, she slipped into depression and spent days huddled over a fire staring at nothing. The family had little to eat – mostly what the older two children could manage. Friends helped with some food from time to time, but it wasn’t enough. She and the baby went to skin and bones. Her hair turned yellow and sparse with protein deficiency. She had no more milk for the baby.

Fortunately, she went into the feeding center at the hospital at Vanga, got nutritional counseling, and slowly their health returned. The next youngest child was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Fortunately, tuberculosis treatment is heavily subsidized at the Vanga hospital. She got more nutritional counseling. The boy recovered.

During this time, two other important things happened in their life. The chief of their area opened a subsidized school for the poor: for orphans and for children with only one parent, like Nellie’s. He also organized a literacy class for adults. Now Nellie had gone to school as a child, but, like many village girls, didn’t think it was relevant to the real business of life: of being a wife, raising children and farming for their living. So she left as soon as she could and gradually forgot what she had learned, including how to read and write. But by this time in her life she had learned how much that handicapped her and her family. She enrolled in that literacy class and re-learned.

At that point I hired Nellie as a fulltime housekeeper and she started receiving a salary. It was enough to make all the difference for her family. They became healthy and were able to attend school uninterruptedly. Nellie paid for her older brother to go to college, to move him and his family out of poverty.

Just as important as the salary were the things Nellie learned about farming and nutrition in our house. She learned about the disease stunting her manioc crop and got excited about the great new disease-resistant, high-yielding varieties of manioc the Lusekele Agricultural center was offering farmers. The first time she picked manioc leaves from these varieties to cook for us she picked a huge armful. She admitted she got carried away …it was hard to leave such wonderful stuff. As soon as she could, she planted these varieties in her own fields and became an early promoter in her village. The new varieties tripled and quadrupled the yield in her fields, giving her a good surplus to sell.

She learned to avoid a bad habit the women in her village had adopted in planting, and is now teaching them what to do. She bought the new high-yielding variety of peanuts Lusekele offered, to plant, and has plans to plant Lusekele’s high-yielding cowpeas next year. She learned about moringa trees and how to use their leaves to augment the protein in her meals, about growing and using unfamiliar vegetables, about the high-yielding oil palms Lusekele is promoting, how the oil should be processed, about reforestation, land restoration, and much more in our house. Now she is advising her extended family on wise use of the farm her uncle left them.

However, in the village it doesn’t pay to look too prosperous. Just the fact of having a job is enough to incite the sabotaging jealousy of those around her in the village. She cannot grow a vegetable garden next to her house to feed her children without her neighbors picking everything she grows. "She’s better off than we are. Let her buy what she needs," is the attitude. When trouble befalls her, no one helps her. To the contrary. Her siblings appropriate the things she buys for her work and for her children. Because she’s now the better-off one in the family.

This year that we are on U.S. assignment Nellie is out of work again. She again has the time to attend church women’s meetings and Bible League meetings, to go to market, and to freely work her fields herself. She again becomes a normal citizen of her family and the village, entitled to the mutual aid that is traditional in village life. That’s the upside of it. But she’s apprehensive. The salary gave her and her family a good safety net. However, I encouraged her that this time she is equipped with new strategies for her family: a lot of new knowledge to help her life in many spheres, new high-yielding varieties of her crops, and even some candy recipes to make and sell for additional cash. Used well, it should make all the difference.

Literacy : quest for dignity among the Batwa

Many of you remember the report of Rosa Mayala and a small literacy team's trip to Inongo, in northern Bandundu Province, last year. The Twa people that live in central DR Congo invited the literacy team to assess needs and opportunities for a literacy program among the Twa. That they found a high rate of illiteracy was not a surprise. The Twa people live a seasonal life oscillating between traditional forays deep into the equatorial forest and settled life alongside Bantu peoples in towns at the edge of the forest. Reading is not necessarily a priority survival skill for hunting and gathering in the forest.

What did surprise the team was the depth of feeling when people began to tell their stories. Many of the Bantu people do not consider the Twa to be human. They are enslaved by long traditions of oppression. The Bantu often say that if a Twa pygmy eats from a plate, the plate is unclean and can't be used again. Local church people will not baptize Twa pygmies in the same pool with Bantu people because the water becomes unclean. The Twa are discriminated against, exploited and marginalized in both the settlements where they live part of the year and in the churches where they want to worship.

At the end of the 2008 trip, Twa representatives asked the literacy team for two things: teach our people to read so that we can understand our changing world and preserve our dignity as a people; and help to plant a church among us where we are welcome as brothers and sisters in Christ. Rose promised that the Baptist Convention's literacy team would be back.

Honoring that promise has burdened the literacy team for a year. Travel is expensive and not everyone considers the Twa important enough to support a work among them. We have finally overcome the hurdles. Two days ago, October 7, Miriam talked with Jacques Mayala, Rose's husband. Rose and the team had just arrived in Inongo. This week they are finally preparing for the long promised teachers' workshop.

Pray that the literacy workshop will be a life-giving opportunity for community of believers among the Twa. For many of their friends, learning to read can give them the first opportunity to hear the Gospel without the distorting filters of those with an interest in keeping them ignorant. God says you are created in His image; you are inestimably precious in His sight. He buys you out of slavery at great cost to Himself and destines you for a life of dignity and honor. May the Kingdom grow among the Twa, giving new life to those who embrace it.

For a better sense of the life of central African pygmy people, consider Mauro Luis Devin Campagnoli's Baka Pygmies site: http://www.pygmies.info/. While distinct from the Batwa of northern Bandundu, Campagnoli's observations of the Baka give in beautiful detail a flavor of their life.

We can't let a Green Revolution leave Africa Behind

Why has the green revolution bypassed Africa? A recent article on the global food crisis in National Geographic said that cassava production in central Africa was down 3%. Average cassava yields in many parts of Congo are stuck around 7 tons per hectare. A devastating viral disease often cuts that average even shorter. These depressing facts might lead you to conclude that techniques that boosted yields in Asia and India just don’t work in Africa.

You would be wrong! Agricultural scientists HAVE come up with highly productive alternatives for rural households in the DR Congo. On cooperating farms in the Lusekele area right now, new disease-resistant cassava varieties produce on average 3 to 5 times more than the regional average. Almost invariably when Lusekele farmers tell their stories of no longer having food shortages in their village, or finally having enough to keep their kids in school, or buying a small farm, or putting a tin roof on the church building, the story starts with the revolution of planting high-yielding, disease-resistant cassava varieties.

The basic innovations for a revolution in Congolese agriculture exist. What is missing are dedicated and knowledgeable people willing to serve as bridges, allowing God’s bounty to reach the people who desperately need it. If I were allowed to dream and had $2 million per year, I would unleash 1,000 agricultural extension agents, each working with 30 village groups. Put a manioc multiplication field in every village and you have 75,000 acres of planting material. Over three years you could have planting material available in every village. By the end of five years, every farm family that wanted the new varieties could have seed cuttings for their own fields and they could be on their way to a new life.

We don’t have a million and a half dollars. But God has given us enough to demonstrate what can be done . Partners in churches in North America have provided $26,000 a year to mount a campaign. Over 7 years Lusekele extension specialists Philo Bidimbu, Philippe Kikobo, Taflo Tanzusi and others have worked with 220 farmer’s associations. In most cases they simply have given farm families their first chance to try out high-yielding varieties of cassava peanuts, cowpeas and oil palms. They have organized 382 cassava multiplication and demonstration fields. Over 1000 farm households have established over 300 hectares (750 acres) of small-scale oil palm plantations, the first of which are beginning to generate additional family income.

The impact is measured by changes in villages, changes in families. Kibongo and Longo, villages formerly known for food scarcity and hard times, are now exporting manioc surpluses. All but one of Fala’s nine children are in school and the oldest has started university (a rare opportunity for a village kid.) Pastor Kikumbula’s parish at Lubidi roofed the church building with money from their manioc multiplication fields. Antoine Lemba’s experiments with new manioc varieties have inspired young people to think again about staying in the village and making a living from farming. Moliambo farmers parlayed success in manioc production into a small business making chipped manioc.

Paul tells the Philippians that Christ “did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant.” (Phil 2:6,7) Timothee Kabila and the Lusekele extension staff have adopted that attitude. The world accords no special honor for working with poor village people. The pay is lousy and the conditions hard. The world would have been content to leave people in traditional poverty with limited opportunity, ignorant of the bounty that God has already prepared for them. The disciples of Christ could not. They are bringing a secure food supply to Bandundu province, creating the opportunities for kids to get a better education, and generating surpluses that make it possible for families to improve their lives.

Philo Bidimbu -- a month of telling Congo's story

Last Friday Philo sent us an e-mail. She was waiting for the plane that would take her home to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Physically she was spent, achy with a minor flu, ready to be back home. She remarked on the gulf that separates life in the US and life in Congo. Still, she said, each of our peoples has something to share with the other.

Philo traveled from California to Washington, D.C., from Iowa to Florida, serving as a farmer-ambassador from the Lusekele Agricultural Development Center and associated farmers to the Foods Resource Bank network of supporters and missionary farmers in North America. A small project called Micro-DEVRU has made a huge difference in the lives of semi-subsistence farmers in central Bandundu, thanks to the commitment of the Foods Resource Bank network, even through the hard times of this past year.

Two weeks ago Philo (seen here with translator Timothy Chapman) were in Washington to give testimony to a House sub-committee. This was a rare opportunity for an African woman who works everyday with semi-subsistence farmers to comment on how US foreign aid is spent in Africa, in Congo. Maybe that rare perspective can be the catalyst that shifts the thinking and practice of all those incredibly bright people in Washington. Imagine using power and wealth to help African peasant farmers to end famine, to create opportunity and to nourish hope.

If you don't know about Foods Resource Bank, check out their website: http://www.foodsresourcebank.org/.
It brings together North American farmers with a heart for the world and Christians with a vision for creating food security and new economic opportunity for marginalized farmers in impoverished countries. You can be the hands and feet of Jesus in rural communities overseas. FRB has a remarkable talent for multiplying missions dollars to make a lasting difference in the world.

Philo invited to speak to a House committee

Philomène Bidimbu is a gifted rural extension worker. She has spent over 20 years with ACDI Lusekele helping Congolese villagers to discover new ways of farming and to prove for themselves the benefits. She is competent, confident and works in rural development as a vocation given by the Lord.

This week she will join the Congolese ambassador to the US as part of a panel appearing before a House of Representatives' subcommittee discussing development aid to Congo. It is an unlikely opportunity. For a short time on Wednesday she will have a chance to express the hopes of traditional farmers and the vision of committed Christians for a different Congo than we know now. The technology for change is available: new disease-resistant varieties that could double yields of key staple crops are available right now. What lacks is the political will to mobilize funds and organization for putting them in the hands of farmers.

God has put Philo in this position for a reason. God has advocated from the begining of time for health and wholeness, for help for the poor. Now Philo has her chance to give voice to that advocacy before the representatives of wealth and power. Pray Wednesday morning for her. May she shine with God's message.

Home base Keizer -- 2009-2010

Last Monday afternoon we drove into our driveway in Keizer, the early evening sun dropping in the west. Three colorful flower pots hung over the front porch and two red and white geraniums flanked the door. Inside the house was bare, characterless. But a small circle of warmth lay on the kitchen counter next to the phone book -- three welcome notes from our church family, close supporters and Thelma, Helen and all the mission ladies of the Miriam Noyes Circle. A welcome backed up by a fridge full of the essentials and two cupboards full of staples -- insurance against starving while putting our house in order. After seven days, starting with that small circle of warmth, our house for the next 12 months is beginning to take shape as home.

What a beautiful reminder that we are never alone in our mission to Congo! Our work is made possible because all of these other people share a part of the call. Some pray. Some share words of encouragement. Some help us to evaluate past accomplishments and chart future work. Some provide financial support. Some challenge us by example and unflinching word to go deeper in our walk with the Lord. And undoubtedly some will pick us up when we fall and put us back on the road.

This coming Saturday, July 18, we gather with the members of our missionary partnership team to map out a plan for the coming year. Two weeks later we join missionary colleagues for an evaluation and planning conference at Eastern University. Pray with us, that we may live with grace, serve others with love and glorify God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Why walk in somebody else's shoes, when you can drive?

“[Christ's] answer [to me] was: ‘My grace is all you need, for my power is strongest when you are weak.’ I am happy, then, to be proud of my weakness, in order to feel the protection of Christ’s power over me. . . . For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Cor 12:9-10

Most of us have a distorted view of weakness. Americans inhabit a wealthy and powerful nation. Money protects us. Military might protects us. Law protects us. Knowledge and information protect us. Not always perfectly, for sure. But we go into the world with a laudable confidence that we can change things for the better. With money, materials, know-how, courage and enthusiasm we can get things done, and done quickly.

It’s not at all surprising that we tackle our call to mission with the same confidence, optimism and energy. We do trust God. We do expect God to transform people and their world. But we also trust our money, our insurance, our government’s protection, our technology, our far-reaching support structures. In the process, we may lose track of which power is at work. When some of the wealth and power are stripped away, we might be surprised to rediscover the amazing truth in the Lord’s answer to Paul, “My grace is all you need, for my power is strongest when you are weak.”

Literacy for Family Well-being is the Baptist Church of Congo’s adult literacy program. We work on a largely volunteer basis in a country that has never heard of the volunteer movement. It is a movement of poor people working with limited means to help other poor people, almost always without pay. It is a shoestring operation. It has no office, no full-time paid staff, no film star sponsors, no long-term project money and NO CAR.

No CAR?!!! What do you mean, “No CAR” ?? How do you get around? How do you ever get things done over the distances you have to travel? Wouldn’t you and Rose be able to reach a lot more people if you had a car? Why would anyone want to walk in somebody else’s shoes if you could drive to your destination in a fraction of the time? These aren’t unreasonable questions, especially if you come from a place like southern California.

But sometimes strengths turn out to be big liabilities. In Congo, a car, especially a personal one, represents big bucks. If I come to a meeting of literacy volunteers riding in a car but don’t bring gifts, I am saying to people, “There’s big bucks in this . . . but I’m not going to give you any.” Then everybody spends all their time with me imagining how big the bucks are and trying to wheedle some of them out of me. Nothing I have to say or do will get through to them. By losing the car, there’s a chance that, even with my “rich white American” skin, they can hear me and we can do something together to the glory of God.

Remember, too, not a single one of my Congolese colleagues has a car and jealousy is a powerful distraction. A car gives status and comfort. If I think it is essential, why shouldn’t my colleagues think so too? And if there’s not enough money for that, not having a car could become an excuse. “But we don’t have a vehicle…” At that point, we all have strayed away from the vision God gave us: helping people to build better lives through literacy. Instead we have begun to focus on our own status and short-term comfort. We are no longer able to accomplish what God wants us to do.

So I get around the capitol the same way my colleagues do: by taxi and fulufulu, that jam-packed taxi-bus that is a standard feature of African cities. It’s less safe, crowded, hot and uncomfortable, and usually takes extra time. You have to stand out in the hot sun a lot. And you have to be quick in the scramble for a seat when the taxibus pulls in.

In the Kwilu River area I get around like everyone else: by foot or by bicycle. Getting to a village 30 miles away can take all day, and you’re sweaty, thirsty and exhausted when you get there. I can’t carry very much. From our American perspective it’s inefficient – that’s a lot of down time for a high value missionary.

Sometimes these shoes don’t seem to fit me that well. But they are the shoes my colleagues wear every day. Not having a car begins to make sense. It frees us to concentrate on essentials instead of on chauffeurs, parking or car vandals. In the walking, I begin to understand their world, their needs, and often their powerlessness. Because I’ve paid the fares, had the same trouble finding transportation, and walked or bicycled the paths, I know exactly what they’re up against and we can plan realistically. I see the everyday heroism of organizing literacy classes and supervising them.

Jeannette Mbaba, primary school teacher, our teacher, trainer and supervisor from Molembe has health problems, but she’s incredibly dedicated. The distances she travels on foot to conduct literacy classes and supervise beginning teachers are staggering even to an American used to walking. Over savanna, down and up steep paths, across rivers on precarious log bridges: I’ve walked with her.


Or Jonathan Mazabi, the laypastor at Kimwenge, who has the gift of gracious willingness. He teaches his fellow villagers and acts as a go-between for us with his bicycle. I’ve bicycled past his village. These people are my heroes. They’re the reason we’re doing great things in Congo.

Perhaps it’s not so surprising that working in the way of our Congolese colleagues to achieve their vision for their people frees them to do so too. Seeing them accomplish what God has inspired them to do is worth all the discomfort.

But the American in us constantly pesters us: “Couldn’t you do a lot more for the Kingdom if you just showed a little less weakness?” The answer shouldn’t surprise us too much either. For all its weakness, the Literacy for Family Well-Being program of the Baptist Convention of Congo is the biggest, most dynamic, most experienced literacy group in the DRC’s national literacy campaign. About 125 Baptist churches have regular literacy classes. Since 1999, they have trained 1660 literacy teachers. Volunteers in local churches offer 240 neighborhood literacy classes and teach about 1700 people to read every year.

Walking in our colleagues’ shoes rather than driving up in the car, gives everybody a chance to see God’s power to shape, heal and transform this world. And that should never surprise us.

What happens in the off-season?

What do Rose Mayala (our coordinator) and I do between literacy teacher trainings anyway? (Besides the administrative details of reading, tabulating and responding to teachers’ reports, doing financial reports, etc?)

Well, we’re combing our environment for recipes to make all sorts of things, writing them down for classes, translating short articles, writing brochures and booklets, writing project proposals, lobbying the national assembly, and preparing to meet the governor of Bandundu Province.

Since we returned from our teacher training trips at the beginning of April, I have been writing a brochure in Kituba on menopause: its symptoms and how to reduce them. Most of our students are women. This brochure adds a much-needed follow-up to our booklet on reproductive health issues. I also have been correcting and editing a Kituba translation of the Navigators’ lesson booklet on discipleship.

The literacy lobbying campaign is serious. A member of the provincial assembly who is a friend of our work has urged us to meet with the governor of Bandundu as soon as possible. The purpose is to acquaint him with the need for adult literacy in his province, what a successful program will require, and what the CBCO literacy program could offer. I have been writing an introduction to the program, describing our aims, our strengths and the elements that would increase chances of success for an adult literacy campaign in Bandundu Province. A meeting will not happen before I leave for US assignment this June, but Rose can do it without me.

When Rose returned to Kinshasa in April, she submitted the registration forms for provincial classes that missed registration in December. In theory, the government will pay literacy teachers a modest stipend. Rose continues to follow up on the registration process for all our provincial classes with the government office for adult education. Meanwhile some of our teachers have been staging protests over the time it is taking, and we, in the region, have been trying to “put out the fires”.

Rose and some of our Kinshasa supervisors have written a proposal for the post-literacy activities* mandated by the UN-orchestrated literacy campaign. The L.I.F.E. program formally opened in Congo this February. Our literacy teachers have been lobbying the National Assembly for its full implementation.

For years we have felt that “functional literacy” is a proper goal of any good literacy program. But it is also one of those aspects that we have considered ‘way beyond our reach’ except in a most abbreviated way. Now with the new UN program, it’s required of all “players” in this national literacy campaign.

What this means practically is that in the second level of our classes we must introduce participants to all sorts of literature that is relevant for their lives: biblical, medical, agricultural, legal, bureaucratic, culinary and mechanical. And then we must teach them how to use it. Never mind that simple, relevant literature is often not readily available, however sorely needed. So we’re scrambling for material, writing a lot of it ourselves, so that our teachers who have limited knowledge themselves have something to work with.

Here in Africa in particular, the mandate of functional literacy is especially to learn/teach knowledge and skills that will move students out of poverty. So we’re looking especially for things that could provide a livelihood. Everything has to be tried out in class. Teachers must learn as well as their students. Teaching some of these skills require equipment: for example, scissors, needles and sewing machines to teach sewing skills. All require materials. And all this requires a lot more money than we have to operate with. Hence the political dimension that has entered our work in the past year.

Rose is also pushing UNESCO to start the second phase of the literacy campaign with the Twa Pygmies of Central Congo. Last July UNESCO sent Rose and her group to promote literacy classes among the Twa in Inongo, a provincial town by Lake Mai-Ndombe. The Twa warmly welcomed the initiative. Now they are eagerly waiting for the promised literacy teacher training so that they can launch classes -- it has been almost a year. Failure to follow through on the promise would be fatal to the fragile confidence that was built in that visit.

You can see that we are faced with enormous challenges and perhaps enormous opportunities. It is a lot more than I dreamed of, anyway, when I responded to the appeal of CBCO urban women for literacy classes in 1995. Keep us in your prayers, and think of what you could contribute for a better life for your sisters (and brothers) in Congo.


* After analyzing past literacy campaigns in many environments, the international community has concluded that merely teaching someone from a non-literate background the mechanics of reading, writing and calculating is not enough. Too few people move independently from the simple deciphering of single words and basic sentences to being able to exploit the power of literacy. The UN literacy campaign focuses on the “post-literacy” phase of “functional literacy”.

Functional literacy means being able to read and calculate well enough to read anything that crosses your path in order to be able to use what’s relevant to you in your daily life. Similarly, a person has to be able to write well enough for the needs of their environment. It means being able to exploit the wealth of ideas and information encoded in print in order to improve your life.

Chief throws his weight behind literacy

Ever since I heard, in January, that Chief Massanza, the head administrator of Luniungu Secteur*, wanted to sponsor a literacy teacher training seminar for his secteur, I was bemused. Why would a government figure ever ask us for a training seminar? At the same time it was an opportunity not to be missed. We had already done several training seminars in his secteur (Bengi 2004, Molembe 2006, Mukinzi 2007.) Other villages were clamoring for individual seminars of their own, but we cannot afford to import our training team from Kinshasa to help individual villages. As chief for the whole secteur Chief Massanza had the power to require remaining villages to attend a central training and to contribute the food necessary to make it happen. A Luniungu teachers workshop would move us toward the goal of saturating a rural area with classes, much like has happened in Kinshasa. When the concentration of classes increases in an area, it creates energy and enthusiasm, and increases the chances of success for individual classes and teachers. And it also would help us launch a local team of trainers, reducing our dependence on Kinshasa trainers.

Chief Massanza seemed eager, anxious for this training in the frequent phone calls. I wrote him about our conditions for seminars. Not a problem. What had motivated him? When we got to Luniungu the end of March, he told us.

His pastor father had educated his numerous sons well. But he thought his daughter was better off unschooled and illiterate. Then last year Chief Massanza had seen his older sister reading a Bible. He was astounded. This was wonderful! How had it happened? Well, her friend, Thérèse Kininga, (trained in our Mupulu workshop, 2003) taught her in her reading class in their village of Kindela.

He thought this was a wonderful isolated initiative for development. Then our lady in Mukinzi, close by, told him that, no, there were lots of these teachers and classes all around his secteur and other villages in the region, and that it was coordinated by a Baptist pastor’s wife in Kinshasa and a missionary woman in Lusekele, not far away. Best of all, it was Christian. Each lesson includes a Bible lesson. What was there for an earnest Christian and member of the Bible Study League not to like? As chief for his secteur, this would be an important step for development in his secteur too. (He hadn’t even heard yet that Congo has officially opened a national campaign for adult literacy this year.) This he had to have.

As you see, above, Chief Massanza not only made it possible for 43 other people from several villages in his secteur to be trained as teachers, he and his wife also took the training. And a literacy class started in their settlement the same week, thanks to our hyperactive fellow trainer, Raymond Mafuta. The CBCO lay-pastor shown in front is teaching it. Will the chief and his wife teach classes themselves? I’m not sure. I’m betting she will. He may be too busy. What’s sure is that he will do everything he can to support and spread this literacy movement in his jurisdiction. …Because he saw his sister’s life changed.


* the secteur is a local government entity similar to a county in the US.

Opening a door for Jean

Jean Bakoma, the man on the right in the picture, left the savanna and villages of his native Kasai region as a young man. He sought a better life in Kinshasa. He had no idea how hard that would be. Jean didn't read ... at all. After all what does a youth growing up in a remote corner of Congo need to read to survive in a village?

In Kinshasa things were different. Without an education, without being able to read, Jean had to scramble for any kind of laborers' job to make a bare living. He married. Children and more children were born. Feeding and clothing everyone, not to mention school fees for them, consumed every ounce of strength he had. Every day started with a question: will we eat today? The dreams of a better life were lost in the grind of daily work.

One day Jean tried to touch up his older and more successful brother for some help. It wasn't the first time. Frustrated, his older brother exploded. " You say, 'Help us out, help us out!' Till when? You and your family will always be a drain on us. What kind of a job do you ever expect to get? You can't speak French. And you don't even read."

The insult, the contempt in those words shocked Jean. He vowed that he wouldn't speak to his brother until he could read, write and speak French. It would take three years of determined effort.

Jean heard about literacy classes at the nearby Lemba Matete Baptist Church. Many young people in the neighborhood were taking a course or had already graduated. Jean was older. But he swallowed his pride and enrolled in the first Lingala reading class. Raymond Mafuta, one of our veteran teachers and supervisors (seen at the left of the picture), led the class through the two readers. Jean learned the magic of reading and writing symbols that communicate words and ideas.

Armed with this new knowledge Jean enrolled in a course for tailors. Finishing that course, he set up shop for himself and started earning a good steady income. That helped when his wife became ill and needed care. It also helped pay for his kids school fees.

Jean's own struggles have only intensified his determination to give his 13 children a good education. Another man would have pulled his oldest daughters out of school to run the household when his wife died, but not him. His oldest daughter recently graduated from high school and another daughter will sit the state exams this spring.

Meanwhile, as soon as he finished the Lingala courses, Jean enrolled in the beginning French class. The time came when he could read and speak good everyday French. For the first time in years he could meet his brother without hanging his head. They're on good terms now. Still Jean is continuing his French classes. He listens to the newscasts in French on television and radio. He is adamant that he will no longer remain on the sidelines in the debate of big ideas and the future.

Jean's story started with a stinging insult. But that insult galvanized a Presbyterian man to walk into a Baptist church and begin a trek towards a new life.

The Next Step

Rose and I have just finished series of literacy teacher training seminars. Our major objective was to choose, train and give experience to local teams of literacy teacher trainers. We tried to create local teams of trainers in 2007 -- and failed. The people we worked with didn't have enough experience for us to feel comfortable letting them loose. Still, we couldn’t fill all the demands for training teachers.

In December we were told that the Bulungu group of teachers had capable people. So, the end of March we went to the town of Bulungu to conduct a second workshop specifically for trainers. We also invited the best people from nearby Luniungu Secteur (equivalent to a county in our terms) who participated in our 2007 training. We quickly found that most of the Bulungu literacy teachers were not capable of training others; indeed, they needed a refresher course themselves. The workshop served that purpose just fine, greatly improving the program in Bulungu.

In the end, two people from Bulungu stood out. To our delight, 4 more participants from Luniungu villages showed clear promise as trainers. Let me introduce you to them.

Pastor Mibwe is the pastor of the Patmos Baptist Church in Bulungu.

Mamie Fala is a primary school teacher in the village of Mukinzi, and the wife of Jean Ndulu.

Jeannette Mbaba is a primary school teacher, wife of the primary school director in the church center Molembe, and the motor of literacy work in her area.

Charlotte N’sele is a high school teacher and wife of the primary school director in Zaba Center.

Anne-Marie Lusanga is the president of the Baptist women for the district of Bulungu, a high school teacher and wife of a school director, and motor for development activities in her area.

And Jean Ndulu is a nurse in charge of the health clinic at Mukinzi. They’re all active teachers of literacy classes and active in their churches.

After choosing our new local literacy trainers, we divided them into two teams and took them to do training seminars in two locations under our supervision. The Luniungu team we took to the Luniungu Secteur headquarters to train teachers there, as requested by the secteur chief. The next week, we took the others to Kikwit to lead the long-awaited teacher-training there. They all did a satisfactory job for a first time.

It is the first fulfillment of a dream we have long cherished, to have regional teams of literacy teacher-trainers working in the interior of the country. It will cut our high cost of training seminars in those places and enable us to respond to more invitations. It will enable us to saturate the Kwilu area with classes and teachers at the same time that our primary literacy team can move on to focus on other areas.

God be praised!

A STAR IS BORN! …We think

…Think what sort of people you are whom God has called. Few of you are men of wisdom…few are powerful or highly born. Yet, to shame the wise, God has chosen what the world counts folly, and to shame what is strong, God has chosen what the world counts weakness…to overthrow the existing order. I Corinthians 1:26-28

Nsey Diakoko is a beautiful young woman, one of the 32 literacy teachers we trained in Kikwit, Bandundu’s commercial capital, last week, and I suspect that among all those we trained, she will be one of their best and most dedicated teachers for years to come. Despite her difficulties getting around quickly to different parts of the blackboard to give her lesson (Nsey uses platform orthopedic shoes, braces and crutches), she is intelligent and determined. In our juries her lesson stood out as one of the best.

Nsey was not our only physically handicapped trainee at Kikwit. In the French course training, we also had the president of the Bulungu Handicapped Association, Mr. Mungombe Epiphane (here miming smoking a pipe for a lesson), who followed us from the town of Bulungu to be trained to help his fellow parishioners and handicapped persons there.

What Nsey and Epiphane have in common, besides being physically handicapped and new literacy teachers, is that the Congolese society of today doesn’t expect much of them or offer them a lot of options, but they are determined to overcome their odds. It is our experience that some of our best and most motivated teachers are those who missed out somewhere in their personal lives: the intelligent young woman in Bulungu (Epiphane’s co-worker) who missed out on finishing high school because she got pregnant and married early, the young man in Masi Manimba who failed so often to pass the state exam for a high school diploma that in shame, he changed his name, the older brother in a prominent family who also couldn’t pass the state exam. These are the people who really take pains to help others improve their lives through literacy, who feel a sense of calling and fulfillment for their own lives in this work. They’ve become truly exceptional teachers.

Through this medium of teaching others to read and write and empower their lives, God is making exceptional people out of those the world has counted unworthy of notice or investment.

Here’s looking forward to seeing Nsey and Epiphane star in Kikwit and Bulungu!

One Pastor's Vision for Change

Pastor Georges Kasaka Kasiala reflects on the lives of people in the 25 local congregations that he oversees. Isolated by political neglect and notoriously bad roads, their children attend poorly staffed and equipped schools, they have no functioning agricultural extension service and they must make do with seasonal trade with only the most intrepid entrepreneurs (usually to their disadvantage.) The physical obstacles to contact with the outside world reinforce an isolation of the mind and of the spirit. Over half of village women do not read, another barrier that keeps opportunity (and sometimes hope) beyond reach.

A district pastor doesn't have the political muscle to fix the national highway, but Pastor Kasiala is determined to break that isolation of the mind and spirit around Kipata Katika. On March 14 he launched the district's literacy campaign by hosting a 5-day workshop for adult literacy teachers. Over 45 people attended. They learned principles of teaching adults, observed practical reading lessons and developed lessons themselves. Participants chose between Kituba and French. The ultimate goal is to have at least one literacy class in every one of the 25 district churches.

The excitement was evident. As one unlikely looking young man worked with two women preparing a practice lesson he smiled brightly, gestured with rapidly moving hands and stabbed at letters on the chalkboard with an improvised ruler. He enthusiastically explained to his two team mates how the sounds make up syllables and syllables make up words, how symbols on a page represent the words that build and communicate ideas. The team worked on honing their new found teaching skills.

The local organizers felt that workshop sessions should be limited to afternoons in order to allow primary and secondary school teachers to participate. That left mornings free. Raymond Mafuta, one the workshop leaders, took advantage of the down time to start two small literacy classes. Underneath a palm frond roof in the unfinished main church building, 16 women split into two groups began their lessons -- one group in Kituba and one in French. They were delighted. With students already sitting on the benches, newly trained teachers won't have to wait to start classes.

Five hectic days passed. On Friday afternoon Rose, Miriam and Raymond evaluated 41 teacher candidates as they put their learning on display. Each one taught through a sample literacy lesson, from phonetics to words to reading sentences, capped off with a short Bible devotion on a theme for literacy. When the dust settled late Friday night, 40 new teachers were certified to teach reading to adults in the Kipata Katika district, Pastor Kasiala among them.

Pastor Kasiala is determined that the pastors he shepherds will become more effective communicators of the Gospel. He is determined that their parishioners will have free access to the word of God. He is determined that parents will be able to contribute to a better education for their children. He is determined to break down the obstacles that keep his people isolated, ignorant of the opportunities that God has already prepared for them. Maybe you will want to pray for him and pray for the other 39 new literacy teachers as they try to dismantle the walls that so often keep spirits from soaring. I imagine that God will be pleased to see people truly free for the first time in their lives.

When horrible is taken as normal, we have to do something

Pastor Marcel led the way, down a steep path, through a dense stand of Imperata grass, across a small stream and up the hill on the other side. Fifteen minutes later we stood in middle of manioc fields. Pastoral students, like most of the rural people they will serve, depend on these fields for their daily "bread" -- luku. But as I looked around, all I saw were spindly stems, blotched yellow leaves and short plants. The students accompanying us on our tour don't see anything out of the ordinary. It's just a normal, mediocre field. No one has ever explained to them that their manioc is suffering from a serious viral disease. And almost no one is aware that there are 4 good disease-resistant varieties available for those with the patience to multiply seed cuttings at Kikongo.

A week earlier, Philippe Kikobo was in another manioc field 60 miles to the south, in a river valley below Kipata Katika. Every plant in the field showed signs of mosaic virus. He asked the group of women who planted the surrounding fields what was wrong with the field. They were convinced that lightning had struck the area, damaging the plants. No local farm agent comes by regularly passing on critical information. In fact, those women live only 12 miles away from a group cooperating with an international aid agency to multiply the 4 new disease resistant manioc varieties since 2006. They have never heard of the new varieties nor the disease devestating their main staple crop.

In the past two and a half weeks we visited dozens of villages in the corridor between the Inzia and Lukula rivers, in the Kikongo health zone and in the Mosango health zone. More than 300.000 people, almost all depending on agriculture for their livelihoods, live in these areas People from Baptist churches, Assembly of God churches, and Catholic churches told us the same story. Most know nothing about manioc mosaic virus. And new high-yielding, disease-resistant varieties are available only in isolated pockets to those who were lucky enough to land a contract with an international aid project. Farmers are benefitting from these new varieties only in areas where a strong church group has made a serious effort to inform farmers of the disease problem and to systematically multiply and distribute the new planting material.

The 4 new varieties of manioc are part of God's heritage offered to the people of Congo. All are superior to local varieties. And each is adapted to a slightly different environment, giving alternatives to farmers working in different places. All produce at least two times what diseased local varieties produce. In some places the new varieties produce 4 to 5 times the regional average for manioc. For farm families living in poverty and close to the limits of subsistence, this is an enormous margin of food security.

We have come away from the survey trip troubled. With the limited resources God has given us, how can the church step into the vacuum in areas not close to Lusekele? How can we help people to get information and seed cuttings that can double their manioc production right now? And in the longer term, how can we advocate for an effective government extension program that serves farmers in every district? As committed followers of Christ, our heart compels us to make every possible effort to make God's heritage available to every family in need, and especially to those in the fellowship of faith.

The market just got 146 kms closer

Compared to many pastors in rural churches, Pastor Mubangu (at right) is well-paid. But $30 per month doesn’t stretch very far. His oldest daughter is starting university in Kikwit. School fees for her five sisters and two brothers stretch the family budget further. Pasteur Mubangu and his family depend on their fields to pay the bills.



Turning fresh manioc roots into cash for school fees is a long process. Lift the roots. Strip off the hard skin. Carry the tubers down to a pond near the stream to soak for three days. Carry them back up to the hilltop village where the tubers are dried for a week. Load the dried manioc into a big basin and carry it 5 kms to the river port or 4 kms to the bi-weekly market. And hope that the price is favorable. Then, if the family has 2-1/2 acres of healthy manioc, repeat the process 200 times (!). That means walking a total of 800 kms carrying 50 lbs on one’s head, down into the valley and up the other side – and then another 800 kms back home. It takes time and plenty of stamina to get full advantage from your field.


A few weeks ago, Pastor Mubangu tried something new. He and his wife sold fresh manioc roots directly to the chipping project at Lusekele. No soaking, no drying, no carrying basins to market on their head. And cash in hand for 4.400 lbs of manioc roots. The Lusekele truck pulled up to the trail head less than a kilometer from the field. Basket after basket of roots were hauled from the field, stripped by the roadside, and loaded into the truck – about 100 baskets in all. An operation that would have taken a month of constant hard labor (for Pastor Mubangu, for his wife and for the children) was completed in a day because an affordable means of local transport is available.



Creating that kind of opportunity was what Christians had in mind when ACDI proposed the truck project a year ago. We still have a long way to go to make this same opportunity available to the largest number of farm families possible. But that’s our vocation – helping people to see the opportunities that God places in our hands, enriching our lives and enabling us to be a blessing to those around us.

Changing the rules

It's common for events to turn out much differently than we expect them to beforehand. It's even more common where communication is difficult and close collaboration is not particularly valued. So when the National Council of Development NGOs (CRONG) and 11.11.11 (the outreach arm of a coalition of Belgian NGOs interested in North-South issues, hunger and poverty) proposed a meeting we thought it would revolve around "developing the agricultural sector." Timothée reassured us that we would see the agenda when the meeting got started. ACDI was charged with encouraging as many representative groups in the agricultural sector to participate as possible. And Timothée moderated the gathering.

We never did see an agenda. It was only after a representative of the Ministry of Agriculture began a 2-hour presentation that participants began to understand the goal of the gathering. The government and CRONG were asking us to form a Council for Regional Agricultural Development. The council will bring together the different players: government officials, farmer's associations, universities and research centers, church project leaders, business people associated with the ag sector, extension projects, and investors. The goal is to provide a voluntary working group that can promote development in the agricultural sector, troubleshoot obstacles, encourage cooperative initiatives among farmers, facilitate the diffusion of information on better techniques and market conditions, arbitrate where land tenure ambiguities create conflicts of interest, search out creative ways to provide start-up capital for young people . . . -- the list goes on because a dynamic council could become an exciting crucible for change.


If the government is in earnest, a Council for Regional Agricultural Development represents a significant changing of the rules. First, the Ministry of Agriculture is telling Congolese citizens that they have a responsibility to shape the future development of the rural sector. Successful agricultural development will happen only when all the different players start working toward common objectives, systematically removing obstacles (like corruption and harassment) and creating favorable conditions for improving productivity (like information on better technologies, regular extension visits, improved ag education, responsive ag research programs etc.) Up until now the central government has gone it alone and citizens abandoned long ago any sense of control over or responsibility for the direction of "development." Now the door is being opened for local vision and initiative to drive regional development. That's a big change.


Second, the government is implicitly giving citizens permission to exercise an oversight role over local officials. The Ministry of Agriculture suggests that the Council keep an eye on local government taxation (formal and informal), encourage diffusion of information on legitimate practices, and hold government officials accountable for abuses. This is astounding and in fact may be too good to be true in practice. Still the escape hatch from the stifling environment of local corruption and intimidation appears to have opened a crack.


On day two of the meeting delegates chose a provisional slate of council members. One-third of the 35-40 people are drawn from the district administration. The remaining two-thirds come from district NGOs, church groups, farmer's associations, traders and partner reps like me. ACDI Lusekele, the farm resource center program for the Baptist Community of Congo, has 3 seats on the council: Timothée Kabila, Philomene Bidimbu, Philippe Kikobo, while Brother Kurt and I have been invited to be observers / advisors of the process.

Twenty years of experience in the Congo furnishes plenty of reasons to expect failure of noble initiatives. But I want to believe that this initiative has a chance to inject a little hope into the central Kwilu region. On offer is a future where the government becomes a facilitator for improving the livelihoods, well-being and opportunities of its citizens rather than one of the major obstacles to widespread economic development. Maybe it is devoted Christians who will tip the balance. After all, we claim to have a new ethic -- an allegiance to love, compassion, justice, righteousness, truth, peace. We even make the audacious claim that God's Spirit lives in us, giving us the power to choose goodness and consistently do good. God help us to shine with His light; may we be a refreshing rain that brings God's blessing to the just and the unjust alike.