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.