Mama Luti learns to read and lead

Luti Makunu Mayumbu (right) of Kikosi village, and her Bible, with other members of their League group

People come to our literacy classes for a variety of reasons. For Luti, it was her ardent desire to enter God’s Word in the Bible for herself. We had our first literacy training in the Vanga area in 2001. One of the participants, president of the Kikosi village Baptist women, who was also a primary school teacher, immediately started classes and Luti joined.

Luti’s father was a skilled mason who worked in construction in a variety of places. On of these places was Lusekele, where we live and work. In those days people weren’t sure that girls should be in school. What could a school teach a girl what she needed to know when she grew up to be a woman?

Luti started primary school, but when she was in third grade her mom got sick and needed help. Her older sisters and brothers weren’t available to take care of her mom and see that food got on the table, but she was. She dropped out of school. When her mother died, she continued to be her father’s housekeeper and farmer. School became a dream of her childhood past.

In time she married, children came, and in time she started sending them off to school. Maybe that’s what reawakened her regrets at her aborted school career, and the door to knowledge that had only just cracked open for her. She faithfully participated week after week in church and women’s meetings. She watched the speakers bring story after story and teaching after teaching from the Bible. She longed to be able to go to that well herself and sometimes she would hold someone’s Bible. But the treasures and mysteries remained locked inside.

Finally the Kikosi women's president started a literacy class for them. Here was her chance! It was hard work. Other women dropped out, but she was going to get what she wanted at last. Little by little she learned, until she finished the class. The last part of the class even consisted of Bible stories. She read them, and read from the teacher’s Bible, and anyone else’s that she could take a peek at. She started using the stories in teaching herself, and joined the Bible study league in Kikosi.

At this point I heard from her teacher about her one graduate, but didn’t meet her. In my subsequent visits to Kikosi, Luti was too shy to approach me to talk about it. Finally 2 months ago, a League retreat took place at Lusekele, and she was there. We were in the same small group. She pulled me aside and said, “I was in the literacy classes at Kikosi. I learned to read and write. Now I am the leader of the League Bible study group in Kikosi (learning all these marvelous things from God’s Word myself and with his people). Thank you!” She even had a Bible in hand.

Thank you to the literacy workshop trainers. Thank you to Rose Mayala the literacy coordinator. Thank you to all those friends who have shared a special gift over the last ten years. God has brought us together to change the world just a little for women like Luti. Because of this movement of God's Spirit, another dedicated Christian is able to exercise her gifts in leading the church.

Miriam

God doesn't abandon us in our poverty

Brother Matondo's name means "Gratitude". Here he leads a Bible Reading League retreat session on how League members can transform their villages.

The Ligue's* 3-day New Year's retreat started off with very challenging questions. How do Ligue members become a truly transformational force in local villages? Do they share Good News? Do they make village life healthier, safer, more satisfying, more productive? Do they care for the land and the other creatures that depend on it?

The scope of these questions turned out to be too large. Retreat organizers decided to look at transformation through the lens of one specific issue: how Ligue members relate to former Ligue members who have dropped out, who are losing their faith, or have lost it. Too often people stop coming to Bible studies, drop off the fellowship map without a trace, and no Ligue member bothers to talk with them again.

This led us to think about how Jesus handled discouraged people with wavering faith. In Luke 24, we find Cleopas and his companion crushed by Jesus' arrest and crucifixion. Their dreams had vanished. In this disappointment, Jesus sought them out. He listened to their deeepest concerns. And then he explained from the Scriptures how God's purpose was being worked out in the chaotic events in Jerusalem, even though that purpose was different from what they had expected. In a matter of a few hours, the wavering disciples understood God's plan in a new way and recognized Jesus alive, tangible evidence of the plan. Their faith revitalized, they immediately returned to Jerusalem to testify.

What are the "deepest concerns" of Ligue members who drop out, even repudiate their faith in Christ? Obviously there is no single answer. But a surprisingly common concern that young Christians have is: "Why does poverty have such a stranglehold on rural Congolese, even those who follow Christ? Why have so many dollars been poured into development activities here for so many years, with such meager results? We pray; does God not hear us? Does he only hear and help foreigners? Has he only chosen them and abandoned us?" By listening to and addressing this preoccupation, we might be able to point the way back to God and his purpose.

This is where Pastor Mulama Mozart and I had a chance to share reflections on poverty, development, and literacy. We often think of the evil, brokenness and waste around us as something that simply happens to us, caused by others. What we often don't see is that we ourselves contribute to it. We are responsible both by what we do and by our inaction. We need to be changed in order to restore the world.

Pastor Mulama pulled no punches. "God," he said, "has given Congo so many resources that he might well resent Congolese Christians constantly badgering him in prayer and song to do something about their situation." Other Congolese have described the poverty in Bandundu as “poverty from lack of initiative.” Pastor Mulama pressed the point.

"We cannot go on blaming others," he said. "We can't depend on handouts from the church, the mosque, the government, the United Nations, the Americans, the Europeans, or the Chinese. SOPEKA is not for us." SOPEKA is a popular acronym here for the dependent mentality that is going nowhere fast. It comes from three phrases. SOmbela ngai - “buy for me”. PEsila ngai – “gimme”. KAbila ngai – “share with me”. SOPEKA says "Take care of me, it's not my fault."

But we don't understand how our values and decision often entangle us and mire us in poverty. When we neglect the infrastructure and means of production we already have (roads, buildings, water sources, or machines, for example), poverty is inevitable. When we encourage ignorance, isolation and conformity, we close ourselves off from the knowledge and tools that can help us to escape poverty. When we tolerate corruption and oppression, they siphon off important parts of our production and discourage initiative. Our rivalries and conflicts create insecurity which consumes resources and discourages people from building for the future. And of course laziness, alcohol and drugs weaken both resolve and strength to change. We have choices to make.

Pastor Mulama offered this advice:
1. discover, define and accept responsibility for what we’re doing wrong or failing to do that is right (giving 2 Kings 7:9 as an example)
2. seek the change within ourselves that is necessary (Rom. 12:2)
3. define the plan that is needed in order to change what we can in our exterior situation
4. work the plan

I started by suggesting what true “development goals” are. It is a “shalom” of health and well-being. Development becomes possible when we allow God to step in and straighten out our relationships: with him and the spiritual world, with the physical world around us, with others and society. We care for God's creation and become productive stewards of our particular corner of the world. This responsible production allows to take good care of our families and share generously and graciously with others. We nurture and extend community life. In healthy community, God adds to our knowledge, intelligence and personal gifts from the stores of other people. We reflect God's image more clearly and we regain the purpose He had for us from the beginning.

I told participants how literacy lets us hear God's Word in his scriptures. Our hearing the word is an important part of His transforming work in us. But being able to read also opens a door to the accumulated knowledge and experience of hundreds of generations of people from all around the world. The knowledge and experience available from the Lusekele agricultural development center are part of God's enabling gifts. High-yielding, disease resistant varieties of cassava - a mainstay of the diet. High-yielding varieties of protein-rich peanuts and cowpeas. High-yielding varieties of oil palms. Much improved crop-management techniques. New vegetables for combating malnutrition. Improved processing techniques. Mastered and incorporated into everyday life, this is the kind of knowledge that can transform traditional agriculture and reduce poverty and protect the long-term health of our environment.

I spent the rest of my time describing a technique for doubling or tripling corn yields while reducing the work and the land needed, and saving precious forest.** The idea comes from Central America. Corn is associated with a soil-restoring legume called velvetbean. A farm family can cultivate corn every year on the same plot and actually improve yields over time, all the while improving their farmland.

In the scriptures God constantly reminds us that he has made provisions for our lives. These allow us to live sufficiently, to care for those close to us, to be gracious to others, and to care for his creation on which we depend for life. But He also calls us to be full partners in this endeavor of living abundantly (even if simply.) The Holy Spirit illuminates God's word, making it living direction for us personally and for our world. Meditation on God's word aids the process of apprehending and understanding. A willing spirit that asks God to change us first opens the door. And obedience to God's direction leads to action that actually touches the world around us.

It was refreshing to see God's people wrestling with the word, trying to figure out how to share Good News for their neighbors.

Miriam

* The Ligue is the Ligue pour la Lecture de la Bible (the Bible Reading League.) It is the Francophone equivalent of Scripture Union. Chapters encourage people to encounter God through Bible reading, regular study together and prayer.

** See Roland Bunch, Two Ears of Corn, World Neighbors

The Word of God Transforms the World

150 Bible Study League members jammed into a large conference room at the Vanga nursing school for a 3-day New Year's retreat.

“Shalom, shalom!” The greetings filled the packed room.

Over 150 Christian adults and young people gathered in Vanga over the New Year's holidays for a 3-day retreat organized by the Ligue Pour la Lecture de la Bible (Scripture Union). The theme of the retreat was “The Word of God Transforms.” The Bible study passage was the story of Cleopas and the other disciple (Luke 24). For three years they heard Jesus and watched him act, full of expectations of the coming Messiah. And now they were on the road to Emmaus, discouraged, going back to their old life. Jesus hadn't liberated them from the Romans and hadn't established the ideal Davidic kingdom. Events of the past three days pointed to failure. In the desire to see Jesus' message in terms of their own expectations, they had missed the hope and power of Good News. So complete was their disappointment that they didn’t even recognize Jesus as he walked and talked with them. They weren’t transformed . . . until they heard God's word again and finally recognized Jesus alive in action: in his way of blessing the food.

The central questions the retreat wrestled with were: "Why are so few of us really transformed? And why active Christians have so little impact on our communities, our environment and our life situations?"

One conclusion participants came to is that we often assume that our decision to follow Christ and exposure to God’s Word will automatically transform us. But what we observe is that hearing God's word must be accompanied by obedience, the will to be shaped by the will of God. Transformation is not the automatic result of being inducted into the Christian fellowship.

A second conclusion we came to was that God's will is not always obvious to us. For example, most cultures including historical biblical cultures once accepted slavery, and traditional Bandundu culture assumes that the exploitation of God's creation is an unlimited right, even when it leads to destruction of the ecosystems on which we depend for life. Learning the mind and heart of God in all things requires effort: prayer, meditation, and serious reflection by the community of faith. It also requires the Holy Spirit’s direction. Transformation happens as a result of inspired meditation and obedient action.

The retreat challenged participants to take stock of the changes their lives make in the villages where they live. Do Leaguers in general contribute to the transformation of the world? Or are they simply happy with League activities, with a pietism that satisfies the soul and intellect? Do they share good news with their neighbors? Do they make village life healthier, safer, more satisfying, more productive? Do they care for the land and the other creatures that depend on it?

These are excellent questions for all of us to think about . . . and act on.

Miriam

Bible Study League at Lusekele

Carine is the shining smile in the middle. Kakesa is the young man in blue at the left. Cheryl is the black wig on the right. Three of the teenagers that meet regularly for Bible Study League meetings at Lusekele.

Back in October, I ran into a guy who said, “Mama Noyes! I’ve been wanting to talk to you about collaborating for literacy." It turned out he was the new president of the Vanga area Ligue*.

He went on to explain. "Our purpose is to get people reading and studying the Bible together. But many of our members don’t in fact read. They just come to hear the Word, as they do in church. As a result, too many of our chapter leaders fall into the habit of just preaching at meetings instead of leading their members in Bible studies. We want to change that. Would you be willing to train Ligue leaders to teach their members to read and write, so that they can really study the Bible?”

Would I?!! This is what we’ve been thinking about and wishing would happen the past 10 years. We have yet to have our meeting, but we’re going to work on it. There’s no rush, since this is the off-season for work with women, who are the majority of illiterates in Congo.

In the meantime, during this off season, I’m concentrating on our own Ligue group. The kids are mostly teenagers. They consider themselves too old for Sunday school (which is pretty much limited to 3-10 year olds) but still know woefully little about what is in the Bible. Some of them are our recently baptized, interested in learning more about God and this life of faith that they have chosen. None of them read well – one might not read at all. Reading the Bible out loud in two versions of French plus Kituba, our local trade language, and discussing what they have read helps them to get familiar with the Bible and understand what God wants of us. It also improves their general reading fluency and comprehension in both languages, for better success at school and beyond.

In the fall we were reading the stories of Rebecca and Isaac’s marriage and the story of Ruth and Naomi. And then we moved on to a general discipleship program of study, with memorization of helpful verses. In years past I’ve offered a prize of a notebook for anyone who will memorize the books of the Bible in order and recite them.

Coordinating with school presents us with a challenge. Ligue meetings are usually in the afternoons. In a time of double sessions, some of Lusekele’s kids attend morning sessions and other afternoon sessions. Should we split our Ligue meetings into separate morning and afternoon meetings to accommodate all the kids? Or should we meet on Saturday afternoons or Sundays? The only day we can catch up with the whole group all together to discuss the matter and decide on alternative meeting hours/days is next Sunday.

Miriam Noyes

* The Ligue’s full name is the Bible Reading League (Ligue pour la Lecture de la Bible in French), known as Scripture Union in English-speaking countries. It is the most effective discipling group in Congo today, is a wide-spread grass-roots organization, and has kept hundreds, maybe thousands of isolated villagers reading over the years.