An unxpected grace

I am a stranger in Gemena, traveling in a region new to me and not speaking the local language (though I can understand some.)  If you know me, you can understand how easy it might have been for me to be content with a quiet Sunday alone.  But I felt an unusual compulsion to go out and find a church.

Before I left Kinshasa, Pastor Mpezo, our next door neighbor, told me there was a CBCO parish in Gemena.  He promised to get me the name of the pastor and address of the church so I could visit.  Somehow we never managed to get together before I left yesterday morning. 

So this morning it seemed futile to even consider asking God to lead me to the CBCO church.  Instead my path led out into the northern neighborhoods of Gemena, hoping vaguely to stumble on a Protestant church without blaring loudspeakers.  The path from the Catholic guesthouse led up the hill toward the center of town.  At the top of the hill is a large, multi-story school building.  I stopped to ask a man sweeping the yard of a nearby education office what it was. 

In the course of the conversation, I mentioned that I was a visitor in town and a missionary with CBCO.  He brightened visibly and said, "There is a small CBCO congregation that meets just behind my house.  They just inaugurated a church building."  To be honest, I thought, "Probably just a generic Protestant church - they all look alike to people in the neighborhood."  But I asked directions and it didn't sound too difficult to find.

Three quarters of a mile down the road there was the serious erosion the guy mentioned.  And there was the path going off to the right.  And there was a grass thatched meeting place with palm-rib walls.  AND there were people singing a hymn in Lingala.  I chose a spot on the 2x4 board that served as a bench on the men's side and joined in the hymn.

As the service progressed through worship and intercession, I had a strong sense that God wanted me to give people a message in two parts - not a sermon but a message.  "His love has no limits" and "His eye rests upon this small vibrant congregation."  Why this message is important to this group of people is beyond me.  At the time of greetings, I told how God pulled me out the door of my temporary lodgings and gave me a guide to this particular church, and I passed on the message, with no elaboration.

A visiting pastor preached and closed the service.  We filed out and shook hands according to the custom.  And I talked a bit with the leaders of the church.  The congregation is indeed a sub-parish of the CBCO church in Gemena pastored by Pastor Charles.  And they were just as amazed I as I was that I wandered in.  God leads out paths in unusual ways at times.  God does have his eye on that congregation.  What a beautiful reminder for me this morning.  Pray that His Spirit will continue to work through them, sowing the seeds of life in the northern neighborhood of Gemena.

Ed

Is resurrection really possible?

Dr. Cyprien Masaka came to the Kailo Health Zone as a young doctor not long out of medical school.  The hospital was lost in a forest of weeds and brush.  Working with limited resources, he and staff reclaimed the facility from the forest and from despair.  Today the facility is clean and serving over 130,000 people.  This is just one example of Christians living redemptive lives in Congo.

The a capella voices of a young mixed choir down near the Catholic “cathedral” proclaim good news. The bells pealed out the call to worship. It was a pleasant Sunday morning in Kindu on the banks of the upper Congo River. I was three days into a week-long visit with Catholic partners for the Access to Primary Health Care project: reflecting together how to help rural communities partner with their local health centers and hospitals to ensure widespread access to quality primary health care.

As I listened to the congregation singing and the drums playing, I thought about the Good News that Jesus announced, all the facets of life that his message and actions touched in a broken, twisted world. As I read the gospels that morning, I was impressed again by how much healing Jesus did, unconditional healing of broken bodies and captive spirits. Life connected to God restores life to the world around it, breathes life into it, replaces hate and strife with love and peace.

Over the last two weeks, the story of the raising of Lazarus has been on my mind. As life seeped away from Lazarus, his sisters and friends sent an urgent message for Jesus’ help. Jesus did not come. God did not intervene. Powerless, they watched him die and assumed that was the end of the story. When Jesus arrived four days later, Lazarus was in the tomb.

Jesus’ first words to Martha were, “Your brother will rise to life.” Martha assumed he was talking about the end of the age, the distant future. All life’s experience reinforced one conclusion: death is final. But Jesus gently reminded her that resurrection and life are rooted in relationship with him in the present. Martha didn’t understand, couldn’t imagine, couldn’t hope.

When Mary and the other mourners joined Jesus, the tomb only reminded them again of the finality of Lazarus’s death. In their grief and resignation they accused, “Could he not have kept Lazarus from dying?” When Jesus directed people to roll away the sealing stone from the cave-tomb, Mary could conjure up only images of putrefying flesh. Experience of a lifetime suggested nothing more.

Jesus, however, saw something else. Imagine God present. Imagine God’s power to restore life, to reverse the reign of death. Seconds later many saw the unimaginable, the reality of God’s power: Lazarus staggering out of the tomb bound up in body wrapping cloths. “Untie him, and let him go,” Jesus said. Let him live like he was meant to live.

When I read this story again a couple of weeks ago, I thought of the Congo. So many people here cannot imagine any other Congo than the one plagued by dysfunction, death and decay. Stereotypes plague the country. Self-serving warlords, the reign of terror financed by the sale of rare minerals. Autocratic government, widespread corruption. Money hungry evangelists promising miracles, a lost social solidarity failing to catch the destitute in time of need. Gripping materialism in the midst of grinding poverty. Unpaid government employees and high government officials living in luxury. Big aid projects stifling home-grown development and encouraging a debilitating dependency. A widespread commitment to sorcery, even among the followers of Jesus, infidelity, chronic deceit. These images of death are played over and over again, molding and shaping people’s imagination, limiting hope.

My home away from home during the week was with the Marist Brothers. They are a community of lay brothers dedicating to serving young people through education and spiritual formation, giving hope to the next generation in Congo.

But we are the community of the risen Christ. We, of all people, have a message of hope to share: Jesus is alive, the power of life reigns supreme. Do we believe that? Do you believe that God can change the life of a heartless warlord or a hopelessly corrupt government system? Do you believe that God can breathe new life into a dying church or a dying marriage? Do you believe that God can inspire people to learn new ways to produce enough food to feed their children and to banish poverty? Do you believe that God can put an end to political gridlock and inspire politicians to work for the common good of the country? Or if that hope is hard to generate, do you believe that God’s power resting in you can mediate the love of God to a few people around you?

I was in Kindu that Lord’s Day last week because I believe in the resurrection. Disciples of Jesus can be a healing, inspiring, catalytic force for life-giving change in Congo because by God’s gracious choice His Spirit lives in us. Many Congolese have lost hope that change can happen here. But I saw Christians who are contributing to another image of Congo: Dr. Masaka, the team at CARITAS Development Kindu, and the Marist Brothers of Kindu. Pray with me that God’s people will help others to see the reality of the resurrection, to find a pathway to hope that life-giving change is possible, to believe in the power of the living Lord.

Outside the tomb of Lazarus Jesus asked the people, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believed?” Lord, open our eyes to your glory. Help us to reflect it to others.

Dr Masaka (l), Kindu coordinator for the Access to Primary Health Care Project, and Dieudonne Masumboko (r), community participation specialist for the provincial health service.

Dr. Masaka and Dieudonne talk with the young staff of the Kailo Health Zone about the new program to enlist communities in partnerships with their local health center.

The Kailo hospital laboratory is clean and relatively well equipped, part of the initiative of Dr. Masaka.

Dieudonne Masumboko talks with members of a farmers' group.  They introduced 2 new varieties of high-yielding disease-resistant manioc.  The women have all adopted the new varieties.  They particularly like the long storage life in the field.

An onion farmer near Kampala shows off his crop to Dr. Masaka and Mr. Masumboko.

Collaborative Healing - One More Step

posted by Ed Noyes

Monday morning about 10:30am, lying in the pre-op area of Helford Hospital, we gathered around Miriam for a short time of prayer. She looked a bit tired and wan. Having no eyebrows and no eyelashes gives that impression. But her dancing eyes and occasional flashing smile erased the impression in an instant. Miriam's mom, Ruth, her Uncle Wes Brown, and Dick and Stephanie Sullender, pastors of FBC Monrovia, had all joined us for the start of the day.

Wes read the verses from Paul's letter to the Philippians -- 4:6-8 : "Don't worry about anything, but in all your prayers ask God for what you need, always asking him with a thankful heart. And God's peace, which is far beyond human understanding, will keep your hearts and minds safe in union with Christ Jesus. In conclusion, my friends fill your minds with those things that are good and that deserve praise; things that are true, noble, right, pure lovely and honorable."

Then we prayed together, as so many of you have prayed with Miriam and with us over these last 5 months. We thanked God for his gifts. We thanked God for the doctors, nurses, lab technicians, receptionists, counselors, fellow travellers and friends that He is using to help heal Miriam. We asked God once again for his help, his guidance for her doctors and all the others involved in the surgery, for each the ability to give their best. And finally we asked that God would use this occasion of sickness to bring a measure of health and blessing to the people we touch on the journey.  An hour later, Miriam was rolled on to the operating room and the rest of us returned to responsibilities for the day.

At 2:30 Dr. Yim came out to give me a brief report on the surgery. He was pleased. It had gone very well. He saw no obvious visual indications of active cancer in the lymph nodes. The preliminary pathology screenings of lymph nodes and breast tissue done during the surgery returned negative too. After spending the night in the hospital, Miriam returned home on Tuesday.

When we think about things that are "true, noble, right, pure, lovely and honorable" we have plenty of concrete examples to ponder from these recent months. God has surrounded us with his love and with remarkably talented and compassionate people, not all of whom would even admit an allegiance to him, but nonetheless reflect a part of his character and purpose. Thank you all for joining us in asking the Lord of all creation for what we need during this season in our lives.

Extending the reach of God

posted by Ed Noyes

What an audacious thing to say!  How could anyone extend the reach of God?  Of course the answer is, “We can’t.”  No matter what new territory we explore, what new peoples we “discover”, we always find God there ahead of us.  Still the phrase evokes the image of an important truth: as God’s people, humbly seeking to serve him, we carry God’s presence with us into places where rebellion persists. 

This is an image that continues to inspire me.  To be certain, we are the flawed, scarred, often inadequate body of Christ.  But God chooses to use us to turn darkness into light in the world.

For 25 years, I have helped Congolese Christians to eliminate hunger in the villages of central Bandundu Province.  We have shared the productive crop varieties that God created.  We have shared principles of how God created plants and their environment so that people can work with God to satisfy food needs.  The extension agents of the Baptist Agricultural Center have shared their insights and experience with their neighbors and have pushed chronic hunger to the very margins of Bandundu life.

The IMA World Health project covers 56 health zones in 5 provinces.  Ed and Miriam will be based in Kinshasa.

Now I have a chance to take the fight into parts of 5 provinces where malnutrition and poverty rates are among the worst in Congo: Western Kasai, Maniema, South Kivu, Eastern Province and Equator.  Long-time International Ministries partner IMA World Health has invited me to serve 60% of my time as the principal agricultural extension advisor for a large project rehabilitating rural primary health care systems (rural health centers and hospitals.)  The project encourages villages to create common production fields to help support health centers.  These fields provide excellent opportunities for village groups to experiment with the best available crop varieties and best agricultural practices – simple innovations that can often double agricultural production.

Over the next five years, I will be leading a program that trains village extension workers, distributes high quality seed and seed cuttings over wide swathes of Congolese territory, and helps village groups turn agricultural produce into cash contributions to their local health care system.  In the course of these activities we hope that farm households will adopt innovations that boost their basic agricultural production by 50-100% and ensure that people have enough to eat.  The project hopes to work closely with over 7,000 village groups representing over 4.9 million people.

I will continue to work with Timothée Kabila and ACDI Lusekele, perfecting extension materials, training staff and troubleshooting as needed.  

There is one interesting new development there: Timothée has asked the new governor of Bandundu to include support for ACDI Lusekele’s extension program in the provincial budget.  The governor’s staff has been very encouraging.  We continue to pray that they finally realize that ACDI Lusekele is one of the few serious agricultural extension programs in the entire province and a solid investment in regional economic development.

Paul encourages the Ephesian Christians in this way:  “You yourselves used to be in the darkness, but since you have become the Lord’s people, you are in the light.  So you must live like people who belong in the light, for it is the light that brings a rich harvest of every kind of goodness, righteousness and truth.”  A world without hunger and world where farm families live productive lives while building the capacity of the land to produce sustainable yields – for me that is part of the rich harvest, a sign that God is finally being honored and obeyed.

Please pray for this new venture and the changes it entails.  In the coming months we can share with each other what God is doing.

And suddenly the world has changed . . .

No, I don’t want to tell you about how God has changed the life of one of our Congolese neighbors this time. Those of you in our support network know that I, Miriam, was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in July in South Africa, joining one out of eight American women, and my sister and my mother only this year. The funny thing is that genetic testing seems to indicate that our illnesses are unrelated.

(What are you doing, God?) I was given 3 weeks to put things in order in Congo and make arrangements for moving to the United States for 8-9 months of treatment. Let me hasten to say that the doctors are very confident that we can beat this.

The opportunity to be close to family was one of the main draws to southern California. Here my mom and I share a bench during a short tour of the LA arboretum the afternoon after my first chemotherapy treatment at City of Hope.

I’ve come, with Ed, to southern California, where my mother and our daughter live, and a whole host of the missionary “aunts and uncles” that I grew up with. We now live in a pleasant apartment with our daughter (a special privilege) two miles from my treatment center and along a bus line that goes there, and we’re making slow acquaintance with our new town, when treatment activities allow it. A new friend has loaned us her car for the duration, actually one of four cars offered us. Thank you, friends, for your generosity!

Still the string of blessings must have needed a spot of darkness for compositional balance. A month ago now, returning on foot from an afternoon errand, I tripped on the edge of some uneven sidewalk and broke my left arm at the wrist badly! Suddenly that changes everything again. Quelle aventure!

The cure has imposed some sacrifices. The hair will grow back when pharmaceutical bombardment ends.

A special challenge is figuring out how to dress my head. Yes, I’m temporarily bald. It’s funny that it should make such a difference to me, working in a country where children, schoolgirls in rural schools and many village women, routinely have their hair cut close to their scalps, but it does. Wrong color of woman for it in my mental associations, maybe. I am using a wig, a hat and a kerchief, sometimes with the addition of scarves, keeping an eye out for winter hats, and eagerly looking forward to growing my head of hair out again at the end.

I am tolerating the treatments well, to date. I mentioned adventure. To me, this is an adventure of new experience that God is leading me through, one not completely unexpected, given medical history in my family, not desired, but then that describes ¾ of the adventures we are given in life.

The sun umbrella and I have become even closer friends during these past ten weeks. The pharmaceutical concoction that the doctors are feeding my tumor causes a supersensitivity to the sun's rays in some people. I'm not taking chances.

I am now ¼ of the way through my treatments, through the first chemotherapy regime designed to stop and diminish the presence of cancer in my body, and, sure enough, there are no signs now of any cancerous activity outside the actual tumor, and that is significantly diminished already. God be praised! Eventually they expect to operate on me, and finish with cautionary radiation before I can go back to Congo in April 2013.

Ed is returning to Congo and Lusekele Ag Center in early November, but wants to come back to support me through surgery and the early days of recovery in January. His absence from Lusekele has coincided with the main planting season and absence of the director, due to illness, from day-to-day activities, and there is much to be done.

Weeks in between my chemotherapy treatments are for recovery . . . of the body and of the soul. My cousin, Carla, administered some soul first aid, inviting Ed and me to tour the Huntington Gardens after my third treatment.

So what does God have in mind for this time? Why did he want to pluck us up out of the work we’ve been doing in Congo right now? The answer could be as simple as time to stop and grow in our lives with him. Or it could be the beginnings of new directions in ministry. In Isaiah 43:18-19b, God says, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”

Multiplying and sharing God's blessings

Philo (in the yellow t-shirt), Angela Boss, and Nadesh (from the Central African Republic) get a warm welcome from the women in Moliambo on Wednesday afternoon.

Late Tuesday afternoon a low engine rumble somewhere beyond the garden and oil palm plantation announced the arrival of a small truck as I packed up things to go home. A few minutes later missionary colleague Wayne Niles appeared on the steps leading down to the office. Not far behind were Miriam and four women, the expected team from Foods Resource Bank(FRB), one of the key partners in ACDI Lusekele's agricultural extension programme. Wayne had driven the team up from Kinshasa to spend a couple of days with the ACDI Lusekele staff and the farmers that they serve.

Wayne, Nadesh, Angela Boss (an FRB growing project coordinator), Amy Beth and Lisa are welcomed in chapel at Lusekele on Wednesday morning. The banner on the wall behind says, "To believe in Christ means to live according to another standard."

Foods Resource Bank is a remarkable Christian movement that helps materially poor farmers to end hunger, improve opportunities and contribute to the health of their local communities. It brings together Christian farmers, fruit growers, ranchers, and other production specialists with other Christians with a desire to end hunger and the poverty that so often causes it. In special "growing projects", North American producers dedicate a portion of their production (500 peach trees or 1000 chickens or 10 acres of soybeans) to the Lord. Other Christian partners contribute the funds necessary to pay the costs of producing the peaches or chickens or soybeans. And very often the growing partners raise even more through donations of inputs from local or corporate suppliers. When the crop or animals are sold the money goes to support 50 to 60 FRB projects working with local churches around the world.

As we all sat in the shade of his palm trees, Mr. Ndundu introduced Amy Beth and Lisa to a token of Congolese hospitality - freshly tapped palm wine (from wild palms down the hill.)

For the last seven years the ACDI Lusekele extension program has been part of one of the largest FRB projects. The support makes it possible for extension agents to make regular visits to over 100 farmer's groups every month. They promote disease-resistant cassava varieties, high-yielding peanuts, protein-rich and drought-resistant black-eyed peas, productive hybrid oil palms, and techniques for soil conservation and improvement. They also encourage sharing of the best agricultural practices in this part of Congo. Through God's gracious alchemy, just a few acres of soybeans at the edge of a golden field in North America becomes a force for change in the lives of Congolese semi-subsistence farmers.

Angela Boss, the FRB growing project coordinator for Western North America, brought Amy Beth, Lisa and Nadesh to meet these farmers and the Christian extension specialists who serve them. Amy Beth works with a California peach grower who contributes part of his crop to FRB. Lisa is member of a Tennessee church that wants to partner with FRB. Nadesh is an African agricultural specialist herself, serving farming women through another FRB project in the Central African Republic.

Early Wednesday afternoon, we left the main road, jolted across grassland, slithered through sandy pits and finally wound our way down into the disappearing forest valleys of the Gobari River. Moliambo is the Baptist church center for the area, not more than a few kilometers from the Gobari itself. Farmers from the local association were waiting, eager to show us the changes that have taken place in their villages.

Amy Beth and two women from Nzombi stand in front of a healthy stand of disease-tolerant manioc. I saw only one diseased plant in the whole field.

In nearby Nzombi, we found the village surrounded by astonishing fields of healthy manioc. Disease tolerant varieties and careful culling of diseased plants have virtually eliminated cassava mosaic disease as a problem in the village. At the Baptist high school in Moliambo we saw 8-month old manioc plants nearly 3 meters tall with stems 3 inches across. Ten years ago mosaic disease was contributing to widespread hunger in the area. Today hunger is little more than an unpleasant memory. The only complaint: sometimes people have trouble selling the surplus manioc for lack of buyers.

Thursday we took the team out to meet the associated farmers of Milundu in the Luniungu River basin. Mr Munimi showed us around his oil palm plantation while his sister looked on. The plantation perches on a hillside above chocolate colored fish ponds. Production this past year had been down due to lack of rain. It is only now beginning to pick back up. Still, he said, the income from those palm trees has helped him to buy a bicycle. The bicycle saves time and helps to carry both produce and water for the family. Palm oil income also helped to put his kids through school. His faced beamed when he told us that three of them were in university right now.

Mr. Munimi, a Milundu palm grower, explains to the FRB team how his oil palm plantation has helped his family.

The obvious pride and joy on Mr. Munimi's face is the real reward of this work we do in Jesus's name. His life would seem poor to most of you. But he values his children. He works hard. His family and people in the village respect him. He has remarkable hope, optimism and satisfaction in what he produces. And he will probably live to see his children enter into opportunities that he never dreamed about.

Angela and Philo say good-bye as the FRB team prepares to leave us in Milundu.

I am grateful to all the Christians of Foods Resource Bank growing projects who have made a conscious decision to store up riches heaven. Their sacrifice, their investments, make it possible for the people here at ACDI to share God's blessing with farmers in this region. Each time God's blessing is passed on (North American farmer to Lusekele extension agent to Congolese peasant farmer to their offspring) the blessing is multiplied. What are the things of true value that you and I will leave behind us in this world?

Is it really all about the dress?

The nurses of the Bilili health center proudly display their banner as they line up for the International Women's Day parade.

March 8th…International Women’s Day… It may have passed you by without you noticing it. Here in Congo it is taken seriously. Girls are let out of school, women employees given the day off, women dress their little girls in their own skirts (I saw a number of girls wrestling with this unfamiliar object), women’s groups go into debt to parade in uniform, and the local government plans feasts and parades, with speeches and such. But if you don’t have new uniforms for your group to show off, why go? That was the question raging in the Lusekele women’s group

Little girls dressed up in their mothers' wrap-around skirts. Parade day!

It wasn’t’ just the Lusekele women. All the women I met at the celebration Thursday were just thinking about the parade, and assuming that the government men would arrange the program. But the county administrators were clueless. They had dutifully arranged the occasion. Now they kept saying, “This is YOUR day, ladies…” That’s how I, who had come to observe this event for the first time, was seized on just before the parade, to be the main speaker. Philo, one of Lusekele’s extension agents and its assistant administrator, as the most capable Congolese woman there that they knew, was also asked to give a few remarks.

Participating in the celebration meant a 15 kilometer walk for the Lusekele women.

As a literacy promoter, I talked about the necessity for a country like Congo to use the skills and wisdom of ALL its population, not just the male half, the necessity for women to learn, to gain the knowledge and skills needed to make a good contribution, and the importance for a family’s well-being and future to have a savvy educated woman directing the household. I addressed all those school girls in their mother’s skirts about the necessity to apply themselves to their studies and use what they learn. Philo hammered on the theme I started, pulling out the adage that educating a man gives him a livelihood; educating a woman changes the world around her.

The Lusekele girls lead the delegation for the agricultural center women.

The real reason for days like this is not the dress, the dance step or the parade. International Women’s Day is a chance to change the way we think in important ways. While Congolese village women don’t find their lives intolerable (unless they live in the Great Lakes region, the current rape capitol of the world), they are limited in many ways which contribute to their poverty and handicap their children. Women are often treated like children and deprived of decision-making, even in such personal matters as whether to have more children. Their menfolk act on their behalf, whether for their good or against it. Beating your wife is considered normal in this society. Lack of education is an important limitation for the majority of women, keeping them first from learning about things that could help them, and secondly from understanding the real advantages and disadvantages of new things. The children of uneducated women are less likely to get a good education themselves. The uneducated woman is less likely to get good health care for her children, more likely to get cheated and victimized. One could go on. Government administrators are perfectly willing to celebrate women, but without any interest in changing the status quo. Women have to take responsibility for the program, to hold up models to each other, to tell each other, their men and their daughters why they must think for themselves, why they must gain new skills, why they must speak out, and why they must be listened to.

Lusekele girls at the annual International Women's Day celebration -- happy for the day off, but still wondering what it is all about.

We need to start preparing for next year’s Women’s Day – not just for the dresses, but so that we all have something to present that’s worth our daughters’ (and sons’) attention.