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.