Virgil and Lynn Nelson, WHO are these people? We are missionaries serving with the Pastoral Training School in Kikongo the D. R. of Congo with American Baptist Churches USA, International Ministries. It has been over a year since we met SOME of you in local churches during our 9 months in the USA, between Sept 2002 and April 2003. (Boston, NYS, Maine, Glendale, Ventura, Ojai, Santa Paula, Livermore, etc)

OTHERS of you we have met "along the way" in the States, and France/Belgium as you have helped us solve various challenges/problems. Still OTHERS are LONG TIME friends/supporters, but WE ARE NOT SURE that your e-mail address EVER made it onto the "list" to receive our occasional e-mail newsletter/journal entries. So some of you may ALREADY be receiving our "updates" from our "Drcongovir@aol.com" address. IF SO, please use the "UN-SCUBSCRIBE" function at the bottom of this letter.

If you DO NOT want to be hearing from us, please FORGIVE US for the intrusion, and use the "unsubscribe" function below. WE APOLOGIZE for our lack of adequate organization to keep all of our "notes" straight, and to respond to folks interests in a timely way. (I wont begin to try to explain challenges presented by the peculiarities of our various e-mail systems here, and in the States.)

The last year in "summary" was an exciting one. We finished up our presentations, and workshops with local churches and associations/regions, in April and enjoyed a month of French study in two Elder hostels (one in France and the other in Belgium). One week of our second month was spent at the Taize community in France. What a JOY to spend the hours of each day in shared prayer, study, worship and song with over 1,000 others. Plus, for the first time we were able to travel in France, practicing our French as we traveled and stayed with friends.

Our arrival in Kinshasa in early July allowed time for gathering our legal documents to travel to Kikongo in the interior, and for resource gathering for the Pastoral School and various development projects.

We are MOST THANKFUL that our first year class has 17 student families, the highest enrollment in many years. The challenge for them and the school is finding adequate food resources, since they were not here to plant fields last year, and hence have no "harvest" during this season. Our total enrollment is now 30, and we are praying for a "full house" next September of 50 families. The BIGGEST challenge is the failing economy, which means that few folk in the interior have "jobs" which pay in "cash." The students need to pay only $90 a year for their tuition, but that is a MAJOR challenge!!

Pray for them and for us as we seek ways to make the truths of the Gospel come alive in all of our daily lives, while looking for ways that the students might create products to market in Kinshasa, and do small economic development projects.

The most exciting project this year is the planting of miniature palm trees. They will begin bearing fruit (nuts) in 4 -5 years (rather than 10-15 in the older varieties), and give a larger yield of valuable palm oil which is used for: nutrition; making soap and other products for personal use; and for sale/income. This September 37 groups collectively planted over 3000 newly germinated seedlings. Plus 9 groups, began the TRANSPLANTING of their 200 young plants from the nursery into the plantations. Everyone is anxious for the harvest, but there is still MUCH to do before then. As the loans are paid off, a major portion of the funds will be re-cycled as new loans to help with the purchase of processing equipment for the nuts and the rendering of the oil.

The fields are also "ripe unto harvest" for the hearts and souls of folk in this vast country. And the need for trained church leadership is incredible. In ONE region alone (of 13) there are over 70 churches without pastors. We are thankful to have a small part in the training of indigenous pastors for service in their own communities.

Your prayers and support are much appreciated!

IF you would like to write to us, please use our Drcongovir@aol.com address. (The folk who help us forward these e-mails to you from our headquarters in Valley Forge, are not set up to handle your replies to us.) We try to write every month or so. Should you have an interest in any of our earlier sharings, and IF you have web access, those offerings can be found at "www.internationalministries.org", by typing in our name in the "missionary" information option.

May God bless you in your New Year.

Shalom,

Virgil and Lynn Nelson