Dear friends,

We depart for the Democratic Republic of the Congo September 17th. If this news is surprising to you, it has been to us too!In our last letter we told you we were going to spend a year in USA.It seems the Lord had other plans.We have sailed through four weeks of having physicals, getting shots, and applying for Congo visas without a hitch.Truly the Lord can do more for us than we can ask or imagine.The timing for this is just too amazing. We are excited and a bit apprehensive, but grateful for God's hand on us.Only the Lord could have worked out this opportunity for our family with such speed!

On June 22nd we tearfully said goodbye to friends, neighbors, and ministry colleagues in Haiti- perhaps one of the hardest things we've ever done.After 14 years of fruitful ministry and family life in Haiti, we left not knowing when we would be returning. Though there is still much to do in ministry in Haiti, we had a small problem: there is no American high school in Cap Haitian where we live, and Christopher begins high school this year.So for some time, we have been prayerfully seeking what God has planned for this chapter of our family life.Should we send him to boarding school?Should we move to Port au Prince and put him in school there (a very violent place these days)?Should we stay in the US or move to the Dominican Republic where there are high schools?Eighteen months ago an opportunity dropped into our laps in the form of an email asking us to consider working in Congo; we would live in the capital Kinshasa, on the campus of an American school, the very one where Wayne and I graduated! We were both raised in Congo and speak several local languages.We were married on the banks of the Congo River twenty years ago. We left soon after and have not been back since.

For much of the 1990's Congo has been torn by civil war.The last few years there has been a shaky peace. In 2000, a team of missionaries and Congolese received a grant of millions of dollars to rebuild Congo's war-torn hospitals and networks of rural clinics.After working on the project for three years getting most of the hospitals up and running, they discovered few had even the small sums needed to seek medical treatment at these hospitals.The country needed an agricultural development program to bootstrap the economy.

As the Congo team thought of who would help them design and run the project they thought of an agricultural missionary who spoke French, Lingala, and Kikongo but happened to be working in Haiti. Wayne collaborated with them by email for several months designing the project.Although the timing was not right for us, we agreed that if they secured funds for the project, we would drop what we were doing in Haiti, move to Congo and Wayne would direct this new agricultural initiative.At the time we were 'winding down' our ministry activities in Haiti in preparation for a year in USA. We needed at least a year to finish publishing books in Creole, make training videos, and hand over our responsibilities to Haitians so the work could go on without us.

Fortunately for us, the project was not funded so we were able to finish up our term in Haiti in a logical way.Christopher was able to 'graduate' from eighth grade with classmates who had started with him in the little mission school in Cap Haitian.Our high school dilemma was not resolved but at least we had a year in the US to decide what we were supposed to do.

We arrived in the US at the end of June expecting to spend a busy year on deputation but not sure what was in store for us when the year ended.While at the annual World Mission Conference in Green Lake, WI, word came from the team in Congo asking if we would be willing to postpone our US assignment and fill an urgent need there.After prayerful consideration, and in consultation with our families and International Ministries, we have accepted the invitation to go to Congo immediately. In a few weeks our boys will be enrolled in the American School of Kinshasa and Wayne will be working with the team on the Congo health and development project.

Despite all that seems to be going so well for us, we feel a great need for your prayers.We are making this move out of obedience and faith but with real apprehension.Congo is still a potentially volatile country.After a very stressful year in Haiti, we don't need to go through more uprisings and revolutions.This is going to be an enormous upheaval for our teen-age boys who have left lifetime friends in Haiti.The agricultural project we intend to work on still has not been funded.Wayne will be filling an administrative post left vacant by another missionary who had to return to USA.This post is not particularly fulfilling for Wayne, but a task he is certainly capable of performing until the agricultural project is funded.Finally, there looms the possibility of missionary recall.We are still BIM missionaries, even though working on a large project, and International Ministries might have to recall up to 30 missionaries in 2005 unless they find 1.5 million dollars in additional mission support.The staff at Valley Forge has made it clear to us that being assigned to Congo does not make us immune to the possibility of recall.So we are truly walking into this by faith, trusting the Lord even though there are all kinds of serious issues surrounding this move.Please pray with us that all will work out to His glory.

Given the urgent need for mission funding, this is not an appropriate time for us to be missing out on the important task of visiting you and renewing our partnership with you.Your prayer and financial support has made our years of ministry in Haiti happen.We can only ask to you bear with us a few more years as we try to go where it seems the Lord is leading us.

In this time of financial difficulty, when International Ministries is faced with the real possibility of having to recall missionaries we urge you to prayerfully consider your gift to the World Mission offering this year.Could you (and your church) increase this offering by 50% or even 100% this year?Please consider boosting your support of our ministry, or the ministry of any one of our International Ministries missionary colleagues.We know the Lord will bless you also.We think International Ministries is one of the best mission organizations in the world, doing 'cutting edge' missions.That's why we work with them.

Though we are moving to Congo, we'll still love to hear from you and keep in touch!!!Your words of encouragement ALWAYS mean so much to us.Email is fastest and cheapest for us.Our address is wkniles@safe-mail.net.After Sept 17 we will receive mail via DHL packet once a month.This 'snail mail' address will be:

Wayne and Katherine Niles

c/o Africa Desk (Congo), International Ministries

P.O. Box 851

Valley Forge, PA19482 - 0851

Until we can meet again, God bless us every one.

Katherine, for us all