Dear family, Calvary Baptist co-workers, and other partners,

Lightning flickers off to the east, but no thunder rolls reach us through the thick air.A trunk sits on the bedroom floor, half-filled with clothes, sunscreen, a malaria cure, toilet paper, a flashlight.Tomorrow Miriam starts another journey into one of the more remote corners of Bandundu province, east of the Congo River, north of the Kwa-Kasai, and northwest of the Mfimi. The Mboma people inhabit the region.Miriam and Mrs. Rose Mayala will train another group of literacy teachers in local CBCO churches.The site for the training is Mbali, a village 60 miles north of Mushie, the major church center in the area.

Pastor Dwemi, the senior pastor at Mushie, explains that while the church was established in the area years ago there are only three trained pastors for 39 local congregations.One of these is well beyond retirement age and unable to visit church members regularly.A second is in Kinshasa studying for his master's degree.The burden of leading and teaching falls on the shoulders of dedicated lay people, many of who have only the most limited resources for guiding fellow believers.Pastor Dwemi has tried hard to reinforce the effectiveness of these lay leaders by organizing short mobile Bible and leadership seminars.Training local leaders is still a daunting task.

Widespread illiteracy is one of the barriers in this isolated area.One lay leader preaches sermons based on popular religious choruses – neither she nor anyone else in the local church can read.The Bible is a closed and locked book to her and fellow believers.Learning all that Jesus teaches means spending time with someone else who has heard the Gospel.The transfer of knowledge depends on a person with knowledge traveling around over very rough country sharing the word of Jesus and faith.

Miriam and Rose expect about 30 people will participate in the weeklong teacher training.Many will travel up to 30 miles on foot to take part.For Miriam and Rose the trip starts in Kinshasa with a 3-hour taxi-bus ride to Maluku at the northeast end of the Pool.There they catch a boat for a three-day ride to Mushie followed by a 100 km trip by truck to Mbali.All worthwhile goals impose a cost.Helping people to learn to read, unlocking the riches of God's word as well as the experience of an entire world, is certainly worth the cost … for teachers and learners alike.

One final piece of good news is UNESCO has agreed in principle to help supply the CBCO women's literacy program with literacy primers and funds for intensifying the program in Bandundu province.This will allow Rose to expand the program.God gave us the financial seeds to start modest literacy training.And now those modest efforts are bearing unexpected fruit – multiplying the gifts that you have given.

Since my return to Kinshasa on September 7th, emotions have yo-yoed all over the place as Lusekele and Kikongo farmers anticipated the start of two pilot programs promoting high-yielding oil palms.Pre-germinated oil palm seeds were shipped on September 6th to arrive in Kinshasa sometime during the following week.The company guarantees success if the seeds are planted in 18 days. Anticipation turned to anxiety when we learned that the 12,000 seeds were held up for 3 days in Europe.Anxiety gave way to relief when the seeds arrived and we were able to keep the reservation to fly them to Kikongo and Lusekele the next day.Then Mission Aviation Fellowship planes were grounded in a bureaucratic snafu.After 3 days of promises from the government office responsible and still no authorization to fly, our only alternative was an emergency 650 km truck trip to deliver seeds.Farmers waiting for seeds began to fear that the palm project might turn into some giant fiasco, or worse, an elaborate rip-off.

Six-thirty Friday morning we launched ourselves into 11 grueling hours of driving National Route no. 2 and 100 kms of agricultural feeder roads to Kikongo, arriving just at dusk.Anticipation reborn in Kikongo where many farmers still had to come in 20 to 30 miles to pick up seeds.Saturday morning Brother Bwezey, the pastoral school development specialist, and I held a hurried review of planting techniques and dos and don'ts for transporting seeds.Glen Chapman, Kikongo missionary, reported Sunday evening that they had all 3,000 seeds distributed and planted in nurseries, two days ahead of deadline.

Meanwhile at Lusekele, farmer murmuring after nearly a week of waiting was growing intense.Ten-thirty Saturday morning a message arrived at Kikongo asking to speak with me.I knew the question:are you coming with the seeds? And when?Without even going to the radio we left word we were on our way and should arrive early Sunday morning.Eight hours later, having come close to tipping the truck over two times on particularly rough patches of road, we pulled into Kenge, a third of the way to Vanga, a haze of cook-fire smoke and humidity ablaze in the rays of the setting sun.Two hundred and fifty farmers waiting at Lusekele – 9.000 seeds in three cartons in the back of the truck – 9 hours of driving left.

We only came close to turning the truck over one more time trying to avoid a massive mudhole.At 3 am, after dropping off the Vanga Hospital medical director, Dr. Mpoo, and missionary colleague George Win who was returning from Kikongo, Miriam and I mercifully dropped into hot baths and stumbled to bed.Sunday morning was a wonderful opportunity to share with Lusekele believers and visiting farmers the miracle that God was doing.He brought seed producers from Costa Rica, together with farmers in Congo, Christian givers in North America, a secular (irreligious) international development agency, believers in the CBCO community and who knows who else, to stake 250 Lusekele area farmers for a new future in palm oil production.In 5 years this could mean as much as $800 per year of added farm income for each participating family.The murmurers were silent on Sunday morning.By Monday afternoon, one day ahead of the deadline, farmers had planted 9,000 seeds in 34 nurseries as far away as 50 kms from Lusekele.

In the scale of the entire world our activities are almost insignificant.But we praise God for the signs of the Kingdom He gives to us, in this out of the way corner of Africa.God Himself nourishes hope.When all seems lost our hope rests in Him, Lord of Mercy and Love.

In a final note, many of you know that I was in Oregon and California for six weeks helping Mark to get settled and started at Linfield College in McMinnville Oregon.Whoever thought that it would be necessary to drive 150 miles round trip for Mark to get his final driving test – and what relief when the examiner called him up to get his license.For over a week we drove to Southern California to see Arley and Ruth Brown, Miriam's parents, and my Aunt Jean in Fresno.My Mom put on a reunion that brought together cousins that I hadn't seen in decades.Mom's hospitality in Keizer and generosity made our tasks easy.Mark is launched on a course that may include international relations and engineering.The bigger task is to continue dreaming and working toward those dreams.

Thanks for your prayers – we live in a time where dreams of the Kingdom are realized.Thank you for participating with us in the challenges God gives.

Ed and Miriam