It's been more than two months since I moved back to the Evangelical Center of Cooperation (CECO) in Kimpese, 100 miles south-west of Kinshasa, to the house I lived in for most of my first three terms in the Congo.There are 25 students at the Bible Institute this year, in four classes.Twenty of the students are married, and their wives study at the Women's School. There are three women enrolled in the Bible Institute, one of them married. Eleven students are members of our sister church, the Western Congo Baptist Community (CBCO); the rest are from other Baptist and evangelical denominations.My responsibilities include teaching church history in all four classes, and missiology to the second-year students.

I am very pleased to let you know that CBCO pastor Ruben Mumpasi was confirmed earlier this month by the Board of Directors of CECO as the new director of the Bible Institute.He has been a chaplain at the Evangelical Medical Institute here in Kimpese for several years, so he is no stranger to us.

I am also glad to report that my work with young people and the True Love Waits program is continuing, in spite of my transfer to Kimpese.In September, the leaders of CBCO finally realized that AIDS poses a real threat to our church members and their families, and they agreed to encourage the formation of teams to go into local churches and talk about the disease and how to prevent it (through abstinence and faithfulness). It's surprising how many people still think AIDS is transmitted by mosquitos and sorcery, and that their conduct has nothing to do with it!I was named co-chairman of the organizing committee for this effort, along with Dr. Jerry Kindomba, a very committed young physician.There are nearly 100 CBCO church members in Kinshasa who received training from Christian Action Against AIDS (a group that benefited from the special Christmas advent calendar offering in 2001), or who followed the True Love Waits program in 2001 with our Responsible Living Skills team.These individuals will constitute the core group of trainers who will go into local churches and spread the information about AIDS, beginning in January 2004.

In November, I was away from Kimpese for two weeks, to go to the Western Kasai province, in the central part of the Congo, with the Responsible Living Skills team.We were invited by the national Rural Health coordinating organization to lead a four-day seminar on AIDS and the True Love Waits program for 30 rural health workers, some of whom walked 25 miles to attend! In addition, we replied to an invitation from the Presbyterian Churches in Kananga, capital of the province, to hold a two-day seminar with 120 pastors, youth leaders and university students from several denominations in the city.We have already had feedback that several of those trained have introduced the True Love Waits program in their churches or schools, and have formed clubs with young people who have committed themselves to sexual abstinence until marriage.

At the end of November and beginning of December, I invited 4 members of the Responsible Living Skills team to come to Kimpese and introduce True Love Waits to my friends and colleagues here.Seventy-two people attended the first training seminar, and during the week that followed we met with 10 high school classes (an average of 50 students per class), plus the entire student body of two other high schools (over 600 students), and also students at the Bible Institute, the Protestant University of Kimpese, and two medical training schools at the Evangelical Medical Institute.I have been meeting weekly with eight university students who are highly committed to True Love Waits, and they assisted me in presenting elements of the program in one of the high schools.We have been invited to present the program, in whole or in part, at two churches in Kimpese during the Christmas holidays (one Assemblies of God and one CBCO), and to 5th and 6th graders at the 2 elementary schools here at CECO when school starts again in January.

The Christmas season is upon us, and may be past before this letter gets posted on the web page.It's the hottest time of the year here in Congo. The rains are especially heavy this year, with several areas reporting severe flooding.Please pray that the peace of Christ will reign in this country in the coming year, as officials struggle to establish a new and democratic government.The president of the Senate is also the head of the Church of Christ in Congo, the council of Churches, and our own CBCO pastor Ernesting Mujinga is one of several Christian senators.Please pray that their positive influence will be felt in decisions to be made!

My e-mail system is not very efficient here; sometimes it takes several weeks to get messages back and forth to Kinshasa.But I do enjoy hearing from everybody.

In His service,

Wendy Bernhard