Ed and Miriam serve in a region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo where over two-thirds of the population depends on agriculture for a living, and where chronic malnutrition limits the lives of children.

Ed supports and advises Congolese Baptist church programs promoting more productive, profitable, and sustainable farming techniques. He also helps churches to develop competent researchers, agricultural promoters, and teachers, and to organize more effective efforts to improve agriculture. He also teaches agriculture students at the Milundu Teachers' College and assists the local Baptist congregation on program management and finance.

Miriam has a burden for thousands of illiterate women who provide the foundations of healthy family life, yet are marginalized or impoverished because they cannot read and write. She promotes church-based literacy programs and trains literacy teachers. Programs have now been established in over half of the Baptist churches in Kinshasa. Training and lesson materials for program leaders and teachers in rural areas are the next goal. She also advises Baptist Pygmy evangelism efforts in Central African Republic, promotes training materials for rural pastors and lay leaders, and advises the Baptist Community on literature.

 Ed writes: Lusekele was built as a farmer training school in the early 1960s. … But government commitment to training farmers soon waned. A decade later, when the Baptist Convention of Congo agreed to base its small farm resource center and extension program there, little but the land and buildings was left.

In 1985 when I arrived here for the first time, roof-fed cisterns were the only source of clean drinking water. Irrigation was a wild dream. During the dry season workers' children carried household water from a swamp-side spring over a mile away.

Yesterday, water flowed from the Kwilu River 500 meters to a storage tank in the middle of the center for first time in 35 years. This storage tank feeds 2 small irrigation lines [and] a biosand water filter that will give clean drinking and cooking water for over 100 people that live here.

Timothée Kabila caught my attention this morning. "The water system is like a corn seed," he said. "With a little care it will mature. Eventually it will begin to multiply, producing seeds of other good changes here at Lusekele." We are content for the moment to celebrate water in the village. But ultimately, I expect water to bring new life and hope to ACDI and the people we serve. 

 Pray for Ed and Miriam as they bring the love of Jesus to the people of the Congo through Christ-like ministries of practical helps, training and caring.