After an exciting and fruitful year traveling around the United States and serving as Missionary-in-Residence at Judson University, Elgin, Illinois, the time came for me to say good-by there in May and travel west through Kansas to join family and friends for the wedding of my nephew in Las Vegas. (Don’t worry, he lives there; he’s a professor at UNLV!) I also visited retired missionary colleagues and other friends in Southern California, before going to Elko, Nevada, connecting with family and my home church, and organizing my Missionary Partnership Team! “Team Wendy” is an enthusiastic group of people, dedicated to keeping you informed of what I’m doing! They’ll be sending this message out to you by e-mail or postal mail, whichever you have requested.
I spent most of the month of July in Europe, attending a missionary retreat and Baptist World Alliance meetings in Prague, Czech Republic. It was my first time to visit that beautiful historic city, home of one of the first church Reformers, John Huss, and the campus of the European Baptist Theological Seminary. I also visited friends in France: first a seminary colleague of mine, now in Strasbourg, whom I hadn’t seen for 27 years, and his wife whom I met for the first time; then, a British Baptist missionary colleague, now retired near Angers in the western part of the country. I traveled by train, and enjoyed the countryside.
July 29 was the date of my arrival in Kinshasa, and I stayed for a week with a colleague Nancy Allan while I visited our church headquarters and did some necessary shopping. I also purchased a new-to-me vehicle, from other ABC missionaries: a 1999 Toyota Rava, a small version of the Land Cruiser. It’s much nicer, including air conditioning, than “Kimpwanza” (“Freedom”), the vehicle I sold last year, but it doesn’t hold as many people. We’ve named it “Kimpwanza BB” (pronounced Bay-Bay), because BB are the last two letters on the license plate, and also because it means “baby” in French. It’s younger and smaller than the first “Kimpwanza”!
I drove Kimpwanza BB to Kimpese on Aug 5, and it has already gone on three weekend evangelistic trips, with a fourth coming up. Pastor John Dizeyi, a graduate of the Bible Institute and now pastor in Kimpese, does a lot of the driving, and sometimes goes on trips without me. This year, I have six evangelistic films given to me by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, to show in various locations. We already showed one, “A Reason to Sing,” at a youth camp, with 184 in attendance and 10 decisions for Christ. Hospitals, churches and schools are interested in showing the films, including “Joni.” We still have the films on youth and AIDS, and the JESUS film, that we have shown many times with great effect.
My house needed extensive work when I got back, including an inside paint job, so I spent a week with my British friend Pat Woolhouse. We watched the entire first season of the TV series “Seventh Heaven,” which I brought back on DVD, and now it’s making a hit with the neighborhood kids. They call it “La famille du Pasteur,” “The pastor’s family,” and they find that the children and adults have the same problems here in Congo as in the States; except that here you add the effects of extreme poverty and witchcraft!
The school year has started at the Bible Institute, with six, third-year students who will be graduating in June, and nine in the second year. There’s one woman in each class. We didn’t have enough candidates for a first year class this year, but there are several who are interested in coming next year. We’re getting ready to celebrate the centennial of the Evangelical Center of Cooperation in October, a joyous occasion for all of us here at the “cradle of theological education in the Congo.”
The theme of this year’s World Mission Offering is SURPRISED BY THE PEOPLE OF GOD. I’ve had the joy of meeting with Kuzy Mwinda Michel and his wife Hortense; his name, “Mwinda,” means “Light,” and he accepted Christ after seeing the slogan, “A Christian is a Light” on a popular cloth print. Michel and Hortense were married last September, after having honored their “True Love Waits” pledge, and they were blessed with a baby girl, Allegresse, which means “Great Joy,” in June.
I am always SURPRISED BY THE PEOPLE OF GOD when I meet with Henry Lembe and his family; he’s a Christian composer and singer who is blind from retinitis pigmentosa, along with his wife and four children, ages 18 to 28. They are building a house in Kinshasa, and trusting God for all the materials and labor costs. Their faith is always an inspiration to me, even as I help them as the Lord provides for my needs.
A sad visit that I’ve had since my return to the Congo has been with the family of Honorine, the young woman who worked in my home during my last four years in Kimpese, and who died of breast cancer during my absence. Her husband and a grown son are nowhere to be seen, which leaves her elderly mother caring for her three young children, two girls (a 14-year-old 5th grader, and a 9-year-old 2nd grader), and 3-year-old Bernhard, named after me, who is starting preschool! I’m helping them with their school expenses this year with money I received for that purpose, and I pray that they will grow into responsible Christian adults.
The weather is changing from dry to rainy season. There was a soft, refreshing rain overnight in the village I visited last weekend, but there hasn’t been any in Kimpese yet. My prayers are with you, as you are in the transition from summer to fall, and as the United States prepares to vote in November!
Blessings,
Wendy