Tuesday Morning

We're staying at the Protestant Welcome Center, affectionately known as CAP. I used to live here. Memories. It is comfortable and freshly painted.

Rick Lowery describes the drive there the night before, as "otherworldly." Kinshasa is a city of 7 million people, but streetlights are few and far between, so the thousands of people walking (public transport is terrible and only the very fortunate own a vehicle) are hard to make out in the darkness. They seem almost ghostlike - appearing suddenly alongside the vehicle or crossing in front of us. All along the road, make-shift booths and tables for small commercial enterprises - selling cell phone minutes, or bananas or anything else that can bring in some spare change - get their light from small torches and fires. The flicker of open flames adds to the clear impression: definitely not Kansas!

Today we visit the headquarters of the Church of Christ of Congo (CCC) - sixty-five communities working together. I used to work here in adult literacy. It's changed in thirty years. A new building added. And no one I know still around. We meet the head of women's work and hear about their projects to meet the vast needs of women related to the war in the East - a war that has caused the deaths of 5.4 million Congolese in the last ten years, a war that is a derivative of the Rwanda genocide, a derivative of the world's generations-long grab of Congolese resources. Rape has been a weapon of this war, leaving women maimed and often divided from their families by shame, needing a skill to support themselves. CCC women are trying to help meet the need.

We move on to visit the Protestant University of Congo (UPC), headed by the Rev. Dr. Ngoy Boliya, a Disciple. We hear the history going back to predecessor institutions - including to the University Libre de Kinshasa in 1963 headed by a Disciples missionary, Ben Hobgood. The UPC now has the appearance of a thriving institution of higher education - students are everywhere with the energy and laughter and intensity of young adults anywhere. But we know they attend under difficult circumstances, living on next to nothing - even by student standards. They are studying theology or law or medicine. Dr. Ngoy and the other leaders wonder out loud if Disciples have forgotten this university we helped to found. We squirm a bit even as we admire the evidence of enterprising, creative leadership rivaling anything we know among our best educational leaders at home. I make a mental note to add an overseas component to any big push my office initiates related to theological education.

Dr. Ngoy's staff serves us a little "snack" to tide us over - meat, greens, fried plantain bananas (yum!), cassava bread. Then back to the CAP for our real lunch - late - held for us.

Tuesday Evening

I'd casually mentioned a desire to shop for fabric - and get an outfit made before leaving for home. It turns out that as "Mama Presidente," there is no such thing as a casual comment. Back at CAP, church women were waiting with bolts of fabric for us to choose from, including various renditions of the Protestant women's special issue fabric:  "Christians are the light" in many languages. The one we all most wanted - the Disciples fabric with chalices - was, sadly, not available.

From CAP to Lemba, the seat of Disciples in Kinshasa. Rev. Eale is lead pastor there. The church owns the whole block, renting out space to commercial establishments, the income of which helps support the church. One of those establishments was a tailor shop where we got measured and chose patterns for our fabric. Very hot business in that tiny little shop. I stepped out for air and met Rick Spleth who had a heads up for me, "There are a lot of people at church waiting. Hear that music? That's the church. They've been warming up for our arrival."

And what an arrival it was. Hundreds of people. When we rounded the corner, and they saw us, the music cranked up - a brass band, drums and other percussion, clapping, choirs in uniform, women dancing - and the ground covered with pieces of cloth all the way up to the church. They had literally covered the ground with their clothes for us to walk on. Rev. Eale and I went first - that's the way it would be so much of the time. In Congo, the President goes in first, no matter how embarrassing that may be. Inside we listened to music, listened to speeches - gratitude to United States and Canada Disciples for support in establishing the Disciples work in Kinshasa. We made speeches - Rick Spleth: how overwhelming the welcome was. We are ambassadors now. Sandra: We are one family. Me: Sometimes in human experience the parent becomes the child and follows the leadership of the younger one. We have much to learn from you.

Then a brief interview with the local television station and off to dinner with the Urban Council - the regional board, so to speak. Again, a feast. Abundant hospitality.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 »

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