A letter from Larry and Inge Sthreshley in Congo
October 3, 2006
Dear Friends,
This is a time of profound change in Congo and in our work here. Congo’s first “real” elections took place the end of July, the SANRU project that we have been working with for the last five years is coming to a close, and the way mission is done in Congo is changing.
Elections
Originally the elections were planned for June ‘05. They have been delayed three times since then. Thirty-three presidential candidates and over 9,000 parliamentary candidates ran for office. The day of elections went much better than expected, but three weeks later, when the results were announced, parts of the capital city exploded in violence. None of the presidential candidates received the required 50 percent of the votes to avoid a runoff election. For three days after the results were announced Kinshasa was shut down, as President Kabila’s troops and Vice President Bemba’s troops battled in the streets. As the country prepares for the second round of elections on October 29, people are expecting more violence and demonstrations. Please pray for a peaceful political transition in Congo and that God will raise up leaders in all areas of government who will work for the good of all the Congolese people.
SANRU
The SANRU health program that we have been working with for the last five years with Interchurch Medical Assistance (IMA) is coming to a close. It has had a great impact on the 10 million people in the health zones it has assisted. Interventions such as the use of insecticide-treated nets to prevent malaria have gone from 3 to 49 percent household coverage, vaccination coverage went up by 30 percent and over 2,600 clean water sources were constructed. (To learn more, go to SANRU’s Web site.) We had hoped that funding would be extended, but changes in U.S. policy are causing the funding to go to health zones in southeast Congo. For the last nine months we have been working on a proposal for these new health zones. That project will start in early October. The SANRU/IMA team will take the lead in a consortium comprised of IMA, ECC (the Protestant council of Congo), Catholic Relief Services, World Vision and Merlin with technical assistance from Johns Hopkins Management Sciences for Health and Helen Keller Foundation. The program will cover 60 health zones and serve a population of 7 million people. It will include almost all the health zones where the Presbyterian Church in the Congo has hospitals. Larry has been named “Chief of Party” for the program, so he will be overseeing the whole program and has the task of keeping everyone working together.
New mission mode
Congo has been prioritized by PC(USA) as one of the countries in which we should do more because of the need here and our historic involvement, but the reality is that PC(USA) has less money and fewer personnel to do the work than it has had in the past. Before the pillaging of 1991, there were 42 missionary families in Congo. Three years later, that number dropped to less than 10. And now there are three. The reason people left were mostly personal ones and not based on a policy to downsize. During this same period, mission funding has dramatically dropped as U.S. churches have moved their money to programs where they feel they have more direct control over how the money is used. The consequences of these two events have made it necessary to do missions in a different way. We concentrate our efforts on developing and supporting the capacity of the local church and using our limited funds to leverage international donor support. We also do our best to facilitate the direct involvement of churches and presbyteries that want to do mission work in Congo.
One of Inge’s main activities for the last year and a half that helps facilitate this new mode of mission involvement has been improving the functioning of the Methodist Presbyterian Hostel and Guest House in Kinshasa (MPH). The guesthouse is a service to the various denominations in the Congo, lodging missionaries and Congolese nationals traveling on church business and work teams from the United States and elsewhere, and it also hosts church conferences, retreats and workshops. MPH has between 100 and 200 guests a month. During conferences, there are often 30 to 50 guests a night. The building has not had much maintenance for the last 10 years, so Inge has been trying to get the building back in shape and re-equipped, in addition to setting up management systems.
So this is a time of great hope and also anxiety in Congo. If these elections go well, they could mark the end of a decade of brutal wars and the beginning of a stable environment where greatly needed economic development can take place. We are still praying that after the final elections more money will be coming to Congo so we can continue the work that SANRU started in all the regions of the country. And as funding and personnel decrease with all mission denominations working in Congo, we search for new ways to be effective with the mission of the church.
Peace,
Inge and Larry
The 2006 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 317
