Fall 2010 to March 2011

The following is sort of a time line of our happenings.

Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas, Denver

From mid September to November we traveled in Kentucky and Tennessee speaking and ended up going home through Texas. As we wrote, right after we arrived back, Baba Ngoi passed away. He was such a part of our lives and ministry, we will miss him. We arrived home in time to welcome David’s brother John and Dagmar, and son Luke, and Andrew and Amber from Seattle for Thanksgiving.

Of course the main attraction was Michelle and Jeff’s little Elloitt! Or "Mr. Elliott" as everyone calls him! He had lots of attention and it was a great family time. What a delight to have this first grandson join our family. Thank you Lord for this child.

Congo sadness

Right after Thanksgiving, we were broken hearted to learn that the oldest daughter of Rev. Kandolo had died due to medical complications. Irene had been married less than a year and also had had a miscarriage. She had been a friend of Michelle’s and we had watched her grow up. It was very hard for Rev. Kandolo, as he could not return from Canada, where he is studying. Please keep them in prayers.

December in California

December we were privileged to attend a fellow missionary‘s son’s wedding in California. The Wolford family has had two generations of missionaries in Congo with our family. It was good to be with everyone again. Steve and Debbie’s first son Brian was married to Ashley. From CA, we flew to Seattle to spend time with Andrew and his girl friend, Judy, and Amber. We had a great time being with them and meeting more of their friends and surroundings.

Shingles attack Lori

However, during our time there, Lori spent two days in the ER with chest pain and was diagnosed with shingles. Not a fun thing! Shingles put a damper on Christmas but we all had fun and enjoyed Mr. Elliot’s first Christmas. We were joined by Jeff’s parents and brothers and family. Of course, Mr. Elliott had no idea what all the presents meant but he seemed to enjoy all the special attention and the colors and lights! He even examined Santa’s beard and smiled for all! Both holidays were such a blessing with our families.

Sadly, right at New Years, Lori’s cousin Max, (on her Dad’s side) passed away in Texas, so we flew to Dallas. It was a good celebration of his life and special time for the family.

Lori's health

As time went along, instead of feeling better, Lori felt worse and ended up with pneumonia! This stopped all travel plans for return to Congo. We felt mowed down by all this! So now we are on the other side of all this illness and writing to let you know that the GBGM has cleared us to return.

Back to Congo!

Praise The Lord! We will be flying out on March 22nd. Keep us in your prayers as we return and resume our responsibilities and continued health for us. We have to say that being with Mr. Elliott has been so special and to watch him grow and respond. We have been blessed with our family!

We continually thank the Lord for you and the way you have loved, encouraged and stood with us through this time. Thank you for your notes and cards of encouragement. We will try to communicate better in the months ahead. At the same time we still like hearing from you and we continue to keep you in our prayers.

Mulungwishi brochure

David and Lori have sent along a copy of the new "Faces of Mulungwishi" brochure for the Mulungwishi mission station in the D.R. Congo.

It's in PDF format and 906K in size.  We will also link it on the "About Us" page.

• Faces of Mulungwishi brochure

You may also note from the web address of the PDF above tghat we are now using Microsoft's Skydrive for storing our files such as this. Microsoft gives us up to 25GB of storage and we can make varied files viewable by everyone.

2010 flew by

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8)

Wow, another year has gone by and 2011 is here! We pray that your Christmas time was blessed for you and yours. We want to reflect on the Lord’s faithfulness to Mulungwishi through the years. We praise Him for the miracles when we thought things looked very bad but He is faithful! When we look at what Congo has gone through, with the turmoil, the wars and the tragic loss of life, it is amazing how instead of fading away the Church has gained strength and despite the difficulties had gone forward with hope and faith. This was exemplified in the theme for the Centennial Celebration of the United Methodist Church in Congo this past July. Yes! We celebrated 100 Years of mission and growth! The Hebrews verse above was the theme for the Celebration and showing their faith for the future in a never changing God!

A great Centennial

The Church leadership did a good job of planning for the Centennial. We have written bits on the blog. It started in Lubumbashi with guests from Switzerland, the States and Church leadership from around Africa. Thousands paraded through the streets of the city coming for 5 hour celebration service outside the Jerusalem Church. All the stops were pull out with dancing, singing, speeches, preaching and worship. It was a blessing to hear reports of how God used different people to bring about the growth in the Church. Two days later, the venue moved to Mulungwishi for the Church celebration and Annual Conference. More than a thousand people were involved. We realized that our families have been a part of the Lord’s work here for the past 74 years!

Again, we look to that verse and see the Lord leading during a very unsettling time for Mulungwishi as He lead us to discover that land taxes had not been paid for over 50 years!! Help!! The University had planned an evaluation and visioning study. Two Congolese gentlemen came down from Kinshasa to do this study. They were excellent at evaluating the situation and the needs for the future. In discussions they realized that the Church and the mission at Mulungwishi had not paid a tax due every 25 years. The Lord brought them at a critical time as mining concessions and diggers were all over Mulungwishi’ s land even though we tried to chase them away! Quickly, Dr. Kasap, our University President, went down to Lubumbashi and started the process of how much and what to do. As we wrote in the blog, things came together quickly and we realized how much the Lord uses our partners. Praise the Lord for the way we received a loan from the Swiss Church and then Churches, individuals, GBGM and GCFA came through to insure the land title for Mulungwishi! The leadership now has all the papers!! He is Lord from the past who started the work at Mulungwishi! He brought us the two gentlemen and all His people in the nowto meet the crisis! Through this, the Lord is leading to the future, in giving us a way to keep our land! Again He is never changing and faithful!

Congo Minister of Higher Ed a blessing

Another person God has used for Mulungwishi has been the Minister of Higher Education in Congo, Dr. Mashako. He has made several visits to the station and has helped with paper work and red tape to keep the University developing. Minister Mashako encouraged the leadership to think about adding a School of Agriculture which the leadership is working on now!! He was traveling around the country evaluating university level institutions. He closed many who were non- viable. In our case, he saw us as a shining example of what a private university should be in serving Southern Congo. Again, God brought the right person into our midst to enable us to keep the University open! The Minister was so excited about the land, the history of Mulungwishi, and its outreach through the years. He was pleased to see the ongoing education and pushing us to plan for the future! Again we see the Lord in the past, the present and the future and He does not change!

Looking ahead in 2011

This year will complete our time in Africa on this contract. We will be returning this fall to itinerate in our supporting churches. We anticipate six months of itineration and then return to Congo. We will then return to the States for six months itineration next year. So we hope to see and visit many of you in the near future. It will also give us the opportunity to strategize for the future in the work we are doing together in Africa.

Prayer is important

Prayer is so important to bring the relationship between churches in Congo and the US. People, there, always say how much it means to them that you are praying for them. We ask you to pray with us for the following:

• Our health and travel
• The Congo and the leadership, resolutions of the terrible mining practices
• Those in ministry at Mulungwishi, the Women’s School, the University, the Primary and Secondary Schools and the medical
• Two work teams coming to Mulungwishi

Finally, we want to celebrate with you all the goodness and mercy the Lord has given us this past year, the hope and joy the Christ Child brings us. The knowledge that our Lord is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow is such a comfort in this world that seems so often out of control! It is He, who is faithful and He will lead if we are open and willing. You are part of all of this by your faithfulness over the years. Thank you so much for wanting to be a part of what the Lord is doing and we praise Him for who He is! We continue to pray the Lord’s richest blessings for you in this New Year.

December prayer focus

During December, please

• Pray for Mulungwishi life -- a community of diverse tribal groups.
• Pray for our personal family -- David, Lorene, Michelle & Jeff, Andrew & Amber.
• Pray for our personal support and well-being.
• Pray for us as the Lord's representatives to the Congolese church.

Your support through prayer, encouragement, and funds has let us serve at Mulungwishi for over 30 years! We are grateful for the privilege.

Since September ...

Greetings from Denver. We closed things up at Mulungwishi, said goodbye to Zorro, the cat, and Isaiah, the parrot. We went through Zambia on our way to the States. While there, we are taught for two weeks at the Kafakumba Pastors’ Training Center. It is much like the conference course of study. These are lay pastors who are serving churches and come in for 4-6 weeks a year for training. After 8 years they are ordained as Elders. Lori taught a class to the women on Wesley. David classes were on Contextualization, the Holy Spirit and the Kingdom of God.

Grads go out into the world

As we left, our graduating class were receiving their designations from the Annual Conferences and were leaving to begin their ministry. Please be in prayer for them as they travel. Many will spend several weeks getting to their appointments. Pray also for their congregations. Several are going to areas that have been devastated by the conflicts in the region. Pray that the Lord will use these graduates to bring God’s good news of forgiveness, peace and reconciliation.

First grandchild

We arrived back in the States on September 19th. Seeing our first grandchild, Elliot, was such a thrill. A few days later, David left to begin itineration in Kentucky. Lori joined him two weeks later. Grandma time is very special.

Kentucky and Tennessee church visits

October and the first half of November found us in our churches in Kentucky and Tennessee. The old Toyota cruised on for another 7,800 miles before we got home. We shared some 44 times in 29 churches or venues. These numbers don’t mean much compared with the personal contact that we had with a great number of you who shared your love for us and the Lord’s work. Truly we are all spoiled being chosen by God to receive his love and share it with the world we live in.

Sanki

We want to share about Sanki. He is a young man that God brought into our lives when he was in high school at Mulungwishi. We helped to support his studies in high school and at university. While at the University, he was part of the Disciple Bible Study. After graduating, he taught at the English Speaking School of Lubumbashi, a United Methodist institution.

From there he went to Africa University where he has just completed his masters in Governance and Conflict resolution. His master’s thesis focused on the plight of women in the northeastern part of the Congo which has seen horrible abuse of women and use of rape as a weapon of war. He spent several weeks in that part of the Congo studying the situation. He found that there are many aid groups there doing a tremendous job ministering to the women who have been abused. Unfortunately, very little is being done to address the cause of this suffering. The international community as well as the government and bordering countries have to make a conscious decision that this is unacceptable and do something about it. Unfortunately, the greed for the mineral wealth and its use in our technology is fueling these conflicts.

Be in prayer for the Congo that the Lord’s peace and justice will come. Be in prayer also for Sanki as he has now returned to Congo and is seeking what the Lord has for him.

Passing of a special person

We want to share about a very special person in the life of our family who passed away on Thursday. Baba Ngoy's life was one of service to God by his ministry to missionaries. He worked in the house for a number of them at Mulungwishi. Mom Bartlett taught him to cook and his prowess in the kitchen became renown. Many a work team and visitor will attest to that. Jeff, our son-in-law said that he baked the best apple pie he had ever eaten. He was our cook and our right hand man for over 30 years until a year ago.

We could not have done the work we have been doing at Mulungwishi without him. Managing the house and having meals ready for us allowed us the freedom to do the work we needed to do. There was always that twinkle in his eye when he baked a cake especially for David or hid the cookies from some of the single missionaries so they would not finish them all!

But Baba was more than a cook. He was an integral part of our family. When things were complicated, we would ask his council and help. When one of the children was a toddler, he prayed to Baba Ngoy in our prayer time! He reflected God' s love to them. Our children saw him as a grandfather. How many times when the kids couldn't get things out of us, they would go to Baba Ngoy and he would look over at us, smiling, to see what we wanted him to do! Our cats, parrots and plants all knew his loving touch. Our house is like grand central station at the mission.

So many problems and delicate situations come through the door. We are sure that Baba overheard so many private issues. He kept them to himself. He stood with us through the good times and the very hard times. Whenever we had to leave Mulungwishi, either for furlough or evacuation because of political unrest, Baba Ngoy would move into the house and keep everything going and welcome us back.

His place at our table is now empty, but we can still hear his laugh and his influence in our lives will always be there.

October prayer focus

During October, please pray for the Development and Agriculture Program. Pray for Director Mwenze, the staff, and local farmers.

This vital program helps local people improve their farming skills.